Idiot? You’ll see an idiot when I beat your face in, Giuseppe! Now stop thinking. You’re ruining my concentration! Karl thought at his Middle.

Tom shot through the stream of data away from Karl, back into his own body. Much as he’d love to mess with Karl or the others, it was too risky venturing through the thought streams, leaking his own thoughts.

But there were other ways to get there. Automatic armaments, satellites, all that machinery not meant for a neural processor.

Those machines accessible to his processor.

He shot from system to system in the Pentagonal Spire. Finally as the battle was winding down, he jolted into one of the Indo-American automated weapons, not designed for a direct neural interface.

This weapon was spiraling off course. Soon it would be too far away, no use to the battle. Tom seized control of it and used its sensors to monitor the battle. Then he couldn’t resist: he fired some shots. He targeted the Russo-Chinese Combatants very deliberately, trying not to betray the human consciousness behind the weapon. One short jolt of his particle beam clipped a ship and knocked it off course, veering it right into the path of Yosef Saide, who blasted it to pieces. Another shot, Tom fired in the path of an enemy vessel; its automated system veered to the side, forcing the ship behind it to slow, giving Indo-American Combatants more than enough time to blast it apart with their own weapons.

He was able to see through its electromagnetic sensors the way the Russo-Chinese automated drones began to shift course, beginning to take on a life of their own as human Combatants hooked in to respond to the American assault. Tom began to search for her, for that one person.

That’s how, through a hail of flak, streaks of particle beams, and explosions, Tom finally clapped electronic eyes on Medusa again.

Not Medusa herself, of course, but Medusa’s consciousness inhabiting some Russo-Chinese vessels. He saw Medusa’s ships glinting with sunlight, veering to confront the Indo-American vessels. Three . . . four . . . five of them, all in her control, all engaging different enemies.

Tom couldn’t help it. He couldn’t. He aimed the last bit of energy of the half-crippled weapon at Medusa and blasted at her, slashing the beam through space in an elaborate M. It was the closest thing to a “hi” he could muster.

Medusa responded with the fury of every single automated weapon in his proximity, all wheeling around, inexplicably abandoning their preprogrammed attack patterns and blasting at him.

Tom jolted back into himself as his weapon was destroyed, an ecstatic laugh bubbling on his lips. He’d missed her.