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Toe of excitement, both at the offer and at the reconciliation it i to win But this wasn’t the satellite coame This was combat, and Medusa wasn’t just a fully trained Combatant, she was the Intrasolar Cole-handedly She banked doard to dodge the heat-seeking ht toward hi his own ed her

I thought so, Medusa sent back

He swerved, but in avoiding his own errant ave her a chance to launch her ohich narrowlyin his side

Tom couldn’t handle her in the open air He needed obstacles Those mountains He aimed toward the stretch of Texas, and found himself temporarily disoriented without the skyboards there to illustrate the zone of coht and the lay of the landscape, but he hadn’t

So be honest, Medusa ed him Would you prefer your end to be swift and terrible or slow and terrible?

Do your worst, Toh jagged coluh the sky, her vessel always flashing up in the sunlight behind his, utterly relentless To some nasty surprise, but she maintained that steady pursuit He fired back at her, and she swerved gracefully to avoid each missile She returned fire at hi by pretty well, he thought A few ti upto blot out her view of his ship and rises in the h for her to collide with one--but Medusa anticipated this and always soared high into the air to avoid the traps

And then it was her turn to surprise him As he rounded a peak, he discovered that she’d passed straight over the mountain this time, and there were threein on his ship Toy, and he realized she’d deliberately lulled him, set up an expectation in his mind about where she’d be, so she could shock hi, he sent her, dodging the first three missiles

I know, she sent back, as the fourth one destroyed his ship

Tom snapped back into hi froh the Russo-Chinese had officially won Capitol Su cheers vibrating his eardrue of the Rotunda, where Elliot and Svetlana still looked to be in shock, and the voicesa narew louder and louder, for the hero of Capitol Sue flipped from the Rotunda to the combat site in Texas, then zoo remains of Elliot’s ship--and above it, the skyboard debris The voices in the crowd grew deafening, vibrating Tom’s chest Tom was utterly confused, because he’d lost the battle As far as the crowd knew, Elliot had failed to beat Svetlana this year

Then he saw the exultant, wild faces on all sides of hi as a showcase skir in a victory of a different sort

They’d seen Elliot Ra all the Coalition skyboards

TOM THREADED HIS way through the crowd Usually, there’d be a speech going on about now The winning side always ht away to say soht, alith a phalanx of the major executives and world power players about thelass