One command of Heather’s thoughts, and the vessel shifted out of acceleration mode, so instead of triggering atomic reactions, the energy directly charged her own electromagnetic weapons. Then she dispersed some of the incoming energy by firing it at the distant weapons launched by NASA six months before, on their own intercept course. They were so far away, the camera eye of the ship couldn’t detect them, but Heather’s processor knew exactly where they would be in space and tagged them at the right spot to nudge them on their final course toward the battle. She really did have the most important role in the battle, Tom realized.

And then as they neared the Russo-Chinese shipyard, she shifted the pendulous weight of the vessel so they began to spiral toward the battle site, first large circles, then smaller ones, their momentum slowing down and down. Her sensors began to read the shipyard, began to detect the incoming automated weapons, and a retinue of Indian vessels began to cascade in to join the attack as well. The shipyard rolled into sight as the asteroid it was carved into rotated toward them.

This is when I do as much damage as possible before I become flack, she thought sourly to Tom, blasting with her weapons at the shipyard, maneuvering into the right position—and the first Russo-Chinese automated weapons came to life and targeted her. Heather had timed it right, though. As her ship was blasted apart, the debris became kinetic weapons of their own—spiraling out and crashing into the shipyard, missing the incoming American forces.

Tom was eager to see more, so as he was jolted back into his body, he tore straight back out of it, back into the Spire’s processor core, and followed the pipeline of signals currently lighting up the Pentagonal Spire’s systems, trying to find his way through the flashing data back into the battle. . . .

And then with a jolt, he found himself gazing through the sensors of Elliot Ramirez’s ship. Far away from the battle, still, and definitely too far to even pick anything up on his sensors.

We’re a bit slower than the others. . . . Elliot was explaining to Wyatt as they rotated in large, languid loops toward the shipyard.

Yeah. That was a way of putting it. How boring, being the rear.

To his alarm, Elliot thought, I’m sorry to bore you, Wyatt. It will be better once we’re fighting in the inner solar system.

Tom leaped out of Elliot’s ship swiftly, back into the processor core, and ventured into the storm of activity again.

This time, he found himself in Karl Marsters’s ship.

Explosions are pretty, Karl was thinking as he spliced through the reactor core of the Russo-Chinese shipyard. I like making stuff explode.

Tom thought about what an idiot Karl was.

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.

He soared back out of his body, seizing control of one automated weapon after another. One was a particle cannon, sparking with its last moments of existence. He burned a single thruster to insert it into the path of the Russo-Chinese Combatant he knew as Blinder. As soon as Blinder exploded, Medusa destroyed Tom’s cannon.

Tom zoomed back up into space, returning to the battle. Next, he seized a fully functional Indo-American weapon, and located Sturmovik, an annoying Russian Combatant who always charged straight forward, never maneuvering, never taking evasive action, firing at targets as they neared and trusting the other Russo-Chinese Combatants to do the work of protecting him. Tom found the lack of imagination aggravating whenever he saw feeds of the battles.

Now he parodied Sturmovik’s strategy by seizing control of a mobile artillery unit and mimicked Sturmovik with it—flying the mobile gun straight at Sturmovik’s ship. Sturmovik didn’t turn; it didn’t turn. They were on a collision course. At the last minute, Sturmovik seemed to realize no one was saving him here, and he tried to feint, but Tom’s weapon tore straight into his hull.

Medusa blasted him to pieces again, and this time before Tom could dive back into the system and return to the battle, his neural wire popped out and his eyes shot open. He found Heather standing over his cot.

“Normally I’d have several more drones up there, ready for me to interface with,” Heather said, as Tom squinted against the brightness. “But, as you know, I’ve had some reputation issues lately, and Wyndham Harks only footed the bill for one drone this time. Now . . .” She smiled coyly. “Check your chronometer, Tom.”

“Why . . .” Tom sat up blearily, then he went still when he saw the time on his internal chronometer. He began flipping from frame to frame of his memory, cross-referencing them with the time stamps, and realized from the moment Heather’s ship reached the site of battle, to the moment of his final obliteration, a mere thirty seconds had passed.

Tom gaped at the time in shock.

No wonder. No wonder Combatants needed neural processors. There wasn’t a human being on Earth who could keep up with that sort of speed.