"I need a rematch," I said, "after the last two."

"Sure," he replied. "Winner is the silver king of Vamped."

The game was neck in neck from the start. Sometimes I led by two, sometimes he did. A couple one-shot fusion kills finally opened up a decent lead for me, and at 19-16, I felt pretty good about the match. I switched from my usual focus on power weapons -- lasers, fusion -- for attrition damage. Spread, vulcan. I thought I had plenty of time to wear him down for that last kill.

I ate some stray quads while chasing, and we were 17-19. An unlucky dogfight, 18-19. But I hurt him pretty badly both times, and knew he was very low. Finally, finally, I saw my chance -- I was bearing down on him trapped in a corner, spread going like mad. My shields were full and his were all but gone, and there would be no escape. So what does he do? Lays a proxy and backs into it. Argh! Smart move.

Hats off to you, Dravis. I don't think I would have fought so hard to win while down so much.

With that suicide, all my expensively bought attrition damage undone. Guess I won't do that next time!

The overtime portion was pretty intense. There were no stupid deaths. Sometimes I led, and sometimes he did. Whoever was down ran, and whoever was up tried to engage. Whenever I was up I had under ten shields, and I'm pretty sure he was the same.

Finally, off a fresh spawn, I caught him coming around a corner with a big fusion hit, putting me up 26-25 with full shields. I thought, "now or never"! And then when I came into the dog room, I saw him there firing spread and joined in. I'd been winning about half of those fights, but with full shields and up a kill, I thought . . . "I'll take those odds."

It wasn't pretty. Spreadfire dogfights never are. They're knife fights in which even the winner limps away.

He should have run. I saw him dive toward an exit after just a couple volleys and thought, "Nuts, right move." And then inexplicably, he turned around and stayed to finish the fight. Maybe he was tired. It had been a long game. Maybe he thought he'd hit me in the last engagement. Maybe he just felt lucky. I don't know. But I knew right then, before I'd landed so much as a hit, that that decision would probably end the game.