Andrew Samson had long ago abandoned any expectation of surviving Earth's siege, but he'd continued to hope his world would live. Now he knew it probably would not, and that purged the last fear from his system, leaving only a strange, bittersweet regret.

The last fleet units would make their try soon. They'd been hoarded for this moment, waiting until the Achuultani were within pointblank range of Earth's defenses. Their chances of surviving the next few hours were even lower than his own, but the ODCs would do what they could to cover them. He checked his remaining hyper missiles. Thirty-seven, and less than four hundred in the Bitch's other magazines. It wouldn't be enough.

Acting Commodore Adrienne Robbins checked her formation. All fifteen of Earth's remaining battleships, little more than a single squadron, were formed up about her wounded Nergal. Half Nergal's launchers had been destroyed by the near-miss which had pierced her shield and killed eighty of her three hundred people, but she had her drive... and her energy weapons.

The threadbare remnants of the cruisers and destroyers—seventy-four of them, in all—screened the pitiful handful of capital ships. Eighty-nine warships; her first and final task force command.

"Task Force ready to proceed, Governor," she told the face on her com.

"Proceed," Horus said quietly. "May the Maker go with you, Commodore."

"And with you, sir," she replied, then shifted to her command net, and her voice was clear and calm. "The Task Force will advance," she said.

Brashieel watched in grudging admiration as the nest-killers advanced. There were so few of them, and barely a twelve of their biggest ones. Their crews must know they would be chaff for the Furnace, yet still they came, and something within him saluted their courage. In this moment they were not nest-killers; they were Protectors, just as truly as he himself.

But such thoughts would not stay his hand. The Nest had survived for uncountable higher twelves of years only by slaying its enemies while they were yet weak. It was a lesson the Aku'Ultan had learned long ago from the Great Nest-Killers who had driven the Aku'Ultan from their own Nest Place.

It would not happen again.

Gerald Hatcher felt sick as Commodore Robbins led her ships out to die. But the fire control of his orbital and ground-side fortresses couldn't even see Iapetus unless an opening could be blown for them, and those doomed ships were his one hope to open a way.

"If we get a fix, lock it in tight, Plotting," he said harshly.

"Acknowledged," Sir Frederick Amesbury replied.

"Request permission to engage," Tama Hideoshi said from his own screen, and Hatcher noted the general's flight suit. They had more fighters than crews now, but even so Hideoshi had no business flying this mission. Yet there was no tomorrow this time, and he chose not to object.

"Not yet. Hold inside the shield till the ships engage."

"Acknowledged." Tama's voice was unhappy, but he understood. He would wait until the Achuultani were too busy punching missiles at Robbins' ships to wipe his own fragile craft from the universe.

"Task Force opening fire," someone said, and another voice came over the link, soft and prayerful, its owner not even aware he had spoken.

"Go, baby! Go!" it whispered.

Adrienne Robbins had discussed her plan with Horus, not that there was much "planning" to it. There was but one possible tactic: to go right down their throat behind every missile she had. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could swamp the defenses, get in among them with their energy weapons. None would survive such close combat, but they might punch a hole before they died.

And so Earth's ships belched missiles at her murderers, hyper and sublight alike. Their launchers went to continuous rapid fire, spitting out homing sublight weapons without even worrying about targeting. The lethal projectiles were a cloud of death, and the first hyper missiles from Earth came with them.

Lord of Order Chirdan's head bobbed in anguish as his nestlings died. He had known the nest-killers must come forth and hurl their every weapon against him, yet not even Battle Comp had predicted carnage such as this!

The missile storm was a whirlwind, boring into the center of the wall defending the Hoof. Anti-matter pyres and gravitonic warheads savaged his ships, and his inner lids narrowed. They sought to blow a hole and charge into it with their infernal energy weapons! They would die there, but in their dying they might expose the Hoof to their fellows upon the planet.

He could not allow that, and his orders went out. The edges of his wall of ships thinned, drawing together in the center to block the attack, and his own, shorter-ranged missiles struck back.

Time had no meaning. There was only a shrieking eternity of dying ships and a glare that lit Earth's night skies like twice a hundred suns. Adrienne Robbins saw it reaching for her ships, saw her lighter destroyers and cruisers burning like coals from a forge, and she adjusted her course slightly.

The solid core of her out-numbered task force drove for the exact center of that vortex of death, and their magazines were almost dry.

"Go!" Tama Hideoshi snapped, and Earth's last surviving interceptors howled heavenward. He rode his flight couch, his EW officer at his side, and smiled. He was fifty-nine years old, and only his biotechnics made this possible. Three years before, he'd known he would never fly combat again. Now he would, and if his world must die, at least he had been given this final gift, to die in her defense as a samurai should.

Nest Lord! Their small ships were attacking, too! Brashieel had not thought so many remained, but they did, and they charged on the heels of their larger, dying brothers, covered by their deaths.

A few of the Bitch's launchers still had hyper missiles, but Andrew Samson was down to sublight weapons. It was long range, too much time for the bastards to pick them off, but each of his weapons they had to deal with was one more strain on their defenses. He sent them out at four-second intervals.

Lord Chirdan cursed. The nest-killers were dying by twelves, yet they had cut deep into his formation. Six twelves of his ships had already perished, and the terrible harvest of the nest-killer beams was only starting.

Their warships vanished into the heart of his own, robbing his outer missile crews of targets, and they retargeted on the orbital fortresses.

Gerald Hatcher's face was stone as the first ODC died. Missiles pelted the planetary shield, as well, but he almost welcomed those. Even if they broke through, killed millions of civilians, he would welcome them, for each missile sent against Earth was one not sent against his orbital launchers.

He sat back and felt utterly useless. There was no reserve. He'd committed everything he had. Now he had nothing to do but watch the slaughter of his people.

Missiles coated the Iron Bitch's shield in a blinding corona, and still she struck back.

Andrew Samson was a machine, part of his console. His magazine was down to ten percent and dropping fast, but he didn't even think of slowing his rate of fire. There was no point, and he pounded his foes, his brain full of the thunder wracking the Achuultani formation.

He never saw the hyper missile which finally popped the Bitch's shields. He died with his mind still full of thunder.