"Come on, people, tighten it up," he murmured over his com, watching the final adjustment of his formation. There. They were ready.

"Execute!" he snapped, and the assault boats screamed forward.

Servant of Thunders Brashieel waited in the wreckage in his vac-suit. One broken foreleg was crudely splinted, but aside from the pain it was little inconvenience. He still had three good legs, and with the loss of the drive gravity had become a ghost.

He watched his remaining instruments, longing to send the thunder against the foe, but his launchers had died. Perhaps a fifth-twelfth of Vindicator's energy weapons remained serviceable, but none of his launchers, and no weapons at all on the broken tooth of his forward section.

Brashieel tried to reject the nightmare. The nest-killers' world still lived, and these monstrous warships foretold perils yet more dire. The lords of thought had believed this system stood alone. It did not. The makers of those ancient scanner arrays had rallied to its defense, and they were powerful beyond dreams of power. Why should they content themselves with merely stopping the Protectors' attack? Why should they not strike the Nest itself?

He wondered why they had not simply given Vindicator to the Fire. Did their own beliefs in honor demand they face their final foes in personal combat? It did not matter, and he turned from his panel as the small craft advanced. He had no weapons to smite them, but he had already determined where he and his surviving nestlings of thunder would make their stand.

MacMahan flinched as the after section of the wrecked hull lashed his shuttles with fire. The crude energy weapons were powerful enough to burn through any assault boat's shield, but they'd fired at extreme range. Only three were hit, and the others went to evasive action, ripping at the wreck with their own energy guns. Sevrid's far heavier weapons reached past them, and warp beams plucked neat, perfect divots from the hull. Air gushed outward, and then the first-wave assault boats reached their goal.

Their energy guns blasted one last time, and they battered into the holes they'd blown on suddenly reversed drives. They crunched to a halt, and assault teams charged into the violated passages of the broken starship, their soot-black combat armor invisible in the lightless corridors. A handful of defenders opened fire, and their weapons spat back, silent in the vacuum.

MacMahan's command boat led the third wave, staggering drunkenly as it slammed to a halt, and the hatches popped. His HQ company formed up about him, and he took them into the madness.

Brashieel waited. There was no point charging blindly to meet the nest-killers. Vindicator was dead; only the mechanics of completing his nestlings' deaths remained, and this was as good a place to end as any.

He examined his nestlings' positions in the light of his helmet lamp. They had made themselves what cover they could, a hoof-shaped bow of them protecting the hatch to main control, and Brashieel wished Small Lord Hantorg had survived to lead their final fight.

His nostrils flared in bitter amusement. While he was wishing, might he not wish that he knew what he was about? He and his nestlings were servants of thunders—they smote worlds, not single nest-killers! He cudgeled his brain, trying to remember if he had ever heard of Protectors and nest-killers actually facing one another so directly. He did not think he had, but his mind was none too clear, and it really did not matter.

It was as impossible to coordinate the battle as MacMahan had expected it to be. Not even Imperial technology could provide any clear picture of this warren of decks and passages, sealed hatches and lurking ambushes.

He'd done his best in the pre-assault briefing; now it was up to his combat teams. The Second Marines provided the bulk of his firepower, but each company had an attached Recon Group platoon, and they were—

A stream of slugs wrenched him back to the job at hand, and he popped his jump gear, leaping aside as his point man went down and more fire clawed the space he himself had occupied a moment before. Leaking air and globules of blood marked a dead man as Corporal O'Hara's combat armor tumbled down the zero-gee passage, and MacMahan's mouth tightened. These crazy centaurs didn't have an energy weapon worth shit, but their slug weapons were nasty.

Still, they had their disadvantages. For one thing, recoil was a real problem—one his own people didn't face. And for all their determination to fight to the death, Achuultani didn't seem to be very good infantrymen. His people, on the other hand...

Two troopers eased forward, close to the deck, and an entire squad hosed the area before them with rapid, continuous grav gun fire. The super-dense explosive darts shredded the bulkheads, lighting the darkness with strobe-lightning spits of fury, and Captain Amanda Givens-Tamman rose suddenly to her knees. Her warp rifle fired, and the defending fire stopped abruptly.

MacMahan shuddered. He hated those damned guns. Probably the first people to meet crossbows had felt the same way about them. But using a hyper field on anyone, even an Achuultani—!

He chopped the thought off and waved his people forward once again. A new point man moved out, armor scanners probing for booby traps and defenders alike, and another sealed hatch loomed ahead.

Brashieel shook himself into readiness as he felt vibration in the steel.

"Stand ready, my brothers," he said quietly. "The nest-killers come."

The hatch simply vanished, and Brashieel's crest flattened in dread. Somehow these nest-killers had chained the hyper field itself for the use of their protectors!

Then the first nest-killer came through the hatch, back-lit from the corridor behind, lacing the darkness with fire from its stubby weapon, and Brashieel swallowed bile at the ugliness of the squat, four-limbed shape. But even in his revulsion he felt a throb of wonder. That was a projectile weapon, yet there was no recoil! How was that possible?

The question fluttered away into the recesses of his mind as the nest-killer's explosive darts ripped two of his nestlings apart. How had it seen them in the blackness?! No matter. He sighted carefully, bracing his three good legs against the bulkhead, and squeezed his trigger. Recoil twisted his broken leg with agony, but his heavy slugs ripped through the biped's armor, and Brashieel felt a stab of savage delight. They had taken his thunders from him, but he would send a few more to the Furnace before they slew him!

The chamber blossomed with drifting globules of blood as more nest-killers charged through the hatch. Darkness was light for them, and their fire was murderously accurate. His nestlings perished, firing back, crying out in agony and horror over their suit communicators as darts exploded within their bodies or the terrible hyper weapons plucked away their limbs. Brashieel shouted his hate, holding back the trigger, then fumbled for another magazine, but there was no time. He hurled himself forward, his bayonet stabbing towards the last nest-killer to enter.

"General!" someone shouted, and MacMahan whirled. There was something wrong with the charging centaur's legs, but not with its courage; it was coming at him with only a bayonet, and his grav gun rose automatically—then stopped.

"Check fire!" he shouted, and tossed the grav gun aside.

Brashieel gaped as the puny nest-killer discarded its weapon, but his heart flamed. One more. One more foe to light his own way into the Furnace! He screamed in rage and thrust.