Taylor's wasted frame was tensed. Minutes ... hours ... or death in seconds, perhaps. They could only wait.
They came out of the Sun.
Nineteen flat, finned, stream-lined shapes, orange flame gouting from them as from the lips of Hell itself, hurtling headlong with some terrible vengeance glowing in their overheated tubes.
Then Space was suddenly gaping holes of searing color, bursting soundlessly as the nineteen became seventeen, fourteen, twelve.
The twelve became ten, and it was as though the bowels of the Sun itself had erupted to the right and to the left of them, and everywhere before and behind them.
Eight of them completed the first pass, and already there were yawning holes in the gleaming hide of their enemy.