The history of warfare is made up of moments… and decisions… that could have gone either way.
— Erasmus Dialogues,
final Corrin entries
Although he sifted through his long lifetime of memories, Erasmus could find no other time when he had been so deeply troubled. So close to… panic and despair? To avert disaster, he needed to act swiftly— to save Gilbertus.
Interesting, he thought with such an intense flash of insight that he was almost distracted from the emergency. Perhaps I now have a better grasp of why Serena Butler was so frantic to protect her child.
As an independent robot and advisor to the Omnius incarnations, Erasmus had access to every system on Corrin. In a shielded chamber deep beneath the capital city, he entered a room bathed in a holographic grid. The tactical image showed a scale model of the defenses around the planet, including the heavily armed robotic battleships and the numerous cargo and prison chambers that formed the Bridge of Hrethgir— including the one that held Gilbertus and the Serena clone. He could also see the human Vengeance Fleet just sliding into the proximity of the grid. Moment by moment, the display shifted as ships changed position, approaching the boundary of the satellite network that would trigger all the explosives and kill the human shields.
The robot’s gelcircuitry mind interfaced with the command network. He quickly analyzed the programming that his brilliant human ward had implemented.
The League warships accelerated, their intentions clear. As they reached the deadly zone, they showed no hesitation. Nothing would turn them back now. Vorian Atreides, son of the Titan Agamemnon, was willing to sacrifice all of the prisoners. He would not stop.
Gilbertus would die as soon as the human ships crossed the line.
Outside the scope of the holo-model, the room was full of linked computer access nodes, with attendant robots performing sophisticated duties for the two everminds. Erasmus ignored them, speeding up his own mental processes.
In all of his probability projections, he had never foreseen the events unfolding around him now. If Erasmus had been human, his current course of action would most certainly have been called suicidal, and traitorous. He was eliminating the last desperate defense the machines had, the only possibility of keeping the human military at bay… even though it did not appear to be working.
But it was the only way to save Gilbertus right now. If this human died, Erasmus questioned the necessity of his own continued existence.
Two seconds remaining.
The robot studied the defense grid holo, saw more and more enemy ships approaching the detection radius of the system. Inside this chamber, they were no more than floating blips. But out there, the ships were real, capable of annihilating Corrin in yet another atomic attack, once they passed the Bridge and killed all the hostages aboard.
And he calls us inhuman!
Without further hesitation, Erasmus gained control over the defense system. Amber lights danced in front of his optic threads, and he deactivated the linkage between the scrambler-satellite network and the explosives.
Then he watched as the blips indicating the enemy fleet surged through the disabled barricade, with nothing left to stop them.