In the emotional frenzy of war, even the most hardened warrior can shed tears over what he has to do.
— SUPREME COMMANDER VORIAN ATREIDES,
Battle Memoirs
As the robot fleet proceeded toward Salusa, the Army of the Jihad continued its Great Purge to eradicate the undefended Synchronized Worlds. Before this endgame was over, either the human race or the thinking machines would be obliterated. There could be no other outcome.
On the command bridge of his refitted flagship, the LS Serena Victory, Vorian Atreides tensed as the Holtzman engines activated. “Prepare for departure. Omnius is waiting out there.”
The numerous Martyrist crew members invoked a fervent prayer before the first jump. Vorian, though, preferred to depend on the augmented, sealed navigation systems Norma Cenva had secretly installed in a handful of his best ships. He was always a pragmatic commander.
“For God and Saint Serena!” the crew shouted in unison.
The Supreme Commander gave a reassuring nod to the pale-faced helmsman. He gave the order, then involuntarily closed his eyes as his battle group plunged into the dangerous wilderness of folded space. He had always been prepared to die in battle against the machines. He hoped, though, that he wouldn’t meet his end just by getting lost or accidentally hitting an asteroid.
Decades ago, Norma’s prototype computerized navigation systems had drastically improved the safety record of the spacefolders, but the skittish Jihad Council had forbidden their use. Vor, however, had spoken with her in private at the VenKee shipyards where Holtzman engines were being activated in vessels of the Jihad fleet. On the Supreme Commander’s direct orders, Norma surreptitiously installed her twelve remaining computer-based devices deep in the navigational systems of selected spacefolders. Vor had no intention of letting superstition decrease his chances for victory.
For the past few weeks now, group after group had leaped into Synchronized territory as soon as the weapons, vessels, and personnel were ready. All told, the Army of the Jihad had assembled more than a thousand capital ships for the Great Purge. The whole fleet was divided into ninety battle groups of twelve major vessels each, and each group received its list of targets. Their launching bays were loaded with hundreds of kindjal bombers containing pulse-atomic warheads. Some kindjals would be piloted by skilled veterans, others by rapidly trained Martyrist volunteers.
Every time they used Holtzman engines to leap from one star system to another, some ships would undoubtedly vanish into limbo, annihilated by unseen dimensional hazards. Given the ten-percent attrition rate, the battle groups could make only seven or eight jumps before they were no longer assured of success. Volunteers would fly numerous spacefolder scouts to maintain vital contact with the other battle groups as the widespread mission proceeded across the Synchronized Worlds.
There were more than five hundred enemy planets, including Corrin. Once and for all, the League would destroy every one of the Omnius incarnations. Statistically at least, the Army of the Jihad had enough ships to do the job….
In only a few agitated breaths, the journey was over. From the sector coordinates displayed on his command console and the clarity of stars visible around him, Vor knew his ship had made it. Though jumps were often imprecise even with detailed coordinates, his attack vessels had arrived inside the machine-controlled system.
“Nineteen planets orbiting a pair of small yellow suns. It’s the Yondair system for sure, Supreme Commander,” said the helmsman.
Shuddering gasps and sighs of relief echoed among his bridge crew. The Martyrists uttered more prayers.
“Sound off. Give me a report on any losses in our battle group.”
His first and second officers, Katarina Omal and Jimbay Whit, waited at their stations nearby. Omal was tall and dusky-skinned, one of the most effective female officers in the fleet. Whit, already showing a paunch at twenty-five, doubled as Vor’s adjutant in the absence of Abulurd Harkonnen. With experience and battle smarts far beyond his years, Whit came from a distinguished military family. Decades ago, Vor had fought beside his grandfather in the all-out atomic attack on Earth.
“One ship gone, Supreme Commander,” Omal said.
Vor accepted the loss and suppressed any visible expression of dismay as he noted the identification of the missing vessel in his squadron. Well within the expected loss rate.
Alarm klaxons went off, and a message screen on the bridge indicated a problem with the LS Ginjo Explorer, an unfortunately named vessel in his squadron. Throughout the Jihad fleet, four other warships had been named after the former Grand Patriarch. The corrupt man does not deserve such an honor. The name that should adorn the vessels is Xavier Harkonnen.
“Engine fire,” a voice reported over the comline. “Holtzman system overload. We won’t be using that ship again.”
Through a viewing port, Vor saw the eerie illumination of flames on the underside of the ship, following the escaping atmosphere in a hull breach. Spacetight doors closed, and onboard fire-suppression systems prevented the spread of flames.
A damage assessment blared over Vor’s comline. “Something blew in the Holtzman engine right after we folded space. Lucky we made it through, but the minute we got here the damn thing exploded and burned. First time out, and we’re dead in space.”
War is full of surprises, Vor thought. Most of them bad.
Over the next hour, Vor supervised the evacuation of the vessel and redistributed the volunteer crew of eight hundred men and women, mostly bomber pilots, onto the other ten warships. They also took aboard all the kindjal fighters, along with their pulse-atomic warheads.
They left the empty ship hanging in space after destroying its Holtzman engines, on the slim but frightening chance that if they failed in their mission, Omnius could obtain the space-folding technology. Finally, Vor drew a deep breath, then issued the command to deliver their killing blow.
“It’s time to do what we came here for. Begin immediate atomic bombardment of Yondair. Every surviving ship, launch your kindjal squadrons with pulse-atomics before those machines can get ready for us.”
Even without the huge robot military fleet, the Synchronized Worlds would still have local defenses and possible battle stations in orbit around many of the enemy strongholds. Each assault of an “undefended” machine planet would take at least a day just to get the Jihad ships in position, to launch all the fast bombers with their pulse-atomics, and to verify that the mission was a success. Despite the near-instantaneous travel between targets, the jihadis would still take a long time to comb through Omnius’s fringe empire.
With the remaining warships behind him, Vor led the way toward the largest world, the ringed planet of Yondair. His squadrons of warhead-delivery ships scattered from the launching bays, swooped beneath the rings, and dropped airburst bombs into the atmosphere, hitting strategic substations first and then deploying secondary atomics to spread the destruction across the landscape below. Pulse after pulse obliterated every gelcircuitry brain on the planet.
Any human prisoners who happened to be down there became unfortunate collateral casualties, but the need for swift and utter destruction of every single evermind allowed them no leeway for sympathy.
Looking ahead, Vor blocked out all thoughts of guilt, then gave the order to regroup at the edge of the Yondair system. After assessing their victory, his ships launched off to the next machine world.
And the next.
With any luck at all, the other squadrons were doing the same against the rest of the Omnius-controlled worlds. Nuclear destruction spread like a wrathful wave, rippling across the territory Omnius had subjugated. They would pick off the easy machine strongholds first, leaving Corrin for last.
The evermind had no way to resist, no way to send messages of warning fast enough. Like swift assassins, the warhead-carrying Jihad ships would slip in, strike, and then vanish. Omnius would be destroyed before he even felt the blow coming.
At least that was the plan….