The way of the warrior, moment by moment, is the practice of death.
— SWORDMASTER ISTIAN GOSS
Under the plan that Vor had established with Primero Quentin Butler before departing from Salusa Secundus, fast messengers were dispatched from each battle group after every engagement at a Synchronized World. Due to the known attrition with each space-folding jump, the Army of the Jihad did not dare risk sending all the components of their fleet to a single meeting; however, Martyrist volunteers in spacefolder scouts were considered expendable.
Flurries of the small ships bearing news and records converged at established rendezvous points, placing their detailed logs in buoys, which were retrieved, copied, and disseminated by the scouts from other battle groups, keeping the commanders apprised of the progress and losses. Vorian Atreides had modeled the system on Omnius’s pattern of dispatching update ships throughout the Synchronized empire to keep the everminds current. He found the irony satisfying.
As technicians tallied the information, the blanks were filling in, each report of success a small victory, an indication of survival, a reason to hope. But there were other reports as well. One hundred eighty-four ships lost… two hundred seventeen… two hundred thirty-five… two hundred seventy-nine. Each space-folding flight in the nuclear blitzkrieg was a terrible, unpredictable game of Russian roulette: a lightning strike if it went well, but lightning-swift death if it did not.
For a moment, Vor allowed himself to mourn one of the lost ships, the LS Zimia, and its captain, a fine soldier and a great drinking buddy. They had shared many tall tales of battles and women, in numerous spaceports across the League. Other faces and personalities whirled through his mind, all dead heroes, but for the sake of the mission he had to set such thoughts aside.
He thought of young Abulurd back on Salusa, safe from this ordeal, yet facing a threat of his own that was just as terrible. He and Faykan had to evacuate an entire population.
Cursing under his breath, Vor wondered how many more jumps his fleet could survive. He could estimate the number using only the statistics— but that was how a machine would analyze their chances. Nothing about war was perfectly predictable. When the Great Purge was all over, how many ships would remain? Would he himself make it? Norma Cenva’s augmented navigation device gave him a better chance than most, but would it be enough? Already his fleet had left a graveyard of space trash in its wake.
And once they had finished crushing the undefended Synchronized Worlds, and then Corrin, the remnants of the Jihad fleet would need to race back to Salusa. There, they would make a stand against the oncoming thinking-machine battleships, which were still programmed to attack, even if the evermind was erased. The Jihad battle fleet would cause as much damage as possible, die in flames, and hope to deflect the machines’ attack.
He and all of his fighters expected to die before this engagement was over. But he would sacrifice himself with the satisfaction of knowing he had defeated the computer evermind at last. Maybe he would even be with Leronica again in Heaven, if the Martyrists were correct in their religious beliefs….
Vor shook his head, staring at the newly updated tactical projection on the bridge of the LS Serena Victory. Out there, in the vast but silent battleground of empty space, he knew the strikes continued, and continued. By now, more than three-quarters of the five hundred and forty-three Synchronized Worlds should have been slagged.
As each group of fast messengers brought back summaries from the ninety battle groups, Vor updated the picture of their progress across enemy territory. In scanning the scattered reports, he saw that some Synchronized Worlds had put up heavier-than-expected resistance, drawing upon leftover ground-based systems. Five of the Jihad Purge groups had failed at specific targets, which would necessitate a second offensive to the same coordinates. In another instance, due to the quirks of space-folding travel, four of the remaining ships in a battle group had vanished in a single jump; only two of the fast messengers had survived to deliver their fateful reports.
We will have to make up for it.
“My battle group will do it,” Quentin Butler transmitted. His voice sounded bleak, as if he no longer cared whether or not he survived. “If you give me two of your ships, Supreme Commander, we’ll go back and finish mopping up the targets that were missed.”
Quentin’s flagship had survived one of the disastrous passages. Already down to only six capital ships in his battle group, he had then lost three of them in a single space-folding jump to a Synchronized target. He had seen the robots’ defensive emplacements there, calculated the odds, and realized he could not succeed in destroying Omnius. Disappointed, he had rallied his three surviving ballistas and gone to rendezvous with Vorian at the Supreme Commander’s projected location. They pooled their ships, sterilized another Synchronized World together, and then paused to assess their situation. Quentin was anxious to be on the attack again.
“Very well, Primero. Go with my blessing. We can’t leave a single enemy world intact.”
Verified estimates indicated that over a billion human slaves and trustees had already died in the Great Purge— people toiling under horrendous conditions, beaten down by the depraved thinking machines. Those sacrifices had been disquieting, but entirely necessary. And even more were bound to die.
The first planetary systems annihilated in League nuclear attacks had all been lesser machine worlds, primarily military strongholds and resupply points for Omnius forces. Now, with the remainder of his battle group, Vor would go after the more important Synchronized Worlds, eventually making a final assault on Corrin. Then it would all be over.
After Quentin departed, Vor’s re-formed group made its next leap. Space folded around his attack force in what would either be an embrace or a strangulation. He would know in a few moments….
As his warships came within range of the immense planet Quadra with its silvery moons, he dispersed the vessels and approached in a crescent formation, with the LS Serena Victory on one wing, then deployed his first squadrons of bombers. Scanners picked up incoming missiles, and Vor ordered the Holtzman shields up.
Though the Great Purge had been under way for weeks already, no slow-flying robot ship could have traveled to other Synchronized Worlds swiftly enough to deliver a warning. But the Quadra-Omnius had automatic defensive systems in place, which responded to the arrival of the Jihad fleet.
The robot missiles struck the Holtzman shields and deflected off their targets to spin harmlessly away into space. Before the local evermind could launch a second volley, Vor ordered his ships to shoot back through their pulsing flicker-and-fire shield systems, choosing some of their targeted multiple-blast atomic warheads. Moments later ten artificial moons crackled with the impacts, cascading silvery fireworks into the vacuum of orbital space. He could already see that this battle would take hours, maybe even days….
After pounding the artificial battle moons, still unable to break through to the ground defenses and Omnius strongholds on Quadra, Vor stepped back with surprise as his bridge screen shuddered with static. His communications officer said, “We’re being contacted by people below, Supreme Commander— a transmission from humans. They must have seized a com-network down there.”
The screen filled with a sequence of images, an overview of the continents and cities below. Vor observed close-up images, apparently from surveillance watcheyes in one of Quadra’s cities. He knew what he had to do. “We can’t save them. Continue with full warhead deployment, per our plans.”
One of the Martyrist volunteers manning the flagship’s scan station nodded. “They will be accepted into Paradise if they give up their lives for the Holy Jihad.”
“After today, Paradise is going to be a very crowded place,” Vor muttered as he stared at the screen.
* * *
UP IN THE smoke-filled skies of Quadra, silvery moons hung low over the Synchronized metropolis. The robots marching through the streets paid no attention to the looming battle moons, but the enslaved humans felt the overbearing observation. Even with all the robotic warships withdrawn and sent to Corrin for the final assault on the League, the threat remained in place.
But some of the slaves had made whispered plans, always hoping….
When dazzling sparks and flashes unexpectedly erupted on the artificial satellites, humans in the streets of Quadra City turned to stare. Many flicked their glances up to the sky, then nervously returned their attention to assigned tasks, refusing to believe.
The man named Borys, though— a former swordmaster of Ginaz captured twenty-one years ago at a skirmish on Ularda— knew exactly what must be happening. His hope swelled, and he dropped his tools on the hot open-air packaging line where he was forced to labor. He shouted, knowing he dared not hesitate. “This is what we have been waiting for! Our rescuers have come. We must throw off our chains and fight with the liberators before it’s too late.”
Gasps and mutters rippled like a shock wave through the work gangs. Borys immediately grabbed one of his heavy tools and jammed it into the whirring machinery that moved the production line. Sparks flew and smoke poured out. The complex system ground to a halt with a shriek that sounded like machines in pain.
Around him, sentinel robots and combat models paused, receiving urgent new instructions from the Quadra-Omnius. Borys did not think his meager disturbance had caught the notice of the evermind: Something up in orbit consumed all of the giant computer’s attention.
Over the years of his captivity, Borys’s fellow mercenaries captured with him at Ularda had been slain, some for good causes, others pointlessly. Borys was the last of his team, and he had grander hopes. Now, as he rallied the people working in the streets, he understood this was their only chance.
Borys had never stopped spreading his plans among the cowed humans, gauging the other prisoners. As a swordmaster who followed the teachings of Jool Noret, he had been bred to fight, trained in combat techniques by the sensei mek Chirox. Borys knew his abilities and his limitations. He had carefully culled out those willing to fight for their freedom, separating them from the captives too fearful to risk harm. By now, his handpicked lieutenants were dispersed across Quadra.
A burst of communication crackled through the speakers on the packaging line. Normally, robots used the system to disseminate harsh commands to their captive workers, but now a human voice broke across the speakers. “It’s the Army of the Jihad! Ballistas, javelins, fast-attack fighters!” Borys recognized one of his commandos stationed aboard an artificial moon. “They appeared out of nowhere… amazing firepower. One of the battle moons is already damaged and offline.”
In the sky, Borys saw furious flashes of light, like sparks spraying from a grinding wheel. The firepower was concentrated on one of the silvery spheres in low orbit. As the intensity increased, Borys drew a quick breath, seeing the artificial satellite crack open with a dazzling explosion. Pieces of debris spread apart like fragments from an eggshell. The flash dissipated, and the destroyed portions screamed down through the atmosphere, trailing fire as they burned up on reentry.
Seeing this destruction as a clear sign of imminent victory, the hesitant workers now had the impetus to throw in their lot with Borys’s insurrection. Casting aside their fear, people began to run loose, cheering their impending liberation and wreaking all the mayhem possible.
The chaos and unpredictability made it impossible for the sentinel robots to respond effectively, so the thinking machines retaliated using violence and superior firepower. While the intense battle continued overhead, sentinel robots pursued the unprepared slaves in the streets of Quadra, firing into the crowds. The bloodshed and screams were terrible.
But the desperate people fought back with no thought for their own survival, and Borys allowed himself a wash of pride. He had spent years preparing them for this. Many of the slaves had considered it only a fantasy, an exercise, but now it had come to pass. They had hope again.
“We must hold fast! The League ships will be here soon— we’ve got to open the way for them.”
As a swordmaster, Borys could fashion weapons out of anything. He used metal clubs and electrical discharges. He wrecked automated machinery, found ways to overload generators. Within an hour he had destroyed many thinking machines and worked with a team to blow up a secondary command center. But even as the Quadra-Omnius concentrated meager defenses against the Jihad fleet in space, more robots closed in from around the city. There were many of the deadly machines, and they were too well armed for the oppressed slaves to defeat with only bare hands and primitive weapons.
Borys did not allow himself the luxury of dismay. He continued to hope that the humans would soon descend to the surface, bringing reinforcements. More and more of the slaves, even a handful of the pampered trustees who had sided with Omnius, joined the battle, and fought for their freedom at last.
When he finally reached a functioning communication system, Borys transmitted their need to any League commander, begging for rescue. Jihad kindjals and shielded bombers swept down like a group of eagles. Seeing them, the surviving slaves cheered, and Borys raised his fist into the air.
Then the pulse-atomics began to flash, starting from the far horizon. Intense white light swept like sheet lightning across the sky. Waves of incinerating nuclear energy rushed over the machine city, a dazzling glare from round after round of annihilating nuclear bursts.
Borys let his makeshift weapon clatter to the ground and turned his face upward. Now he understood why no one aboard the armada had responded to his calls. “They didn’t come here to rescue us after all.” He drew a deep breath of resignation as the Army of the Jihad swarmed in. The League had come to destroy Omnius, not to save a handful of human captives. “We’re just collateral damage.”
But he comprehended what the League was doing, and he took a small measure of pride in realizing that he had a chance to die in the fight— perhaps the last great battle of this horrific war. Before, Borys had been unable to think of a suitable way for him to give his life. If the armada above succeeded, then the machines would be destroyed. “Fight well, and may your enemies fall quickly,” he muttered to himself.
The fast-burning kindjals and bombers tore through the atmosphere. The intense flashes were oddly silent. The tidal wave of disintegrating force crashed over Borys, all humans, and all robots long before they ever had a chance to hear it coming.
* * *
THE FLAGSHIP BATTLE group folded space again to the next system. This time, thankfully, Vor lost no more capital ships. According to information retrieved by the last round of messengers, fewer than three hundred Jihad ballistas and javelins remained out of more than a thousand.
Vor checked activity on the surface of the Synchronized World below, his next target, nothing more than a name and a set of coordinates. That is how I must think of it. A target, a necessary victory. Even if the enslaved populations down there cheered him, he still had to give the order to unleash their pulse-atomics. Complete sterilization on every single Synchronized World. After convincing himself that this was necessary, he had stopped thinking about it. He hardened his heart and his will because he had no other choice.
He hopscotched methodically through folded space, hitting more enemy worlds, and losing two additional ships in the process. Simultaneously, his bomber squadrons made their attacks. The increasingly furious warriors of the Jihad traveled from stronghold to stronghold, closing in on the central machine world of Corrin. All but one of the remaining everminds were erased. With each successful mission, the Jihad fleet left devastated worlds in their wake, devoid of life, whether machine or human.
Finally he met the rest of his fleet, as planned, and counted survivors. Down to two hundred sixty-six ships now. He combined them into a single battle group commanded by himself and Quentin Butler as his second. With his powerful sense of resolve, he had no time for sadness or tears— not yet. Vor would achieve victory, no matter the cost. There could be no regrets, no looking back.
They dared not stop now. The monstrous machine fleet was on its way to Salusa Secundus. Without pausing to consult his conscience, Vor gathered his ships and prepared them for the next jump.
Toward Corrin.