To accept new information and use it to modify our behavior— this we recognize as the human quality to think. And by thinking, to survive, not just as individuals, but as a species. In surviving, though, shall our humanity endure? Will we keep our hold on those things that make life sweet for the living, warm and filled with what we call beauty?
We shall not gain this enduring humanity if we deny our whole being— if we deny emotion, thought, or flesh. There we have the tripod upon which all of eternity balances. If we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our universe. By denying the realm of thought, we cannot reflect upon what we touch. And if we dare deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears us all.
— KREFTER BRAHN,
Special Advisor to the Jihad
Soon after the Vengeance Fleet hurtled through the scrambler network, they suddenly entered the densest concentration of enemy fire. The robot battleships formed concentric walls to protect Corrin, and they did not intend to let the humans pass.
The machines launched an endless rain of precisely targeted explosive shells, blast after blast after blast that dissipated harmlessly against the Holtzman shields. But already the front lines of the Army of Humanity, pressing forward, were overheating. From the flagship, Vor viewed the projections, knew that under the constant punishing the shields would overheat and fail within an hour.
A second line of League javelins and ballistas came immediately behind them, and a third, and a fourth. He clenched the arms of his command chair, keeping his face expressionless and unreadable. It seemed to be a question of which side would be the first to dwindle to nothing.
“Keep firing,” Vor said, though the gunners needed no such instructions. “Give them everything we have.”
“Targeting systems are still faulty, Supreme Bashar. We’re wasting a lot of our munitions.” After Seurat’s treacherous sneak attack, rapid repairs had been completed on the LS Serena Victory, but Vor had lost over a hundred crew members in the explosions.
“Take your best guess.” He shook his head. “Look at all those robot warships— how can you miss?”
A forest of enemy vessels blocked him from his objective. Vor bit back a curse. It should have been such a straightforward operation! Abulurd had derailed so much planning, had made the offensive here so much more complicated.
When the Bridge of Hrethgir inexplicably failed to detonate even after Vor passed the trip line in space, two million human hostages had received a reprieve. If the League achieved victory on Corrin, they had standing orders to rescue as many of the hostages as possible. Especially if Serena Butler and her child were among them.
Though the Vengeance Fleet ships had minimal crews and thus plenty of extra space, they could never hold millions of refugees. They were slow vessels and would take a long time to reach another habitable planet. The only solution for the hostages would be to shuttle them from their cargo containers back to the surface of Corrin.
But not if Vor turned the planet to radioactive slag, like the other Synchronized Worlds in the Great Purge.
Now that he had proved the Bridge of Hrethgir seemed to be just an elaborate and diabolical bluff he could not so blithely doom all two million hostages. This epic victory would not be as neat or as simple as he had hoped, but he would achieve it nonetheless.
As Vor plowed ahead, the shields began to fail on the front line of beleaguered League ships. Many of the captains dropped back to be replaced by new vessels, but others plunged ahead, refusing to withdraw even as their Holtzman defenses flickered. Thus unprotected, the human vessels swiftly succumbed to the relentless bombardment. Numbers appeared on his summary screens.
“Launch kindjal squadrons,” he said. It was time for the next step of the plan. “Tell the pilots to be ready to deploy their pulse-atomics.”
“But, Supreme Bashar, we’re not even close to the surface!”
“No, we’re not— and we won’t get there at all unless we can clear away some of this clutter.” He drew a deep breath. “Save enough warheads for a final coup de grace, and tell the Ginaz swordmasters we’re going to need them for some precision work.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Xavier had lectured him many times before, a battlefield commander had to be flexible. Many routes led to the objective. The pulse-atomics would do the job of getting them through to Corrin… and he could not accomplish the primary objective of destroying Omnius unless he got to the planet. One step at a time.
The revised tactic would save lives— not only the millions still crowded aboard the Bridge of Hrethgir, but also all of the soldiers who would die if the Supreme Bashar insisted on hammering against the robot defenses with conventional weapons.
“It does no good to save our atomics if all our ships are destroyed here in orbit.”
Swarms of kindjal squadrons flew out of the launching bays of the large ballistas, thousands of the sharp-winged fighters and bombers. They were small, like bits of fluff thrown against a herd of behemoths. But they carried the seeds of immense destruction.
The kindjals deployed their atomics, tossing them in a broad spread against the dense conglomeration of targets the thinking machines had arranged to block the Army of Humanity.
“Here it comes,” Vor said to no one in particular. “All shields at full strength. Front lines, withdraw if you can.”
Seeing the unexpected shift of tactics, the robot battleships moved forward, eager to regain some of the ground they had lost.
Then a wave of dazzling pulse-atomics detonated, overlapping floods of enhanced energy specifically designed to erase gelcircuitry minds. The enormous amount of physical damage was only secondary.
As Vor covered his eyes against the flash, he studied the automatically dimmed screen on the flagship. It looked as if the blinding, luminous hand of God had just swept through the robot lines, paralyzing the craft, killing the thinking machines aboard, and leaving the impenetrable defensive line in ruins.
No, Vor thought. It was not a waste of our warheads.
He had no doubt that many hapless Corrin prisoners had been placed aboard those enemy warships, and had died along with their robot captors, but Vor didn’t pause to think about those casualties. They were necessary, unavoidable. Perhaps someday history would compile an accurate tally. But humans would write this history only if they emerged victorious from the Battle of Corrin.
“Full forward, into the breach!” he shouted. “If you’ve still got shields, use them against all that debris— and hold on!”
Like a battering ram, the Army of Humanity crashed ahead, blasting through the dead robot vessels until they encountered the inner line of machine defenses. Taken by surprise, the robot battleships scrambled to tighten their positions.
Vor sent out the next wave of kindjal bombers— and annihilated the next enemies standing against him. And then the third and last line. By the time they finally broke through to the atmospheric fringe of Corrin, the Vengeance Fleet had depleted most of their store of atomics.
Though they had used many of their warheads, at last the target lay below, exposed and vulnerable.
“We have business to finish down there.” Vor pointed at the last machine planet, which stretched in a gentle curve almost seventy kilometers beneath them.
* * *
THE REMNANTS OF the opposing fleets locked in combat in the skies over Corrin, with warships on each side blasting their way through and then returning to open fire again. Vor guided his ballista into the fray as if he were at the controls of a one-man fighter, as if he were a young officer again, trying to prove himself. He remembered the first great battle of the Jihad over Earth.
His fleet dipped into the upper atmosphere. The escort ships accompanying Vor’s flagship took a heavy beating from ultrasound aerial torpedoes, and when many of the Army of Humanity vessels caught fire and tumbled away, others took their place to protect the Supreme Bashar.
Hostile fire hit a nearby ship, overloading the already weakened shields until the League vessel exploded, pelting the LS Serena Victory with debris. Vor grimaced as bodies and body parts tumbled away from the wreckage into the high, thin air.
Much more destruction would follow. He did not fear death himself, and was proud of his crew on the flagship, as they performed their duties flawlessly. He could not possibly have asked for more.
Artillery blasts from the LS Serena Victory and the rest of the Vengeance Fleet obliterated thinking machines in their battleships and on the ground. Explosions blossomed in the sky and on the surface of the planet. Down there, Omnius still remained intact.
With the way cleared and a safe path opened up in orbit, now the Viceroy’s diplomatic vessel approached from the outskirts of the battle zone. Several shuttles emerged, descending swiftly toward the heart of the fiercest combat. Over the comline, Vor heard the feverish voice of Rayna Butler. “By the grace of Saint Serena, we’re getting through! I told you we could do it!”
Angrily, Vor opened a direct channel. “Viceroy Butler, what are you and Rayna doing? I did not give permission for this. Stay out of the line of fire.”
Faykan’s voice came back. “It isn’t me, Supreme Bashar. It seems… Rayna has her own mission. She was quite insistent.”
The pale young woman transmitted from her shuttle, “Corrin is the den of our enemies. This is— and has always been— my calling in life. My followers, and the spirit of Saint Serena, will protect me.”
Vor heaved a deep, exasperated sigh. Somehow, that woman could rationalize any contradiction. Rayna believed Serena was alive on the Bridge, but she also felt she was guided by Serena’s spirit. Of course, Rayna also wanted to destroy all forms of technology, yet she rode in spaceships….
He had more vital concerns at the moment. At least they would be fighting a real enemy now, instead of harmless surrogate machines on the League Worlds. Let the fanatics face the brunt of Omnius’s defenders— and better that the antitechnology fanatics burn out their vehemence here than at home.
As the surviving ships of the fleet pressed forward to the main goal on Corrin, machine forces regrouped around the evermind’s stronghold in the center of the city. Vor summoned all the swordmasters and mercenaries, many of them seasoned veterans trained to deal with problems exactly like these. They had been waiting during the long journey for this moment.