The Machine Crusade - By Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson Page 0,2

long voyages between stars. This tedious impasse offered little opportunity for fun.

He had been noticing patterns.

Soon the robotic fleet would cruise toward them like a cluster of piranhas in a retrograde orbit. Standing proud in his crisp dark green military uniform flashed with crimson— the Jihad colors symbolizing life and spilled blood— Vor would give orders directing all the battleships in his sentry fleet to activate Holtzman shields and monitor them for overheating.

The robot warships— bristling with weapons— were woefully predictable, and his men often placed bets on exactly how many shots the enemy would fire.

He watched his forces shift, as he had commanded them to do. Xavier’s adopted brother, Vergyl Tantor, captained the vanguard ballista and moved it into position. Vergyl had served the Army of the Jihad for the past seventeen years, always watched closely by Xavier.

Nothing had changed here in over a week, and the fighters were growing impatient, passing the enemy repeatedly but unable to do anything more than puff up their chests and display combat plumage like exotic birds.

“You’d think the machines would learn by now,” Vergyl grumbled over the comline. “Do they keep hoping that we’ll slip up?”

“They’re just testing us, Vergyl.” Vor avoided the formality of ranks and the chain of command because it reminded him too much of machine rigidity.

Earlier in the day, when the paths of the two fleets briefly intersected, the robot warships had launched a volley of explosive projectiles that hammered at the impregnable Holtzman shields. Vor had not flinched as he watched the fruitless explosions. For a few moments, the opposing ships had mingled head-on in a crowded, chaotic flurry, then moved past each other.

“All right, give me a total,” he called.

“Twenty-eight shots, Primero,” reported one of the bridge officers.

Vor had nodded. Always between twenty and thirty incoming shells, but his own guess had been twenty-two. He and the officers of his other ships had transmitted congratulations and good-natured laments about missing by only one or two shots, and had made arrangements to collect on the bets they made. Duty hours would be shifted among the losers and winners, luxury rations transferred back and forth among the ships.

The same thing had happened almost thirty times already. But now as the two battle groups predictably approached one another, Vor had a surprise up his sleeve.

The Jihad fleet remained in perfect formation, as disciplined as machines.

“Here we go again.” Vor turned to his bridge crew. “Prepare for encounter. Increase shields to full power. You know what to do. We’ve had enough practice at this.”

A skin-tingling humming noise vibrated through the deck, layers of shimmering protective force powered by huge generators tied to the engines. The individual commanders would watch carefully for overheating in the shields, the system’s fatal flaw, which— so far, at least— the machines did not suspect.

He watched the vanguard ballista cruise ahead along the orbital path. “Vergyl, are you ready?”

“I have been for days, sir. Let’s get on with it!”

Vor checked with his demolitions and tactical specialists, led by one of the Ginaz mercenaries, Zon Noret. “Mr. Noret, I presume that you deployed all of our… mousetraps?”

The signal came back. “Every one in perfect position, Primero. I sent each of our ships the precise coordinates, so that we can avoid them ourselves. The question is, will the machines notice?”

“I’ll keep them busy, Vor!” Vergyl said.

The machine warships loomed closer, approaching the intercept point. Although the thinking machines had no sense of aesthetics, their calculations and efficient engineering designs still resulted in ships with precise curves and flawlessly smooth hulls.

Vor smiled. “Go!”

As the Omnius battlegroup advanced like a school of imperturbable, menacing fish, Vergyl’s ballista suddenly lunged ahead at high acceleration, launching missiles in a new “flicker-and-fire” system that switched the bow shields on and off on a millisecond time scale, precisely coordinated to allow outgoing kinetic projectiles to pass through.

High-intensity rockets bombarded the nearest machine ship, and then Vergyl was off again, changing course and ramming down through the clustered robot vessels like a stampeding Salusan bull.

Vor gave the scatter order, and the rest of his ships broke formation and spread out. To get out of the way.

The machines, attempting to respond to the unexpected situation, could do little more than open fire on the Holtzman-shielded Jihad ships.

Vergyl slammed his vanguard ballista through again. He had orders to empty his ship’s weapons batteries in a frenzied attack. Missile after missile detonated against the robot vessels, causing significant damage but not destruction. The comlines reverberated with human cheers.

But