Dune: The Battle of Corrin

by Brian Herbert; Kevin J. Anderson

  “Hold me, my dearest,” she said, her voice cracking from the effort of only a few words. Then, as his heart cried out helplessly, Vor felt her slipping away in his arms. At the last moment, as she gasped a final breath, she whispered his name, and he responded by saying hers, long and slow, like a caress.

  When he could hold the tears back no longer, Vor began to cry softly.

  Kagin appeared in the doorway. “Quentin Butler is here to see you. Something about the Jihad, and he insists it’s important.” Then, seeing his mother and Vor’s tears, he realized what had happened. His face paled. “Oh, no! No!” Kagin rushed to his mother and knelt at her side, but she did not move. Vor didn’t let go of her.

  Kagin broke out in loud, convulsing sobs, looking so pitiful that Vor pulled away from Leronica and placed an arm around the younger man’s shoulders. For a moment, his son looked at him with shared grief. Estes came into the room and stood, reeling, as if hoping to delay the reality for a few more seconds.

  “She’s gone,” Vor said. “I’m so sorry.” He stared in disbelief at the two dark-haired men who looked so much alike.

  Estes looked like an ice statue, unmoving. Kagin looked coldly at his father. “Go attend your military business with Primero Butler. It always happens— why should it be any different, now that she’s dead? Give us time alone with our mother.”

  Numb and barely able to move, Vor rose to his feet and plodded into the living room. Looking haggard from his own shock, Quentin Butler stood at attention wearing his crisp green-and-crimson Jihad uniform.

  “Why are you here?” Vor demanded, his voice dull. “I need to be alone now.”

  “We have a crisis, Supreme Commander. Faykan and I are just back back from Corrin, and our greatest fears have come to pass.” He drew a deep breath. “We could have less than a month before all the League is destroyed.”

  It did not occur to the humans who invented thinking machines that they would become relentless weapons turned against us. Yet that is exactly what happened. The mechanical genie is out of the bottle.

  — FAYKAN BUTLER,

  political rally

  During the hastily convened crisis strategy session of the Jihad Council, Quentin Butler sensed mounting panic. He saw it in the blood-drained expressions of the political leaders, on the pasty face of the Grand Patriarch, and in the mystified expression of the Interim Viceroy. So many members, experts, and Parliament guests attended, the group had been forced to meet in an audience chamber instead of their usual private room. With news so calamitous, the Council knew they could not keep the information secret for long.

  “The Scourge was not enough,” Quentin said aloud into their worried silence. “Now Omnius means to ensure our extinction.”

  From the moment the first Council members had seen the images of Omnius’s incredible extermination fleet, they realized that the League could never defend itself against such a force.

  “My, this comes at the worst possible time,” the Grand Patriarch finally said. His chain of office seemed to weigh him down. “One disaster on top of another. Over half of our population is dead or dying from the virus. Societies and governments are in total shambles, refugees are everywhere, and we have no way to take care of their needs— and now this battle fleet preparing to depart from Corrin. What are we going to do?”

  Quentin and Faykan shifted uneasily in their seats. The Grand Patriarch should have been inspiring others, not whimpering and complaining.

  To a larger audience now, they displayed the images their spacefolder scouts had taken at Corrin only days before. Jihad tacticians and expert Ginaz mercenaries rushed to make an analysis, but the conclusion was obvious. Omnius intended to throw everything into an utterly overwhelming offensive against already-weakened humanity. Intercepted transmissions had made the machines’ target perfectly clear: Salusa Secundus. The dumbfounded politicians had no way to voice their despair.

  Behind the speaking podium, holoprojections of highlighted planets indicated the strengths of the remaining League military forces, while blackout zones denoted systems still under tight quarantine. Casualties from the epidemic had gutted the Army of the Jihad. There had not been a coordinated offensive against Omnius since the conquest of Honru, and although the military had plenty of empty battleships, there were too few healthy soldiers to crew them all. In the midst of the plague, the jihadis who could still function were spread far too thin in quarantine and recovery efforts.

  “Perhaps we should ask Cogitor Vidad to discuss… cessation terms again,” suggested the representative from Hagal.

  Vidad’s brain canister sat on a special pedestal to one side of the Council table, attended by a pair of secondaries, an ancient man named Keats and a new recruit, Rodane. Now Keats said in a whispery voice, “The Cogitor has not left Zimia in many years, but he would be willing to return to Hessra and consult with his fellow Cogitors.”

  Grand Patriarch Boro-Ginjo turned in disbelief to the Hagal representative. “Do you mean surrender to Omnius?”

  “Does anyone have a better idea for how we can survive?”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Faykan Butler said, agitated. “Look at those images! Omnius is ready to launch his fleet!”

  With his electrafluid glowing bright blue with mental activity, Cogitor Vidad sent words emanating through a speakerpatch. “Then I recommend that you evacuate Salusa Secundus. The machine forces cannot possibly arrive from Corrin in less than a month. Leave this planet empty when the machines arrive, and Omnius will then have no victory.”

  “That’s more than a billion people!” the Interim Viceroy groaned.

  A representative for the Ginaz mercenaries coughed loudly. “Since the Scourge, there are plenty of empty worlds where we can send so many refugees.”

  “Unacceptable!” Quentin shouted, unable to believe what he was hearing. “We can’t just hide. Even if we escape Salusa in time, nothing will stop Omnius from overrunning our weakened worlds, one after another. The League will die the moment we evacuate our capital.” He clasped his hands together as if he wanted to strangle something, then forced calm on his handsome features. “Now— if there was ever a time for it— we’ve got to take desperate, decisive action.”

  All eyes turned toward Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides, who sat stiffly on one side of the stage. Despite his always-youthful appearance, he seemed to radiate pain and grief from the loss of his wife, but he propped himself up and somehow held himself together. “We destroy them,” he said, his voice as hard as frozen steel. “That is all we can do.”

  Some of the Council members moaned, and the Interim Viceroy actually let out a near-hysterical laugh. “Ah, good! So the solution is perfectly simple! We just destroy the thinking machines. We should have thought of that earlier!”

  The Supreme Commander stood without flinching. Quentin felt sorry for him, thinking of his own love for Wandra. Yes, Leronica was dead. But he hoped Vor could find comfort in the knowledge that she had lived a long, full life surrounded by the love of her family— a rare thing in these troubled times. After a century of the Jihad, and now the wildfire destruction of the Scourge, everyone had more grief and ghosts than they could endure.

  Vor anchored himself with his anger, searching for something to hurt, to destroy, as a way to relieve the ache in his heart. His uniform, normally neat and clean, was wrinkled and stained today. A believer in the formality of military operations, Quentin usually disapproved of people who lapsed in their personal discipline, but now he overlooked it.

  “One way or another, this must be our last battle.” Vorian Atreides strode to the podium and waited for an agonizingly long moment. Silence weighed down on him as he gathered his thoughts, balancing his anger and his grief. “After looking at the reconnaissance images, who can doubt that this is the sum total of the machine military forces? In the past two days, we have sent eleven spacefolder scouts to other randomly selected Synchronized Worlds, and their reports support that conclusion.” Tw
o scouts had been lost in the effort, probably due to navigational errors, but the information the remaining scouts had brought back was crucial. “We learned that the defensive fleets have been removed from the machine planets. All of them. Omnius has gathered everything at Corrin for this one grand strike.”

  The Grand Patriarch nodded somberly. “We are meant to tremble before this extermination fleet.”

  “No, we are meant to die.” Now Vor smiled and spoke more forcefully. “But Omnius doesn’t realize this tactic may prove to be a weakness— if we know how to exploit it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Interim Viceroy O’Kukovich said.

  Instead of answering the politician, Vor looked directly at Quentin. His gray eyes had a new, fractured sharpness, like shards of broken glass. “Don’t you see? By consolidating his forces for this massive push, he has left himself vulnerable everywhere else! While the thinking machines move against us in their ponderous battleships, the Army of the Jihad can strike at all the other Synchronized Worlds, which are virtually undefended!”

  “And how are we to do that?” the Grand Patriarch cried, his voice high-pitched and childlike.

  “We must do the unexpected.” Vor crossed his arms over his uniformed chest. “That is the only way humans can win.”

  Quentin raised his voice over the loud muttering, trying to keep the Council members quiet. He knew Vor had a plan, and it was perhaps the only one humanity could embrace. “Explain how, Supreme Commander. What weapons do we have against the thinking machines?”

  “Atomics.” Vor swept his gaze across the agitated audience. “An overwhelming number of pulse-augmented nuclear warheads. We can leave every single Synchronized World a radioactive cinder, just as we left Earth, ninety-two years ago. If the human race is brave enough to use atomics again, we can systematically eradicate Omnius from world after world. We destroy every incarnation of the computer evermind, just as he intends to destroy us.”

  “But there’s no time!” Xander Boro-Ginjo wailed again, looking for support among the other stunned Council members. “The machines are sure to launch soon! We’ve seen the images.”

  “For the time being, the extermination fleet remains at Corrin, still being assembled. We may yet have weeks to prepare before they set out for Salusa. And even once they launch, it will still take them a month in transit— as the Cogitor has already pointed out,” Vor said, waiting.

  Quentin suddenly looked at Faykan. Both men had begun to realize what Supreme Commander Atreides was thinking. “Omnius has nothing but standard spaceflight capabilities!”

  “But we have other options,” Vor said, his voice flat and emotionless. “A month is plenty of time to destroy every single Synchronized World— if we use space-folding ships. We can replicate our final victory at Earth on each of these worlds, magnifying its success many times over. We will obliterate every single evermind, one by one, without mercy or hesitation.”

  Quentin sucked in his breath, running through the implications in his head. “But the spacefolders are inherently unreliable. VenKee statistics show a loss rate of up to ten percent. Each time our fleet travels to a Synchronized World, we will lose ships. There are hundreds of Omnius strongholds. The attrition rate will be… appalling!”

  Vor remained unruffled. “It is preferable to total extinction. While the Corrin fleet crawls inexorably toward Salusa Secundus, we will slip around them and strike the undefended Synchronized Worlds, methodically crush every planet on the list, and finally work our way to the primary world. Then, by the time we reach Corrin itself, the assault fleet will be too far away to respond in time.”

  Xander Boro-Ginjo interrupted, “But what about all the captive humans on the Synchronized Worlds? Aren’t we supposed to be rescuing them from their slavery? They will all die if we unleash a nuclear holocaust against them.”

  “At least they will die free.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’ll be a great consolation to them,” O’Kukovich grumbled, but he saw that the opinion in the chamber had shifted in Vor’s favor, so he quickly fell silent. The Council members seemed horrified yet hopeful. At least now they had a plan that offered them a slender chance.

  “More people will die if we do not act decisively.” Vor’s determination and confidence was frightening. “And Salusa Secundus will be destroyed in the process, either way. We have no better choice.”

  “But what about Salusa? Do we just abandon it?” The Interim Viceroy’s voice had an unpleasant whining undertone.

  “Sacrificing Salusa Secundus may be a price we must pay to end this Jihad forever.” He frowned at the preservation canister that held Vidad’s brain. “The Cogitor is right: We have to evacuate this planet in the meantime.”

  Quentin’s stomach turned to lead, but he tried to be objective. It might just work. It was a dreadful gamble, and either way it would leave deep scars on the human soul. “Even if the machine fleet succeeds in hitting Salusa, there will be no evermind to hold them together after they’ve completed their programming. They will have no guidance, and no initiative. We should be able to pick them off easily.”

  “They’ll be all that remains of the entire Synchronized empire,” Faykan said.

  Like Vorian Atreides, Quentin now felt he was willing to go to any limit necessary to finish this conflict, or die in the attempt. Even the recent, miraculous return of his granddaughter Rayna reminded him of her parents dead on Parmentier, of all the billions Omnius had already slaughtered. “I agree with the Supreme Commander. It is our best chance, and we dare not ignore this opportunity to ensure our very survival. My soldiers in the Army of the Jihad will volunteer to crew spacefolder battleships, even knowing the extreme risks— although so many have already died of the Scourge, I don’t know if we can muster sufficient personnel. Think of all the kindjal bombers that will need pilots.”

  The Grand Patriarch pursed his lips. “I’m sure we could find any number of Martyrists willing to fill out the ranks. They’ve been demanding a chance to sacrifice themselves against the machines.” He saw this as a way to solve two problems at once.

  “For the time being, they can fly spacefolder scouts,” Faykan suggested. “It’s risky, but we’ll need regular reports from Corrin. There’s no other way we can monitor when that robotic force begins to head toward us. Once the extermination fleet launches, our clock starts ticking.”

  Quentin considered, mentally doing the math. “We know from captured update ships that there are five hundred forty-three Synchronized Worlds. We will need to send a large enough battle group to every single one of those planets in order to insure victory there. Just because they have moved their heavy ships to Corrin doesn’t mean they won’t put up a fight.”

  “We’ll need thousands of ships with skeleton crews and full bomber squadrons to deploy the pulse-atomics,” Faykan said. The very concept seemed to take his breath away. “Jump after jump after jump, and each time we could lose as much as a tenth of our forces.” He swallowed hard.

  “No sense waiting. We should launch what we have immediately and begin this Great Purge.” Vor lifted his chin. “In the meantime, we need to use every resource in the League to start manufacturing the necessary nuclear warheads. We have some stockpiles, but we need more pulse-atomics than the human race has ever produced— and we need them now. We also have to get space-folding engines installed or activated on every available ship. For our first missions we’ll have to use the functional spacefolders from the first group Xavier and I commissioned from Kolhar sixty years ago.”

  At the back of the chamber, the two yellow-robed secondaries stood quickly, lifting Vidad’s preservation canister. “The Cogitor is very concerned,” ancient Keats said. “He will return to Hessra to discuss this turn of events with his fellow Ivory Tower Cogitors.”

  “Discuss it all you like,” Vor said, his voice tinged with scorn. “By the time you reach a conclusion, this will all be over.”

  Let fat humans and thinking machines inhabit the c
omfortable worlds in this galaxy. We prefer the desolate, out-of-the-way places, for they invigorate our organic brains and make us invincible. Even when my cymeks have conquered everything, these difficult places shall be our favorite haunts.

  — GENERAL AGAMEMNON,

  New Memoirs

  The Titans had killed the five Ivory Tower Cogitors too swiftly, and now General Agamemnon regretted his impetuous revenge. After so many decades of feeling hunted and impotent, I should have relished my conquest.

  Now, too late, he thought of how satisfying it would have been to dissect the ancient brains, removing one sliver of mental matter at a time, erasing the snippets of thoughts contained within each rippled contour of the cerebrum. Or, Juno could have added interesting contaminants to their electrafluid and together they could have watched the unusual reactions.

  But all the Cogitors were already destroyed. Stupid lack of foresight!

  Instead, as the three Titans consolidated their hold on Hessra, they were forced to entertain themselves by torturing the captive secondary monks, humans who had given over their lives to tending the Cogitors. All of the secondaries had now been stripped of their fleshy burdens, their brains torn like ripe fruit from their skulls and installed unwillingly into cymek preservation canisters. Slaves, pets, experiments.

  Because they’d initially refused to cooperate with the takeover, the hybrid secondary-neos were given a set of torment-inducing needles, modified thoughtrodes inserted into the naked brain tissue.

  From a tower high above the sheets of ice, the Titan general focused his optic threads, swiveling his head turret to survey his bleak conquest. Wherever gray or black outcroppings showed through the glacier, strange blue smears appeared. Threads of lichens and hardy moss found sustenance within fractures of the ancient ice wall, converting the dim sunlight into enough energy to sustain their lives. Occasionally, chunks of the glacier calved off, and the many-branched blue lichens quickly withered once exposed to the frigid air.