Dune: The Machine Crusade Read Free Page A

coup de grâce against the League capital.
    Shortly after Vorian Atreides— with Xavier’s support— had demanded that the Jihad devote its military strength to defend the Unallied Planets, a massive and unexpected Jihad counterstrike succeeded in recapturing Tyndall from the machines. Any victory was a good one.
    Xavier was glad the Army of the Jihad had arrived at IV Anbus in time, thanks to the warning of a Tlulaxa slaver named Rekur Van. The flesh merchant’s team had raided this world, kidnapping Zenshiites to be sold in the slave markets of Zanbar and Poritrin. After his raid, the slaver had encountered a robotic scout patrol mapping and analyzing the planet, something the machines always did in preparation for a conquest. Rekur Van then raced back to Salusa Secundus and delivered the dire news to the Jihad Council.
    To counter the danger, Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo had put together this hasty but effective military operation. “We cannot afford to let another world fall to the demonic thinking machines,” Iblis had shouted at the send-off ceremony, to enthusiastically defiant cheers and thrown orange flowers. “We have already lost Ellram, Peridot Colony, Bellos, and more. But at IV Anbus, the Army of the Jihad draws a line in space!”
    Though Xavier had underestimated the number of ships Omnius would dispatch to this remote world, thus far the Jihad forces had been able to thwart the attempted invasion, though they could not drive the robots away.
    During a break in the talks with the Zenshiites, Xavier cursed under his breath. The very people he was trying to save had no interest in his help, and declined to fight against the thinking machines.
    This city in the red rock canyons housed relics and the original handwritten canons of the Zenshia interpretation of Buddislam. Inside cave vaults, wise men preserved original scrawled manuscripts of the Sutra Koran and prayed five times daily when they heard the calls from minarets erected on the canyon rim. From Darits the elders dispensed their commentary, meant to guide the faithful through the forest of esoterica.
    Xavier Harkonnen could barely contain his frustration. He was a military man, accustomed to leading battle engagements, ordering his troops and expecting his commands to be followed. He simply didn’t know what to do when these pacifistic Buddislamic inhabitants just… refused.
    Back home among the League Worlds, there had been a growing anti-Jihad protest movement. The people were exhausted from more than two decades of bloodshed with no visible progress. Some had even carried placards near the shrines to the murdered child Manion the Innocent, begging for “Peace at Any Cost!”
    Yes, Xavier could understand their weariness and despair, for they had seen many loved ones killed by the thinking machines. But these isolated Buddislamics had never even bothered to lift a hand in resistance, revealing the ultimate folly of extreme nonviolence.
    The machines’ objective was clear, and Omnius would certainly show no consideration for any fanatical religious preferences. Xavier had a vital job to complete here, in the name of the Jihad— and that job required a little commonsense cooperation from the natives. He had never expected so much trouble trying to make these people appreciate what the Army of the Jihad was risking for them.
    The Zenshiite elders shuffled back into the meeting room, an enclosure adorned with aged religious artifacts that glimmered with gold and precious stones.
    As he had for hours, the religious leader Rhengalid gazed at him with stony eyes and implacable refusal. He had a large shaved head that glistened with exotic oils; his thick eyebrows had been brushed and artificially darkened. His chin was covered with a thick, square-cut gray beard that he wore as a mark of pride. His eyes were a pale gray-green that stood out in striking contrast to his tanned skin. Despite the ominous thinking-machine battle fleet overhead, or the