Brian Herbert - Navigators of Dune

“Then increase our bombardment,” Josef said. “Overwhelm their shields. We have the power.”

“The task is more difficult, Directeur, but not by an impossible amount.”

Using their superior weaponry, the VenHold ships were relentless, pummeling and pummeling the fanatics. On one Butlerian ship after another, the defenses collapsed under the barrage—and waves of weapons fire destroyed them. Their fleet dwindled.

Even so, knowing that Josef’s attacking ships lacked shields, the Butlerians pushed forward in an increased opportunistic frenzy. Their old-model warships could withstand several minutes of constant hammering before their shields failed. The barbarians grouped their ships and hurtled forward at full speed, like a salvo of gigantic artillery shells. They rammed into the unprotected VenHold hulls and destroyed three more of Josef’s ships.

His throat went dry, and his pulse pounded in his temples. “They are all mad!”

“Directeur,” the helmsman yelled. “Incoming ships!”

Josef looked up to see three suicidal vessels hurtling toward his flagship. “Evasive action—get us out of their way. But keep firing. Take out their shields.”

The oncoming enemy ships glowed like comets as their shields deflected the play of weapons fire, and they blindly accelerated toward Josef’s flagship. He braced himself, realizing that his vessel could not lumber out of the way in time.

“Grandmother!” he shouted at her tank. He knew she was watching the shifting battlefield. “Now!”

Suddenly, thanks to Norma, his spacefolder was in a different place, jerked sideways to the other side of the space battlefield. “Too many Navigators lost, too many of our ships damaged,” she said. “We must destroy this enemy.”

He exhaled a long cold sigh of relief. “Yes, Grandmother. They certainly deserve to be destroyed. I’m trying to do just that.”

Even if the Butlerians proved to be more difficult to kill than expected, he would not retreat until the job was done.

ON THE GROUND, no matter how many of the savages Ptolemy gassed, burned, or shot down, they kept coming. He drew little satisfaction from his rampage, but he continued forward nevertheless, tearing a wide swath of destruction through Empok.

The Butlerian fanatics were like a plague, and their numbers seemed infinite. Where did they all come from? Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe a million or more. They surged forward like cockroaches, crowding the cymeks with utter disregard for the appalling casualties they suffered. The streets were piled with bodies.

In disbelief, Ptolemy had watched them scramble over their own dead and take down one of the Navigator cymeks, dismantling its body, smashing the brain canister. In even greater horror, he’d watched them bring down other walkers with wrecking bars, wedges, cutting tools to dismantle a single joint or protected cable. Some attackers used primitive explosives at key vulnerable spots, while other rabid swarms simply used astonishing numbers and unchecked fanatical energy. They fell upon the cymeks, including Administrator Noffe!

In alarm, Ptolemy crashed his way toward his besieged friend, intending to roast these vermin by the thousands, but he was too far away to reach him in time. Noffe’s walker form stalled under the weight of tens of thousands of Butlerians, many wielding crude weapons, and then they got to the administrator’s brain canister.

Noffe had sacrificed so much already, and now in this pivotal fight for the future of humanity, the mob took him down. Through the communications link, Ptolemy heard Noffe’s panicked mental screams until the ruthless barbarians cut off the thoughtrode contact and crushed his preservation canister.

Those screams had sounded much like Elchan’s.…

Now, as Ptolemy thundered forward, infuriated and unwilling to stop, he came upon an even larger, swelling crowd. The mob was like a mindless organism with a single deadly goal. The people swarmed out of side streets and thoroughfares, climbed the remnants of burning buildings, and threw themselves from rooftops onto the cymeks.

Confronted by this new throng, Ptolemy’s enhanced optical sensors spotted a familiar man riding on the shoulders of a female Swordmaster. The Butlerian leader looked confident and arrogant, as if he had the situation under control. The roar of the mob was deafening, but Ptolemy focused all of his hatred on Manford Torondo.

The Butlerian leader was shouting in a ragged voice that sounded like a thin and insignificant squeak, but he had a voice amplifier. “We will destroy you, demon—and all of your mechanical brethren! Our faith is a shield that you cannot comprehend.”

The response of his people was deafening, primal.

Years ago, as a diligent scientist in his original laboratory, Ptolemy had felt insignificant and helpless, unable to defend himself. He now felt stronger than ever. His cymek body was nearly invincible, his weapons powerful, and his anger unquenchable.

Ptolemy amplified his voice, even though he doubted the Butlerian leader would remember him. “Manford Torondo, you and your followers must pay for your crimes against humanity—and I am the one to call in that debt!”

Manford had time to yell in a scornful voice. “You talk about humanity? You, a monster?”

A single blast from Ptolemy’s flame-cannon or a drenching spray of caustic acid would have leveled the entire mob and incinerated the legless fanatic. But instead, he wanted to make Manford feel as helpless as the man had made him feel on that terrible night years ago. This was too personal a vendetta for Ptolemy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Feeling elation, Ptolemy skittered forward on his mechanical body with swift, spiderlike grace made possible by the advanced thoughtrodes that he and Dr. Elchan had developed long ago. That was fitting. Ptolemy’s optical sensors were focused on the Butlerian leader and his Swordmaster. He swept sideways with one of his claw-ended legs, smashing Anari Idaho aside like a tiny toy.

This knocked Manford out of his harness, throwing him violently to the ground. Ptolemy reached forward and snatched up the hated leader by his torso, even though the vile man tried to escape by scuttling away on his hands.

In the air, Manford squirmed and flailed his arms, looking so weak, so helpless. Ptolemy lifted him high even as the Butlerians screamed in rage and panic. With his visual enhancement, Ptolemy recorded the look of disgust on Manford’s face. He wished it were fear instead, but realized he was witnessing the bravery of fanaticism, Manford’s willingness to become a martyr. Ptolemy didn’t care about that, he just wanted the man dead.

“For the future of humanity,” Ptolemy shouted through his speakerpatch. “For the blood of all your victims!” He reached up his second clawed hand, holding Manford Torondo with both mechanical arms in front of the raging crowd, dangling him over them. The fanatical leader yelled something, but his words were drowned out in the howls from the Butlerians.

“And for Elchan!”

It was like a child ready to pluck the wings off a fly.

FAR BELOW, STILL grasping her sword, Anari lurched to her feet, coughing blood and looking upward in horror. She knew that something was broken inside her, but she didn’t care about her own pain. She screamed, spraying red from her mouth. “No, not Manford!”

As if they had been paralyzed all at once, tens of thousands of Butlerians gasped in an instant of sickening silence.

In the last second Manford looked down at his loyal Swordmaster and companion, with an expression of deep love and a beatific acceptance of his fate. His loyal Swordmaster remembered something he had said to her once: The strength of a martyr is a thousand times the strength of a mere follower.