"Dune 03 - Whipping Mek (Short Story)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

“Any from Ginaz? Our best fighters?”

“Some. We arrived faster than the thinking machines expected, struck them

swiftly and mercilessly, using everything we had. My mercenaries attacked like

madmen, and many of them fell. But a lot more thinking machines were

destroyed. Unfortunately, most of the colony towns had already been trampled

by the time we got there, the inhabitants murdered. Even so, our Army of the

Jihad drove in—and by a holy miracle we pushed back the enemy forces.” He

drew a deep, convulsing breath, as if his replacement lungs were malfunctioning.

DUNE: WHIPPING MEK

7

“Instead of simply cutting their losses and flying away, as combat robots

usually do, this time they were programmed to follow a scorched-earth policy.

They devastated everything in their wake. Where they had gone, not a crop,

structure, or human survivor was left behind.”

Sheel swallowed hard. “How terrible.”

“Terrible?” Xavier mused, rolling the sound of the word on his tongue. “I

cannot begin to describe what I saw. Not much was left of the colony we went to

rescue. Over a quarter of my jihadi fighters lost their lives, and half of the

mercenaries.”

Shaking his head sadly, he continued. “We scraped together the pathetic

remnants of settlers who had fled far enough from the primary machine forces. I

do not know—nor do I want to know—the actual number of survivors we

rescued. Peridot Colony did not fall to the machines, but that world is no longer

of any use to humans, either.” He heaved a deep breath. “It seems to be the way

of this Jihad.”