Seven days.

Brigit Paterson hadn’t wanted to cut the time so close, but she worked her crew hard. She checked and double-checked their work, insuring that there were no errors. An entire planet was at stake.

According to Serena’s best estimate, the engineers had finished with a little time to spare.

After testing the scrambler-shield system and finding everything operational, even to her most precise standards, Brigit finally gave her people a few hours of rest. Some sat staring into the cold gray skies through the windowplaz of their barracks huts; others fell immediately to sleep as if they had been placed in suspended animation.

The Armada actually arrived on the morning of the ninth day.

The eavesdropping system she had installed to tap into the Omnius sensor network blared with a flurry of alarms. Brigit woke her team and told them the League fleet was on its way into the system, ready to retake Giedi Prime. She hoped that Serena had intercepted the ships and told them what to expect.

The cymeks scornfully expressed their disbelief that the feral humans would dare come against them, while the Omnius incarnation worked to analyze the situation and develop a response.

The thinking machine fleet maintained several large patrol cruisers in orbit, but the majority of robotic fighting ships had been grounded, used in subjugation operations over the populace. Now, with the League Armada approaching, the Giedi Prime– Omnius issued orders across the computer network. Robotic battle vessels powered up, preparing to launch into orbit as a massive, synchronized force to strike against the hrethgir invaders.

Brigit Paterson listened to the plans and smiled.

Her secondary engineer hurried up to her, looking out at the wind-swept rocky island. “Shouldn’t we turn on the scrambler shields? They’re all ready. What are you waiting for?”

Brigit looked at him. “I’m waiting for the cocky robots to fall into my trap.”

On crude screens installed in the unfinished facility, she watched a hundred capital warships lift off from landing fields that had been conquered during the original takeover. The huge mechanized vessels rose from the ground, carrying incredible firepower.

“Not so fast.” Brigit finally activated the rejuvenated Holtzman scrambler shields. Ice-rimed transmitting towers pumped energy into the linked network of satellites far overhead, and the disruption spread out like a spiderweb, invisible and utterly deadly to AI gelcircuitry.

The robotic fleet never knew what hit them.

Rising upward, unable to believe that something so unexpected could affect their battle plan, the thinking-machine vessels struck the thin, shimmering veil that immediately obliterated their computer brains, erasing systems and memory units. Battleship after battleship became inoperative and tumbled like asteroids out of the sky. With all systems dead, they crashed and exploded on the ground.

Some hit uninhabited areas. Others, unfortunately, did not.

Brigit Paterson didn’t want to think about the collateral damage she had just caused to the already devastated world. Seeing the success, her engineers cheered. Now the remaining robot battleships in space could never stand against the combined might of the unified Armada, nor could they come down to the surface to cause havoc.

“We haven’t won yet,” Brigit said, “but it may not be long before we get off of this rock.”

THE ARMADA BATTLE group approached Giedi Prime, all weapons ready against the thinking-machine scourge. Xavier prayed that Serena had succeeded in her wild plan, and that she was down there safe, somewhere.

He had insisted on commanding the risky strike himself— not because he wanted to claim the glory of a morale-boosting victory, but because he desperately wanted to find Serena.

Secure in his mechanized grip over the planet, Omnius had misjudged human plans and capabilities. After calculating the odds and seeing only a small chance of League success, the evermind had probably dismissed the threat of human retaliation. No sensible enemy would ever attack against such overwhelming odds.

But Xavier Harkonnen had no compunction against taking on hopeless missions. And in this instance, the Giedi Prime evermind did not possess all the relevant information. This Omnius lacked vital data about the Sorceresses of Rossak, about the new portable scramblers, and— he hoped— about the now-operational secondary shield transmitters.

When the orbiting robotic warships detected the battle group’s approach, they gathered into standard formation to destroy the Armada vessels. In his comline, Xavier heard a report from his adjutant, Cuarto Powder. “Sir, the thinking machines are coming. Their missile ports are open.”

Xavier issued the first command. “Dispatch the ground assault divisions . . . launch armored troop transports.” The swarms of ships carried the Sorceress Heoma and her Rossak bodyguards, as well as the soldiers who would use the portable scramblers against the robot warriors in Giedi City.

Cuarto Powder suddenly looked up from his station, verifying the scans his tactical officers had just forwarded to him. “Sir, it looks as if scrambler shields have just come on over the whole planet!”

Xavier’s heart swelled. “Exactly as Serena promised.” The soldiers cheered, but he smiled for a different reason entirely. Now, he knew she must be alive after all. Serena had accomplished the impossible, as she often did.

“Robotic warships are falling out of the skies! They were trying to launch and got caught in the scrambler backwash!”

“Good, but ground-based thinking machines will try to zero in on those secondary transmitting towers. We’ve got to finish this while the robot fleet is trapped up here and the rest of the thinking machines are stranded in the cities.” Xavier would not let Serena’s work be in vain. “Let’s take back the planet.”

Dropping out of the lead ballista’s launch hatches, eight escort kindjals flanked Heoma’s single transport, all of them fully armed and ready to engage the enemy. The mission of the kindjals was to cause confusion and chaos, to distract the unimaginative robotic defenders so that the Sorceress volunteer could land safely and carry out her essential work.

Seeing the robotic battleships zeroing in, Xavier urged the troop transports to hurry. Swarms of smaller Armada ships streaked into the turbulent atmosphere and headed toward Giedi City.

Closing his eyes, Xavier sent his hopes with them, then concentrated on the machine threat approaching in orbit.