Unfettered III

by Shawn Speakman (ed)

  This seemed to run counter to a military code that was so deeply based in honor and loyalty. How could the Sardaukar, with their tradition of honor and dedication to the Imperium, possibly serve the loathsome Baron Harkonnen? How could they agree to support such an unprovoked sneak attack? We wanted to delve into the background of one of those characters, how he became a Sardaukar in the first place, and what he believed.

  This story takes place during the Battle of Arrakeen, one of the crux points in the novel Dune. House Atreides is famous for their own code of honor, which collides with Sardaukar honor in this story. In Frank Herbert’s great novel, a Sardaukar Colonel Bashar appears in one brief scene, confronting the Baron and notifying him that the Emperor has ordered a clean death for Duke Leto, without torture.

  We believe “Blood of the Sardaukar” stands on its own as a compelling story, but it also enriches the classic scene in Dune.

  Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

  Blood of the Sardaukar

  A Tale of Dune

  Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

  The fires of battle had already begun in the city of Arrakeen, shattering a quiet and secure night.

  He had a name, but his identity was the uniform and the brotherhood of the Sardaukar, the undefeated elite troops of Emperor Shaddam IV, though now the uniform was false, with loyalties obscured. And Colonel Bashar Jopati Kolona wasn’t so sure of his core identity—not on this night, not on this mission. But he had his orders, and he was a Sardaukar.

  Arrakeen was the largest city on the desert planet of Arrakis, the seat of House Atreides, newly installed planetary governors in charge of vital spice production for the Imperium. It was also a trap.

  Jopati rode inside one of many heavily armored dropships that emerged from an enormous Guild Heighliner in orbit, part of the clandestine Harkonnen attack force augmented by the Imperial military.

  On their way down, he saw the aerial bombardment of Arrakeen’s slums and warehouses, sparking the first waves of chaos and disrupting Atreides defenses. Low, weathered buildings exploded into dust and flames. When the troop carrier landed hard among the fresh rubble, side doors opened to disgorge the uniformed troops. The colonel bashar led his men, disembarking in a fluid, coordinated motion.

  Racing into the streets, the disguised Sardaukar carried projectile weapons and explosive launchers because the Harkonnens liked to kill mass numbers of people from a distance, but Jopati and his troops also carried bladed weapons because they preferred more intimate combat.

  He ran ahead through the streets, raising his black-gloved hand. “Eliminate any resistance, but don’t get distracted. Our objective is the Residency, and Duke Leto Atreides will mount a significant defense.”

  One of the gray-uniformed men beside him snorted. He was not even breathing heavily as they dodged around a broken-down groundcar. “Waste of time.”

  “Just another day,” said a second man, shifting his projectile rifle to aim into the shadows of a narrow alley, where Jopati saw only huddled figures. No threat.

  He said in a stern voice, “Confidence is good, but don’t underestimate this Atreides Duke.” He smelled the chemical smoke whirling up from the bomb blasts. The air was so brittle and dry here, each breath felt as if it held scouring shards of sand.

  Arrakis was a hellish place. Offworlders who worked here by choice could command ridiculously high wages, while other inhabitants were stuck here because they had no place else to go or no way off planet. Jopati had no patience for their whining complaints. This desert world could not compare to the blasted wasteland of Salusa Secundus, the Imperial prison planet the Sardaukar claimed as their home.

  Ahead, the great blocky building of the Arrakeen Residency looked more like an illuminated, huddled fortress than the palatial home of a wealthy planetary governor. The walls were thick and square, and the grim architecture reflected decades of Harkonnen rule on Arrakis. Baron Harkonnen and his predecessors were not known for their appreciation of beauty nor their patronage of the arts.

  The well-lit Residency stood not far from the Shield Wall, the towering cliffs that protected the city from the dangers of the open desert. The perimeter lights flickered, and more beacons went on as alarms sounded. Atreides guards were already trying to shore up their defenses after the first explosions from the dropships.

  The colonel bashar knew his foes could not stand against this well-coordinated sneak attack. The Landsraad might howl and dispute the treacherous actions of the Baron, but Jopati knew full well the accepted treacheries of Imperial politics. He had lived through it himself. The Emperor’s role in this overthrow would be covered up, and any hint of Sardaukar participation would be erased. The Landsraad members who objected too strenuously to the treatment of their beloved Duke Atreides would be paid off or, if necessary, assassinated.

  Given the sheer number of deadly troops rushing through the city, the outcome of the assault was certain—two legions of Sardaukar descending on the desert planet—one full legion of ten brigades sweeping through Arrakeen itself, and the second legion dispersed to Carthag and other cities around the desert world. They would swiftly remove any Atreides resistance and install Harkonnen-friendly administrators and military peacekeepers.

  As his men approached the Residency, launching explosives to disrupt any organized defense, Jopati resented being forced to wear these Harkonnen uniforms, but to his trained eye he could see the difference in how his troops moved, because their service to the Imperium made them better than any other soldier, better than any other human. They were the elite, feared Sardaukar, ferociously loyal to the Padishah Emperor, as bonded to the Imperial throne as a Suk doctor with unbreakable Imperial conditioning. No false uniform could hide that fact from any astute observer.

  The lieutenant next to him touched the comm in his ear and grinned. “The house shields are down, Colonel Bashar. Our traitor did his work.”

  “Acknowledged. We can move right in.” Jopati placed his hand on his kindjal, his fighting knife. He was itching to confront the Atreides guards. “Kill anyone necessary, but we have special orders regarding the Duke.”

  “The Baron will want him himself,” said the lieutenant.

  “He will, and he’s likely to have him,” Jopati answered. “But the Emperor gave me explicit orders that Duke Leto is to die cleanly and without torture. I’m to see to it personally. With the enmity these Great Houses feel for one another, the Baron may have . . . difficulty obeying those instructions.”

  Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was loathsome, not just because of his gross obesity but his carnal, pedophilic appetites, his vicious personality, his utter lack of honor. Thinking of the Baron made Jopati feel dirty in his Harkonnen uniform. He did not care about the politics of Arrakis, or the monopoly on spice production, or the disgusting nature of the Baron himself.

  As they ran toward the Residency’s main gates, he saw a line of Atreides guards rallying for the fight. Jopati’s Sardaukar let out a great roar of challenge and swarmed ahead as explosions continued throughout the city.

  At one time, the Atreides Duke was the only person he hated more than the Baron. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Almost two decades ago, Jopati Kolona had been on the other side of the same situation. When he was only fourteen, his noble family, House Kolona, were the victims of Landsraad betrayal, a power play by Duke Paulus Atreides—Leto’s father—to increase the prominence and profits of House Atreides.

  Jopati was the son of Count and Countess Kolona, hereditary rulers of the planet Borhees. He was one of eight sons, five older and two younger. House Kolona had been a member of the Landsraad, faithful if unremarkable citizens of the Imperium for more than a millennium. Borhees was a small planet with a tolerable climate, wealthy enough to be desirable but not enough to be powerful.

  In his early teens, Jopati had already known the map of his future, how he would one day become a regional administrator for his Great House, a man who needed to understand bureaucracy an
d leadership, but who never expected to face many challenges.

  That all changed when Count Kolona argued with Duke Paulus Atreides during a Landsraad council session. It was after Imperial laws were changed—conveniently and coincidentally, it seemed—to place House Kolona at a disadvantage, and Paulus pounced on the opportunity for himself. At the council session, Jopati’s father filed an appeal and waited for the slow judiciary to grind its way toward a decision.

  No one had expected the outright attack from House Atreides.

  The warships and nighttime raid had been a complete surprise, and the Kolona house shields had not been activated. Jopati’s mother and oldest brother were killed before they even knew what was happening, having gone out to stargaze on an open tower. A stray explosion struck the rooftop, killing the Countess and the heir. Unprepared for a fight, the Count rallied the rest of his family and whisked them into the hills with little more than the clothes on their backs. All the while the household guards battled the Atreides invaders, giving the Count and his surviving sons time to escape.

  Jopati’s father had looked sick, angry, and determined. “We will fight one day,” he assured the boys as they fled through back passageways. “But it will be a long struggle, and we are not yet ready for battle.”

  Before that, Jopati had only known peace. Any conflicts were political, such as arguments on the floor of the Landsraad Hall or local Borhees disputes among fur farmers and spider weavers. Before the Atreides Aggression, as his father called it, the greatest emergencies the teenage boy had seen were an unseasonable ice storm that caused widespread damage, and floods that wiped out river villages. In his youth, Jopati had never fought in actual combat, though he had been trained in fencing and hand-to-hand shield fighting—more like a court dance than a clash for survival. Naïve and oblivious, Jopati had been too young to see the real threat posed by Duke Atreides, until the infamous sneak attack.

  After that, when the Count led them to his hiding place in the hills, Jopati was astonished to see just how prepared his father actually was. Years before the attack, he had constructed hidden redoubts in sheltered areas and supplied them with weapons and food. Jopati’s older brothers knew about the redoubts before he did and had drilled for the unlikely eventuality of an attack, but the teenager had been considered too immature for that information.

  Now, after years of harsh training and vigorous military service ingrained in his bones, Colonel Bashar Jopati was deeply disappointed at his father for not establishing more palace defenses and not preparing for a frontal attack. The Sardaukar officer found it ironic that the Atreides themselves were now facing a similar nighttime surprise attack. . . .

  For many months the survivors of House Kolona hid in the hills and launched regular guerilla attacks to drive out the Atreides forces that had planted their green-and-black banner on Borhees. Duke Paulus administered the world in the name of Emperor Elrood IX, but he rarely set foot on his new holding. Through intermediaries, Count Kolona continued to file complaints in the Landsraad, and the resistance managed to gain some support, more out of sympathy and vengeance for the murdered Countess and their eldest son than out of any wishful thinking for the golden days of House Kolona. Under occupation, the people of Borhees noticed very little change in their daily lives.

  Jopati himself went out on a few guerrilla raids against the Atreides oppressors, which seemed like adventures to him. Inside the protected redoubt, his father continued to spit poison and hatred toward the treacherous Duke Paulus.

  After months of hit-and-run harassment, the Duke—or was it the Emperor?—reached a breaking point. The hiding places in the hills were discovered through a spy or a traitor. Military troops swarmed into the hidden redoubt, ruthless fighters wearing the familiar but hated Atreides uniforms. They blasted the sealed entrances and ferreted out the weapons stashes, lookout posts, and satellite command centers. The Kolona guerilla fighters had no chance.

  The men in Atreides uniforms were the most efficient and brutal soldiers Jopati had ever seen up to that time in his life. They showed no mercy. With a sweep of his sword, one man beheaded the Count before he could even activate his shield belt. Jopati’s four older brothers were also killed before his eyes. Jopati himself had a knife in each hand and fought to protect his two younger brothers, Telso and Kem, each of whom had a small sword. They expected to die.

  The colonel bashar who had killed the Count faced the boys, raised his sword, and laughed. “You show fine mettle, lads. Are you young enough to be trained into something better and strong enough to survive? Or will you foolishly throw your lives away on fruitless revenge?”

  Jopati had been so terrified he didn’t know how to answer. When he hesitated, the colonel bashar swept his sword sideways, and Jopati held his ground, knowing he was about to die. But the officer controlled his stroke and merely smashed the two knives out of Jopati’s hands, leaving him with sore wrists, numb fingers, and nothing else to fight for.

  Only later did Jopati learn that the military force consisted of Sardaukar wearing Atreides uniforms so that Duke Paulus would receive the credit, or the blame, for wiping out House Kolona.

  The colonel bashar, a steel-hard man named Horthan, took Jopati, Telso, and Kem to the Imperial prison planet, where they were sentenced to be erased, the last members of a rebellious house of the Landsraad. He dumped them inside the oppressive prison complex, but gave them one last chance to survive before torture and execution. Tragically, his youngest brother Kem, only eight years old, died within the first month. Jopati had not seen Kem for days until his bloody and battered body was tossed in front of their cell one night, a tender, barely-alive toy that—to Jopati’s rage and disgust—had been passed around among the prisoners.

  Jopati and his scrappy twelve-year-old brother Telso did manage to fight off the advances of the prisoners. He was physically strong, athletic in his movements, and quite good with his extended fingers, gouging at the eyes of anyone who tried to come for him or his only remaining brother.

  After the two young men passed that first test, Colonel Bashar Horthan took them out of the labyrinthine prison complex. The boys thought they were being rescued when, in fact, their lives would become far worse.

  Salusa Secundus, a blistered and windy world that had been devastated in an atomic holocaust by a renegade House millennia earlier, was considered one of the worst planets in the Imperium, a place of fitting punishment for those foolish enough to commit crimes against the Emperor. The prison itself was only part of Salusa’s purpose, though. The deadly environment was a testing and training ground to produce the fiercest, most ruthless fighters in the known universe: the Imperial Sardaukar.

  Initiation into this elite brotherhood was not so much training as a delayed, agonizing execution, considering how few recruits lived. Early in the horrendous ordeal, the colonel bashar addressed the determined or frightened candidates on a training field in a bleak wasteland. “Long ago, during the reign of Prince Raphael Corrino, the noble House Sardaukar was convicted of plotting against the throne. They were sentenced to Salusa Secundus, where they were expected to die.” He swept his gaze across the shivering trainees. “But the ones who lived became the toughest fighters ever.

  “Prince Raphael offered them a chance to redeem themselves, when he recruited the surviving lost souls for a desperate military operation, and they saved his rule. Since that time, the greatest fighters serving the Emperor have called themselves Sardaukar—not just descendants of that noble House Sardaukar but any prisoners who proved themselves worthy, the survivors of Salusa Secundus.” Horthan’s stare was like a weapon. “Are you worthy of being Sardaukar?” He looked at all the candidates who stood before him under the harsh sun. “Are you survivors?”

  Jopati and the others cheered and made their vows, but later most of them were killed during training, though not the Kolona boys. Horthan took the pair, the last of their Great House, and taught them to fight and survive. He gave them the tools they needed while
doing his best to kill them.

  In one of their tests, Jopati and Telso were turned loose naked out in a glassy hot canyon; they had to find shelter from fiery windstorms and fight off packs of bloodthirsty predators with nothing but rocks. Surviving that, he and his brother were rewarded with knives, then turned loose to fight the beasts again, more of them this time. Telso survived such ordeals for two years, growing strong and hard, but he died from the bite of a poisonous reptile during group maneuvers—not yet a man by his years, but he died like a man.

  Jopati was the only remaining member of House Kolona, unrecognizable from the fresh-faced young man who had hidden in the hills with the Count. All because of the hated Duke Atreides.

  Soon even the Kolona family name became buried under scars, blisters, and armor when Colonel Bashar Horthan promoted him to the rank of lieutenant among the Sardaukar, an accomplishment that had more meaning than Jopati’s entire family tree.

  The Sardaukar had become his family. . . .

  The tall date palms burned in front of the Arrakeen Residency like macabre, smoky candles. On this parched and desolate planet, trees should not have existed at all, but Duke Leto must have had some purpose in keeping the trees where all the people could see them. Flaunting his wealth and water perhaps? Or offering a symbol of hope?

  Whatever his thinking, the Duke’s plans and dreams would die with him this night. With the house shields sabotaged from within, the Residency was vulnerable to outside attack. The colonel bashar led his forces against a line of hardened Atreides soldiers. The kindjal was Jopati’s preferred weapon, a long knife slightly curved, carefully weighted. It was a personal blade, requiring more finesse than a long sword that allowed an attacker to strike from arm’s length.