“That won’t put an end to it,” Vor said.
“But I will not need to bother with it anymore. Go—get to your ship. Fly out of here before I change my mind.”
Valya’s dark eyes had a sudden unreadable gleam. “Yes, go. Escape in your ship, and we will keep hunting you.” Then, looking over at the pregnant Tula, she added in a voice that made Vor’s blood cold, “Besides, if I ever change my mind, I always have an Atreides I can kill.”
Tula recoiled in shock, and Willem growled, “That’s my brother’s child. It belongs on Caladan, with my family.”
“It is my child!” Tula said.
“It belongs to the Sisterhood,” Valya snapped. “That will be good enough for me to know … and for you to know, Vorian Atreides. Even if you get away, you will always remember that I have your bloodline in my grasp, along with my own bloodline.” She laughed. “I find that acceptable. Go to your ship. Get out of here.”
Feeling his bruises, the cracks in his bones, the blood streaming down his face, Vor pushed himself up from the ground. He wiped blood from his mouth. “I’m your target, not another innocent person. Not Willem. Not an unborn baby.” He turned to the young man, who stood seething. “I want you to go now, Willem—and be safe. Remember where I told you to go.”
Willem interjected. “No, Vor, I’m coming with you now. We’ll leave together on your ship.”
He shook his head. “I put you in too much danger, and that will be the case for as long as you’re with me. I go alone into my unknown future. For your own sake, for the sake of House Atreides, you’ve got to break away from me. Create your own life, and do well.” He suspected Willem would want to return to see Princess Harmona on Chusuk before going to the Imperial Court on Salusa Secundus. “I’ve provided you with everything you need to succeed. You have leadership qualities. Use them.”
Before Valya could declare another blood vendetta against Willem, Korla stepped forward. “Willem will stay here, under my protection, until these bitches are long gone.” Her scavengers gestured with their weapons. Vor looked at the Queen of Trash, and she gave a brief nod. “Go, Vorian Atreides—take your ship. Fly to safety while we hold them here.”
Oddly, Valya just smiled.
The scavengers, including Horaan Eshdi, kept their weapons trained on the frustrated Sisters. Korla said to Valya, “Once Vorian is away safely, you can all go back to whatever you call home. And don’t bother us again.”
Vor did not feel victorious. He just felt cold inside.
Bleeding from dozens of injuries, he glanced at Willem, whose face was filled with a plea. Vor knew this was the last time he would ever see the young man, and said to him, “I’ve tried to leave my past behind many times already. Maybe this time I will succeed.” He limped off through the rubble, winding his way between the unbalanced spires and collapsed skyscrapers of what had once been the thinking-machine metropolis.
Though held back by all the weapons trained against her, Valya called out, “We will keep coming for you, Vorian Atreides.”
He paused and looked back at her. “I know you will.”
* * *
THE SCAVENGERS DID not lower their guard even after Vor departed.
Willem wanted to lash out at someone; he felt confused and dissatisfied. He was even more sickened by Tula than he had been before, this young woman who had conceived a child just before murdering his brother. What terrible things would the Sisterhood do to that infant, that innocent child? He had to find some way to save it … but how could he continue his quest to murder Tula, if she was the mother of Orry’s child?
The scavengers waited, their weapons ready. Valya and the commando Sisters looked like bombs waiting for a spark to light the fuse. It was obvious that they didn’t like to feel helpless.
“Well, this is a nice little standoff,” Korla remarked.
With an intense, irresistibly evocative Voice, Valya barked, “Drop your weapons.”
Startled, some of the scavengers did, and their projectile rifles clattered on the rubble. The other Sisters prepared to move forward in attack, but the remaining scavengers primed their weapons.
“Not another word from you!” yelled Korla. “You can command some of us with that witchery, but not all of us at the same time. And we’ll gun you down before you can speak again.”
Sheepish, the scavengers who had reacted to the strange vocal command grabbed their projectile rifles again and stood closer. More than a hundred deadly weapons remained targeted on the Sisters.
Willem squirmed, almost wishing they would make a move.
Vorian had been keeping the New Voyager nearby, and in less than ten minutes they heard the powerful takeoff engines building to proper levels. Willem gazed through the debris of broken buildings with tears stinging his eyes, watching for the ship to lift off, taking Vor to a new world, a new life.
How he longed to go with him! Yes, he understood the opportunities that waited for him at the Imperial Court, but he enjoyed being with the legendary hero who had become his mentor, and loved listening to his stories about the Jihad.
“As soon as I see him fly up to orbit, you’re all free to go,” Korla told the Sisters, crossing arms over her chest. “And we’ll be glad to have you gone. Willem, there’s a spacefolder due here in two days. I will escort you to whatever planet you like.”
Frustrated, Willem mumbled under his breath.
With a rushing thrum of engines, Vor’s personal ship lifted off the ground. The ornate, antique vessel climbed slowly and smoothly into the air. Once in orbit, the FTL engines would be engaged and the ship would leave Corrin and Vor’s pursuers behind.
“We will find him again,” Valya vowed. “We will always be watching.” She stared at the ship with an angry expression on her face.
Willem bit off the words. “You’ve accomplished nothing. Vor’s bruises will heal, and he’s been good at eluding you—and everyone else—for a very long time.”
“Maybe his fate will catch up with him,” Valya said.
Suddenly, with a boom that cracked across the sky like thunder, Vor’s ship exploded in midair. Its engines split open in a fiery geyser that ripped the hull apart. The fuel tanks ignited, adding a double, then a triple fireball.
Willem’s mouth dropped open. He collapsed to the ground moaning, hardly able to speak or breathe. The scavengers stared upward at the expanding debris cloud, crying out in shock.
Large pieces of torn, burning wreckage tumbled out of the sky, pattering into the ruins of the machine buildings. In the sky, a blossom of smoke and flames spread out, then faded like spirits drifting away.
Willem began weeping openly, his hands clenched. He wanted to throw himself on Tula or Valya, but Korla saw his mounting violence and nudged him with the end of a projectile rifle. “Don’t do what you’re thinking, boy.”
Mother Superior Valya stared up at the wreckage in the sky, her face a smug, satisfied mask. “There are many paths to victory. That was not my preference, but Vorian Atreides is dead. It’s a triumph I can accept.”
Willem seethed. These women must have found Vorian’s ship and sabotaged it as a contingency plan, as they were closing in on the tunnels where he and Vor had hidden.
Korla was thinking the same thing. “Did you rig his ship to explode?”
Valya sniffed. “You have no proof of that, do you?”
Korla just glowered at her. The ship was barely a smudge in the sky now, all that remained of the legendary Vorian Atreides, the great Hero of the Jihad, the savior of mankind from the thinking machines.
It occurred to Willem that the Jihad had ended here on Corrin decades ago, and this was where the famous Vorian Atreides eventually met his end as well. Willem could not see any way to call it a fitting end for the greatest man he had ever met, or would ever meet. But some would undoubtedly say exactly that.
Valya skewered Willem with her gaze. “Watch yourself, Atreides pup. A vendetta that has burned so brightly for generations will not just fad
e away.” Then she and her commando Sisters turned to leave, heading in the direction of the wreckage that had fallen from the sky.
Where some see treachery, others see opportunity. The definition depends on which side of the issue you are on.
—DIRECTEUR JOSEF VENPORT, final Denali logs
The pointless and unnecessary death of Anna Corrino, as well as the loss of Erasmus, had figuratively cut Josef’s legs out from under him like a cruel parody of Manford Torondo.
With his fleet of Navigator-guided spacefolders, he had the largest commercial enterprise in the history of the Imperium. His operations on Arrakis produced and distributed spice to meet the hungry demands of addicted citizens as well as for Norma’s Navigators. He had envisioned a golden age of advancement and prosperity, the ability for the human race to achieve its dreams.… He had also experienced the pitfalls: the clumsy leadership of Emperor Salvador, the ignorance and superstition espoused by the violent fanatics.
I could have saved them—saved them all. I could have kept humanity out of the dark ages … and yet they insist on marching blindly over the precipice.
All his work was collapsing around him, one huge section at a time, leaving him deeply wounded and isolated. His Denali scientists had come up with no new weapons to save the facility. The vengeful Emperor was tightening his military noose around the planet, willing to sacrifice his own battleships to break through the VenHold defensive cordon, while relentlessly bombing the surface. Josef held on, trying to find some last-ditch defense, hoping for a miracle.
And then Norma simply whisked away all of her Navigator ships, leaving Denali exposed.
The VenHold fleet that had been standing as the defensive barrier against the Imperial ships just … vanished into space! Then, with Denali suddenly unprotected, the Imperial fleet surged in.
Josef stared at the screen, unable to believe what had just happened. Norma had done the same thing to him at Salusa, and now he howled out her name, railing at her. “Why are you trying to destroy me?”
She did not respond.
Standing in the operations center of the main laboratory dome, he collapsed to the deck. After achieving so much, on such a huge scale, he had lost everything. He could not prevent Roderick’s victory now.
The continuing bombardment from orbit targeted the area around the laboratory domes. Several explosions had wrecked the warehouses and habitation shelters around the perimeter; one blast destroyed a cymek walker as it patrolled the poisonous landscape. Without even delivering an ultimatum, Emperor Roderick sent down a flood of ground troops to take over the base.
Josef turned away from the images of the oncoming ships on the screens and faced his Mentat, who asked him, “Now that Roderick knows Anna is dead, he could simply carpet bomb this installation and kill everyone in the domes. Why take the risk of a ground assault?” Draigo pursed his lips and postulated, “It is possible he does not wish the collateral loss of life among the other Denali scientists. He may want to salvage and co-opt our research.”
With a sinking feeling, Josef realized that he knew the answer. “No, it’s because he wants to take me alive—to disgrace me and drag me before the highest court in the Imperium on trumped-up charges. For the time being, no matter what happens, he will let me live.” His face burned with helpless anger. What a fool he had been to trust the Emperor! He muttered to himself, “I used to consider Roderick Corrino a reasonable man, but I’m willing to bet he will choose one of Salvador’s barbarian execution methods.”
His eyes stung, and he had trouble breathing. Considering the alternative, suicide might be a better option, but he wasn’t ready to take that long, dark plunge. It was never an option that Josef Venport would consider. He didn’t want such a disgrace to be his final act, the thing that people would remember about him. After all he had accomplished, all he had dreamed—what would Cioba think?
As the Directeur, he had handled multiple business, political, and military crises, always finding a way to juggle one of them against the others, to pull an unorthodox solution from the rubble of possibilities. But even he could not mitigate so many betrayals, so many disasters, so many inconceivable setbacks hitting him at the same time.
* * *
HUNDREDS OF TROOP transports descended through the murky skies to alight around the Denali complex. The nine remaining patrol cymeks scuttled toward the troop carriers to attack them as they landed. With powerful walker arms, they ripped open the hulls, exposing the human crews to the deadly atmosphere. The last cymeks destroyed five transports, immobilizing and crushing them all, but more Imperial ships kept landing in a rocky open area within reach of the facility, and exo-suited soldiers stormed across the terrain toward the domes. These fighters for the Emperor were far more heavily armed than the Butlerian mobs had been.
As Josef watched on the screens in his office stronghold, he saw hangar doors open in two of the warehouse domes, and ranks of refurbished combat meks marched out onto the hostile landscape of Denali. Erasmus had reprogrammed the fighting robots out there. Even though the independent robot was gone now, the combat meks marched out of their own volition.
“Mentat, report,” Josef said.
“Erasmus must have programmed them to respond in the event of a crisis,” Draigo said. “Maybe to protect himself, or possibly more than that. Not all of the meks are operational—many were still in bad condition the last time he gave me an inspection tour.”
“But some are functional enough.” Josef felt a surge of hope as more and more of the combat robots streamed out to face the attackers. “Will they be enough to turn the tide?”
“Doubtful, Directeur,” Draigo said. “But at least we have a chance at defense now.”
The first wave of the exo-suited Imperial soldiers found themselves facing an enemy they had not expected … hundreds of burly, lurching combat robots. “Fighting meks!” a captain called through the comm.
The Imperial soldiers had been trained to expect a fight, though, and their commanders had not underestimated what exotic defenses the Denali weapons scientists might raise against them. The suited Imperial soldiers turned their heavy weapons against the mechanical army from the past.
The fighting meks pushed forward in an uneven surge, targeting both landed ships and fighters. Thanks to the caustic atmosphere, their body metal was tarnished and corroded; some of their segmented limbs hung useless. But they were relentless. The machines skittered forward like a nightmare from the Jihad.
Imperial pulse weapons mowed them down, but the corroded robots kept coming. Once the first ranks reached close combat, the meks began to kill the Imperial soldiers by gashing their protective suits or tearing off their breathing helmets. Even a minor breach of the seal was enough to make them collapse.
The Imperial soldiers fell back to the shelter of the landed carriers, and from there they mounted a defense against the combat meks. The landers themselves had offensive weapons that drove back the machine advance. Many of the corroded robots malfunctioned and were unable to keep moving forward. The Emperor’s fighters picked them off from their defensive positions, holding firm with their concentrated barrage.
Over the course of several hours, the exo-suited soldiers suffered casualties, but they neutralized the majority of the fighting robots. Then they regrouped and charged toward the sealed laboratory domes, and proceeded to break into them.
* * *
FROM WITHIN NOFFE’S old administration chamber, Josef could hear the shouts as some of the airlocks were breached. The previously muted alarms came back on, and he felt cornered. Norma had abandoned him without a word of explanation, and he could not begin to grasp why she would do so. Was there another raid on the spice operations at Arrakis? He had already left so many of his defenses there … and he could sorely use them here at Denali.
Surely, Norma knew what Emperor Roderick would do to him once he was captured. She had to know she was leaving him to die. She simply couldn’t be as oblivious and detached as sh
e seemed. No, Norma had done this intentionally—abandoned him. His great-grandmother, his business partner … and after all he had given her, all the concessions he had made so that she could continue to develop her precious Navigators. Many people had turned against him, but this was the one betrayal Josef had never expected.
The universe is ours, she always said. But apparently she was content to have a universe without Josef in it.
Draigo returned to report that the last of the combat meks had fallen and that the occupying forces were now unhindered. The Mentat ran a hand nervously through his black hair. “I cannot project any viable option for our victory, Directeur—or for your escape.”
Josef looked at the images being transmitted from outside. Imperial soldiers had already breached the hangar airlocks and overrun several laboratories. They were seizing Denali scientists and confining them in makeshift holding cells; some researchers were killed outright if they tried to flee or resist.
He was grimly pleased to see Tlulaxa scientists slow the advance of the Imperials. In one of the biological domes, they unleashed three prototype biomechanical borers—insidious lampreys with metallic teeth that lunged forward to attack the soldiers. Oh, if only those could have been manufactured in great numbers and then turned loose on a superstitious mob of fanatics! Josef had not imagined using the borers against Imperial soldiers, but the cornered scientists were desperate and resourceful.
In the end, though, it wasn’t enough.
The biomechanical lampreys lashed and struck, chewing and tunneling. Three Imperials were killed, half eaten before the prototype machine creatures were neutralized. Then the enraged soldiers turned their weapons on the cowering Tlulaxa scientists and massacred them.
More suited troops kept pushing in through the laboratory domes, taking and holding one corridor after another, one chamber after another. They made their way methodically to the administration dome—and Josef had nowhere else to run.
As he and his Mentat stood together in the administration chamber, Draigo said to Josef, “Permit me to act as negotiator, Directeur. I will present myself as your representative and arrange to save our scientists and our important research. I may be able to salvage something out of this.”
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