Brian Herbert - Navigators of Dune

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 fade away.” Then she and her commando Sisters turned to leave, heading in the direction of the wreckage that had fallen from the sky.

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.