Brian Herbert - Navigators of Dune

Once the great ships were sealed, the Navigators simply winked them out of existence, disappearing from the ground and reappearing in far orbit above Kolhar, bypassing normal dimensional paths to get around the planetary shields.

But even in orbit, they were far from safe.

MANFORD TORONDO’S FLEET appeared without warning.

The faithful aboard had been drilled en route from Salusa Secundus, and every person knew their role. The captains of the 115 ships fully understood Manford’s plan.

At first, his faithful had been horrified to learn about the stockpile of atomics that Anari had distributed among their vessels—atomics exactly like the ones that had devastated so many thinking-machine worlds. Despite the current prohibition against such doomsday weapons, the Butlerians did relish the idea of bombarding the headquarters of the machine lovers.

Manford knew that Directeur Venport had no chance against such an onslaught, but he also knew that his forces could not afford a prolonged space conflict against superior enemy warships. He had to saturate Kolhar with the atomics and then leave as quickly as possible.

When his Butlerian spacefolders emerged into real space and accelerated toward the planet, he looked across at Anari, who was staring through the windowport at their destination ahead. The Swordmaster contacted the other captains, then gave him a hard grin. “Only two of our vessels were lost in transit, Manford—navigation errors. Acceptable losses for a mission such as this. We have no need of the monster Navigators Venport uses. Your followers are blessed, and we are destined to achieve a great victory today.”

“Indeed we are, Anari.”

Manford was familiar with the history of Serena Butler’s Jihad, the climactic bloodbath of atomic devastation that wiped out countless Synchronized Worlds, and he had supplemented this knowledge by reading the Erasmus journals, which recounted the horrific final attack on Corrin. Manford knew exactly what was about to happen now—and looked forward to it.

Impossibly, though, someone had alerted Josef Venport ahead of time. The devil’s defenders were ready, a fleet of warships with weapons activated, and the planetary shields increased. Two large VenHold carriers appeared high above the planet, evacuating, but he was focused on the heavily armored vessels standing between him and Kolhar.

Under normal circumstances, Manford’s fleet would have been cut to ribbons in a full-fledged battle. They could not have breached the orbital defenses with conventional weapons, much less destroyed the planetary shields. But Manford had something the Directeur would not expect.

As VenHold warships opened fire on his fleet, the Butlerian leader smiled.

Anari gave the ominous order. Manford’s first five vessels surged forward to launch atomic projectiles, paying no heed to the VenHold battleships standing against them. The nuclear warheads detonated in the atmosphere like small, brilliant suns. Energy shock waves swept the VenHold ships aside like a child scattering unwanted toys.

Like incandescent battering rams in space, three more strategically fired atomics stunned the last effective Kolhar defenses, and the planetary shields began to go off-line.

Manford took a moment to enjoy what he was seeing as the rest of his holy fleet charged into the open wound. “Unleash our warheads—every single one. I do not want any survivors left on that accursed planet, human or animal. The whole place is contaminated.”

These powerful weapons would grant him a glorious victory, but they also made him feel soiled. Yet, he could think of no more satisfying way to dispose of them all.

The next wave of atomics obliterated the planetary shields above VenHold’s industrial facilities, and Manford knew that his fifty remaining warheads would be more than sufficient to finish the job.

THE TWO VENHOLD carriers pulled away, rescuing all of the proto-Navigator tanks as well as any refugees who had rushed aboard at the last moment. Josef watched in horror as massive detonations wiped out his defensive ships and planetary shields. Then explosion after explosion blistered the surface of Kolhar and eradicated the spaceports, cities, outposts … and all living things.

“Atomics!” Cioba cried. She squeezed her husband’s hand so tightly he thought she might break his bones. “I can’t believe that even the barbarians would dare!”

A few defensive VenHold ships managed to limp away, and some of the Butlerian forces broke formation to pursue them like ravenous hyenas.

Josef’s thoughts went wild. Such weapons were utterly forbidden in the Imperium. Atomics! Emperor Roderick would never have authorized this strike—Manford Torondo and all his followers would now be shunned, banished from imperial society.

Or … would Roderick gloss over the horrendous war crime as the price of vengeance? Josef was sickened. Did the Emperor even know about this?

The VenHold spacefolders began to accelerate as they escaped. With waves of detonations behind them, Josef knew there was nothing he could save on Kolhar. The planet would be a radioactive wasteland, uninhabitable for decades. He didn’t want to think about the death toll down there.

Josef had the Navigators send messages to any remnants of his fleet, and tell them to join him where he was going. He needed to go someplace safe where he could think—and plan his counterattack.

“Take us to Arrakis,” he said. “We’ll be safe there. For now.”

Anna Corrino remained by his side every day, talking about the most trivial matters, engaging in seemingly endless conversations, so that Erasmus longed for the times when he had been in full control of their relationship. Back at the Mentat School, he had expended a great deal of effort to shape her to be this way, to reconfigure her malleable mind so that she was focused on him. Instead of this, he wished for the frustrating, but intellectually challenging, resistance of a strong woman like Serena Butler.

Anna also required frequent reassuring physical contact from him. Even when she could see him standing right next to her, she would touch his arm, as if she didn’t believe he truly existed in this form. From a psychological standpoint, Erasmus understood the need of a damaged person, but the distractions were beginning to interfere with the progress of his other important experiments.

In order to have some time alone and undisturbed, he found himself concocting tasks to keep Anna busy. He sent her off to collect the former human names of the failed Navigator brains in their tanks, which took her hours. It was not necessary, or even interesting, information, because he didn’t care about their prior identities, or personal histories.

After Anna returned with a full list of names, he asked her to find out which planets had been the original homes of the exiled Denali researchers; many were Tlulaxa, but others came from different planets that had also been oppressed by Butlerian fanaticism. Again, he had no use for that information, but she went off to do whatever he asked, and found the people to direct her to the records. It kept her happy to think she was contributing to his research. This task took her two days, and Anna completed it with such dedication that he realized he could perhaps rely on her for real work.

Erasmus also wanted to travel to the recovery operations with the old robot ships, but Draigo Roget would not allow him to leave the research planet. He was able to review Hana Elkora’s reports, however, and allowed Anna to look over his shoulder. He found her presence irritating, but wanted to see what she could do that was worthwhile, and also knew what the emotional consequences would be if he told her to leave him alone.