Brian Herbert - Navigators of Dune

Hundreds of thousands of Butlerians took down every last one of the rampaging cymeks. The fanatics paid an unspeakably high cost in blood—but they won.

Letting the mayhem continue on its own, Anari went back and wept over the torn remnants of Manford’s body. She cursed herself for failing to die in his place. She should be the one torn apart. Manford should still be alive!

Now, in her terrible misery, she understood exactly how Manford had felt when he held the mangled remains of his beloved Rayna in the wake of the assassin’s bomb blast. Yet Manford had used that anguish and fury to become a bright new flame, the next leader of the Butlerians.

A position he could no longer hold.

Anari touched Manford’s blood-soaked shirt, felt a hard, flat object inside, and drew out the stained icon painting of Rayna Butler surrounded by a halo of purity. He had treasured this, carried it with him every waking moment. Anari Idaho clasped the icon against her breast, feeling a warmth of love, and knowing exactly what Manford and Rayna would want her to do now.

The Butlerians needed a new leader.

SHAKEN BY THE surprise arrival of the Imperial ships, Draigo Roget scrambled to the flickering tactical console of the flagship. “We are betrayed, Directeur.” Harte’s fleet had plunged in from nowhere, opened fire on their unshielded ships. “The Emperor is attacking us.”

“But we are here on Roderick’s own orders!”

The Mentat said, “They hit us right when we were most vulnerable. A masterful treachery.”

The realization sickened Josef. “The Emperor sent them here to crush us while our shields were down and our backs were turned. Get those shields back up!”

Harte’s attack caused enormous damage to Josef’s flagship in the brief moments before the crew could reactivate their Holtzman shields. Meanwhile, on the live feeds from his cymek army down below, he was appalled to see one warrior machine after another go off-line, destroyed by hordes of savages.

Josef ordered his warships to ignore the pathetic scraps of Manford’s fleet and open fire on the Imperial vessels instead. They responded, but Draigo gave a grim Mentat assessment. “After the space battle, our weapons are mostly depleted, Directeur. Even our restored shields are far weaker than they should be. We have suffered great damage.”

Under concentrated Imperial fire, one more VenHold ship fell, its hull ripped open and engines blown off-line; the dying vessel drifted, a dark hulk in space among the other wreckage.

Josef tore the words out of his throat. “These—losses—are— unacceptable! ”

Norma Cenva’s voice blared across the static and sparks of the flagship’s bridge. “My prescience did not warn me of this attack. Now too many of my Navigators are lost and we must retreat.”

Josef knew she was right. Admiral Harte intended to wipe them out—and had the weaponry to do so. Their shields were weakening, and their depleted weapons were no match for this large unexpected force. They had been cheated by the Emperor himself.

At least his vessels were faster, since Harte’s ships did not have Holtzman engines. “Tell your Navigators, Grandmother! Withdraw whatever ships remain.”

“They will expect us to go to Arrakis, Directeur,” Draigo said.

“Arrakis is well protected—no, we should go to our Denali stronghold, where they’ll never find us. Grandmother, set our course.”

The Imperial fleet continued to fire, causing more and more damage, and Josef needed to buy just another few moments as the Holtzman engines built up enough power to fold space.

He had one last card to play. It would be a close thing.

He transmitted a parting shot designed to make the Emperor think twice. “Admiral, you should know that Anna Corrino is safe in my custody. Her life is in my hands. Consider your next actions with extreme care. Unless you cease firing immediately, the Emperor will never see his sister again.”

On the comm screen, Harte was livid, but he did call off the continuing weapons barrage. “Directeur, I demand—”

The Imperial ships withdrew for just a moment, and it was enough time. The flagship’s Holtzman engines thrummed as Josef spun to face the Navigator tank. “Now, Grandmother.”

All the remaining VenHold ships vanished.

Under the ruins of Corrin where he had made his new home, Vor awoke to the sound of screaming—many people in terrible agony. He was instantly alert. Had Valya Harkonnen come here with assassins?

The screams! As he bolted out of his sleeping chamber into a connecting tunnel, he experienced a bright flashback from the first century of the Jihad: There had been an explosion below decks during a space battle, and backwash fires had caused emergency bulkhead doors to seal the engine compartment. Vor and his fellow soldiers had tried unsuccessfully to free the trapped engineers, and they heard the screams of the men and women being roasted alive for ten of the longest minutes of his life.…

This sounded just as horrific.

His reflexes kicking in, Vor ran toward the screams with no thought for his own safety. He had survived countless challenges in his life, but merely surviving was not enough. Vorian Atreides had been programmed to help others.

In the dimly lit tunnels, numerous doorways led to sleeping compartments, and more of the ragtag scavengers began to emerge as he ran by. Vor didn’t answer their shouted questions, asking him what was going on, couldn’t take the time to reply. He just kept running toward the screams, his mind churning with his own questions. Had the Harkonnens launched a military attack on Corrin? Would they strike the entire settlement just to get at him?

But would Tula or Valya be so blatantly destructive? He didn’t think so. They would want to get me. Personally.

The screams continued outside, and it occurred to him that this might be a trap, designed to lure him out. He ignored the worry.

Ahead, a strange glow shimmered from where a stairway descended to the larger and deeper main tunnel. He peered down to see a river of silvery liquid gushing through the lower tunnel like flowing metal blood, a living substance that pulsed like a mindless amoeba … and frantic scavengers were caught in the powerful flow. Like drowning victims, they flailed their arms and yelled for help. Some wore protective suits, but most were vulnerable. The malicious quicksilver engulfed them. Even as they struggled to get away, the powerful flow seemed to fight back, pulling them under.

Choking on the thick, bitter tang in the air, Vor scrambled down the stairs to reach the trapped scavengers. Their resonance extraction operations had somehow broken down the flowmetal and left it unconstrained. Now it seemed to be on a mindless rampage.

A wiry woman in a protective suit floated toward him in the current, struggling to stay above the surface; her face was covered by a half-mask breather. Boxy equipment floated alongside her, a set of the resonance manipulators that Korla’s people used to extract flowmetal from the ruins. A deep mining team must have triggered this unexpected backlash, and Vor didn’t know how it would ever stop.

The desperate woman yelled something that was muffled by her mask. She reached out to Vor, and he grabbed hold of her gloved hand. Because she was coated with a film of flowmetal, his grip nearly slipped off, but he clenched tighter and used his other hand to grab her by the elbow. He hoisted her onto the stairway, where she shuddered, dripping silvery liquid and retching.