Brian Herbert - Navigators of Dune

Vor intended for Valya and Tula Harkonnen to find him—but on his own terms. He didn’t want to be blindsided, as they had been on Chusuk. Vor and Willem were lucky to have survived that; next time, he needed to see the enemy coming.

Without notifying Korla or anyone else, Vor used a specialized tool to unlock a chamber he knew was unoccupied—the home of one of the dead miners from the recent flood of liquid metal. He left their previous quarters locked so that a casual observer—or a dedicated assassin—would think they still lived there.

After the other scavengers were asleep, he and Willem took their meager belongings and moved quietly in the darkness. Vor also left tiny monitoring devices on the tunnel walls, particularly just outside his former chamber, which would alert him to any tampering. He had spent several weeks preparing for the eventual attack, building up secret defenses, even implanting tiny but powerful explosives in inconspicuous places, as an added surprise.

Feeling momentarily safe in their new hidden room, Vor sat on a wall bench, taking first watch while Willem caught some sleep on one of the bunks. After three hours, he would awaken the young man, and they would switch places. The darkness around them was illuminated only by the faint glow of a holo display that transmitted a projection of the tunnels. At present, it showed only the dim, empty passageways and numerous sealed chambers where the scavengers slept.

Vor checked the weapons kit secured to his waist; Willem had one of his own in a storage alcove next to his bunk. Each kit contained a knife, a projectile pistol, compact tools, and a pry bar.

Vor liked this room because it was one of several that had an emergency escape hatch on the rear wall. When he’d broken his way inside and checked the rear exit, he was quite satisfied. The back hatch led out into an adjacent tunnel and up to the desolate surface.

On the bunk, Willem fell into a fitful sleep, but Vor remained alert, staring at the motionless holoprojection of the tunnels. Watching.

OUTSIDE, THE REMAINING members of the Sisterhood squads slid invisibly through the ruddy gloom, converging on the scavenger settlement. The women had discovered numerous ways into the warren settlement, but now they focused on a rarely used venting system that granted them access to the tunnels.

When Valya, Tula, and two other commando Sisters passed through a nondescript hatch into the deep protected rooms below, Tula entered before her sister. Valya glanced behind her into the brooding night, then entered and closed the hatch quietly behind them. The team descended into the complex, reaching the corridors of barricaded sleeping rooms.

Working with nimble fingers, Sister Ninke used tools to disconnect the crude alarm system from the first sealed door. After finishing, she stepped back to let one of the other commandos open it carefully. Even with the security systems disabled, the old salvaged door squeaked.

Inside the dim room, two figures stirred, men who reacted to the unexpected noise, but not fast enough. In a blur, Cindel fell on the first man with her dagger, while Valya slipped past them and killed the second man. The men hardly uttered any sounds. Valya could not afford an alarm being sounded now.

Illuminating a small handlight, Tula shone a glow into the faces of the two victims, but both were older, dark-skinned men. Neither was an Atreides, but Valya had not expected the mission to be so easy.

Moving through the room, she opened the opposite door that led into the larger complex. Down the passageway, she spotted other stealthy figures moving. Good, another of her commando squads had already gotten inside, and moments later she received a signal confirming that the third one had entered as well. They began the full search.

Now they could all hunt, and soon the task would be completed. They would find the two Atreides quickly enough.

AFTER SITTING MOTIONLESS, awake but drifting into a meditative state, Vor snapped to full awareness when he saw a flicker of motion on the holo-image. Sleek, dark shapes were moving through the enclave—where they definitely did not belong. He nudged Willem, put a hand over the young man’s mouth as he awoke, and pointed at the display.

Willem silently grabbed his weapons kit from the alcove. Vor already had his. They were both ready. The two men watched the female shapes glide like oil through the tunnels to converge outside Vor’s previous room. The dark figures paused, regrouped, and then forced their way inside.

Vor gripped his weapons, knowing that the chamber was empty. Moments later, the dark-garbed women were back outside, huddling together in obvious confusion. Then they began hunting again.

“Be ready,” he whispered. Willem was perspiring and breathing unevenly as he tried to keep himself calm. “I knew they’d come.”

The images were dark and indistinct, but Vor decided one figure clearly resembled Tula Harkonnen; if it was Tula, then Valya might be with her, to make certain the attack was successful. He was hoping for that.

Watching them, he decided to take action of his own. He had planned for this. Counting down the seconds, he touched a trigger to activate explosives he’d implanted in the walls. The roar of the detonation sent shock waves through the tunnels. On the portable screen, he saw dark-clad bodies slamming into the walls … and then sections of the unstable tunnels sliding down in collapse.

Korla and the rest of the scavengers would be awake now. Vor needed to take charge of the crisis.

In the flickering projection on the damaged imager, Vor saw several of the strangers lying motionless, while others bounded away. He had not expected to kill them all; this was just the first step, but he was ready to deal with them. He counted three bodies, wasn’t sure who they were, but hoped …

Willem looked at him with shining eyes. “For Orry.”

Vor nodded. “Let’s go.”

One of the surviving women discovered the implanted imager. She scanned the device, followed the signal, and then plucked it out of the wall. Just before the holo dissolved into a smoke of static, Vor saw her point down the tunnels toward his hiding place. The commandos raced along the passageway, heading in his direction. Then the screen showed nothing but static.

Cursing, Vor grabbed his companion’s arm and pushed him toward the rear escape hatch and out into the side corridor. Willem gasped as they ran, “Did you see them? What sort of weapons do they have?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I don’t like what I saw.”

Underground alarms sounded; bright amber lights strobed inside the stairwells. Vor and Willem fled in silence. Reaching the last doorway at the top of the steep stairwell, they burst outside onto the rubble-strewn surface. Under the starry night of Corrin, the rough landscape appeared even more otherworldly than in daylight. Vor hurried Willem to the other side of a slag pile, where they hid. His ship wasn’t far away, out in the open, but he had no intention of running now that he had lured the Harkonnens here.

Before long, he heard a voice call out. “Vorian Atreides, this is Valya Harkonnen. Your traps and tricks can’t stop us. Enough running. It’s time to face the justice you deserve—to bring honor back to our house and death to yours.”

Vor and Willem both withdrew compact projectile pistols from their weapons kits and prepared to fire.

“You could keep hiding,” Valya shouted, “or you could come out and accept our challenge. You know that’s the way it’s destined to be, Atreides—us against you. Do you accept, or are you cowards?”

In the moonlight, Vor spotted the two Harkonnen women in dark singlesuits, while four other women emerged behind them. He wondered how many more there were.