Navigators of Dune

His staff took orders. “To show my Imperial generosity, I will send construction teams to rebuild Empok, funded by my own treasury.” He knew Haditha would approve. “We’ll raze the old city, burn all the remnants. I want nothing left of the place where Manford fell: no memorials, no statues, no rallying point. They will have a whole new Imperial-class city on this spot.”

Admiral Harte nodded.

“And the job isn’t finished. We still have to force the unconditional surrender of Directeur Venport—and get Anna back. Continue the investigation and interrogations, Admiral. I need to know where he went.”

The fall from complete triumph to abject defeat is a great distance, but can take very little time.

—DIRECTEUR JOSEF VENPORT, personal log, Denali laboratories

It was a full-blown retreat—Josef could think of no other way to say it, no way to sugarcoat it. He couldn’t label it as a “commercial setback” or “disruption of trade activities.” This was completely different.

The universe had gone mad, yet he refused to admit defeat.

He’d been hammered by fanatical Butlerian suicide runs, maniacs who used atomics, who fired lasguns at shielded ships. And then, just after he had crushed the fanatics, Imperial ships attacked him in the lowest form of treachery. Betrayed by Roderick Corrino—the man Josef had personally placed on the Imperial throne. I should have known not to trust him.

It was a bitter pill to swallow. Josef had devoted his efforts and his fortune to saving civilization, and now they were trying to destroy him from every quarter. To hell with them all! He would find a way to come back on his own terms.

After Admiral Harte’s shameful, backstabbing attack, the remaining VenHold ships had reeled away, heavily damaged. Dozens of Josef’s wrecked vessels had been left around Lampadas, as he had been unable to retrieve the crippled vessels from orbit. Another terrible loss …

When his fleet regrouped around the secure site of Denali, Josef ordered his engineers to make as many repairs as possible. The secret Denali laboratories had been designed for research and development rather than heavy assembly, but they were the only option he had. The main Kolhar industrial facilities were nothing more than radioactive slag.

But his people had always been innovative, breaking rules and achieving the unexpected. They would do so again. He needed his fleet back in shape and ready to fight.

Standing next to a pale Draigo Roget aboard the flagship, Josef kept shaking his head in dismay. This was the low point of his entire life and career. “The Emperor made a bargain with me. I destroyed Manford exactly as he instructed me to do. I wanted to put the Imperium back together.”

“Apparently, Emperor Roderick had plans of his own,” Draigo said.

Josef felt his face burn. “At least now he knows that I hold his sister hostage. He has always made this disagreement personal, and I’ve just made it more personal yet. If he doesn’t come to terms now, maybe I’ll send her back to Salusa, piece by piece … to pay him back for this betrayal.”

But it was an empty threat, and he knew it. Anna was his last asset, the only remaining lever he could use to move Roderick.

He felt a chill as he remembered that Cioba was also being held on Salusa. What would the Emperor do to her if anything happened to Anna? Josef knew that his wife was incredibly resourceful, not just due to her Sisterhood training but also because of her Sorceress blood. He was sure Roderick Corrino would underestimate her, and he hoped Cioba would get herself to safety. He worried about her.

Not long ago, Josef had expected to return here victorious, with the Butlerian problem resolved and VenHold restored to the Emperor’s good graces. As soon as Josef had restored business as usual to the Imperium, without the antitechnology fanatics, he had even considered offering Denali scientific advances to the Imperium at large, in the name of progress and prosperity for all of humankind. He would have delivered Anna Corrino unharmed, a bargaining chip no longer needed, a peace offering. That should have ended the dispute.

But Josef had killed one irrational fanatic only to be betrayed by another. It was time to reassess, and take an entirely different tack.

His remaining ships orbited high above the poisonous atmosphere of Denali. Josef’s throat felt raw from shouting his outrage, and even his Mentat remained silent now, internally making projections, trying to find some alternate way to recapture the lost prominence of Venport Holdings. Josef ransacked his own mind, because he’d always been able to find solutions. But he came up empty now.