Navigators of Dune

Without a word of warning or cry for help, she grabbed him in his room, raced to the open window, and lowered him to the ground outside. After she dove through, she snatched him up and bounded away into the darkness. Holding him in her muscular arms, she practically leaped across the landscape.

Behind them, the cymeks were getting closer, their path obvious from the explosions, the fires, the screams.

“Where are you taking me?” Manford protested. “Those are my people being massacred!”

“They are giving their lives so you can escape. If we’re cornered, I will defend you as long as I can.”

She glared back at the towering machines, remembering when she had slain combat meks as a game during her Swordmaster training on Ginaz. In that controlled exercise, it had taken a team of well-trained warriors to bring down even the smallest war machine.

She was alone now, and there were three of the things.

Gasping for breath, Anari ran across the surrounding grain fields. It was late in the harvest season and many fields had only a stubble of stems and straw. No place to hide. Ahead, she spotted five shadowy heaps of hay piled up for livestock. The hay would have its own internal heat, maybe enough to mask Manford’s thermal signature. Maybe. She couldn’t run far enough, and no normal hiding place would be proof against the cymeks. That was her best chance right now.

She reached the nearest haystack. “In here, Manford.”

He flailed. “How can I hide? I’ll be found too easily.”

“You’ll be unseen. The natural heat inside should mask you.” She moved loose hay aside and stuffed his legless body into the pile. “Stay here and don’t move. Wait for me to come back for you.”

He nodded, obeying Anari because he believed in her. He must realize they had little chance otherwise.

After securing him, Anari watched the cymeks use a flame weapon to incinerate a group of brave defenders near Manford’s cottage. Raising her sword, Anari ran toward them, intending to fight to the death; she also hoped to draw their attention away from Manford’s hiding place. She longed to stand in front of those machines and give up her life for the sacred fight, but she could not leave Manford unprotected. She had to survive.

As she ran, Anari watched the cymeks fall upon the cottage, tearing down the fieldstone walls and ripping off the roof as if they were peeling a boiled egg. Articulated metal arms reached in and grasped a black-robed woman, who screamed and flailed. Sister Woodra. One of the cymeks held her up in the air, lifted a second clawed metal arm, and ripped her in two, like tearing apart a doll. Satisfied, the machine demon tossed the two parts of her ragged, bloody corpse in different directions.

The monsters leveled Manford’s home, but failed to find him there. Impatient and furious, they marched across the landscape, launching more explosions, causing more destruction.

Screaming in rage, Anari ran after them, brandishing her sword, but the cymeks moved in the other direction, wrecking clusters of homes, setting more buildings on fire. Though outraged and weeping, she took solace in the fact that they were going away from Manford’s hiding place.

An hour later, leaving a swath of destruction behind them, the cymeks returned to their drop-pods and launched themselves into the sky, like fiery meteors in reverse.

In the aftermath, Anari stood helpless, holding her sword. She couldn’t guess how many hundreds—thousands?—had been slain this night, and she grieved for them. Nevertheless, she felt a steely joy in knowing that she had saved Manford. At least he was still alive!

She ran back to retrieve him from his concealment, already considering their retaliation against the vile Josef Venport.

Though loyalty is an admirable quality, it is often misplaced.

—DIRECTEUR JOSEF VENPORT, private consultation with Draigo Roget

Preoccupied with building up Kolhar’s defenses, Josef had allowed his grasp on Arrakis spice production to slip. Norma was agitated and needed him to accompany her to the desert planet, where he could crack down on the chaos and restore the melange-harvesting operations.

Before he could head off to Arrakis, though, Josef needed to take care of one more item of business. He shuttled up to the large foldspace carrier in orbit, which served as a detention vessel holding the Imperial battle group he had taken hostage.