Navigators of Dune

How he longed to go with him! Yes, he understood the opportunities that waited for him at the Imperial Court, but he enjoyed being with the legendary hero who had become his mentor, and loved listening to his stories about the Jihad.

“As soon as I see him fly up to orbit, you’re all free to go,” Korla told the Sisters, crossing arms over her chest. “And we’ll be glad to have you gone. Willem, there’s a spacefolder due here in two days. I will escort you to whatever planet you like.”

Frustrated, Willem mumbled under his breath.

With a rushing thrum of engines, Vor’s personal ship lifted off the ground. The ornate, antique vessel climbed slowly and smoothly into the air. Once in orbit, the FTL engines would be engaged and the ship would leave Corrin and Vor’s pursuers behind.

“We will find him again,” Valya vowed. “We will always be watching.” She stared at the ship with an angry expression on her face.

Willem bit off the words. “You’ve accomplished nothing. Vor’s bruises will heal, and he’s been good at eluding you—and everyone else—for a very long time.”

“Maybe his fate will catch up with him,” Valya said.

Suddenly, with a boom that cracked across the sky like thunder, Vor’s ship exploded in midair. Its engines split open in a fiery geyser that ripped the hull apart. The fuel tanks ignited, adding a double, then a triple fireball.

Willem’s mouth dropped open. He collapsed to the ground moaning, hardly able to speak or breathe. The scavengers stared upward at the expanding debris cloud, crying out in shock.

Large pieces of torn, burning wreckage tumbled out of the sky, pattering into the ruins of the machine buildings. In the sky, a blossom of smoke and flames spread out, then faded like spirits drifting away.

Willem began weeping openly, his hands clenched. He wanted to throw himself on Tula or Valya, but Korla saw his mounting violence and nudged him with the end of a projectile rifle. “Don’t do what you’re thinking, boy.”

Mother Superior Valya stared up at the wreckage in the sky, her face a smug, satisfied mask. “There are many paths to victory. That was not my preference, but Vorian Atreides is dead. It’s a triumph I can accept.”

Willem seethed. These women must have found Vorian’s ship and sabotaged it as a contingency plan, as they were closing in on the tunnels where he and Vor had hidden.

Korla was thinking the same thing. “Did you rig his ship to explode?”

Valya sniffed. “You have no proof of that, do you?”

Korla just glowered at her. The ship was barely a smudge in the sky now, all that remained of the legendary Vorian Atreides, the great Hero of the Jihad, the savior of mankind from the thinking machines.

It occurred to Willem that the Jihad had ended here on Corrin decades ago, and this was where the famous Vorian Atreides eventually met his end as well. Willem could not see any way to call it a fitting end for the greatest man he had ever met, or would ever meet. But some would undoubtedly say exactly that.

Valya skewered Willem with her gaze. “Watch yourself, Atreides pup. A vendetta that has burned so brightly for generations will not just fade away.” Then she and her commando Sisters turned to leave, heading in the direction of the wreckage that had fallen from the sky.

Where some see treachery, others see opportunity. The definition depends on which side of the issue you are on.

—DIRECTEUR JOSEF VENPORT, final Denali logs

The pointless and unnecessary death of Anna Corrino, as well as the loss of Erasmus, had figuratively cut Josef’s legs out from under him like a cruel parody of Manford Torondo.

With his fleet of Navigator-guided spacefolders, he had the largest commercial enterprise in the history of the Imperium. His operations on Arrakis produced and distributed spice to meet the hungry demands of addicted citizens as well as for Norma’s Navigators. He had envisioned a golden age of advancement and prosperity, the ability for the human race to achieve its dreams.… He had also experienced the pitfalls: the clumsy leadership of Emperor Salvador, the ignorance and superstition espoused by the violent fanatics.

I could have saved them—saved them all. I could have kept humanity out of the dark ages … and yet they insist on marching blindly over the precipice.

All his work was collapsing around him, one huge section at a time, leaving him deeply wounded and isolated. His Denali scientists had come up with no new weapons to save the facility. The vengeful Emperor was tightening his military noose around the planet, willing to sacrifice his own battleships to break through the VenHold defensive cordon, while relentlessly bombing the surface. Josef held on, trying to find some last-ditch defense, hoping for a miracle.