Navigators of Dune

72

Though she was Mother Superior with responsibility for the entire Sisterhood, Valya was also a Harkonnen military commander on a vital personal mission. So much of her life had been focused on one man, one target, that his loathsome face came to her in nightmares.

Vorian Atreides.

Now, thanks to a direct report from Truthsayer Fielle, as well as additional rumors, Valya knew where the Atreides fox had gone to ground: out in the old remnants of the thinking-machine empire, at Corrin — the very planet where he betrayed and disgraced her ancestor, Abulurd Harkonnen. It was a particular insult.

But the man couldn’t hide from her. Valya had found him. For Vorian Atreides, there was no refuge, anywhere. Tula’s bodyguards had left the job unfinished on Chusuk, because those Sisters had not understood the true import of that enemy. Valya would not make that mistake.

She could have dispatched a team of anonymous killers to hunt him down — there were enough skilled assassins on Wallach IX to take care of the matter easily. With their combined new fighting skills, they could have overwhelmed him, no matter how hard he fought. But this mission was not something Valya Harkonnen wished to delegate. She needed to be there herself, to see Vorian’s fatal wounds with her own eyes, to dip her fingers in his warm blood and watch him die.

And Tula ought to be there as well, to witness the long-awaited satisfaction for her family. It would be her sister’s reward for her remarkable service in killing Orry Atreides … a young man who was of no consequence, except that his murder had hurt Vorian to the core.

Her operatives on Salusa had intercepted a trader from Corrin who came to deliver valuable salvage from the machine world; when pressed for information, the trader tried to convince the Sisters in the Imperial Court to pay him for the information they wanted about Vorian Atreides. The Sisters gave him a small fee and promised much more as they immediately dispatched him to Wallach IX so that he could speak with the Mother Superior.

The grinning trader offered Valya all the details she needed, acknowledging that Vorian Atreides was indeed in the settlement on Corrin, even including a sketch of the intricate tunnel system where the scavengers lived … where her target was in hiding. Even better, she learned that Orry’s brother Willem had now joined Vorian there. Good, that would neatly wrap up all the threads of her vendetta.

As a final loyalty test, Valya ordered Sister Ninke to dispose of the talkative trader, since she could not risk anyone warning Vor that they were coming. The former Orthodox Sister passed the test with skill and discretion.

Now Valya had everything she needed.…

After careful consideration, she designated Sister Deborah as her alternate to run the school, and then handpicked Sisters who would join her on her mission to Corrin. It would not be a massive military operation, but a surgical strike with a single goal in mind. The threat this one man posed was not to be minimized, but she was confident in herself, and in her fellow Sisters.

Then she used the school’s funds to charter a compact spacefolder, which quietly departed from Wallach IX.

After reaching Corrin, the spacefolder remained above the dead machine planet, while three small shuttles dropped down and flew in over the night side. Each craft carried five expert fighters, adepts in the consolidated combat style that she had developed personally; four of them were also Truthsayers.

The Atreides didn’t stand a chance. Three teams, together but separate, each backing up the others, each looking for alternate ways to kill the target and block any escape. Valya led one squad, accompanied by a surprisingly determined Ninke, and an oddly reticent Tula, who had been quite moody of late. Valya insisted that she take heart, saying, “It will all be good again once he is dead.”

“No, it won’t,” Tula retorted. “You’ve said yourself it will never be like the old days. We Harkonnens have lost too much.”

“But we have not lost our honor. We will destroy these bastards — mark my words, Tula. We will win.”

The younger woman looked pale. “Do we still have our honor if we win like this — by sneaking in to kill men who are only trying to stay away from us?”

Valya nodded somberly. “If we do nothing, we will have lost our honor. You must understand that.”

“Part of me does, and part doesn’t.” Tula looked away, then back at Valya. “You’ve wanted this for such a long time.”

“Since I was a small child, years before Vorian murdered Griffin.” Valya was disturbed by her sister’s lack of enthusiasm. Even so, she knew she and her fellow commandos could defeat their enemy. When they got back to Wallach IX, she would make sure Tula underwent rigorous guilt-erasure training. The girl had to be cured of this nonsense.

As they landed outside the dark ruins of the former machine capital, the shuttle sensors mapped out the main scavenger settlement, the largest concentration of inhabitants on the surface. According to the trader and his sketches, that was where Vorian had gone to hide. Valya stared intently through the green-tinted gloom of her light-enhancement lenses.

The three squads of women emerged at separate staging points outside the scavenger settlement, so they could move across the landscape and converge with no warning. As soon as they disembarked, the teams moved through the night, closing in on the ruined city. Fifteen deadly fighters in three teams against a pair of victims: redundancy to make absolutely certain they were successful. Valya carried a dagger at her waist, for the finishing touches.

Leading her own squad, she slipped a protective mask over her face, as did the others, completing the seal of their slick black suits. Tula was behind her, silent and ready, as well as Sister Ninke, the Truthsayer Cindel, and a tough and spunky young Sister Gabi. Valya confirmed her connection with the two other five-woman teams on her private comm, and they streamed forward with hardly a sound, like deadly shadows.

Approaching where they knew Vor had taken shelter, according to the intelligence from the bribed Corrin trader, Valya and her team came upon a landed ship, a small personal vessel of a vintage design. Valya called up the information that the trader had given them, and confirmed that this ship belonged to Vorian Atreides. His personal craft.

Motioning her Sisters to a halt, they circled the ship warily, scanning it. She didn’t think the man would sleep inside, but still felt a chill to know it was his, that he had been here. “This is what Vorian Atreides will use to escape from us if we don’t kill him in the tunnels. He’ll try to get away.” She paused, ran her dark eyes over the outside of the craft, staring at the engines, and then directed her Sisters to open the cabin, easily bypassing the minimal interlocks of the access hatch.

“We have to make sure he does not survive if he tries to slip away from us,” Valya said. She nodded to Ninke and Gabi. “I assume you know how to rig the engines? Sabotage them? It is one of the skills I believe both of you have learned.”

The two women went to work — it was done easily enough.

Later, as they glided through the ruddy night toward the entrance to the underground settlement, the ruined machine city gently shifted and rumbled. “Be careful,” Valya said in a hushed voice. “The ruins seem unstable.”

“We need to find the warrens where they are hiding,” Ninke said in an edgy voice. “We’ll dig them out and stab them through their hearts.”

Valya appreciated her intensity and dedication. She and the other commando Sisters did not know — nor did they need to — the details of the Harkonnen-Atreides blood feud. As far as the Sisters were concerned, their Mother Superior had issued instructions, and they would follow.

As they glided among the mounds of rubble and jagged silhouettes of once-towering structures, Sister Gabi suddenly slipped and flailed. The base structure shifted, rose up, and seized the young woman. A pool of flowmetal swirled in the slag at Gabi’s feet, and a swell of silver gushed up like the arterial blood of a machine. The well-trained Sister remained silent as she struggled to get free, using her bodily training to control her screams as the mobile, quicksilver substance pulled her down to her waist. The other commandos rushed to help her.

Fighting hard, Gabi grabbed on to an extrusion of black metal in the rubble. Ninke seized hold of her arm and pulled, trying to extract her.

None of them made any sound that might draw attention. Even Gabi, despite facing the prospect of death, did not cry out as the flowmetal tightened around her hips, crushing her body. A starburst of blood came out of her open mouth, and her expression sagged into agony and horror — still silent — before the flowmetal lurched again, pulling hard, and sucked her under.

After Gabi was gone, the quicksilver pool became placid, hardening into nondescript slag that did not show even a ripple of movement.

The survivors stared, and Tula looked sickened. Truthsayer Cindel and Sister Ninke were both troubled and hyperalert. Valya gave them a moment, then turned her back and impatiently urged the group forward. “There are still four of us, and two other teams. Do not let down your guard,” she said. “Vorian Atreides is dangerous too.”