Navigators of Dune

31

Inside her tank on the Navigator deck of the VenHold flagship, Norma waved a webbed hand. “We are ready to depart. My Navigators will guide us to Salusa Secundus.” She drifted. “I am anxious to restore stability to the Imperium.”

Josef paced on the bridge beside her. He stared out at his orbiting spacefolders — more than three hundred of them. “I have no doubt our fleet will arrive flawlessly, thanks to you, Grandmother, and we will quickly overwhelm the Imperial defenses. Soon this will all be over. Does your prescience foresee an easy victory? We certainly have the military advantage.”

Norma floated away from the plaz wall of her tank. “My prescience sees many possibilities around Salusa Secundus. I cannot say which one will become real.”

Without giving further details, she used her own control to activate the Holtzman engines, and Josef could feel the hull pulsing as the energy built up. The Navigators aboard the other ships coordinated their moves, and Josef quickly held on, bracing himself. All three hundred vessels vanished simultaneously into foldspace.

Disoriented during the passage, he clenched his fist, sucked in his breath. He wished Cioba could be at his side, but needed her to guard Kolhar as well as manage the commercial activities of Venport Holdings in his absence. Business went on. Despite the bank seizure, hundreds of his trading ships continued to travel throughout the Imperium illicitly delivering vital supplies — especially melange.

With their financial assets frozen, VenHold was crippled in conducting regular operations, but he would resolve the situation quickly and aggressively. Once the Emperor saw the enormous force arrayed against Salusa, he would have only one rational solution available to him, and Josef counted on him being a rational man: that was the gamble he had made all along, although Roderick had certainly disappointed him so far.

Guided by Norma and her Navigators, Josef’s well-armed ships reappeared in a tight cluster high above the capital planet. Knowing the amount of space traffic around Salusa, Norma had intentionally brought them to the upper fringe of the primary orbital lanes, where the VenHold ships need not worry about colliding with the bustle of governmental and commercial vessels. Nevertheless, it was a show of force that could not be denied.

At their stations, the VenHold crewmembers on the Navigator deck breathed a sigh of relief. “We are in a safe position for battle, Directeur. All VenHold vessels present and accounted for. Weapons ready.”

“They’ve seen us, sir!”

On the wide screen Josef saw the orbiting Salusan ships suddenly move erratically, like fish stirred in a bowl. He smiled. “Of course they have. That is our intent.” He would let them see and absorb the sheer military might he had brought with him — the biggest stick in the Imperium.

“Will you be addressing the people, Directeur?” asked the comm officer.

Josef placed his hands behind his back and walked slowly away from Norma’s tank. “Not yet. I want to give them time to think about the power we have brought to bear on them. Let them feel the crisis in their bones before I deliver my ultimatum to Roderick Corrino.”

From the bridge of one of the adjacent spacefolders, Draigo Roget reported. “The Emperor’s defensive fleet appears to be even smaller than anticipated, Directeur — no more than a hundred warships — and none of them a match for ours. What happened to all the rest? Our earlier intelligence suggested another full strike force here, but those ships are not in sight.”

Josef was concerned. “Are they otherwise deployed?”

“I cannot make that projection, sir,” the Mentat said.

Josef looked at the flurry of orbital activity, the trading and diplomatic vessels trying to escape while the greatly outnumbered Imperial military ships scrambled to form a defensive line. “Send no transmissions just yet. The Emperor will demand to know why I have come, and then he’ll ask for my terms.” He had decided that Roderick should bare his throat in some way, to prove that he understood where the true power lay. “And then he will surrender, but it’ll just be a formality. Afterward, we can put all this behind us.”

Anyone could see that the VenHold fighting force could overwhelm the Salusan defenses, should they choose to do so — and the Emperor would not dare let this turn into an all-out, bloody space battle. But Roderick had demonstrated a recent penchant for stubbornness and irrationality.…

Josef was ready to fight — decisively — if necessary. And take the capital. “Launch our cymeks,” he said.

Landing pods fell out of the lower hold of the Denali spacefolder, dropping into the atmosphere like precisely guided meteors. Josef watched them streak down, knowing the fear that such immense and powerful machines would evoke.

“General Agamemnon and his cymek Titans attacked Salusa repeatedly during the war against the thinking machines,” Norma said from her Navigator tank. “Now we are the invaders sending in cymeks.”

He could not tell if her voice contained irony. “I regret the necessity, Grandmother, but it is the swiftest solution. Such a threat will make them tremble — and concede.”

From the bridge, he watched the bright downward trails arrowing toward the palace district on the west side of Zimia. Down there, Emperor Roderick and his advisers must be staring aghast at what was coming their way.

Josef addressed his ships. “Tighten the noose. Activate weapons and shields, and be ready to fire on my command.”

From his ship, Draigo said, “The Imperial ships cannot outgun us, sir, but if we let them form tight ranks, they might force us to cause more destruction than would be wise. I would prefer not to massacre them.”

“Agreed. Move out. Disperse and neutralize those fighting ships.”

From inside her tank, Norma spoke, “I do not believe Roderick will concede so easily.”

“I do not need prescience to agree with you, Grandmother, but we can hope for the sake of the Imperium that he does.” He realized he was being optimistic, perhaps even naïve. Roderick Corrino’s pride would not let him surrender to the man who had killed his brother. What would it take to get him to abandon that useless vendetta? Josef would have made concessions, within reason.

The Salusan communication channels were in an uproar, and the orbiting Imperial warships scrambled to form a barricade against all the ominous VenHold ships. But Josef’s well-coordinated fleet plunged in, ignoring all the commercial and diplomatic vessels that escaped into interplanetary space; rather, they targeted only the Imperial military ships and scattered them in tactical confusion. Josef had warned each of his captains to exercise restraint, to fire only for defensive purposes, and then just enough to paralyze specific threats.

The VenHold ships succeeded with very little weapons fire. Some of the Imperial defenders blasted at them, but their weapons could not penetrate VenHold shields. Two Imperial vessels engaged in suicide runs, opening fire and trying to ram one of Josef’s ships, but the Navigator aboard easily dodged out of range of the blasts.

In her tank, Norma flinched.

“Hold positions,” Josef transmitted to his fleet. “Roderick must already see he has been defeated.”

Telemetry recorded when Ptolemy, Noffe, and the Navigator cymeks landed on the outskirts of Zimia. Moments later, images broadcast from the emerging walkers showed multiple views of the streets. The enormous warrior forms towered above the ornate governmental buildings.

From his bridge, Josef stared at the planet below, the sea of clouds, the oceans, continents, and sprawling cities. Zimia was the Imperial capital city, and Salusa Secundus had been the heart of the League of Nobles during the centuries of the Jihad. He had been here many times on business. Now he needed to take care of a different sort of business.

Josef had to ensure he could hold his victory here long enough to restore order across the Imperium, to get commerce back to normal. He wanted to put an end to this nonsense, but first Roderick had to back down. With a single word and a gesture, the Emperor could lift Josef’s banishment, restore the VenHold banks, and return everything to normal.

It was time for him to do so.

Josef faced the screen and activated the comm, then spoke his thunderous words like a conquering general. “Roderick Corrino,” he said, intentionally choosing not to include the title of Emperor, “I am a loyal citizen of the Imperium, focused on the future of human civilization. I only wish to conduct my business under a mutually beneficial arrangement with you, but your actions have made that impossible. When you stole my financial assets, you destroyed the peace and prosperity of the Imperium.

“Your brother Salvador caused incalculable harm to us all, and it was my hope that you would be a better leader. I gave you every chance to work with me, to prove yourself, but my optimism has been dashed. Today, I come to end this. I will present my terms for your surrender.”