Navigators of Dune

32

When Venport’s Navigator-guided ships crowded space over Salusa Secundus, Roderick rushed to the Palace’s satellite command center. The gall of the man!

The Emperor had already stationed the bulk of his fleet around the planet, but his once-titanic military was tissue thin now that he was missing General Roon’s strike force as well as Admiral Harte’s battle group, which Venport held hostage at Kolhar, not to mention the peacekeeping force he had recently lost at Arrakis.

Even so, he had never expected Josef Venport to make such a bold and irrevocable move. To attack the Emperor directly! Venport was a manipulator, not a conqueror — did he actually want the throne for himself? It did not seem conceivable, but such an enormous, threatening force was not merely for show.

Roderick’s military advisers and Salusan Defense Council officers filled the command center, scanning and collating data to assess the unexpected threat. The Emperor didn’t need to hear their reports, though; when he saw their stricken expressions, he realized how bad the situation was.

“The attackers are perfectly coordinated, Sire,” said Shaad Aliki, his home defense commander. “Those VenHold ships appeared exactly on target, in high orbit, dropping down to wreak havoc among our commercial, diplomatic, and military ships. With such precision, they operate like a force of thinking-machine vessels.”

“Not thinking machines.” Roderick watched the enemy vessels position themselves among his orbiting guardian ships and render them impotent. “Venport’s Navigators guide his ships with a level of accuracy and safety we cannot match.” As he watched the invaders’ vise-grip tighten, he was sickened. “He has declared war on the Imperium! He’s got to know he can’t win against the allied noble houses. The Landsraad League will all turn against him and stand by me.”

Or would they?

A chill went through him. Roderick’s feud with Venport had disrupted commerce throughout the Imperium, and the bottleneck had also cut off regular supplies of spice, now that Arrakis was in turmoil. Many of his nobles were addicted to melange … and he suspected they would rather do without their Emperor than without spice.

Roderick had held the throne for only the past two months, and Salvador’s reign had been an embarrassment of corruption and incompetence. Why would anyone be loyal to the Corrinos? Since the end of the Jihad and the formation of the Imperium, there had been only two Emperors before them — Jules and Faykan — and the Corrino dynasty was barely a paragraph in human history. Yes, it could be overthrown. Governments and dynasties did not exist forever.

Roderick’s throat went dry. It was indeed possible that Josef Venport could usurp the throne and form a new Venport line of rulers. With the great force he had brought to bear, the Directeur had the power to do exactly that … if it was what he wanted.

As if reading his mind, Haditha rushed into the command center and said, “Directeur Venport has many connections in the Landsraad League, he has a military force that is clearly superior to ours, and he’s the one who can guarantee trade across the Imperium. That is what the people want above all else.” She lowered her voice. “I fear that he can break you, my love.”

“He’s a coward,” Roderick muttered. “He murdered my brother and fled justice. I have to keep standing up to him. Such a man can’t be allowed to do business as if nothing happened.”

“He won’t take the throne from you, Sire. That will never happen!” Shaad Aliki cried. “God is on our side.”

“Maybe so,” Roderick said, “but right now I would rather have more warships on our side.” He studied the numerous images being transmitted by his outnumbered orbiting defenders. The VenHold fleet was enormous.

“You know why he took such extreme action,” Haditha said. “It all stems from your brother. Salvador provoked Venport’s original overreaction when he grabbed control of the spice operations on Arrakis.”

“Possibly his most unwise decision,” Roderick grumbled under his breath. Among many.

Haditha continued, “And now we have pushed Venport into another corner by seizing his assets. His response is predictable. We escalated the crisis and forced him to take extreme action.”

“But is this just a threatening growl? I am the Emperor — does he really mean to destroy political stability throughout the Imperium?”

Inside the command center, tacticians displayed images from orbit, as Roderick’s embattled captains inundated the Palace with panicked requests for instructions and reinforcements. “VenHold ships outnumber ours three to one, Sire, and their weapons are superior.”

“As is their coordination,” said Aliki, wearing a deep frown.

Roderick felt helpless anger and dismay. “We have to resist them, fight in every way possible. We are in the right!” His heart felt cold, and he was unable to find a way that his defiance would be anything more than empty words. Would the people fight for him, or would they pledge their allegiance to a new Emperor Venport?

When the VenHold invaders launched orbital drop-pods, several Imperial warships tried to intercept them, but the siege vessels opened fire and neutralized the Imperial fighters, targeting engines only and removing those ships from play so that the drop-pods could continue their descent.

“The VenHold ships do not seem intent on destroying our fleet or killing our soldiers.” Aliki sounded puzzled. “They have exercised obvious restraint. They are just preventing us from interfering with whatever they’re doing.”

Roderick drew little hope from that observation. As the drop-pods streaked down through the atmosphere, evacuation alarms sounded across Zimia. One of the Imperial guards stepped up, his face grim. “Sire, we have to move you to a safe place — the emergency command center. Our shielded underground chambers should be proof against any attack.”

Roderick straightened as the drop-pods continued to hurtle down. Big pods. “Take Haditha and our children first. I shall remain at my post. I can lead better from here.”

Commander Aliki put a firm hand on his arm. “You can’t lead if you’re vaporized, Sire. They could have brought atomics, and we don’t have the planetary shields in place to withstand such a bombardment.”

Haditha sounded more outraged than afraid. “Atomics are forbidden!”

“Treason against the Emperor is also forbidden,” Roderick pointed out to her. “I wouldn’t look to Venport to follow every rule.”

Once the drop-pods crashed around the outskirts of the Imperial capital, they disgorged armored walkers taller than most buildings. Cymeks! Roderick felt nauseated.

With utmost urgency, guards escorted him and Haditha to the secure underground chambers, where Roderick stared in dismay at displayed images of the enormous articulated machines.

Cymeks had not struck Zimia in more than a century. Back during the Jihad they had been deflected by powerful high-energy shields in the Salusan atmosphere, but after the annihilation of the thinking machines and the rebuilding of civilization, the enormous expense of maintaining the shields against cymeks had been deemed unnecessary. Machines posed no further threat to the human race.

But now more than thirty giant warrior forms emerged from the drop-pods and advanced toward the capital city. Ground troops mobilized, along with artillery to defend against the cymeks, but the machines easily brushed off the attack. They looked capable of leveling Zimia if they wished.

For now, however, the cymeks stopped outside the city and simply loomed there, threatening.

Then Josef Venport finally transmitted his ultimatum.