Navigators of Dune

73

Following Roderick’s command that the fugitive Directeur Venport be found at all costs, Imperial experts combed over the wreckage of the VenHold ships, hoping to find clues. In the days since the space battle over Lampadas, Admiral Harte’s troops had rounded up any surviving VenHold crewmembers, and seized some Navigators that remained alive but weakened in their damaged tanks. The captive Navigators died soon afterward, without revealing any information.

The sophisticated logs in the ships’ navigation files contained a wealth of foldspace data, but the databases self-destructed upon inspection, killing more than twenty of Harte’s best forensic technicians. One of the wrecked vessels was damaged sufficiently, though, that the purge routines failed when they were triggered, which left some information for the investigators to dig into, study, and dig into some more. From this, they were able to infer a set of mysterious coordinates for an unremarkable system that contained no known habitable planets. The Denali system.

But Roderick needed to be certain.

The captive VenHold crewmembers seemed a more likely source of viable information. Salvador had enjoyed the game of torture, using his adept practitioners to ferret out unwilling revelations, but Roderick had been loathe to use the same tactics. Now, however, he decided to do whatever was necessary for the sake of the Imperium. And for his sister.

First, he sent Fielle to interrogate the prisoners, hoping the Truthsayer could learn something important. On Admiral Harte’s flagship, only an hour ago, she had finished questioning all of the captives. Venport’s employees refused to speak, and even the best Truthsayer could not determine the truth or lie of silence.

When Fielle proved unsuccessful, Roderick agreed to send in the team of Scalpel interrogators led by Robér Cecilio. In a chamber below decks on Harte’s flagship, Cecilio and his team busily worked on the employees. The pain expert seemed to want to make up for his failure to learn anything from the captive Navigator he had probed in Zimia.

Roderick stayed aboard his plush barge, not wanting to watch what they were doing, but his imagination disturbed him too much. Unable to wait any longer, he shuttled over to Harte’s ship, where he was led down to the secure decks. Escorted by Admiral Harte himself, he walked reluctantly toward a closed door at the end of a corridor. He heard muffled screams, but took a deep breath and kept going. He needed to know.

He felt glad that Haditha wasn’t here.

As if expecting him, Robér Cecilio stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind him. “Sire, you instructed me that speed was more important than subtlety. I was pleased to operate without any restraints this time.”

The Emperor assessed the black-robed man, then stared at the closed door. He could hear no noises on the other side now, wondered if any of the VenHold prisoners were still alive. “Yes, and the results? Do you know where he is hiding?”

“I am confident that the first five captives had no information to reveal, but several others finally provided a star-system name and astronomical coordinates. A planet called Denali. They say it is the site of a top-secret VenHold research facility.”

This confirmed the information from the half-damaged navigation database in one of the stranded VenHold ships.

He stepped around the Scalpel interrogator, entered the sealed chamber. The room smelled of blood, urine, and terror but he was even more sickened to see the VenHold employee: he was horrifically broken, most of his skin flayed, his arm and leg joints in all the wrong places. Cecilio proudly went to the unconscious victim and prodded him, as if he considered this wreck of humanity to be a trophy. The eyelids flickered, didn’t open.

“Sire, I’m convinced that the subject’s information is accurate — and consistent with the revelations from three other prisoners.”

Though Roderick was disturbed to see such mangled remnants of a human being, he had to reassess what actions he considered necessary and acceptable. It was a matter of priorities. “Thank you, Cecilio.” He turned to Admiral Harte. “Denali?”

“Sire, I had an aide look it up in archives from the League of Nobles. Denali appeared in the old records as a small planet with a poisonous atmosphere … possibly an old cymek base, but not confirmed. Never settled, never even noticed as far as the records showed.”

The Emperor nodded. “A poisonous planet for a poisonous man.” That was where Roderick would go.

RODERICK RUSHED AN Imperial communiqué back to Salusa, summoning the bulk of his armed forces on two foldspace carriers so he could bring an overwhelming fleet to Denali. He intended to snuff out his last major enemy.

When the Imperial battleships arrived at Lampadas, Roderick studied a screen in the main salon of his barge, with Admiral Harte standing beside him. “A handful of ships will be enough to keep the remaining Butlerian fanatics under control here, Sire,” Harte said. “They have nothing. Better to devote our main force to fighting Venport, who is still a threat.”

Harte’s forces had already commandeered any damaged but functional Butlerian ships and pressed them into Imperial service as well. Without Manford Torondo, the fanatics were disorganized; Anari Idaho was a Swordmaster, not a true leader. The Butlerians were fewer in number now, and too weak to pose much of a concern. The problem was mostly solved.

Ironically, Josef Venport had done exactly as he’d promised: He had taken care of the fanatics and killed their commander. And the Butlerians, in turn — with the timely and unexpected assistance of Admiral Harte — had caused significant damage to the VenHold threat. A crackdown on Denali would wrap it all up, and Venport would not know what was coming.

“The Directeur is not yet sufficiently defeated,” Roderick announced. “We will leave some of your FTL ships here to monitor the Butlerians on the ground, but I am taking the rest of our fleet to finish the job at Denali.”

Harte followed Roderick out of the barge’s luxurious main salon. “The Butlerians will wish to join us so they can continue their fight against the Directeur. Since his cymeks killed Leader Torondo, they loathe him more than ever.”

“I forbid their further involvement,” Roderick said. “The Butlerians no longer dictate my actions. We will achieve our own victory, Admiral — an Imperial victory. And then we can end this terrible mess, once and for all.”