Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [157]
Edrik had been forced to seek his own source of spice, relying on the memories locked inside the gholas of Tleilaxu Master Waff. Once those memories were awakened, the Navigators would have their own cheap and secure source of melange.
His Heighliner winked into existence above the industrialized planet. For millennia, Richese had been a sophisticated technological hub. The New Sisterhood had poured fortunes into Richese, and over the past several years the shipyards had grown larger than any of the famed Guild facilities on Junction or elsewhere—the most extensive the human race had ever put together. The Sisterhood claimed their newly manufactured weapons were to be used against the Outside Enemy. Without question, however, Murbella would first turn that might against the Honored Matres on Tleilax.
“Destroy it,” said Matre Superior Hellica from her observation lounge below the Navigator’s deck. “Destroy it all.”
From spaceport complexes below and satellite stations, monitors pinged them with inquiries and communication bursts. Though Richese was a huge manufacturer of armaments, engaged in full-scale preparations for the coming battles, they’d never had any reason to suspect a threat from the Spacing Guild.
“Guild Heighliner, we were not aware of a scheduled arrival.” “Please transmit your manifests. Which docking centers will you utilize?”
“Heighliners, we will prepare our outgoing shipments. Is a CHOAM representative aboard?”
Edrik did not answer. The Matre Superior issued no ultimatum, delivered no warning. She did not even open the channel so that she could gloat.
Guildsmen followed the detailed preparations for deploying the last few Obliterators the rebel Honored Matres had kept on Tleilax. Floating in his sealed tank, Edrik smiled. This would set back the New Sisterhood’s military plans by years, if not decades. All those weapons gone, as well as the industrial capability to manufacture more. In a single strike Matre Superior Hellica would remove a keystone from the arch of human civilization.
I do it for spice, Edrik thought. The Oracle promised us a new source of melange.
Hatches opened in the Heighliner’s belly, disgorging Obliterators that dropped toward the planet like molten cannonballs. Reaching the appropriate atmospheric depths, the weapons fissioned and spread ripples of hot annihilation. The people of Richese could not conceive of what was happening as their whole planet began to catch fire.
Cracks raced across the continents, and flamefronts roared through the atmosphere. The electromagnetic bands were full of desperate cries, screams of terror and pain, and then piercing EMP feedback as the Obliterators completed their work. Across the planet, weapons shops, construction yards, cities, mountain ranges, and whole oceans vanished into ionized vapor. The ground itself turned to a blistering, baking ceramic.
Even Edrik was awed by what he saw. He hoped that Hellica understood what she was doing. This was an aggression Mother Commander Murbella could never ignore, and she would know whom to blame. Tleilax was the only rebel Honored Matre enclave left.
In silence, the Heighliner departed, leaving the now-dead Richese behind.
Rot at the core always spreads outward.
—Sufi proverb
T
here is a time for violence, and for talking. This is not the time for talking.” Murbella had called both Janess and the former Honored Matre Kiria to stand beside her in the highest tower of the Keep. After the annihilation of Richese, her anger grew hot enough to sear even the voices in Other Memory. “We need to cut the head off the monster.”
So many vital weapons had been destroyed there, a gigantic and fully armed fleet nearly completed, so much potential for the defense of humanity—all ruined by the bitch queen Hellica! Aside from the armament shipments they had already received, Murbella had nothing but cooling