Good! Panic has a way of spreading and weakening your enemies.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"There's Barony."
Idaho had converted him to the old Harkonnen name for the sprawling city with its giant black centerpiece of plasteel.
"We'll land on the Flat to the north."
He spoke the words but his hands gave the orders.
Quickly now!
For brief moments when they disgorged troops, no-ships were visible and vulnerable. He held elements of the entire force responsive to his comboard and responsibility was heavy.
"This is only a feint. We go in and out after inflicting serious damage. Junction is our real target."
Odrade's parting admonition lay there in memory. "Honored Matres must be taught a lesson such as never before. Attack us and you get hurt badly. Press us and the pain can be enormous. They've heard about Bene Gesserit punishments. We're notorious. No doubt Spider Queen sniggered a bit. You must shove that snigger down her throat!"
"Quit ship!"
This was the vulnerable moment. Space above them remained empty of threat but fire lances arced inward from the east. His gunners could handle those. He concentrated on the possibility that enemy no-ships might return for a suicide attack. Command bay projections showed his hammerships and troop carriers pouring from the holds. The shock force, an armored elite on suspensors, already had the perimeter secured.
There went the portable comeyes to spread his field of observation and relay the intimate details of violence. Communication, the key to responsive command, but it also displayed bloody destruction.
"All clear!"
The signal rang through the bay.
He lifted off the Flat and repositioned in full invisibility. Now, only the comlinks gave defenders a clue to his position and that was masked by decoy relays.
Projection displayed the monstrous rectangle of the ancient Harkonnen center. It had been built as a block of light-absorbing metal to confine slaves. The elite had lived in garden mansions on top. Honored Matres had returned it to its former oppression.
Three of his giant hammerships came into view.
"Clear the top of that thing!" he ordered. "Wipe it clean but do as little damage as possible to the structure."
He knew his words were superfluous but spoke for the release. Everyone in the attack force knew what he wanted.
"Relay reports!" he ordered.
Information began flowing from the horseshoe on his shoulders. He brought it up on secondary. Comeyes showed his troops clearing the perimeter. Battle overhead and on the ground was well in hand for at least fifty klicks out. Going far better than he had expected. So Honored Matres kept their heavy stuff off-planet, not anticipating bold attack. A familiar attitude and he had Idaho to thank for predicting it.
"They're power-blind. They think heavy armor is for space and only light stuff for the ground. Heavy weapons are brought down as needed. No sense keeping them on planet. Takes too much energy. Besides, awareness of all that heavy stuff up there has a quieting effect on captive populations."
Idaho's concepts of weaponry were devastating.
"We tend to fix our minds on what we believe we know. A projectile is a projectile even when miniaturized to contain poisons or biologicals."
Innovations in protective equipment improved mobility. Built into uniforms where possible. And Idaho had brought back the shield with its awesome destruction when struck by a lasgun beam. Shields on suspensors hidden in what appeared to be soldiers (but were actually inflated uniforms) spread out ahead of troops. Lasgun fire at them produced clean atomics to clear large areas.
Will Junction be this easy?
Teg doubted it. Necessity enforced quick adaptation to new methods.
They could have shields on Junction in two days.
And no inhibitions about how to employ them.
Shields had dominated the Old Empire, he knew, because of that oddly important set of words called "Great Convention." Honorable people did not misuse weapons of their feudal society. If you dishonored the Convention, your peers turned against you with united violence. More than that, there had been the intangible, "Face," that some called "Pride."
Face! My position in the pack.
More important to some than life itself.
"This is costing us very little," Streggi said.
She was becoming quite the battle analyst and much too banal for Teg's liking. Streggi meant they were losing few lives but perhaps she spoke truer than she knew.
"It's difficult to think of cheap devices doing the job," Idaho had said. "But that's a powerful weapon."
If your weapons cost only a small fraction of the energy your enemy spent, you had a potent lever that could prevail against seemingly overwhelming odds. Prolong the conflict and you wasted enemy substance. Your foe toppled because control of production and workers was lost.
"We can begin to pull out," he said turning away from the projections as his hands repeated the order. "I want casualty reports as soon as -" He broke off and turned at a sudden stir.
Murbella?
Her projection was repeated in all of the bay's fields. Her voice blared from the images: "Why are you disregarding reports from your perimeter?" She overrode his board and the projections displayed a field commander caught in mid-sentence: "... orders, I will have to deny their request."
"Repeat," Murbella said.
The field commander's sweaty features turned toward his mobile comeye. The comsystem compensated and he appeared to look directly into Teg's eyes.
"Repeating: I have self-styled refugees here asking for asylum. Their leader says he has an agreement requiring the Sisterhood to honor his request but without orders..."