----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“But this being has a human shape, Gurney, and deserves human doubt.”
- Paul Atreides, DUNE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's Turn 4, and I don't know if I can trust Gurney Hallek.
It's come down to this last, desperate gamble. The once-great House Atreides, laid low in their seeming moment of ascension, have been attacked by their mortal enemies, the treacherous Harkonnens. The Planet of Arrakis is their battleground, jockeying for that most precious of resource: Spice. Four times has the great sweeping Coriolis storms swept across the planet, and slowly, one by one, Paul Atredies' loyal companions have fallen.
First, his mother Jessica, who gave her life in a pyrrhic gambit to secure the spice fields just north-east of the Atreides held Stronghold of Arrakeen. A witch's poison did its work, ending the life of the fetid Beat Rabban, but the treachery of the Harkonnens is a sucking, suffocating quagmire. Jessica was loyal, untouched by Harkonnen tendrils of treachery. The spice shipment was lost to the Harkonnen dogs, and even more, valuable tools of war were lost to the depths of the Harkonnen armories. But a pyrrhic victory none-the-less; soon after securing the shipment for the bloated Baron, a great sandworm devoured the survivors; Paul was prescient enough to know that, at least, his mother's killers would not be easily revived.
By turn 3, I grew careful, wary. I could predict the spice movements, something my opponent could not. But my men could not be trusted (those of my retinue that I remember drawing lay dead in cloning tanks, and I was sketchy on who else I drew. If only I had written it down!), and every turn my enemy's arsenal grew larger. This turn, conflict was avoided; the Harkonen's could not reach my Stronghold or the spice with their range, but I could. Those coffers went to bring more men Calladan. Loyal men I could trust.
Trust was in short supply.
Then Duncan Idaho, famed swordsman known to Fremen and Atreides alike, was slain by that cowardly Harkonnen lapdog Captain Nefud, artery sliced with a slow-moving slip-tip. The House of Paul gained ground when Tuek's Stiech became a bastion of loyalty, with troops camped just beyond and Atreides Ornithopters beat out the Harkonnen to a valuable, necessary spice trove. I was all set to take the third Stronghold, the western Sietch Tabar, firmly establishing my lead in the game.
Then Thufir, my loyal Mentat, advisor, and strongest surviving general, betrayed me.
The crucial battle to take the third citadel, right next to an oncoming spice-flow that would replenish my coffers, became a total rout. My first aggressive game, the first sweet victory from the Harkonnens that would allow me to build further, fight harder for my planet, turned to ash in my mouth.
Of the five battalions I had deployed, there were no survivors.
Thufir was denounced a traitor and killed in the panic, and I was left with Gurney Hallek, a capable fighter of uncertain loyalties, and Doctor Washinton Yueh, a man who had betrayed the Atreides line more than once.
The Harkonnen forces remained untouched.
My stack of 4, away from my Ornithopter pads, was collecting spice vital to keep my head above water. My opponent had more generals, more treacherous tricks, and at least one traitor in my ranks.
But they had left their own Ornithopter pads, just two territories away, had but two units.
His forces were trapped in by a storm I had manipulated, using my weather control console to keep the storms raging around Sietch Tabar in the southwest and lock the Harkonens out of Spice a mere tantalizing spinward-territory away. The dread Baron's forces were spread thin, holding three cities to my two, and I had two fronts to defend. My Ornithopter pads at Arrakeen only had two battalions, and Tuek's Stiech was defended only by a lonesome two. This game would be won or lost on the next round of troop movements. Almost assuredly, I need to fight two battles in a single turn, and I need to win both to stay in the game.
And I don't know if I can trust Gurney Hallek.
And yet...
Slowly, a plan takes shape. Five battalions of loyal Atreides men at arms camp only a short ornithopter away from the almost assured collapse of Tuek's Sietch. They can respond in the following cycle of movement and retake the Sietch if it falls. I had enough Spice left to pay the Spacing guild for four more battalions to reinforce Arrakis, while I ordered my spice-gathering soldiers to assault the weakened Ornithopter Hangars of House Harkonnen and destroy them. If I could cripple their movement and retake the city, keeping my head above water for one more turn- and stranded so, I could pick them off.
The Harkonnens couldn't afford to lose their Ornithopters. Surely, this would be the moment that the dreaded, feared Scion of House Harkonen Feyd Rutha would swoop in to defend his family in their hour of need. It was only natural the Baron would send his strongest general to the fore, never knowing that I had suborned the youth from the very start. That coup would preserve precious forces, forces that could then escape and make a final assault to drive the Harkonnens out of my home!
Of course, I couldn't let on that this was my plan. Some token resistance had to be offered at Tuek's Sietch, to bait the trap. Accepting a command there was nearly certain death, the Harkonnen's armories swollen by now with poisons, knives, ballistic weapons, and shields, and I with nothing to defend with.
One of my men is disloyal. That much, I know. Sending the traitor to a losing battle that would soon be won again would both rid me of a possible spy and protect the main force.
But which man? Doctor Yueh is not a fighter. Giving Gurney command of the Ornithopter attack force would almost certainly assure my victory. Unless he were disloyal. That would spell disaster for the whole campaign. And perhaps, should my feint be seen through, Gurney's experience in combat could bolster the talents of the doomed southern defenders. And if Feyd Rutha showed his face at Carthag, then the day would be won without firing a shot, and Yueh's inexperience will not matter in the least. Yes. Yes, this is the way. Our losses taking the Harkonnen's copter facilities will be great, but a Doctor will be going with them. This is the calculus of war.
Because I couldn't trust Gurney Hallek.
I gave him his orders and a poisoned nail, to finish the enemy General or himself, should all seem lost. Stoic until the end, he accepted his orders without comment.
“The test of a Man isn't what you'll think he'll do. It's what he actually does.”
Feyd Rutha never made an appearance at Carthag. Yueh led our forces into an ambush, where the ever-present Captain Nefud was waiting to butcher them like lambs. Apparently, Harkonnen treachery can subvert even the famed Imperial Conditioning. A careless slip early in the war led to Feyd Rutha's corruption being known to old Vladimir, who adapted, as he always did. It was a trap from the start.
I am led to understand that Gurney Hallek and his battalions held out for nineteen hours in the doomed defense of Tuek's Sietch. The men stationed in Red Chasm listened, two territories away, as Hallek led vicious close-quarters, house-to-house fighting, making the pigs pay for every inch of dusty ground with water and blood. That he never surrendered, even when that twisted, broken creature Vladimir calls a Mentat hauled him up in chains for some playacted trial. Even gave Petr a scratch with the poisoned nail, for all the good it did in the end. Snooper found it easily enough. Petr simply smiled that broken little smile of his and smoothly shot my last, loyal friend in the head.
“The whole theory of warfare is calculated risk...”
“Hope clouds observation.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
