Chapter Text
Blake Belladonna
As reality finished shifting around her, Blake found herself in a dimly lit stone-walled corridor. Her immediate thought was that she had to be in Vacuo. The air around her was dry, so dry that she could feel her skin prickle as the moisture evaporated off it.
Her second thought was: Where is everyone? She started to call out to her friends, to Yang, and then paused. Past experience had taught her to be cautious in unfamiliar situations. What if something had gone wrong, and one of Salem's agents were waiting nearby?
Feline ears twitched. She heard quiet footsteps approaching.
She eased back into the shadows of the alcove she was in, and watched with bated breath as a man passed her by. He was thin, Mistralian in both facial features and hair styling. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but his demeanor was that of a man attempting to be silent.
He was also holding one hand behind his back as he walked, clutching a firearm of some sort.
What’s going on here? she wondered, eyes narrowing. Her curiosity piqued, and even more cautiously, she began to slide along the wall in his wake, keeping to the shadows. Finally she saw he was approaching a brighter area intersection. She paused just short, peering from the darkness behind a column as the man in black approached a trio of what appeared, to her Faunus eyes, to be guards. There were one on either side of a set of imposing double doors, and a third between them, speaking to one of his peers quietly. He noticed the man approaching as he entered the lit corridor.
“Όχι κύριε, αλλά είναι δίπλα στους μεταβαλλόμενους ελέγχους και υπάρχει ένα όπλο βελόνας κοντά?” the guard said, his expression and tone one of curiosity and, she thought, familiarity.
To her horror, instead of answering the firearm swung around, and she heard three soft thwip sounds. With a series of soft groans, all three men fell to their knees, then prone. She at first feared they were dead, but then realized at least one of them had their eyes flicking around in a panic, though they weren't moving their arms or legs.
Dead or not, that man had just attacked three guards who, in her estimation, had thought he was an ally, or at least someone who had every right to be there. She continued to watch as the man carried on, walking past the prone figures and approaching the doors.
Her unease grew.
Blake Belladonna had been many things in her life thus far. Among them had been several years during her teens as a White Fang operative. She had infiltrated SDC facilities. She’d learned to identify spies and assassins. She'd carried out sabotage operations.
This man, whoever he was, was up to no good. She could feel it in her bones. Pushing Aura forward, she drew Gambol Shroud from its sheath, and moved as the doors opened beneath the man’s touch.
. . .
Wellington Yueh’s mind was dominated by a singular, manic imperative.
The Baron must die. It is the only way to save Wanna. His conditioning demanded that he do whatever was required to preserve life. Therefore she is alive, and my actions are justified.
Somewhere deep inside him, where his Suk conditioning could not touch, he knew that this was a lie. The Baron would never release her. She was dead, even if she lived for the moment. And he was sacrificing his own life, and those he was sworn to preserve, for nothing better than vengeance. But his soul would not allow him to deviate from this path now. It was much too late. He was already broken. The paralytic he’d used on the guards would eventually reach their hearts and lungs. Three more deaths. Drops of water to the ocean he was about to unleash.
The doors opened at his touch, and the communications and shield generator controls were revealed to him. He stepped forward-
And felt a sharp blade press against his back.
“[トリトセレ]!” a young female voice exclaimed. Yueh jerked forward and spun instinctively, needle gun rising and firing almost simultaneously. It struck his attacker, causing her to fly backward with a momentary flash of failing personal shield.
Satisfied, he turned back to the controls.
. . .
When the man jerked and spun, Blake was shocked at his speed, and felt like she should have been faster.
That was stupid, Blake. If he’s actually an assassin, then of course he’s fast! She’d instinctively generated a shadow clone, which had the side effect of flinging her actual body backward as time temporarily slowed to a crawl around her. That had allowed her to recover a bit, and to realize she didn’t have to be concerned about something as mundane as a flying dart without Dust.
The dart flew through her clone, which evaporated, and she used Aura-enhanced reflexes to grab it out of the air as it reached her new position. She returned her attention to the assassin, preparing to dodge another shot. Instead she found, to her shock, that he had turned his back on her and was approaching the controls for what she wasn’t sure.
As if he just assumed his little gadget was going to do its job, he walked carelessly away from her to a large lever covered by a protective shield. He flipped the shield aside, gripped the large lever, and began pulling it downward.
She felt, rather than heard, a slowly decreasing thrum as the lever moved downward. The shield told her that this was not a control that someone should be adjusting lightly. The sound made it seem like something very important.
She still had the dart in her hand.
She knew exactly what its effects were.
Hmmm…
Moving in one fluid motion, she lunged forward and plunged the dart's hypodermic tip into the small of the man’s back before he could finish shifting the lever all the way down. He gave a gasp, which turned into a sigh, and fell to his knees in front of her.
“Yeah, that’s what you get, jerk, for trying to shoot me!” She exclaimed, and then reached over his slumping body and began pushing the lever back up. She glanced down to find him lying on the floor, on his back, and glaring at her. It was a look she recognized. “Huh… you really do remind me of someone I used to know. He was an abusive prick who believed the ends justified any means.” She bent down and began searching through his effects, finding a pouch at his side. “Bet you’ve got an antidote in here somewhere, right? Assassins don’t just carry stuff around without an antidote…”
. . .
Something had awoken Thufir Hawat, despite the fact that he was exhausted. He had been on edge, for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint to any specific analysis, all week. Yes, they’d uncovered dozens of devices and plots. Yes they’d foiled the Harkonen assassin, as much due to Paul’s skill as anything else. But he kept feeling like he was missing something. Some threat.
Sighing, he sat up and tried to understand what had awoken him, and heard nothing but the sound of the Shield Generator slowly ramping back up.
Ramping back up? He grabbed his communicator and stuck it in his ear. “Hawat to Generator Control.”
Silence.
“Generator Control! Respond!”
There was another silence, and then a click.
And a young woman’s voice said “セニイヘ! センソメオネファ!”
Thufir blinked.
As a Mentat, he spoke every language known to the Imperium. What he had just heard was not one of them. It clearly was a language, however, and the tone was frantic. He replied, “I hear you, but I do not understand you."
He switched channels. “Lieutenant, Security Alert Level 3! Awaken the Duke. I want a fire team to meet me at Shield Control immediately. Be cautious. We have an intruder, but do not attack unless they act in a hostile manner.”
. . .
Blake was quite frustrated. There was a syringe, but unfortunately there was no vial labeled “Antidote” in any language she recognized. There several vials. One of them might be an additional dose of whatever the hells this jackass had used on everyone, which might kill them. One of them might be the antidote.
She suspected that they were going to die regardless if she didn’t do something, because their breathing was gradually slowing. Which was why when one of their headsets crackled to life, she’d fumbled with it and answered the gibberish from it with “They need help! Send someone fast!” A man on the other end had replied with more gibberish, and then the radio went silent.
Something tells me I’m about to have company. And them showing up to find me armed and hovering over their comrades’ scattered bodies without being able to explain myself doesn’t sound like a winning strategy.
She set to work.
. . .
Minutes later, her faunus ears heard the sounds of running feet long before she saw them. “Alright Blake, here’s where we find out how good you are at art and charades,” she muttered, raising her hands above her head. One hand held a sheet of paper she'd found in the next room. The other held the pouch of vials she'd liberated.
The men rounded the corner with naked blades and a faint glow about their person. They looked military, and wore the same uniforms as the paralyzed men, who she’d carefully propped up against the wall. Five of the newcomers fanned out around her, while a sixth immediately went to their paralyzed compatriots.
“Κράτα! Μην κινηθείτε!” one of them demanded of her.
“Yeah I get it,” she said evenly, ears drooping. “I’m doing my best here.”
She saw the moment his brain processed the fact that she had two sets of ears, and his eyes locked momentarily on the upper set and then widened. “Τι είσαι από τις θάλασσες?!”
“Oh great. Someone who’s either a bigot or has never seen a Faunus before. Lovely.” She sighed, ears flattening. “Look, you can see that Gambol Shroud is still in its sheath, and all I have is these vials.” She gestured upward with her chin and forced a smile as she waved her hand with the pouch, trying to draw his attention in that direction. “And the best I can do for explaining is this.” She wiggled the paper. She cautiously glanced toward the men on the floor again. The one tending to them, she dubbed him Medicman, had discovered the syringe that she’d left sitting in one of his peer’s lap, and had picked it up cautiously.
“Τι είναι αυτό?” he asked. He glanced at Blake and noted the pouch in her hand, then his attention locked onto her ears. He shook his head.
“Look, I’m just trying to help,” Blake said calmly, ears twitching despite herself. She cautiously lowered one hand, offering the pouch to him. “But I don’t know how to read the chicken-scratch on these things.”
“Φέρτε με τόσο πολύ,” Medicman said to one of the others in a tone that sounded like a command, and then turned back to the one he’d been tending to, who she dubbed ParalyzedGuy1. He patted the man’s cheek. “Καπετάνιος, μπορείς να με ακούσεις?” he asked.
And to her relief, ParalyzedGuy1 blinked once, laboriously, as one she dubbed CautiousGuardNumber1 carefully took the pouch from her outstretched fingers and examined it. “Υπάρχουν φιαλίδια στην ένεση,” he said to MedicMan.
“Σας επιτέθηκε αυτή η γυναίκα?” MedicMan asked ParalyzedGuy1. "Ανατινάξτε μία φορά για ναι, δύο για όχι." She saw ParalyzedGuy1 blink twice. He was starting to look pale and his breathing was slowing even more.
“Σε βοήθησε?!” Another blink. And then MedicMan stared at Blake, said something else to the others, and gestured for the pouch.
To her immense relief, the other guards stepped back a pace and lowered their swords slightly. She wasn’t sure whether these guys had Aura. They looked more like serious Atlas Military types than Huntsmen, but there wasn’t a good reason to start a fight if she didn’t have to, and they didn’t act incompetent. MedicMan examined the vials quickly, looked at one of them with disgust, and then picked out a different one and began filling the syringe.
Meanwhile, GuardNumber3 moved past her and opened the doors that she’d closed back up. Where, of course, he spotted AssassinGuy, slumped next to the control where she’d left him. “Υπολοχαγός! ο γιατρός Γιουχ κατέρρευσε μέσα!!”
MedicMan immediately rose from where he’d finished administering injections. She could see that ParalyzedGuy1 was already starting to breathe a little better. That was promising. But…
Oh crap, he’s gonna heal the assassin, I bet. “Hey! You might not wanna do that! I mean… maybe he shouldn’t die, but he was the one with the weapon! Crap. Will you look at this!?” She waggled the paper furiously.
To his credit, MedicMan paused, and turned toward her, taking in what she was holding. She waved it again. His eyes narrowed. “Δεν θέλετε. να τείνω στο γιατρό? Υπάρχει κάποιος κίνδυνος εκεί?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! He’s the bad guy! Pew Pew Pew!”
MedicMan reached out, and reluctantly took the crumpled sheet from her fingers. His brows furrowed. He turned and yelled through the door. “Φαίνεται ότι ... ο γιατρός τραυματίστηκε?”
“Όχι κύριε, αλλά είναι δίπλα στους μεταβαλλόμενους ελέγχους και υπάρχει ένα όπλο βελόνας κοντά!” Came the reply.
He looked even more… not confused exactly, just like he was having a hard time believing what he was hearing.
And then another man hurried around the corner. He was older and slightly heavy-set, with dark skin and eyes and graying hair that reminded her in some ways of Pietro Polendina. He was wearing what she would describe as nightclothes with a formal-style jacket thrown over them. And he had a dark vertical line on his lower lip. His demeanor… if his appearance reminded her of Pietro, his bearing… well if this had been Beacon, she’d have said he was a Professor. He had that air of authority without a rigid military air. His eyes took her in immediately, and they were nothing like Dr. Polendina’s. These were sharp and suspicious. The guards immediately snapped to attention, though they kept their blades out. MedicMan hurried over with her sketch. He saluted and held a hurried conversation, showing the newcomer the image she’d drawn on the back of the paper she'd torn out. She hoped that hadn't been anything important.
. . .
When Thufir arrived, he found that the security detail had cornered… well his first impression had been of a young woman, as he had expected based on the voice he’d heard. She was armed, but her hands were empty and held carefully away from her weapon, and the security detail was watching her carefully. The greatest shock, which he carefully masked, was that she had some sort of cosmetic modification to her head, mimicking animal ears. He had little time to consider this, however.
“Sir!” The detail’s medic said anxiously. “The Shield Control Room’s guards were all incapacitated by a paralytic.” He held out the pouch. “When we arrived, the… girl had this in her hands. “I… administered what I believe is the antidote.” There was a groan from behind him.
“It appears you were correct in your guess, then.” Thufir took the pouch from him, frowning. “This belongs to Dr. Yueh.”
“Yessir, he was also paralyzed by one of the darts, and is still lying next to the Shield controls inside. We found a needle gun at his side. The… girl became agitated when I attempted to render aid, and seemed to want me to review this drawing.” He offered the paper to Thufir. It was a sheet torn from the log book inside the control room. On the back was a crude illustration of a man in dark clothing with straight black hair and a red dot on his forehead, holding a gun shape, firing at three men arrayed before double doors. The guard continued. “The captain was able to communicate to me using eye blinks. I asked him if the… girl did this to him, and he said no. He affirmed that she aided our men.”
Thufir’s eyes flicked from the pouch, to the recovering guards, to the crude drawing, and the girl. He realized with a shock that her cosmetic modifications were not, in fact, merely cosmetic. The ears were twitching and orienting in time with her facial expressions and noises from the environment.
“Watch her. I need a moment.”
Thufir withdrew into meditation, his eyes rolling back as he descended into the depths of Mentat training, processing the information he had available to him.
Dr. Yueh’s pouch containing vials. At least one was the paralytic that had been used on the guardsc. Another vial held an antidote. The drawing. The blinked responses of the captain.
All of this said that Wellington Yueh was a saboteur and a traitor to House Atreides.
Imperial Suk conditioning said that this was an impossibility.
Unfortunately that conflict left only a few other possibilities, none of them likely. For example, perhaps it was not Yueh at all, but a Tleilaxu agent. And the topic of Tleilax brought him to the girl. She was, it appeared, an augment or mutant of some sort. The most likely explanation for that would be, again, the Tleilaxu.
But why would one agent thwart another? What could be gained? The Shield Generator had been restored, when either of them could have easily disabled both it and communications in a manner that would have left House Atreides defenseless.
He exited meditation, and examined the girl again.
“It is possible that the man we perceive to be Dr. Yueh is an imposter. Remove his belongings and search him carefully. Then place him in a cell, immobilized, and administer the antidote.” He scanned the mutant girl again. “I will wish to question the girl, here, as soon as i can establish a common-”
There was a dull thud that was felt through the stone floor, followed by a deep whine. And then a tearing sound.
Thufir felt adrenaline surge through him as alarm klaxons sounded. He recognized that sound. He keyed his comms. “Security Alert Level 5! Snowflake Ordinance! All ships and crews respond!”
Another deep whine.
Followed by a massive explosion and additional thuds as more Snowflake projectiles reached the primary shield over the Governor’s Mansion complex and began to work their way through.
“Sir! We just lost a frigate!!”
“Scramble the fleet!” Thufir yelled over the communicator. “Get them in the air now! Scramble antiair defenses!”
And then, through the comms, he heard the sound of an unfamiliar large-bore projectile firing three times in rapid succession, followed by three massive explosions.
“Sir,” came the original voice, “there is… someone at the airfield firing on the Snowflakes as they leave the Shield Barrier… they are destroying them before they can reach the ships!” There was a pause and some mumbling. “What do you mean it’s a girl?” the man said to someone else in disbelief.
“サレッセンロセ! サル!” Thufir heard the augment cry out next to him. He turned to see her tapping her human ear, which he realized had the other guard’s comms unit still inserted. Then she held her hands as if firing a long gun, aimed at the sky. “サレッセンロセ! Bat! Bat! Bat!” She jerked her arms back with each exclamation in a clear pantomime of firing.
He stared at her for a moment. “I take it this is… someone you know…” he said, pointing at her, and then toward the outside through the walls. But their ‘conversation’ was interrupted by comms again, this time on a private channel.
“Hawat, what in the hells is happening?” came the voice of his Duke.
“We are under attack, My Lord.”
“Thufir…” Leto Atreides’ voice held barely controlled fury. “I am aware of that part.”
Gurney Halleck broke in. “My Lord, crews are beginning to lift off now. Scanners are showing dozens of the Harkonnen troop carriers and gunships converging on Arakeen and-” there was a long pause. “There are Harkonnen Destroyers entering low orbit. A Guild Heighliner has been detected in-system as well.”
“That answers one part of my question,” Leto replied coldly. “I had expected something, but not this, and not so soon.”
“It may be worse than we imagined, My Lord.” Hawat replied. “It appears a saboteur posing as Dr. Yueh was attempting to sabotage the Shield Generator and communications.” He paused. “The man was only thwarted by a very unusual visitor. If you… happen to encounter a strangely dressed human or mutant, I would counsel treating them as a potential ally. With due caution, of course.”
There were the sounds of additional projectile fire in rapid sequence over the broader channel, and Thufir saw his own guest’s ears perk up and her expression shift to relief.
“You mean,” Gurney said. His words were accompanied by the sound of booted feet running and labored breathing, “for example,” sharp inhale, “a teenage girl in a red cloak, flying through the air” A gasp. “With an oversized rifle.” He appeared to be running. “Shooting Snowflakes,” sharp inhale, “out of the sky before they can reach our frigates?”
Thufir shook his head, considering the mutant in the corridor with him. She couldn’t possibly hear the other half of this conversation, but she seemed to be relaxing further. “That would likely fit the profile, yes.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw two of the security detail exiting the control room bearing the limp body of the saboteur. The others sealed the room back, and took their place, swords out, personal shields active, and eyes watchful.
“My Lord,” Duncan Idaho’s voice added itself to the channel, “There are reports of Harkonnen troop transports preparing to land in Arakeen just outside the Shield Barrier. Permission to muster a Bashar and meet them on the field.” He sounded almost eager.
“Permission granted, Duncan. Keep them away from the civilians if possible.”
“M’Lord, with your permission I would like to stay with… the visitor that I encountered… so that I can attempt to improve our communications. She does not speak any language I am familiar with, and she may be the key to communicating with the one at the airfield.”
“Are you sure that’s safe? What if she’s been sent to deprive me of my most trusted advisor?”
Thufir eyed the young mutant. She was observing him intently, her feline ears twitching, and she was now shifting excitedly from foot to foot. “I find that doubtful.”