The Deeper You Dig... [Day 0]

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Properly braced, Ambrose held his position when the seal broke. Efren was not so fortunate. He watched the young sergeant get pulled through the opening. The helplessness he felt quickly faded as he heard Hawats call to action. Ambrose energized his glowglobe, disconnected his anchor, and made his way to the opening and peered inside, dreading the worst.

"Sergeant, Lanville, do you copy?"

[Efren Lanville]

Efren heard some crackling in his comm and looked up as a glowglobe entered the shaft far above him.

"Anyone read me?" He said again as he waved his hand to be more noticeable in the dark.

He began brushing himself off more thoroughly... perhaps all the iridium was the cause for the choppy communications. Was this dust iridium?

He would wait until the glowglobe was close enough for him to be seen and then rely on Atreides military hand signals to communicate if the comms weren't working well enough.

[Kannon]

In the faint light of the glowglobe, the place was giving a vibe of an inside of a swimming pool. Efren discovered he wasn't as deep as he had previously assumed, farther rather. He could walk toward the light, a few metres above his eye level. The coating of the whole chamber might have been indeed iridium, though neither him nor Ambrose could be sure given the light's mediocre luminosity. There was a lot of static in the comms but words, especially repeated ones, were mostly getting through, in distorted forms.

There wasn't actually that much of that dust, once it started settling in the borrowed atmosphere. More like blown-up residue. Alas, identification eluded him. No tasting or smelling in the vacsuit.

[Efren Lanville]

Efren would check around to make sure conditions were as safe as they could be before motioning for the group to approach his position...

What waited ahead of them in the darkness he could only guess.

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran looked ahead, using a glowglobe slightly ahead to plan their route and follow carefully. "You all right?" they asked once they got close.

[Kannon]

It required going down the ladder before they could walk forth. As the light source approached, Efren and Kiran could both make something of the relatively scant residue under their feet, some particles still lingering in the thin air as small pixels against the glowglobe. It was fine, red or orange.

[Efren Lanville]

Kiran looked ahead, using a glowglobe slightly ahead to plan their route and follow carefully. "You all right?" they asked once they got close.

He smiled and nodded, "I'm good. Used to falling down."

He didn't know what to make of the space dust... He'd heard they all were space dust once upon a time...

[Ambrose Pantazis]

A silent sigh of relief was let out in Ambrose's helmet. Lanville was made of sturdy stuff. That and the diminished gravity certainly helped. Trying to overcome the interference, he used battlesign along with spoken word, "Are you injured? What have you found down there?"

He maintained his position above for the time being.

[Efren Lanville]

Efren signed the basics of their circumstances.

“Any idea on what this dust may be?” He asked to the group.

[Kannon]

"It's melange."

Thufir, he had joined them last, was now holding a speckle on his finger up to the visor of his helmet.

"We are in an emptied spice vault."

There was a grim tone to the discernment as if it was a really bad thing.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Ambrose followed Hawat down, looking around at the dust in question before hearing what his eyes would not believe. He took a moment to scan the space around him and imagine the sheer volume of spice it represented. Even the amount of spice "dust" left behind would be a fortune if gathered. If not for the thin, contaminated atmosphere necessitating his vacsuit, he would be breathing in a lifetime supply of a noble's melange down here.

Running a few scenarios down, it wasn't too hard to figure why Hawat sounded bleak, "If the Harkonnens are moving their stockpiles, what are the odds the ones we are targeting are still there?" That particular of the mission was of course secondary to retrieving Gurney Halleck, but it would be an immense strategic blow to the Harkonnens if they could pull it off.

[Kannon]

"Spice is stored in sealed containers. If there is so much spillage in this vault they must have been in haste to be so wasteful. They are rarely wasteful with melange. And yet I assess that the probability of it being a local contingency rather than a strategy is low. Which means that no, we cannot be certain that their glacier vault has not been similarly evacuated. It adds the complexity of verification to our mission. But I would not be so concerned if it ended up being a precautionary rotation."

Thufir had to take a breath. This close to each other the static was negligible, so his words kept landing without the cushioning ambiguity of static.

"Because if it was liquidation of illegal stockpiles it would be unprecedented. And yet I have observed no distortion to the spice market, no supply shock. No heteroscedasticity. Which in turn means it is not solaris they could be securing, but favours from other hoarders through colossal spice bribes under the table. And there are just three entities that have the capacity to absorb this much spice without leaving a market trace. The Guild, CHOAM, and the Emperor."

A moment of intense computation...

"Maybe the Bene Gesserit as well. Either way, it would indicate a daring undertaking, some unfolding endgame."

Thufir stopped short at offering a third-level approximation. As it stood, it was ominous enough.

[Efren Lanville]

All of this was rather ominous to be sure… and Efren took a moment to listen and try and understand what it was that was being expressed. Proverbial dark clouds over Caladan continued to build… Danger was coming it would seem.

Let the conspiring bastards conspire… We’ll make ‘them’ die on Caladan if it comes to it.

After a good moment of mutual contemplation Efren turned to Thufir, “Orders, sir?”

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Are there any more likely than the others?" Kiran asked.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Recalling the conversation back in Castle Caladan, the revelation that the emperor might be bringing his Sardaukar forces to bear on House Atreides, the news that their envoy Gurney had been intercepted en route, Ambrose connected the dots. Secret stockpiles of the spice melange disappearing could certainly account for favors bought and paid for.

Was there no honor to be found outside Caladan?

"This only makes both parts of our mission all the more important. I can only have faith our Duke will see us through the treachery."

[Kannon]

"Are there any more likely than the others?" Kiran asked.

"Unknown variables notwithstanding, the Spacing Guild is the most obvious. The sole enabler of troop transport and the largest spice consumer, with a clear preference for securing non-market supply. It is the only one whose cooperation the Harkonnen truly need to make the move. The Emperor's crusade against worlds he accuses of conspiring with the Noble Commonwealth would be a complete drain of anyone else's war chest but the Corrino enjoy extremely preferential rates with the Guild. CHOAM under Malina Aru is escaping credible estimation. Her prodigal fugitive son runs the conspiracy and we cannot be sure how much influence Jaxson still enjoys within the Consortium. For things he has been doing, he needed a lot of money."

Thufir explained, looking for the cutteray. They couldn't afford leaving it behind.

“Orders, sir?”

"We conclusively vent the whole thing and consider it secured. After that, Lankiveil. Time is not on our side."

"This only makes both parts of our mission all the more important. I can only have faith our Duke will see us through the treachery."

"The Duke is doing his part and we are doing ours. Neither of us will have a second chance to do it right. House Atreides must stand with strength and honour of all its loyal members."

[Efren Lanville]

“Yes, sir.” He replied and located the cutteray that had fallen with him to haul it back to their ship.

And then after Thufir’s reply to Ambrose, “Here I am… Here I remain.”

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Ambrose gave some thought to the bodies inside and out of the facilities, "It's a shame we can't spare the time to give them a proper burial. More victims of Harkonnen avarice. They may not have fought under the Atreides banner, but they have their own war with Harkonnen scum."

[Kannon]

"I don't doubt they were loyal to our enemies, at least until they realised they became expendable. But then it was too late."

Thufir moved to put their exit protocol in action.

"Giedi Prime is a festering pit of industrial breeding. They can afford to waste humans in droves. Everyone must fear of being replaced. This is how they rule."

[Ambrose Pantazis]

One would assume it was their most loyal, or more accurately controlled, who were sent out to seal the others within. Ambrose recalled the little pill he'd found in the man's stomach outside. The minuscule leash and muzzle used by Harkonnens to control the masses.

Once chemical dependence was established, it dug its hooks in and rarely let go. Even now, Ambrose felt the pull of the trace spice melange left behind in the vault. Point of fact, you could say Harkonnens had sunk their spice laced claws into much of the landsraad with their control over Arrakis and its unique melange. The perfect drug, whose worst side effect was extended longevity. What a leash to hold.