Audit Finale

[Kannon]

The auditors were given an opportunity to make their case before the naibs. Facing divergent interests, it was extremely hard for them to build consensus around acquiring help from the Fremen to deal with Orgiz, and yet nothing short of one would move them forward. While Stilgar was mostly sympathetic to their cause and Merkur had been placated by Bomilcar, the other three posed a challenge. While Saajid was mostly equivocating, the true dissent was coming from Rajifiri and Abumojandis who seemed to have the greatest manpower behind them on the spot. During the deliberations it became clear that Abumojandis felt his authority challenged on multiple fronts, with the Habbanya Ridge, now exposed to both the Imperium and the Smugglers, being his purview. The only way to get Rajifiri’s approval was to compensate him, so he agreed only at the price of most of the Tuek-provided equipment and the water of roughly half of the captured Smugglers. But this put Abumojandis in the corner as he had expected a more amicable arrangement with Tuek to offset future troubles, and his support was indispensible. The deadlock escalated – with Dorian’s relative ignorance of and irreverence to Fremen cultural boundaries, his appeals to ‘reason’ brought the room to the brink of violence as Abumojandis was on the verge of commanding a wipeout of the whole CHOAM deployment. It was Saajid who used his earlier impartial credentials to diffuse the chaotic outcome that would end up in a bloodbath given Sardaukar involvement and claimed that the auditors’ purity of intent or lack thereof can only by determined through Amtal. Dorian stepped up as a champion when a Fremen called Khouro invoked it before his naib Abumojandis would. Dorian expected an easier fight, and for all his Ginaz training in a dramatic duel he was almost humbled and killed, squeezing out the death blow just barely while himself wounded. This victory, on which their survival hinged, would turn sour, however. Unbeknownst to all on the CHOAM team but Ahmina, Khouro was Liet-chih, Liet’s stepson who many of the Ichwan Bedwine had seen as Liet’s heir. The Fremen would keep their part of the deal with regard to Orgiz, but the long-term prospects for the Houses of the Imperium to maintain a relationship with the Fremen turned much worse, especially for the Mutelli.

In stark contrast to the length of the council, the battle plan was formulated quickly and prepared for even quicker, though the Fremen kept the details of the distraction they would provide to themselves. The Fremen seemed to be making little of the challenge to overcome the refinery defences, which felt foolhardy given what the auditors had discovered about the site. Only Bomilcar and Ahmina were allowed to partake in the infiltration in person with Merkur and Stilgar respectively, the CHOAM frigate with the rest was meant to wait at suborbital altitudes for the signal that the site had been secured and they could land to collect evidence. Suspiciously enough, the Sardaukar Levenbreche didn’t object…

The attack started in the Hour of Assassins but its exact opening was obscure due to radio silence and darkness. Soon, however, explosions flared and laser fire of the defences commenced once shields had gone down. The troop Bomilcar was on had deployed inrock to secure and mark a landing site. However, it didn’t come to pass. Just when they took down the outer perimeter and were ready to descend into the canyon, where the fighting was tilting to Fremen favour, several squadrons of Harkonnen battle ‘thopters arrived in the first rays of sunlight and started carpeting the site with incendiary munitions, raising inferno for all down below. Their initial sortie was very effective, and all the Fremen who still could fell back and sought cover before the Harkonnen would realign for an aerial lasgun sweep. Before that could occur, however, the Sardaukar monitor descended from orbit and took charge of the situation, threatening the Harkonnen to a halt. Rabban, who had been heading the surprise second attack, took immediate credit for shutting down an illegal spice refinery run by rogue elements in league with desert rabble. The destruction of Orgiz wasn’t complete, but the auditors had to wait until fire had run its course and the site was greenlit by the Sardaukar for access. Little was left for them amid the cinders. No living survivors among the refinery personnel. They could still confirm that its operational capacity was possible thanks to advanced imported equipment and had generated weekly outputs worth millions of solaris. Field autopsies of charred people revealed their off-world origin, in a few cases identifiable as Uchan mercenaries – by their teeth. But a clear-cut connection to any Great House being behind it was absent, and it was becoming clear that the whole site had been designed to cover leads to whoever had run it. At least so far, for Cuyler managed to collect small spice samples the chemical composition of which might lead to linking the Orgiz spice to its distribution channels...

Even without the smoking gun evidence that Orgiz had really been a Harkonnen side-operation, the preliminary report Claudius had been working on was cautiously praised by Count Fenring upon their return to Arrakeen. Stopping short of giving grounds for removal of House Harkonnen from their siridar governorship, it still contained a lot of facts and figures that were quite damning, Orgiz operations being a testament to Harkonnen negligence or incompetence at the very least. Despite Harkonnen protestations, upon completion the report was to be approved by the CHOAM Board, where the Emperor held the majority share, and then subjected to a debate in the Landsraad. Hence, the auditors were expected to leave Arrakis and come to Kaitain as consultants for the upcoming debate...