Scars and Secrets - Gurney Halleck (Dune)

Part IV

"My Love, it's time."

Time to say goodbye to Caladan, their home, for Arrakis.

Lita took one last look, took one last deep breath of fresh sea air, before taking Gurney's hand and following him to their ship. 

Travel across to other planets was swift, so soon, some would even say too soon, they were arriving on Arrakis. 

"'My lungs taste the air of Time,'" Gurney recited as they touched down and the door opened. "'Blown past falling sand...'"

The hot, heavy air hit them instantly. The piper began to play, leading the procession out onto the grounds of Arrakis.

Tufar Hawait, head of their security, was the first to greet them.

"How are you, old friend?" Leto asked, shaking the man's hand.

"My advance team has secured the city. We are still smoothing out a few rough spots."

The crowd was chanting, whispering while they watched the family.

"Don't be fooled by the welcome," said Tufar. "They follow their old masters' rules: mandatory attendance."

"Atreides!" shouted Gurney. 

"ATREIDES!" the soldiers responded.  Their chants drowned out those of the locals.

"Let's get you out of the sun," said Tufar. "The heat can kill you in this place."

"I don't doubt it," Lita said, trying her best to shield herself from the intense rays. 

The ornithopters took them to their dwellings. Their new house was a boxy fortress, with thick stone walls to keep out the suffocating heat as much as possible.

"The locals call the big one the Hand of God," Gurney told them, while he, Leto, and Lita viewed the planet's moons through a visor from their new home's main balcony. The larger of the two moons looked as though it had a giant, skeletal handprint on its surface, hence the name.

"Well the Hand of God is wreaking havoc on our comms system. It's so quiet, that's what worries me too." Leto lowered the visor and pointed. "There's the spaceport. And that plume of dust there is the spice refinery. Our two most vulnerable points. I want you guarding them, Gurney. If we can't refine spice and ship it off-world, we're dead here."

"My Lord, the sun is getting too high. We need to seal the doors," called the Lieutentant. 

Leto nodded but sighed. "What do they say about this hellhole again?

"'To shower, you scrub your ass with sand' My Lord. That's what they say," Gurney answered. 

"That's what they say."

Lita sighed as well.  "Looking forward to it."

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Their first night on their new home world of Arrakis was a dramatic one, to say the least.  Paul was targeted by a hunter-seeker that had been planted weeks before by the Harkonnens.

"So they knew we were coming,"  cried Lita. "Even before we did." And not only that, they knew exactly which room Paul would be in, too. Perhaps it could have been any of them targeted, but she had a deep, lingering feeling that it was no act of randomness that the assassin targeted the Heir of House Atredies. 

Needless to say, she would keep a blade close by from that moment on, both day and night.  

(Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :))