Dune--The Heir of Caladan by Brian Herbert

Author:Brian Herbert [Herbert, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

* * *

AFTER THE OLD woman returned to the village, Paul asked Sinsei to help him find his way back to the Atreides flyer on the rocky side of the mountain. He glanced along the mountain slope, knowing where Chaen Marek’s base was, where Duncan was being held.

When Paul and Sinsei reached the edge of the clearing, he saw the battered aircraft, its engines partly disassembled, but some of the repairs had been made already. Seeing the damaged hull, Paul remembered the thrill of fear when he had brought it in for such a hard landing.

He strode forward now for another look at the flyer’s engines. Inside, the locator beacon was automated and no doubt still functioning. But Thufir Hawat would not expect them back at Castle Caladan for at least another two days, so no one would be looking for them yet. Earlier, Duncan and Paul had changed some of the damaged components, and they had expected to work together replacing the burned-out engine parts and patching the aircraft enough to limp away. At the time, Duncan had felt no urgency about completing the repairs. The two had thought of it as another learning experience, making off-the-cuff fixes with whatever spare parts were available.

Paul sighed now. He wasn’t supposed to do it alone.…

Sinsei offered to help, although she was abashed. The self-confident young woman had studied botany and alien zoology at the Imperial academy, and she understood the jungle environment; she could speak at length about ecology, just like her father, but she had no experience as an aircraft mechanic.

“And I am the son of a Duke,” Paul said as he crawled on the ground beneath the hull, extending a tool into the starboard engine compartment. “But Leto Atreides is not a foppish nobleman, and he raised me to get my hands dirty as well.”

Duncan had already set out the viable components, pieces, and modules from the repair kit. Paul could not rebuild the engines completely, but by cannibalizing components from the four tandem engines, he might have enough to get two of them functioning, just enough for them to fly. He had already checked the comm array, and it was hopeless. The interconnected electronics could not be repaired through brute force. Two of the engines, though … It would have to be enough.

Determined, he looked up at Sinsei. “We’ll get this working again, but I’m not leaving without Duncan.” He drew a breath and modified his statement. “We need to rescue him—and your father.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.