Disclaimer
I own none of the characters. All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon.
The lesson of fishing is this, you capture the fish by giving it what it wants. If it wants fresh tasty food you give it fresh tasty food but you also insert a hook that embeds itself into the flesh of the creature. This is how the universe traps us. It gives us desires and instincts that override the conscious mind. No matter how well we are trained we must always question the underlying motivations of our actions. That is why when we are off guard we resume our base state. Fish want to swim, birds want to fly and cats want to hunt.
"Introduction to political analysis"
Bene Gesserit
Freshman Guide
"The reconnaissance team has entered the Deeper Well." Afari Guerrero, the executive officer, reported.
"Excellent!" Surayya Raisa thought. She was spoiling for a fight.
Hours ago a small recon team, with her best telepaths, had entered the Deeper Well. They found nothing at first but a huge open landscape desolate of all life and movement littered with millions upon millions of coffins as far as the eye could see. A field of dead things that extended even to the landscape that hung over head. The landscape was dark, sterile and cold.
"Moneo was right," Alisha, the recon team leader, said, "This place is creepy. I felt it as soon as we dropped out of hyperspace." The team leader stood there in her armored environment suit that she had hand painted with the silhouettes of cute and fuzzy bunnies. "If my pre-life memories are correct, demons feared bunnies."
Days ago the fleet of thirty ships had entered the Tailos system which consisted of a pulsar, two minor planets, a gas giant and cosmic dust. It was over a thousand trillion cubic miles of empty radiation filled blackness. It was a huge graveyard. They dropped out of hyperspace ten million miles from the gas giant intending to go into a geosynchronous orbit above the hidden moon. That's when the first trap was sprung. A wave of radiation came out of nowhere and obliterated ten ships. Fifteen hundred slayers died. Aboard the flagship, "Memories of Dawn", Surayya was furious but there was nothing she could do except order everyone into their environmental suits which they wore constantly. The telepathic Slayers scanned the planet for hours and found nothing. The few magical Slayers they had left could not perform any reconnaissance spells that generated any useful information. Most of the magic users were killed in that first attack. Whatever hit them took out the magic users first.
"I need a recon mission." Surayya spoke to the bridge.
"I'll go captain." spoke up Alisha Itkin a young girl of thirteen. Her environmental suit revealed none of her beanpole figure. She wore her hair in twin blonde braids she tucked into her suit.
"Do it quick." Surayya said. "I need hard data on what's down there."
Surayya watched Alisha and her team enter the bridge elevator.
"Be Safe." Surayya said to her as the elevator doors closed.
After six hours of exploring Alisha and her team had turned up nothing. They stayed well clear of the coffins themselves. Leto warned them that just touching a coffin could bring an Old One back to life.
They were on the way back to the ship when they were attacked. Something fast and black sliced through two of the Slayers before they knew what hit them. Their bodies fell into bloody pieces before they hit the ground. The third Slayer was stabbed through the chest by something that looked like a claw and lifted six feet off the ground before her body was ripped in two.
Alisha felt it before she could see it. Dropping to the ground she felt the pressure of something heavy pass a fraction of an inch above her skin. Striking upward and backward she plunged her indestructible knife into the obsidian form. She was sprayed with green blood. She was preparing her second attack when something grabbed her head and ripped it clean from her body.