We have finally arrived on Arrakis to take over the Spice production from house Harkonnen. They have made an appearance of being helpful and accommodating with the transfer, but given the ruthlessness they have shown in their dealings, I cannot believe they would give up such a profitable business so easily. They even provided us with training for the role on their home world Geidi Prime. Perhaps that is a good place to start this record. We were sent to Geidi Prime after receiving a letter from the Countess.

Our instructors were Niran Rani, the Harkonnen Battle Advisor, Turo Imshal - the Harkonnen Behavioural Advisor in charge of diplomacy and espionage, and Korbus Zaan, the Harkonnen Mentat who was observing our training.

Our first training was a simulation of a shuttle which had been attacked and taken damage. The simulation would end when the shuttle was fixed, we had evacuated the shuttle, or all the Nagara heirs were eliminated.

We started on the bridge where Natalia identified five different systems malfunctioning in the engine room. On the way to the engineering room we came across two crew. One was dead, and the other was hammering on a door. Their friend was stuck behind the door so we forced the door open to free the crewman and ordered them to an evacuation pod. We then heard sounds of a struggle and saw a crew member in a struggle with an enemy. She defeated the enemy but needed help to the escape pods. These both seemed to be obstructions to force us to make decisions whether to help others or leave them to their fate. From what I know of the Harkonnen's, we would be scored down for doing anything that was not selfish.

We finally made it to the engineering room where we quickly fixed the Jet brakes, Life support and jet thrusters, at which point the simulation ended.

Our second training exercise was to infiltrate a complex to find important data stored on a minimic film. We planned a route to the centre of the complex and were given an electronics kit and knife. We were then dropped off at the entrance. Alarms went off as we penetrated the complex. I shut down the alarms with Jiro but the others struggled to get through the door to the room where the minimic film was located. It opened eventually and we searched the room. The minimic film was located and we headed towards the exit. The lights dimmed and then came back on. Guards appeared and Zafir was hit by a dart. Rani shouted halt but one of the simulated enemies lunged forward with a dart gun towards Natalia. He was hit by three darts and went down. Zafir was administered an anti venom as the attacker was dragged away. Clearly this was not part of the exercise.

Analysis showed the dart contained one of a two part poison. They got through the poison detectors as they were not individually deadly, but if Zafir had been hit by a second dart the consequences would have been far worse. The next day there was poison snoopers in evidence at mealtimes.

Imshal advised us the attacker had been operating under orders of house Vernius and we should expect Vernius to also be making moves to interrupt the spice production on Arrakas. Qu'Shan from the Geidi Prime underworld provided the Harkonnen's with information in return for them ignoring his dealings. We were tasked with finding him in the lower market (a slum area) and learn what he knew.

We were given disguises and a passphrase to give to Qu'Shan, then dropped off half a mile from the low market. We spent the day exploring the low market and finally managed to locate Qu'Shan. He agreed to meet us in private where he said he had not heard about any local house Vernius operations. A week later we heard Qu'Shan had been found dead but had sent a message capsule before he had been killed saying Vernius had one more operative who had retreated off planet and left no further leads.

We were advised that a frigate had landed at the nearby landing field carrying a message from the countess. A man from the frigate approached us and handed a letter to Jiro. It read:

The goods were offloaded to a Harkonnan warehouse. Dr Erika Ganio, a Nagara lead scientist was also on board. She found some of the stock had been damaged in transit and needed repair before being traded. Luckily we had time before the CHOAM delegation arrived.

We met with Sabrya Zayr, the lead negotiator for CHOAM. Natalia and Jiro were not good at the negotiations, but I managed to get her to agree to a higher price for some of the goods. Overall I think the deal was reasonable, with low profit on some of the goods being offset by higher profits on others.

Next we were taught about the Harkonnen industrial processes and how the Harkonnens run their factories. We were ushered into a private car and taken to the industrial centre of the barony. They mostly manufactured weapons. Korbus Zaan showed as round a factory which obviously had few safety protocols. We were introduced to two factory workers, Xav Camran and Colrin Bentlix. They took scrap back for reprocessing and poured molten metal into the moulds. While we were interviewing them a support beam snapped, causing molten metal to splash everywhere. Only Natalia avoided being splashed but we manged to save Colrin. Xav was covered in the burning metal and died instantly. Korbus seemed only concerned that the accident would affect productivity. When queried about the ineficiencies of losing workers and retraining them, he said there was an endless supply of labour in the slave pits and they were only trained to do a single task, so were easy to replace.

We were taken for treatment for our burns, then Korbus announced a group of anarchists had taken control of part of the factory. He said this was an unexpected opportunity for training and we should resolve the matter. They had written a letter with their demands.

We negotiated with Callum and agreed to arrange training for some of the workers who could then train others to be able to spot and resolve safety issues before they result in accidents. Korbus was not impressed with our resolution, he thought we should have used violence to resolve the situation.

We then returned to the lab where Dr Ganio rushed to us and said she had been working on new spice production techniques but had got strange results. We determined the experimental device had been sabotaged and managed to prevent it from being destroyed. We found a Nidden electronic spy eye in the ceiling, frayed wires in the harvesting machine, and a remote explosive device in the power supply. The spy eye was transmitting to a device in the office of a lab technician called Kira Jaro. We found fingerprints on the damaged wiring which also belonged to Kira Jaro. I did a chemical analysis of the explosion. Rare chemicals had been used which were stored in a locked area only accessible by Kira Jaro.

She was currently off duty and in her bunk. We pulled up her personnel file. She had skills in advanced tech. Sher had applied and was employed by house Harkonnen. We confronted her and searched her room. A minimic film was found hidden in her closet. "Kira - we have provided all materials needed any type of sabotage you need to execute - Earl Elber Vernius". Her fingerprints were on the film. Elber Vernius is head of house Vernius, so if genuine it was damning evidence. She was taken to an interrogation room, and the Harkonnen guards said they had searched her. We also searched her and found she had a false tooth with poison, and a poisoned needle under a fingernail. Korbus ordered the guard executed for incompetence. Kira demanded trial by combat and said she would become loyal if she was defeated.

Zafir accepted her offer, then defeated her easily. She knelt and pledged fealty and said she could show us where she had all the information on our enemy. She said there was a second film hidden in her bunk. "Kira - Once Nagara is distracted, get as much intelligence on the Nagaran technology as you can. Send all data to Aerav Kase, who is waiting on Ecaz. - Earl Elber Vernius".

A house steward advised us that the Countess Nagara had just arrived on Geidi Prime. Were shown to her in a reception room. Baron Harkonnen was also in the room. The countess demanded compensation for the injuries we sustained on Geidi prime and the Baron reluctantly agreed. From their reactions we determined the Baron was cold but not scared, but the countess was frightened for us, and believed our lives were in danger from the baron. The Countess said our apprenticeship was at an end and we should join her on Arrakis.

We left Geidi Prime on a house transport and headed towards the guild highliner. The countess produced an astrolabe, an ancient device that allowed navigation in space, and gave it to Jiro. Then suddenly an explosion rocked the transport. The countess extinguished the fire and grabbed the controls. It responded sluggishly but began to pull out of the dive. The damage had been caused by a small explosion which blew out the pilots console. Our transport had been sabotaged. The jet brake, jet thruster, cooling system, altitude system and life support had all failed. Identical to issues to the first training simulation.

Natalia and Jiro repaired the jet brake while I helped Zafir with the jet thruster. Natalia and Jiro then worked on the cooling system while Zafir fixed the altitude monitor. Finally the cooling system was fixed and we returned to the countess. As we arrived a second explosion sprayed shrapnel from the bulkhead, hitting the countess. She passed a silver necklace to Jiro and said he was house Nagara now before she died.

We rushed to the escape pods as the transport plummeted out of control. The pods made it to the surface of Geidi Prime and the Baron Harkonnen provided us transport to the guild highliner. The ritual ceremony to transfer control of house Nagara to us was performed on the Harkonnen ship while in transit to Arrakis. The funeral of the Countess took place on the highliner and the Barron Harkonnen offered to take her body back to our home world.