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And in both cases, Thul’s purposes were served.

The governor had always prided himself on his poise, his equilibrium. But as he and Kaavin approached a lift, he had to fight the urge to whoop with glee. It was going to work, he reflected, and work perfectly. The fools were going to destroy each other.

All it would take was one more outrageous, intolerable affront to tip the scales in favor of war, and Thul was about to see to it that that one final affront would take place.

“Bridge,” he said, as he and his second-in-command entered the lift compartment. A moment later, the doors whispered closed behind them and the compartment began its journey through the ship.

“When this is over,” the governor told Kaavin with a surge of generosity, “you will be amply rewarded.”

She looked at him, no doubt wondering in what shape the reward would come. After all, Thul’s second knew nothing about his ambitions-only that he wanted to spur a war in this sector. And being a loyal subject she hadn’t questioned that ambition.

“I am honored,” Kaavin told him.

You don’t know how honored, the governor thought.

Then the lift doors opened and his ship’s bridge was revealed to him. At the sight of their lord, his officers leaned back in their seats and thrust their chins out.

Thul smiled at them as he emerged from the lift compartment. They were Thallonians all. There was no mixture of inferior aliens here, such as could be seen on Picard’s Federation vessel. They were warriors, professionals. And whether they admitted it to themselves or not, they hungered as he did for something more than what their blood-rights had granted them.

Soon, the governor reflected, these steadfast souls would become the lords of his new empire. They would serve him as he presently served Tae Cwan and they would reap the benefits accorded such service.

Thul eased himself into his center seat and turned to his helmsman, a stocky fellow with a dueling scar down the side of his face. “Set course for the fleetyard on Cordra Three.”

He recited the coordinates from memory. He had been looking forward to this for a long time.

“Aye, lord,” replied the helmsman, and entered the course. The governor settled back to mull over the final stage of his plan.

His own vessel was now equipped with the same magnetic-pulse technology as the one that had destroyed the Melacronai outpost. Like the scientists at the outpost, the Cordracites at the fleetyard would never know it was a Thallonian ship that had attacked them.

As he watched the stars streak by at impulse speed on his forward monitor, Thul tried to picture the destruction of the fleetyard in all its brutal, explosive glory. It was difficult for him to do it justice.

But the results… those were easier for him to imagine. The war would get under way instantly, of course. And the first victory-thanks to his crippling of the Cordracites’ shipbuilding capabilities-would be claimed by the slightly weaker Melacron.

What’s more, he told himself, there would be several hundred fewer Cordracites for the Melacron to kill. And it would no doubt spur the victims’ kinsmen to violence unmatched in the history of the sector.

The governor smiled and thought of his son… his loyal, efficient, infinitely clever son. What Thallonian in his right mind would have imagined that Mendan Abbis could prove so useful to Thul’s cause? Who, indeed, but the governor himself?

Once he understood his father’s scheme, once he embraced it, the boy had risen to the challenge. He had executed each and every step of the plan flawlessly, knowing whom to contact for a particular assignment and how to make the most of their talents.

That alone would have been enough, Thul reflected. No-it would have been more than enough. But in addition, Mendan Abbis had demonstrated a flair for the dramatic.

The assassination of the Melacronai G’aha, the bomb that slew the Cordracite commuters, the poisoning of the reservoir on Cordra III… all these things were accomplished with