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Now he was here.

Now all the pieces would come together.

Now the campaign could truly begin.

Even Malkus’s great power was limited, after all. He was able to control the entire population of Narendra III, but not the occupants of the ships in orbit as well. So he had several hundred Narendrans place themselves into confinement—an enclosed sporting arena on the planet’s largest continent served the function; the thralls created a forcefield to keep everyone in—and then he loosed control of their minds.

Then he took command of the four Klingon Defense Force ships in orbit, as well as a human freighter that was bringing supplies of some kind.

Soon thereafter, Leonard McCoy and Spock of Vulcan arrived. They had had company in their conveyances—three drugged Klingons with McCoy and a Klingon and two humans, all victims of some kind of nerve damage, with Spock—and Malkus had them imprisoned in McCoy’s conveyance, after having all the ship’s power neutralized and a forcefield placed around it.

Kira Nerys arrived alone, and then, finally, DeSoto came with the other Instruments.

Malkus knew that the wind was blowing through this piece of a hill that had been excavated by the Klingons only because he could feel the wind blow through the hair of his four thralls, but he could not feel it himself. If his thralls were cold, Malkus did not permit them to show it. They simply stood obediently, awaiting instruction, hands at their sides. In front of DeSoto was a sack containing the other three Instruments.

Bring them to me.

DeSoto picked up the sack and walked over to where his Instrument sat on the cold ground of Narendra III.

Put the Instruments together. Then my power truly shall be an awesome thing to behold.

Kneeling down, DeSoto fit one Instrument next to Malkus’s. The two sides of the Instruments came together as if magnetized.

Malkus felt the power surge through him.

Then DeSoto fit another onto the side perpendicular to the one Malkus’s Instrument was attached to. Again, they came together, and again, Malkus felt the power sing within him. Aidulac and her team had done their job so well. Soon, his power would be all-encompassing. No one would be able to resist him—none could escape his mental domination; he could infect an entire world with the adrenal virus, not just a few hundred; and he could destroy suns with the beam of force.

The unthinkable happened when DeSoto moved to attach the final Instrument into the corner that would fill out the Great Rectangle. A much less pleasant surge went through Malkus—feedback on an incredible scale. If the other two attachments were like magnets coming together, the final Instrument repelled the other like magnets of the same pole.

Malkus had thought himself beyond feeling pain, but he was wrong.

That pain was transmitted to his thralls, as all across the planet and in orbit, thousands of beings screamed in agony.

The moment passed, then, and Malkus surveyed the ground before him. The four thralls had collapsed to the ground in great pain. One of them—McCoy—was frail and had difficulty getting back up, but the others rose to their feet with little difficulty.

Three-quarters of the Great Rectangle was assembled, at least. His powers had been boosted—his control was even greater. To test it, he infected all those imprisoned in the sports arena on the largest continent with the adrenal virus. They would die before long. In fact, knowing this species, they would probably react to the heightened adrenaline levels by massacring each other long before the virus did its work.

But something was wrong with the last Instrument. And he could not inspect it for himself.

Of his four thralls, only Spock had had any opportunity to study the Instruments, so Malkus instructed him to examine it. Malkus suspected that there was a flaw in it, since he had not been able to feel when that particular Instrument had been uncovered. According to DeSoto’s memories, an Andorian named Tharia ch’Ren had used it to sow chaos in a then-disputed region of space. Malkus wished he