Decades pa.s.sed. The planet that one government had made into an uninteresting parkland had been transformed by another into a thriving colony. Dozens of cities had been built, many thousands of Klingons lived long and fruitful lives on the world, and it had become a prosperous part of the Klingon Empire.

Yet, in the ground beneath the smallest of Narendra III's twelve continents, the fourth and final Instrument of Malkus the Mighty's rule lay undisturbed. The only clue to its existence was a mild green glow and the endless yet silent scream of the mind that occupied it.

Or, rather, one of the minds. The psionic impressions of seven others had been made on the Instrument, simply waiting for the time when it was unearthed.

Then four more were added.

This surprised the screaming mind. He had not realized that the third Instrument had been found. But apparently it had.

Still, if more minds had been imprinted, then whoever possessed the third Instrument had failed just like the first two.

And so the screaming continued....

Third Interlude "CAPTAIN'S PERSONAL LOG, U.S.S. Voyager, Captain Kathryn Janeway, Stardate 48391.7.

"While our mission to capture Captain Chakotay's Maquis cell and retrieve Lieutenant Tuvok from his undercover operation has technically been a success, everything else has gone to h.e.l.l in a handbasket. Voyager is trapped in the Delta Quadrant, Chakotay's ship has been destroyed, and several of my crew were killed when the Caretaker violently took us seventy thousand years across the galaxy to the Ocampa homeworld. We have now begun our long journey home, with members of Chakotay's Maquis cell replacing the Voyager crew that was lost. Chakotay will replace Aaron Cavit, who was killed, as my first officer and serve as liaison between the Starfleet and Maquis crew members. I don't know if terrorists and officers will be able to work together, but I have to give it a try if we're to have any hope of getting home.

"The details of our enforced exile are in my official log, but I would like to take this opportunity to note those under my command who lost their lives needlessly. Cavit was due to be reunited with an old friend when this mission was complete. My conn officer, Stadi, had family on Betazed. Chief Engineer Honigsberg had been chomping at the bit for months to take Voyager out into s.p.a.ce. The entire medical staff...

"Computer, pause.

"Dammit.

"Computer, resume.

"I will get the rest of us home, one way or another."

Part 4: The Final Artifact

2376.

This portion of the story takes place two years prior to Star Trek: Nemesis; it also takes place shortly after the Star Trek: Gateways book series, and a couple of months after the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Diplomatic Implausibility.

Chapter Ten.

J'LANG WISHED HE COULD REACH THROUGH the viewscreen and rip the Ferengi's ears off.

"The marble still hasn't arrived, Quark. We're breaking ground on the memorial today, and I don't have my marble. Why is that?"

"Captain b.u.t.terworth's freighter left Deep s.p.a.ce 9 yesterday," Quark said. "They had a couple of delays-"

J'lang growled. "I'm a sculptor, not a navigator, but even I know that your s.p.a.ce station is not on a direct course from the Sol system to the Narendra system."

The Ferengi seemed unimpressed. "And if the freighter was only carrying your marble, that would be an issue, but they also supply me with various other items from Earth. There's a good number of humans on this station, and I like to give them a taste of home. That's how I know Captain b.u.t.terworth in the first place, and how I was able to get you your precious marble. In any case, he'll be in orbit of Narendra III first thing tomorrow morning, guaranteed."

"Quark, throughout this business a.s.sociation, every time you have ended a sentence with the word 'guaranteed,' it has been preceded by words describing events that have never happened as you described."

"Well, that won't be the case this time," Quark said primly.

J'lang scowled. "I was given this commission by Chancellor Martok himself, Quark. Do you know what that means?" The Ferengi opened his mouth to reply, but J'lang didn't give him the chance. "It means that this could be the opportunity of a lifetime. If the chancellor likes my war memorial, then it's only a short step to doing something for the Hall of Warriors! Artists kill for chances like this," he said, leaning forward, hoping that the Ferengi understood that he spoke literally, "and I'm not going to let it be destroyed because a Ferengi petaQ was too inefficient to get me my marble on time!"

Now, finally, Quark looked concerned. In fact, he seemed to be quivering. "Look, I want this deal to go through as much as you-I just had a big land deal get yanked out from under me and honestly, I could use the latinum. Trust me, you'll have your marble."

"I'd better. Because do you know what will happen if I don't?"

"I don't get my commission," Quark said matter-of-factly.

This time J'lang smiled. "Besides that. Are you familiar with Lieutenant Koth of the Tcha'voth?"

"Sure." The Tcha'voth was the Klingon Defense Force ship a.s.signed to the Bajoran sector. "He spends an hour a day in the holosuite killing things after he gets off-shift, and then drinks two mugs of that chech'tluth stuff before heading back to the ship."

J'lang's smile spread into a grin. That certainly sounded like Koth; you didn't need chronometers on ships he served on, you just had to follow his routine, and you'd know what the time of day was. "He's also my cousin-a member of my House, and quite happy to rip off your head and spit down your neck if I ask him to do so. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Quark?"

"Oh, quite clear, yes," Quark said, nodding quickly and swallowing nervously. "Well, if you'll excuse me..." The Ferengi cut off the connection.

Of course, the truth was that J'lang and Koth hadn't spoken in years. They were only distant cousins, and the sculptor seriously doubted that he could prevail upon the lieutenant to kill a Ferengi on his behalf. But, he thought happily, Quark doesn't need to know that.

J'lang turned off his screen and turned to look outside the window of the small, cluttered office. It was part of a prefabricated structure built on this, the smallest continent on Narendra III, meant to be here only as long as it took J'lang's apprentices to construct the Dominion War Memorial and the workers to put together the other buildings that would accompany it-a restaurant, a museum, and some other things that were of no concern to J'lang.

The idea had been to honor those who died in battle defending the empire. But what Chancellor Martok had specifically requested was that it honor not just the Klingon dead, but all those who died in service of the fight against the oppressors from the Gamma Quadrant. So J'lang was instructed to build something that would honor not only the Klingon Defense Force, but Starfleet and even the Romulan military.

J'lang had taken the idea one step further. The memorial would consist of representations of ship captains from each of the three forces-but each would be constructed in a stone from the capital planet of each government.

The human element was proving to be most problematic. He still hadn't figured out what pose to put the Starfleet captain in. For the Klingon, he'd chosen a cla.s.sic pose of standing upright and hoisting a bat'leth over his head. The Romulan would stand in a slight crouch and aim her disruptor forward (and if that made the Romulan stand a bit shorter than the Klingon or the human, J'lang had no real problem with that, and he doubted the chancellor would either). But what to do with the human? Perhaps just standing there with his arms on his hips. Standing around looking foolish is what humans do best, after all....

Out the window, J'lang could see several Klingons-some civilians, some volunteers from the Defense Force who wanted to aid in the construction of this dedication to their fallen comrades-laying the triceron explosives that would be used to carve out the s.p.a.ce for the statues. J'lang had chosen the top of the largest hill on the continent for the memorial's site. Since the statues would be west-facing, the sun would rise every morning behind the statues, illuminating the figures majestically from behind.

J'lang smiled. It will be glorious. After this, they'll be begging me to work on the next statue for the Hall of Warriors. The inductions into the Order of the Bat'leth are soon, and I know they haven't chosen the sculptor for that yet. If I can pull this off...

The visions of artistic glory that danced in J'lang's head were suppressed by the site of the various Klingons moving away from the blast site. Just as they did, his intercom beeped.

"J'lang," said the voice of his a.s.sistant, Perrih, "we're about to start the blasting. Do you want to come down to the observation room?"

"I can see it fine from here, Perrih. Tell Dargh he can blow up the hill whenever he wants." Dargh was the engineer the local government on Narendra had sent to oversee the mechanical aspects of the memorial. J'lang had found him to be p.r.i.c.kly and irritating, with beady little eyes that never looked at the same thing for more than half a second. He seemed to have an endless supply of questions about inconsequential minutae that were not J'lang's concern as an artist. So he left Perrih to deal with him. That was an a.s.sistant's purpose, after all.

The alternative was to deal with him directly, which would almost certainly lead to J'lang having to kill Dargh, and the project was already behind schedule as it was....

Within a few minutes, a most satisfying explosion erupted from the hill as the triceron ripped through the dirt and gra.s.s and rock, pulverizing them to their component atoms and spreading them to the wind.

J'lang had never cared much for explosions-they usually resulted in damaged artwork-but he had to admit to admiring this one. And d.a.m.n his beady little eyes, but Dargh had done his job superlatively well. When the dust and smoke cleared, J'lang saw a near-perfect L-shaped hole in the hill of just the right size. Oh, the edges would need smoothing, and the surface needed to be flattened and paved, but it was exactly what J'lang needed to start with.

The other thing he noticed as the smoke cleared was the small black box.

Then, suddenly, a sharp pain sliced through J'lang's skull.

Once, when he was a boy, serving as one of many apprentices to the great sculptor Dolmorr, J'lang had accidentally turned on a welder while it was facing his arm. The white-hot agony that shot through his forearm and wrist was greater than any pain J'lang had thought it was possible to feel. Decades later, he still sometimes felt phantoms of that pain when he closed his eyes.

The agony he felt now was a thousand times worse than that.

I AM FREE! AT LAST, AFTER AN ETERNITY OF TORMENT, I AM FREE!.

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It only increased the pain in J'lang's skull.

Suddenly, the pain vanished. And with it, most of his other senses. He could no longer feel his body around him, no longer hear the hum of the generator that kept power in the prefabricated structure, no longer smell the plate of racht and bowl of grapok sauce that he'd abandoned an hour ago but never disposed of.

He could still see, however. And what he saw was the black box. He could not control his movements, so he could not take his eyes off it.

Then, minutes later, he saw several Klingons moving as one-indeed, moving in more perfect formation than any soldiers J'lang had ever seen-toward that black box.

And all J'lang could think was that the project was about to fall considerably further behind....

Patience. That had always been Malkus's watchword. He knew that all he needed to do was not rush anything, and it would come to him. Pressure brought sloppiness. When rebels started agitating on Alphramick, he simply waited for them to make a mistake. True, there was a cost in the lives of his soldiers, but they had already pledged their lives to Malkus, and he could always get new ones. But, by waiting, the rebels exposed themselves for the disorganized fools they were, and Malkus was able to crush them far more spectacularly than he would have had he rushed things.

When he had Aidulac supervise the creation of his Instruments, he did not give her any kind of deadline. He knew that in order for her to truly accomplish what he wanted, he needed to give her all the time and all the resources she needed.

He ruled the universe. He could afford to wait.

Aidulac had outperformed even Malkus's expectations. Using his Instruments, and her team's other gift of immortality, he had ruled for many ages.

Until he was at last overthrown.

Even then, those who opposed him made one fatal mistake. They had been able to destroy his body, true-though Aidulac had given him the means by which to stave off entropy, he was by no means invulnerable-but first they placed his consciousness within one of the Instruments.

They had thought this would be the worst kind of torture.

They were wrong.

Oh, it was torture, true. To live for so long as nothing but thought was a h.e.l.lish existence.

But it was still existence. And as long as Malkus lived in some form, he knew he would eventually triumph.

He just needed to wait.

First, he needed someone to colonize the world, as these Klingons finally did. Then they had to unearth the Instrument.

As soon as they did, Malkus was able to reach out to their minds, just as the other shards of his consciousness had done with Tomasina Laubenthal, Orta, and the third being who had been enslaved without Malkus realizing it. But where the mental shadows of Malkus that inhabited the other Instruments were limited in scope, Malkus was whole in this Instrument, and his powers were manifold.

Once he took command of all the minds currently inhabiting the world now called Narendra III, Malkus went further. Eleven minds had been imprinted on Malkus when the other three Instruments shut down. He now reached out to trace those minds....

The first three were Guillermo Masada, Spock of Vulcan, and Leonard McCoy. Masada's mental trail ended shortly after being imprinted, which meant that he had died in the interim. Malkus was disappointed, but such were the risks. Spock's seemed to end and then start again, which confused Malkus, but his mental impression was still strong. McCoy's was also thriving.

Next were Declan Keogh, Joseph Shabalala, Benjamin Sisko, and Kira Nerys. Keogh's and Shabalala's trails also ended shortly after imprinting, and Malkus found that Sisko's trail led to a place he could not go. It was not death-but Sisko's mind was no longer within Malkus's purview. However, Kira's impression was quite strong, and she was as easily enslaved as McCoy and Spock.

The final four were Robert DeSoto, Liliane Weiss, Ellen Hayat, and Dina Voyskunsky-but of them, only DeSoto's trail did not end. His mind, too, now belonged to Malkus.

Four slaves where once there were eleven. Pity that mortals'lives are so brief.

But it did not matter. Soon, he would once again rule everything.

He gave instructions to his four new slaves....

The bar on Starbase 24 didn't have any prune juice. It was the perfect ending to what had been a most wretched day for Worf, son of Mogh, former Starfleet lieutenant commander, and current Federation Amba.s.sador to the Klingon Empire.

He dolefully sipped the weak raktajino and looked over the screen of his padd, but the words were starting to blur. He hadn't slept in almost forty hours. While Klingons did not share the human need for obscene amounts of sleep, he did need to rest eventually. Sadly, he was unlikely to get much chance to do so before the conference on Khitomer started.

In the months since the end of the Dominion War, the three major Alpha Quadrant powers, the United Federation of Planets, the Romulan Star Empire, and the Klingon Empire, had mostly settled down. A few crises had threatened to break the fragile peace, but each had been solved without plunging the quadrant again into war-or out-and-out destruction-and now the three powers felt the need to sit down and determine just what the future of the quadrant would be. So amba.s.sadors from all three governments were going to a.s.semble at Khitomer, a Klingon planet near the borders of the other two powers, in order to try to settle the inevitable differences that had come up: protectorate worlds, former Carda.s.sian planets that were now up for grabs, relief efforts throughout the quadrant, exacting reparations from the Breen, and a great deal more.

Worf, as the amba.s.sador to Qo'noS and a Klingon who had lived most of his life within the Federation, had been one of many diplomats invited to attend, given his unique perspective on both governments.

Before he left Qo'noS, though, several matters had demanded his immediate attention. He had to sign off on the latest reports from Emperor Vall on taD, look over the fifth draft of the resolution between the Klingon Empire and the Tholian a.s.sembly regarding the incident on Traelus II, approve half a dozen visas, read over an application from a Bolian opera company to tour the Empire, and several other niggling matters that had all started to blend in Worf's head.

Then he was informed that the Defense Force vessel that was supposed to convey him to the conference had been detained by an emergency. Worf's aide, Giancarlo Wu, had managed to get a Starfleet vessel to divert to the Klingon Homeworld. It couldn't go to Khitomer, but could at least drop him off at Starbase 24, which was only a few hours away by shuttle. Given that it was the nearest Federation base to Khitomer, Worf was sure he'd be able to get a ride from there.

Then another crisis reared its head, involving some Tellarites who had managed to get themselves arrested on Mempa V. It was the sort of trivial stupidity that Worf was usually happy to fob off on Wu, and indeed he did so this time as well-but it meant that Wu would not be able to accompany him to Khitomer. Worf had been amba.s.sador for four months, and he was quite sure that he would have committed several dozen homicides by now if it hadn't been for Wu's organizational skills, cool head, and ability to deal with irritating minutiae.

So Wu went off to Mempa and Worf boarded the U.S.S. Musgrave, a Saber-cla.s.s ship that was rather small and had no guest quarters. For an eighteen-hour trip that was going through the ship's alpha and beta shifts, this probably didn't seem an issue to the Musgrave' s captain-a polite, if terse, human named Manolet Dayrit-but Worf had been hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to catch up on sleep. Instead, Captain Dayrit installed him in the conference lounge, and he spent the time catching up on paperwork.

On arrival at Starbase 24, Dayrit informed him that a runabout, the St. Lawrence, was already scheduled to take one amba.s.sador to Khitomer, and they could take Worf as well. He still had an hour, so he headed for the bar hoping for a prune juice to settle him down.

Then again, his last trip to Khitomer had not gone as planned, either.

"Attention, Amba.s.sador Worf. Please report to Landing Pad F. Amba.s.sador Worf to Landing Pad F, please."

Finally, he thought. He drained the rest of his raktajino, placed the padd in his jacket pocket, and strode out of the bar.

As he walked purposefully down the corridor toward the landing pad, a voice sounded out from behind him. "My goodness, if it isn't Mr. Woof!"

Worf felt a knot tie in his left stomach. Not her, he thought. Please let that have been my imagination.

No such luck. Worf stopped walking and turned around to see Lwaxana Troi, daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed, and general bane of Worf's existence. For a time, Worf had pursued a relationship with Deanna Troi, one of his crewmates on the U.S.S. Enterprise and Lwaxana's daughter. That relationship had eventually ended, and one of the many benefits to that was that there was no danger of this woman becoming Worf's mother-in-law.

As always, Lwaxana was overdressed. Worf wore a simple brown tunic, black pants and boots, and a thick, ankle-length black leather coat decorated with both the Klingon and Federation insignias, in which he hid several weapons. Lwaxana, on the other hand, wore un elaborate fuchsia dress with numerous b.u.t.tons and fastenings that probably took her hours to get into. The dress was decorated with a blue flower pattern-it gave Worf a headache just to look at it. Her hair was equally elaborate, held in an unnatural pattern with a variety of pins. The grooming rituals of most Federation races had always been incomprehensible to Worf, but he found ones involving hair to be especially ludicrous. Tying his own hair into a ponytail was as far as he was willing to go to accede to that custom. Lwaxana, of course, as with everything else, took it to an absurd extreme.

Bowing to the inevitable, Worf allowed Lwaxana to catch up. I might as well get this over with, he thought glumly. Like most Betazoids, Lwaxana was a telepath, so she probably picked up that thought, but Worf found himself unable to be too concerned with that. His negative thoughts had never even slowed her down in the past.

"What a pleasant surprise to see you here." Lwaxana hooked her arm into Worf's and led him onward down the corridor.