Post by magicmuggle01 on Apr 3, 2019 10:12:30 GMT
Sisko fights to keep the wreckage of a crashed Jem'Hadar fighter.
Summary
"Captain's log: Stardate 50049.3. We're conducting a mineral survey of Torga IV, an uninhabited planet in the Gamma Quadrant believed to contain vast deposits of cormaline. Our mission is to determine the feasibility of establishing a mining operation on the planet's surface."
As the away team conducts their planetary survey, Chief O'Brien and young Crewman Muñiz tease one another. They appear to be forming a close working relationship. Captain Sisko determines that, despite being a long way from supply lines, the planet is a good place to mine. He and Lieutenant Commander Dax are discussing the matter when a ship of some kind crashes on the planet's surface. The runabout beams Sisko and the others to the site of the crash, where they discover a Jem'Hadar warship.
Act One
The crew find that the warship has landed upside down and enter through a hatch that would normally be used to land troops. Inside, they find numerous corpses, but according to Dax's tricorder, the troops have been dead for hours. O'Brien suspects an inertial dampener failure, which means that when the ship sped up, every bone in the men's bodies was crushed instantly. Although Sisko is excited about the discovery of the ship, he wonders what it was doing so far from Dominion space. Realizing the runabout's tractor beam will be insufficient to tow the ship, he sends for the USS Defiant to tow it back to the Alpha Quadrant.
Aboard Deep Space 9, Odo has arrested Quark and his "co-conspirator," Dr. Bashir. The trio enter Sisko's office, where Major Kira learns that Quark ordered a shipment of Regalian fleaspiders for Bashir without a permit. However, the Ferengi took the opportunity to smuggle illegal Regalian liquid crystals along with the spiders. An impatient Kira announces she is taking the Defiant to the Gamma Quadrant to retrieve Sisko and the others, and she will be back in a week.
Meanwhile, Commander Worf informs Sisko that they have buried the bodies of the warship's crew, 42 Jem'Hadar and Vorta field supervisor in all. Suddenly, Ensign Hoya contacts Sisko from the runabout and announces that another warship has just suddenly come out of warp; within seconds, the runabout is destroyed over Torga IV killing Hoya, Rooney, and Bertram.
Act Two
Jem'Hadar soldiers beam to the surface. There is a shootout in which another away team member, T'Lor, is killed and Sisko and the others take shelter inside the crashed ship, but Muñiz is shot along the way.
Oddly, the Jem'Hadar do not follow the Starfleet team into the ship. O'Brien dresses Muñiz's wound while they regroup and formulate a plan. The crew explores the ship and find it minimalistic at best. Among other things, there are two headsets – one for a Vorta and another for the Jem'Hadar First – which seem to be the Dominion equivalent of viewscreens. They are interrupted when Kilana, the Vorta in charge of the newly-arrived ship who contacts Sisko over the Dominion comm system. She offers to meet Sisko face to face with one guard each.
Sisko agrees to meet Kilana, who is quite amicable in person. However, she does not recognize Sisko's claim to salvage rights for the ship and wants it back. As she and Sisko talk, a lone Jem'Hadar beams into the ship.
Act Three
The Jem'Hadar is carrying a piece of surveillance equipment. Meanwhile, Kilana offers to take Sisko and the others back to Federation territory, but Sisko firmly refuses. O'Brien finds the Jem'Hadar and there is a brief struggle before Muñiz manages to shoot the soldier, saving the chief from being stabbed.
With Kilana aboard her ship and Sisko back inside his, O'Brien continues to tend to Muñiz, who suspects he is dying. They realize there is an anticoagulant in his blood, an apparent side-effect of the Jem'Hadar weapon, which is preventing his otherwise minor wound from healing. As a result, Muñiz is bleeding to death and requires immediate attention. Worf and O'Brien have a difference of opinion over this; while the Klingon believes Muñiz should be told to prepare for death, O'Brien is convinced that Muñiz's only chance is to keep fighting.
Kilana contacts Sisko again and apologizes for her deception, offering to meet him unarmed and alone (a condition to which she does not hold him) as a show of good faith. When they meet again, Kilana acknowledges the obvious: there is something aboard Sisko's ship she wants. However, neither trusts the other and Sisko refuses to let Kilana retrieve it, while Kilana refuses to tell Sisko what it is. She realizes their conversation is going nowhere, so she beams off the surface as her ship begins to bombard the surface.
Act Four
In the meantime, Muñiz has begun to go into shock.
Before long, the crew realizes Kilana is not trying to hit the ship, as the ultritium concussion shells her ship is firing should destroy them in one hit. They continue to search for whatever Kilana wants, while Muñiz's condition continues to deteriorate and he becomes delirious. Tensions continue to mount as the Starfleet group, tired, hungry, and filthy, become increasingly apprehensive. Sisko becomes fed up with the bickering between Worf and O'Brien and Dax's misguided attempts to lighten the situation with humor and sharply orders everyone to stop wasting time and start acting like Starfleet officers who know what they're doing. He then tells Worf and O'Brien to try and get the engines and weapons working, and orders Dax to search the ship no matter how many times it takes to find whatever Kilana wants. As the three chastened officers leave to do their work, Sisko turns to Muñiz and orders him to stay alive.
"Captain's log, supplemental. The Jem'Hadar barrage has continued on and off for ten hours. Chief O'Brien has restored main power and helm control. If we can bring the ship's engines online, we may be able to lift off and escape from here."
O'Brien does his best to get the ship up and running, but when they attempt to take off from the planet, the power circuits overload and the condition of the ship's systems becomes even worse leaving them with no choice but to wait for the Defiant to arrive. O'Brien tells Muñiz they could really use his help, only to find that the young engineer has died from his injuries, causing a deafening silence to wash over the crew. Dax later comforts Sisko, who tells his friend that they need to get the ship back to Starfleet so that the families of the five dead officers won't feel that their loved ones died for nothing. The gloomy mood is interrupted when something begins to drip from the ceiling. They look up to realize one of the bulkheads is actually a Founder.
Act Five
The changeling is not attacking, but dying, no longer able to hold its form and apparently injured from the accident that killed the ship's crew. As it dies, it cries out, loud enough for Kilana and her men to hear.
With the Changeling dead, Kilana beams directly aboard Sisko's ship, alone. She informs him that her soldiers killed themselves for allowing one of their gods to die. She says Sisko should have trusted her, but he says she was lying to him from the beginning, this wasn't her first mission outside the Dominion. She says she regrets lying, but all that mattered to her was rescuing the Founder. Sisko says she should have told him the truth. She says she was afraid they would kill the Founder if they knew about him. Sisko tells her all he wanted was the ship. Muñiz and all the others died because neither Sisko nor Kilana was willing to trust the other. Dax confirms that the soldiers outside have killed themselves. Sisko allows Kilana to take some of the Founder's remains with her.
Just before she leaves, Kilana asks Sisko if he has any gods that he believes in. He says he believes in some things. She asks "Duty, Starfleet, the Federation? You must be pleased with yourself, you have this ship to take back to them. I hope it was worth it." Kilana then leaves, as Sisko can only hope that the ship was worth the lives that were lost for it.
The Defiant arrives and tows the Jem'Hadar ship back to DS9. Starfleet is of course very pleased with the find and awards the crew medals, but Sisko laments the death of Muñiz, Hoya, and the others while writing a report for Starfleet Command in the mess hall. Dax reminds him that, while their deaths are certainly tragic, they all knew the risks when they joined Starfleet, and each officer was proud to wear the uniform and serve under him. Dax also notes that, while it may sound cold, from a practical standpoint the captured ship might have cost five lives but could help save thousands or millions more. Sisko says he knows, and he would do the same thing all over again. But it is still unfair to those who died so far from home.
O'Brien holds his own vigil over Muñiz's casket. Worf enters as he does so and reveals that, in Klingon tradition, O'Brien's activity is called ak'voh, or keeping the body of a warrior who died in battle safe from predators while they make their journey to Sto-vo-kor. He offers to help O'Brien protect Muñiz, to which the chief responds, "I'm sure Quique would have liked that."
Memorable quotes
"In case you haven't noticed Dax, no one is laughing!!"
- Sisko
"We have you completely surrounded. And outnumbered. Would you like something to eat, captain? Or maybe something to drink?"
- Kilana, to Sisko
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me "sir"? I'm not an officer."
"No, you know more than they do."
- O'Brien and Muñiz
"Don't you trust me?"
"I'd like to, captain. But I can't, not under these circumstances. There's simply... too much at stake for us."
"We've got a lot at stake, too. I won't risk the lives of my crew."
"It seems we're approaching an impasse."
"We've already arrived."
- Sisko and Kilana
"It is only a matter of time."
"So we should just kill him, right?"
"If you truly are his friend, you will consider that option. It would be a more honorable death than the one he's enduring."
"I'm not some bloodthirsty Klingon looking for an excuse to kill my friend."
"No. You are just another weak Human, afraid to face death."
- Worf and O'Brien, on Muñiz
"Commander."
"What is it?"
"It may have been the Vorta's computer console. I found it in one of the upper compartments, but the power grid is offline in that part of the ship."
"So you ripped it out of the wall. Very nice. So, what do we do with it now, use it for a door stop?"
"I do not care what you do with it."
- Worf and Dax
"I know it's hot. We're filthy, tired, and we've got ten isotons of explosives going off outside. But we will never get out of this if we don't pull it together and start to act like professionals!"
- Sisko
"My offer was genuine. All that mattered to me was the Founder."
"Then you should have told me about him."
"You might have killed him, or made him a hostage."
"No! All I wanted was the ship."
"And I was willing to let you take it."
- Kilana and Sisko
"Do you have any gods, Captain Sisko?"
"There are... things I believe in."
"Duty? Starfleet, the Federation? You must be pleased with yourself. You have the ship to take back to them. I hope it was worth it."
"So do I."
- Kilana and Sisko
"We will both keep the predators away."
- Worf, to O'Brien as he joined him in guarding Muñiz' body
Summary
"Captain's log: Stardate 50049.3. We're conducting a mineral survey of Torga IV, an uninhabited planet in the Gamma Quadrant believed to contain vast deposits of cormaline. Our mission is to determine the feasibility of establishing a mining operation on the planet's surface."
As the away team conducts their planetary survey, Chief O'Brien and young Crewman Muñiz tease one another. They appear to be forming a close working relationship. Captain Sisko determines that, despite being a long way from supply lines, the planet is a good place to mine. He and Lieutenant Commander Dax are discussing the matter when a ship of some kind crashes on the planet's surface. The runabout beams Sisko and the others to the site of the crash, where they discover a Jem'Hadar warship.
Act One
The crew find that the warship has landed upside down and enter through a hatch that would normally be used to land troops. Inside, they find numerous corpses, but according to Dax's tricorder, the troops have been dead for hours. O'Brien suspects an inertial dampener failure, which means that when the ship sped up, every bone in the men's bodies was crushed instantly. Although Sisko is excited about the discovery of the ship, he wonders what it was doing so far from Dominion space. Realizing the runabout's tractor beam will be insufficient to tow the ship, he sends for the USS Defiant to tow it back to the Alpha Quadrant.
Aboard Deep Space 9, Odo has arrested Quark and his "co-conspirator," Dr. Bashir. The trio enter Sisko's office, where Major Kira learns that Quark ordered a shipment of Regalian fleaspiders for Bashir without a permit. However, the Ferengi took the opportunity to smuggle illegal Regalian liquid crystals along with the spiders. An impatient Kira announces she is taking the Defiant to the Gamma Quadrant to retrieve Sisko and the others, and she will be back in a week.
Meanwhile, Commander Worf informs Sisko that they have buried the bodies of the warship's crew, 42 Jem'Hadar and Vorta field supervisor in all. Suddenly, Ensign Hoya contacts Sisko from the runabout and announces that another warship has just suddenly come out of warp; within seconds, the runabout is destroyed over Torga IV killing Hoya, Rooney, and Bertram.
Act Two
Jem'Hadar soldiers beam to the surface. There is a shootout in which another away team member, T'Lor, is killed and Sisko and the others take shelter inside the crashed ship, but Muñiz is shot along the way.
Oddly, the Jem'Hadar do not follow the Starfleet team into the ship. O'Brien dresses Muñiz's wound while they regroup and formulate a plan. The crew explores the ship and find it minimalistic at best. Among other things, there are two headsets – one for a Vorta and another for the Jem'Hadar First – which seem to be the Dominion equivalent of viewscreens. They are interrupted when Kilana, the Vorta in charge of the newly-arrived ship who contacts Sisko over the Dominion comm system. She offers to meet Sisko face to face with one guard each.
Sisko agrees to meet Kilana, who is quite amicable in person. However, she does not recognize Sisko's claim to salvage rights for the ship and wants it back. As she and Sisko talk, a lone Jem'Hadar beams into the ship.
Act Three
The Jem'Hadar is carrying a piece of surveillance equipment. Meanwhile, Kilana offers to take Sisko and the others back to Federation territory, but Sisko firmly refuses. O'Brien finds the Jem'Hadar and there is a brief struggle before Muñiz manages to shoot the soldier, saving the chief from being stabbed.
With Kilana aboard her ship and Sisko back inside his, O'Brien continues to tend to Muñiz, who suspects he is dying. They realize there is an anticoagulant in his blood, an apparent side-effect of the Jem'Hadar weapon, which is preventing his otherwise minor wound from healing. As a result, Muñiz is bleeding to death and requires immediate attention. Worf and O'Brien have a difference of opinion over this; while the Klingon believes Muñiz should be told to prepare for death, O'Brien is convinced that Muñiz's only chance is to keep fighting.
Kilana contacts Sisko again and apologizes for her deception, offering to meet him unarmed and alone (a condition to which she does not hold him) as a show of good faith. When they meet again, Kilana acknowledges the obvious: there is something aboard Sisko's ship she wants. However, neither trusts the other and Sisko refuses to let Kilana retrieve it, while Kilana refuses to tell Sisko what it is. She realizes their conversation is going nowhere, so she beams off the surface as her ship begins to bombard the surface.
Act Four
In the meantime, Muñiz has begun to go into shock.
Before long, the crew realizes Kilana is not trying to hit the ship, as the ultritium concussion shells her ship is firing should destroy them in one hit. They continue to search for whatever Kilana wants, while Muñiz's condition continues to deteriorate and he becomes delirious. Tensions continue to mount as the Starfleet group, tired, hungry, and filthy, become increasingly apprehensive. Sisko becomes fed up with the bickering between Worf and O'Brien and Dax's misguided attempts to lighten the situation with humor and sharply orders everyone to stop wasting time and start acting like Starfleet officers who know what they're doing. He then tells Worf and O'Brien to try and get the engines and weapons working, and orders Dax to search the ship no matter how many times it takes to find whatever Kilana wants. As the three chastened officers leave to do their work, Sisko turns to Muñiz and orders him to stay alive.
"Captain's log, supplemental. The Jem'Hadar barrage has continued on and off for ten hours. Chief O'Brien has restored main power and helm control. If we can bring the ship's engines online, we may be able to lift off and escape from here."
O'Brien does his best to get the ship up and running, but when they attempt to take off from the planet, the power circuits overload and the condition of the ship's systems becomes even worse leaving them with no choice but to wait for the Defiant to arrive. O'Brien tells Muñiz they could really use his help, only to find that the young engineer has died from his injuries, causing a deafening silence to wash over the crew. Dax later comforts Sisko, who tells his friend that they need to get the ship back to Starfleet so that the families of the five dead officers won't feel that their loved ones died for nothing. The gloomy mood is interrupted when something begins to drip from the ceiling. They look up to realize one of the bulkheads is actually a Founder.
Act Five
The changeling is not attacking, but dying, no longer able to hold its form and apparently injured from the accident that killed the ship's crew. As it dies, it cries out, loud enough for Kilana and her men to hear.
With the Changeling dead, Kilana beams directly aboard Sisko's ship, alone. She informs him that her soldiers killed themselves for allowing one of their gods to die. She says Sisko should have trusted her, but he says she was lying to him from the beginning, this wasn't her first mission outside the Dominion. She says she regrets lying, but all that mattered to her was rescuing the Founder. Sisko says she should have told him the truth. She says she was afraid they would kill the Founder if they knew about him. Sisko tells her all he wanted was the ship. Muñiz and all the others died because neither Sisko nor Kilana was willing to trust the other. Dax confirms that the soldiers outside have killed themselves. Sisko allows Kilana to take some of the Founder's remains with her.
Just before she leaves, Kilana asks Sisko if he has any gods that he believes in. He says he believes in some things. She asks "Duty, Starfleet, the Federation? You must be pleased with yourself, you have this ship to take back to them. I hope it was worth it." Kilana then leaves, as Sisko can only hope that the ship was worth the lives that were lost for it.
The Defiant arrives and tows the Jem'Hadar ship back to DS9. Starfleet is of course very pleased with the find and awards the crew medals, but Sisko laments the death of Muñiz, Hoya, and the others while writing a report for Starfleet Command in the mess hall. Dax reminds him that, while their deaths are certainly tragic, they all knew the risks when they joined Starfleet, and each officer was proud to wear the uniform and serve under him. Dax also notes that, while it may sound cold, from a practical standpoint the captured ship might have cost five lives but could help save thousands or millions more. Sisko says he knows, and he would do the same thing all over again. But it is still unfair to those who died so far from home.
O'Brien holds his own vigil over Muñiz's casket. Worf enters as he does so and reveals that, in Klingon tradition, O'Brien's activity is called ak'voh, or keeping the body of a warrior who died in battle safe from predators while they make their journey to Sto-vo-kor. He offers to help O'Brien protect Muñiz, to which the chief responds, "I'm sure Quique would have liked that."
Memorable quotes
"In case you haven't noticed Dax, no one is laughing!!"
- Sisko
"We have you completely surrounded. And outnumbered. Would you like something to eat, captain? Or maybe something to drink?"
- Kilana, to Sisko
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me "sir"? I'm not an officer."
"No, you know more than they do."
- O'Brien and Muñiz
"Don't you trust me?"
"I'd like to, captain. But I can't, not under these circumstances. There's simply... too much at stake for us."
"We've got a lot at stake, too. I won't risk the lives of my crew."
"It seems we're approaching an impasse."
"We've already arrived."
- Sisko and Kilana
"It is only a matter of time."
"So we should just kill him, right?"
"If you truly are his friend, you will consider that option. It would be a more honorable death than the one he's enduring."
"I'm not some bloodthirsty Klingon looking for an excuse to kill my friend."
"No. You are just another weak Human, afraid to face death."
- Worf and O'Brien, on Muñiz
"Commander."
"What is it?"
"It may have been the Vorta's computer console. I found it in one of the upper compartments, but the power grid is offline in that part of the ship."
"So you ripped it out of the wall. Very nice. So, what do we do with it now, use it for a door stop?"
"I do not care what you do with it."
- Worf and Dax
"I know it's hot. We're filthy, tired, and we've got ten isotons of explosives going off outside. But we will never get out of this if we don't pull it together and start to act like professionals!"
- Sisko
"My offer was genuine. All that mattered to me was the Founder."
"Then you should have told me about him."
"You might have killed him, or made him a hostage."
"No! All I wanted was the ship."
"And I was willing to let you take it."
- Kilana and Sisko
"Do you have any gods, Captain Sisko?"
"There are... things I believe in."
"Duty? Starfleet, the Federation? You must be pleased with yourself. You have the ship to take back to them. I hope it was worth it."
"So do I."
- Kilana and Sisko
"We will both keep the predators away."
- Worf, to O'Brien as he joined him in guarding Muñiz' body
