2376

January

Following the end of the Dominion War, Chancellor Martok returns to Qo’noS to consolidate his power base as leader of the Klingon Empire. Upon his arrival, a coup d’état destroys the Great Hall in the First City, killing the entire Klingon High Council. With the aid of Federation Ambassador Worf and Lieutenant Ezri Dax, Martok defeats the coup, but at the cost of many lives close to him, including his wife Sirella and their two daughters.

Starfleet Commander Tiris Jast, a Bolian female, is assigned to Starbase Deep Space 9 as first officer and commander of the U.S.S. Defiant. Also arriving around this time is Lieutenant Sam Bowers, the station’s new tactical officer, formerly of the U.S.S. Budapest, and Ensign Prynn Tenmei, the Defiant’s new conn officer, formerly of the U.S.S. Sentinel. Due to personnel shortages in the aftermath of the war, Lieutenant (j.g.) Nog, already the station’s chief operations officer, briefly doubles as DS9’s chief of security.

War-weary Starfleet renegade and Maquis survivor Ro Laren returns home to Bajor, having spent the final year of the Dominion War as leader of a group of independent fighters staging guerilla attacks against Dominion forces. In recognition of her actions on behalf of the Alpha Quadrant, the Bajoran Militia awards her the honorary commission of lieutenant in its special forces division, and gives her an administrative post at Militia headquarters.

Captain Kasidy Yates begins building the house designed by her missing husband, Captain Benjamin Sisko, in the Kendra Valley province of Bajor.

Bajoran First Minister Shakaar Edon spearheads initiatives to bring humanitarian aid to Cardassia Prime, and Deep Space 9 is designated official coordinator of those relief efforts.

The autonomous covert organization Section 31 locates an abandoned Jem’Hadar hatchery on the planet Sindorin in the Badlands. A team led by Dr. Ethan Locken, a genetically enhanced human, is sent to study the hatchery for possible exploitation by the Federation.

Hoping to come to grips with the loss of his father, Jake Sisko joins the archaeological dig at B’hala on Bajor, where he spends most of his time excavating and cataloguing ancient artifacts.

February

Starfleet’s attempts to extradite Ro Laren to face charges of treason to the Federation are met with resistance from Bajor. Unknown to Ro, Starfleet is further impeded from pursuing the matter by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, her former commanding officer, who lobbies Starfleet Command to drop its charges against Ro.

In the Gamma Quadrant, Odo encounters resistance from the Great Link toward his insights into “solids,” but perseveres. Wishing to discontinue the exploitation of the Jem’Hadar and to prove that they possess the potential to become something other than killing machines, Odo instructs the Vorta to begin searching for anomalous Jem’Hadar who do not need to take ketrecel-white, the health-stabilizing enzyme the Founders use to control their soldiers. Odo hopes to find one suitable to send to Deep Space 9 in order to realize the Jem’Hadar potential outside the Dominion.

Ensign Thirishar ch’Thane, also known as Shar, formerly of the U.S.S. Tamberlaine, is assigned to Deep Space 9 as science officer.

Unable to adjust to life on Bajor, Ro is assigned to Deep Space 9 as chief of station security.

March

As Cardassia Prime continues the long and difficult process of recovery, a new democratically elected provisional government, headed by Alon Ghemor, nephew of Tekeny, rises to power. At the same time, an increasing number of the surviving population begin to rediscover their lost spirituality, turning to an ancient religion, the Oralian Way, that dates back to Cardassia’s First Hebitian civilization.

Shakaar begins a diplomatic tour of key Federation planets to lobby for Bajor’s membership, which was approved more than two years earlier and subsequently declined by the Bajoran government at the urging of Benjamin Sisko.

Dr. Ethan Locken breaks away from Section 31, assuming full personal control of the Jem’Hadar hatchery on Sindorin. Modeling himself on Khan Noonien Singh, Locken begins to plan the takeover of the Alpha Quadrant, with himself as leader of a genetically enhanced ruling class.

In the Dominion, the Vorta’s search for ketrecel-independent Jem’Hadar uncovers four. One of these is Taran’atar, a twenty-two-year-old “Honored Elder” who didn’t fight in the war for the Alpha Quadrant. Odo selects him to become his cultural observer on DS9, with instructions to obey Kira Nerys and immerse himself in life aboard the station, until Odo calls him home.

Deep Space 9 begins a series of upgrades to the station’s infrastructure and defenses, as well as to the Defiant. The U.S.S. Aldebaran is assigned to DS9 to stand in for the Defiant as the Bajoran system’s first line of defense.

Acting on sensor readings provided by the Klingons, the U.S.S. Enterprise goes into the Badlands to investigate the possible presence of the Breen. On board as a mission specialist is Commander Elias Vaughn, a centenarian human and Starfleet special operations officer, who is contemplating retirement.

On Cardassia, Elim Garak sends an autobiographical letter to Dr. Julian Bashir on DS9.

Members of the Petraw species posing as ancient Iconians begin making overtures to governments and other interest parties throughout the Alpha Quadrant, offering the secrets of Iconian gateway technology to the highest bidder.

Prylar Istani Reyla, working at the dig in B’hala, unearths an ancient prophetic text by the heretic Ohalu. While more historically accurate than any of the accepted prophecies, the book appears to refute the orthodox interpretation of the Prophets as gods. It further foretells the birth of the Avatar, the second child of the Emissary, for whom it says ten thousand people are fated to die before the birth. The Vedek Assembly attempts to suppress the Ohalu prophecies by censuring Istani and demanding that she turn over the text to them.

April

Prylar Istani seeks out Jake Sisko at B’hala and entrusts him with a fragment of the Ohalu prophecies, one that describes a son who is destined to enter the Celestial Temple and return with a lost herald. Believing the prophecy describes the return of his father, Jake sets out to fulfill it by entering the wormhole alone in a shuttle obtained from Quark, without telling friends or family.

Istani comes to DS9 to inform Kasidy Yates about the prophecy of the Avatar, but is murdered before she can contact Yates.

A Jem’Hadar ship carrying Taran’atar leaves Dominion space for Deep Space 9. It is followed and attacked by four ships of renegade Jem’Hadar, who seek to redeem themselves for their failure to conquer the Alpha Quadrant by sparking a new war. Though one of the attacking ships is destroyed and Taran’atar’s ship is disabled, the other three succeed in reaching DS9. Taran’atar’s vessel arrives in time to help thwart the attack, but his ship is destroyed, the Aldebaran is lost with all hands, and over seventy people on the station die in the attack, including Commander Jast.

Unknown to anyone on Deep Space 9, several of the renegade Jem’Hadar beam aboard the station before their ship is destroyed, and remain shrouded while they attempt to destroy DS9 from within. Taran’atar beams aboard as well, and, also shrouded, systematically begins eliminating the rogue Jem’Hadar without alerting the station residents.

In the Badlands, the Enterprise discovers the Cardassian freighter Kamal, trapped in the plasma storms for over thirty years. Aboard the dead ship, Vaughn discovers and experiences the lost Orb of Memory, which he recovers for return to Bajor.

After learning of the attack on Deep Space 9, Admiral William Ross assembles a task force of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships to enter the Gamma Quadrant and, if necessary, respond with force to the new Dominion aggression.

Shar senses one of the shrouded renegade Jem’Hadar on the station, Third Kitana’klan. In order to give his accomplices time to carry out the destruction of DS9, Kitana’klan claims to be the observer sent by Odo, and that he acted to stop renegades from carrying out an attack not sanctioned by the Founders.

Ro discovers the Ohalu prophecies hidden aboard the station and learns that Istani’s murderer was a vedek sent by Vedek Yevir Linjarin to stop Istani from releasing the heretical text. Shocked by the prophecy of the Avatar but even more apalled by the actions of Vedek Yevir and his supporters, Kira uploads the Ohalu prophecies onto the Bajoran comnet, making them public.

The Enterprise arrives at DS9 with the Orb of Memory. Shortly thereafter, Kitana’klan attacks Doctor Julian Bashir and sabotages the station’s fusion core before he is stopped by Kira, Vaughn, and Taran’atar. Kira succeeds in ejecting the core before the station is destroyed.

The Allied task force arrives at Deep Space 9, and Taran’atar explains the truth about the attack against the station and his assignment. As proof, he gives Kira his credentials: a message from Odo inviting the Federation and its Allies to renew their exploration of the Gamma Quadrant—if they agree not to violate Dominion space.

Due in part to his Orb experience on the Kamal, Vaughn requests a transfer to DS9, replacing Jast as first officer, and begins plans to test the Dominion’s sincerity by taking the Defiant on an exploratory voyage into the Gamma Quadrant.

After an encounter with the newly recovered Orb of Memory, Kira learns that the prophecy of the Avatar has already been fulfilled. Taking Vedek Yevir, Kasidy Yates, and Ro Laren to Bajor, she reveals previously unknown catacombs beneath B’hala, in which are interred ten thousand people who over the millenia gave their lives to protect the Ohalu prophecies.

Lieutenant Ezri Dax, forced to take command of the Defiant during the Jem’Hadar attack, begins to actively experiment in the use of the Dax symbiont’s past lives, sometimes involuntarily. Hoping to discover her true potential as a joined Trill, she transfers to command, becoming second officer of the station and Vaughn’s executive aboard the Defiant.

As punishment for placing her own judgment regarding the spiritual well-being of Bajor above the judgment of the Vedek Assembly, Kira is Attainted, formally cast out of the Bajoran community of faith.

Jake’s shuttle encounters some anomalous activity in the wormhole that disables his ship but propels it more than a hundred parsecs into the Gamma Quadrant. He is rescued by the Even Odds, a ship of fortune hunters—retrievers of valuable artifacts and antiquities. Though their business prevents them from ferrying Jake directly back to the wormhole, Jake is invited to remain aboard for the months it will take them to reach Ee, a free port where Jake may be able to obtain passage back to the Alpha Quadrant. Jake joins the crew, and in the process, decides the prophecy was wrong and resigns himself to a life without his father.

Nog devises a solution to the station’s lost fusion core: replace it with the one from Empok Nor, DS9’s long-abandoned twin station in the Trivas system. With the aid of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and a task force of nine ships, Nog has Empok Nor towed to the Bajoran system, and its fusion core is transferred to DS9.

Bashir is contacted by Cole, a member of Section 31. Cole apprises Bashir of Ethan Locken’s activities on Sindorin, and recruits Bashir to help stop him. With the help of Ro, Dax, and Taran’atar, Bashir succeeds, but fails to prevent Section 31 from recovering Locken’s data, or to bring back evidence capable of exposing the organization. Bashir is also aided surreptitiously by Vaughn, who reveals he is part of a small Starfleet group that has been working against Section 31 for decades.

Kira begins to experience how difficult the Attainder will make her life among her fellow Bajorans. At the same time, Shakaar, on his way back to Bajor, shows the first signs of atypical behavior.

It becomes common knowledge that Elias Vaughn is the father of Prynn Tenmei. The two have been estranged for seven years, ever since Prynn’s mother, Commander Ruriko Tenmei, was lost on a mission while under Vaughn’s command.

Quark is approached by Malic, a member of the Orion Syndicate, who blackmails Quark into acting as a negotiator in the Syndicate’s bid for control of the Iconian gateways.

Kasidy Yates and Joseph Sisko learn that Jake has disappeared, and the search begins to find him.

Quark seeks out Ro’s help with his blackmail problem. Ro tells him to go ahead with the negotiations for the Orion Syndicate, but to bring her along disguised as a dabo girl so she can get useful intelligence on the Syndicate’s operations.

Vaughn takes the Defiant through the wormhole to deploy a subspace communications relay at the Gamma terminus, facilitating communication between the two quadrants.

May

Hoping to accelerate the bidding on the Iconian gateways, the Petraw open all of them at once, in every quadrant of the galaxy, creating chaos. In the Delta Quadrant, a Malon tanker under attack by a Hirogen jettisons its radioactive cargo into one such gateway, which leads directly to the independent human settlement of Europa Nova in the Bajor sector, putting the colony of three million people at risk.

Deep Space 9 is assigned the task of evacuating Europa Nova. Kira leads a task force of numerous Starfleet and Bajoran ships, and together they successfully evacuate the colonists to Bajor and the station, as well as the Jarada homeworld. The task force also gets aid from a Cardassian warship, the Trager, commanded by Gul Macet, who closely resembles his missing blood relative, Gul Dukat. Unlike Dukat, Macet was a member of Legate Damar’s resistance during the war and his offer of aid is genuine, a gesture that Cardassia is at last ready to begin working harmoniously with its neighbors.

Among the evacuees to DS9 is Federation Councillor Charivretha zh’Thane of Andor, the zhavey (mother) of Shar, who had been on Europa Nova for talks with the government when the crisis broke out. On the station, zh’Thane uses the opportunity to remind Shar of his responsibilities to Andor, where he is expected to return soon to fulfill his obligation to produce children, a culturally mandated necessity in order to delay the gradual extinction of the biologically troubled Andorian people. Shar is resistant.

On Farius Prime, Quark’s negotiations on behalf of the Orion Syndicate deteriorate when his family connection to Nog, a Starfleet officer currently attempting to deactivate the gateways, is revealed. At gunpoint, Quark admits that he is, in fact, working with station security, at which point Ro abandons her dabo girl disguise, and engineers their escape from Malic’s ship, with the aid of a hostage: Treir, one of Malic’s slaves. Once safely back on DS9, Quark convinces Treir to accept a job as his new dabo girl.

In an attempt to prevent irreversible damage to Europa Nova, Kira takes the runabout Euphrates through the gateway into the Delta Quadrant, where she and Taran’atar are forced to fight the Hirogen hunter on the dead Malon tanker before they can plug the gateway using the Euphrates. Taran’atar is nearly killed in the battle, but prevails, giving Kira the time she needs to save Europa Nova, even though it means sacrificing herself on the irraditated surface of a nearby planet. Taran’atar succeeds in making it back to the Alpha Quadrant, and Kira is saved by the appearance of another Iconian gateway on the planet’s surface.

Passing through the gateway, Kira inexplicably finds herself on Bajor, thirty thousand years in the past, and becomes caught up in a battle between two warring republics. The experience forces her to confront her own self-doubts as commander of DS9. The appearance of another gateway beneath the surface takes her back to the present, to an Iconian outpost outside the Milky Way galaxy. With the help of the outpost’s custodian, Kira returns to Deep Space 9, uncertain if her experiences in Bajor’s past truly happened, or if they were a vision from the Prophets.

Fleet Admiral Leonard James Akaar comes to Deep Space 9 to join Councillor zh’Thane in observing Bajor’s handling of the Europani crisis. He is also representing Starfleet as part of a larger diplomatic delegation assembling to work out the details of Bajor’s admittance into the Federation.

June

Shar’s three bondmates arrive on the station in a last-ditch attempt by his zhavey to get him to return to Andor. The attempt fails, though Shar vows to rejoin his bondmates when he returns from the Gamma Quadrant in three months.

Under the command of Vaughn, and with Dax, Bashir, Nog, Tenmei, and Bowers among the crew, the Defiant sets out on its trailblazing mission into the Gamma Quadrant.

Prylar Eivos Calan visits Yates on Bajor and gives her a jevonite figurine originally intended as a gift for Jake. He also informs Yates of the growing schisms in the Vedek Assembly resulting from the upload of the Ohalu prophecies.

On DS9, Akaar formally informs Kira that a summit meeting will commence on the station to answer Bajor’s petition to join the Federation. Kira assigns Ro to oversee security on the station during the summit, despite Akaar’s reservations about Ro, relating to her rocky Starfleet career.

Six days into their voyage, the Defiant makes first contact with the Vahni Vahltupali. The crew spends several days with the Vahni, during which a mysterious energy pulse shatters the Vahni’s moon, creating seismic chaos on the homeworld and killing some three thousand people before the Defiant can prevent further devastation. Those efforts cost the life of Ensign Gerda Roness. The Defiant tracks the pulse back to its origin, and discovers that the pulse is the effect of a vast alien intelligence pushing its way into the universe through an aperture on the surface of a dead planet. In order to save the Vahni, Vaughn facilitates the entity’s passage into this universe, an act which allows the entity to reorganize the matter of the dead planet into a suitable receptacle for its mind. In the process, the shuttlecraft Chaffee is destroyed, and Vaughn and Prynn reconcile.

On DS9, Treir talks Quark into hiring his first dabo boy, a Bajoran man named Hetik.

The Federation delegation meets with Shaakar. Among the members is Hiziki Gard, a member of the Trill ambassador’s entourage and security liaison for the delegates. After a few days of the summit, Shakaar announces publicly that Bajor’s renewed application for Federation membership has been approved. There are still weeks of talks to go through before the signing ceremony. Quark and Ro are the only ones not happy with the news, as Ro finds it unlikely that she’ll be accepted back into Starfleet when the Bajoran Militia is absorbed into it; and the Federation’s moneyless economy means Quark’s bar will have to close.

July

The Defiant encounters an energy web created by a species called the Cheka, causing tremendous damage to the ship. They are aided by the Cheka’s enemies, the Yrythny, who take the Defiant to their homeworld to help the crew facilitate repairs. The Yrythny, it is learned, were genetically engineered in the distant past and possess a biological “turn key” the Cheka wish to exploit, but can only do so by harvesting the Yrythny’s gestational forms. Complicating the situation is a caste struggle within Yrythny society, bordering on civil war. While the Defiant goes offworld to obtain materials needed to develop a practical defense against the Cheka traps peppering that region of space, Dax remains on the Yrythny homeworld with Shar, convinced that she can mediate the Yrythny’s internal disputes.

Shakaar returns to Bajor to deal with various administrative issues in preparation for the signing ceremony. The delegates from the Federation remain in the system to continue working out the details of the transition.

Macet and the Trager return to DS9 with Ambassador Natima Lang to formally initiate the normalization of relations between Cardassia and Bajor. As a symbolic gesture, they bequeath to Bajor the recovered art of the late Tora Ziyal, daughter of Cardassian Gul Dukat and Bajoran Tora Naprem, who dreamed in life of bringing her two worlds closer together. The art is put on permanent display in Garak’s old tailor shop on the station’s Promenade.

Quark and Ro go on a date.

Lower-caste Yrythny militants set in motion a plan to give the Cheka viable Yrythny eggs in exchange for weapons the militants can use in the violent overthrow of the Yrythny ruling caste. The plan also includes betraying the Defiant crew so the Cheka can obtain the ship’s cloaking device. The plan is thwarted, Dax mediates an imperfect but workable solution to the Yrythny’s caste-conflict, and a Yrythny lower-caste delegate who befriended Shar bequeaths him the gift of a number of nonviable Yrythny eggs, whose genetic turn key may offer a real solution to the Andorian crisis.

Shakaar delegates the Cardassian talks to his second minister, Asarem Wadeen, who takes a surprisingly confrontational and obstructionist position in the negotiations. Kira investigates, and learns that Asarem actually wants a meaningful, lasting peace with Cardassia, but was ordered by Shakaar to scuttle the talks. Kira confronts Shakaar and is confounded by his increasingly uncharacteristic behavior, but cannot expose his duplicity without putting Bajor’s entry into the Federation at risk.

Shathrissía zh’Cheen, one of Shar’s bondmates, grows increasingly despondent over Shar’s refusal to come home, and commits suicide aboard the station.

The Defiant discovers a supremely ancient and mysterious alien artifact on the edge of a star system in the Gamma Quadrant, partly out of phase with the space-time continuum. Contact with the artifact connects an away team consisting of Bashir, Dax, and Nog with alternate realities in which their lives turned out differently. This results in a physiological “resetting” of those crewmembers: Bashir loses his genetic enhancements, Ezri rejects the Dax symbiont, necessitating its removal; and Nog’s leg, shot off during the Dominion War, grows back. Only by returning to the artifact, which is paradoxically called both a “cathedral” and “anathema” by two nearby civilizations in conflict over it, can the away team be restored. In the process they each gain a new level of self-awareness.

In the Gamma Quadrant, the Even Odds reaches the planet Ee, where Jake meets a Trelian named Wex, who is seeking a local healer and spiritualist. Together they encounter Kai Opaka Sulan of Bajor, missing for seven years. Opaka interprets Jake’s arrival as a sign from the Prophets that she is to return to Bajor, and joins him aboard the Even Odds for the journey home.

August

On Earth, Joseph Sisko, who has grown increasingly despondent over the loss of his son and grandson, collapses.

The religious schism over the Ohalu prophecies continues to spread, and a group calling itself the Ohalavaru (Ohalu’s truthseekers) begins making appeals and staging public demonstrations in an attempt to force the Vedek Assembly to rescind the Attainder of Kira Nerys.

Quark and Ro go on a second date. They resolve to leave the station and go into business together when the Federation changeover goes into effect.

Vedek Yevir, troubled by recent events, looks for an unorthodox solution to the discontinued peace talks with Cardassia. Inspired by what he perceives to be a convergence of signs—the jevonite figurine passed on to him by Kasidy Yates, the example of Tora Ziyal, and a half-Cardassian child belonging to one of the Ohalavaru—Yevir convinces Gul Macet to take him to Cardassia. There he makes contact with the Oralian Way for the purpose of creating true peace through their worlds’ spiritualists.

On Cardassia, Elim Garak leads Yevir and Cleric Ekosha of the Oralian Way into the devastated subbasement of one of the Obsidian Order’s old storage facilities. There Yevir recovers the last four of the Bajoran Orbs missing since the Occupation, with which Yevir wins the support of the Bajoran people in accepting his peace initiative with Cardassia.

The signing ceremony to formally admit Bajor into the Federation is held on Deep Space 9. Before First Minister Shakaar can thumb the agreement, he is shot dead by Trill delegate Hiziki Gard, who flees the scene by beaming out, leaving the station in chaos.

On Earth, Judith Sisko, half-sister of Benjamin Sisko, goes to New Orleans to help her father Joseph recuperate. She is joined at Kasidy Yates’s request by the O’Briens, who conspire with Judith to convince Joseph that he mustn’t allow his grief to consume him, and that he is soon to be a grandfather again to a child that will need him. Joseph’s strength of spirit recovers, and he asks the O’Briens to take him to Bajor to be with Kasidy when her baby is born.

On an uninhabited planet in the Gamma Quadrant, the Defiant discovers the crashed wrecks from a battle between a Borg ship and a Dominion ship. The Dominion ship has one survivor, a young Founder marooned since the ship crashed. Nog and Bowers eventually win her trust, and convince her to join them aboard the Defiant so they can take her back with them. The Borg ship, which is actually the assimilated Starfleet vessel U.S.S. Valkyrie, lost seven years prior, also has one survivor: the drone that was once Commander Ruriko Tenmei, Prynn’s mother. Vaughn becomes obsessed with trying to restore her immediately, and his judgment is called into question. Dax succeeds in helping him regain his perspective, but when Vaughn comes to believe that Ruriko is about to assimilate their daughter, he kills her with a phaser. The necessary act renews the rift between Vaughn and Prynn.

In the aftermath of Shakaar’s assassination, Asarem Wadeen is hastily sworn in as the new First Minister of Bajor. A report from the U.S.S. Gryphon, which has been standing in for the Defiant during the latter ship’s mission to the Gamma Quadrant, gives Asarem reason to believe that Gard is on a cloaked ship to Trill. Kira is ordered to join the Gryphon in apprehending the assassin.

Ro becomes convinced that Gard has not fled the station, but is in fact still somewhere on board. With Taran’atar’s help, she captures him, and it is soon learned that Shakaar was the host-victim of an alien parasite, a member of a species that once attempted to take over the Federation. Realizing that Gryphon’s pursuit is a deception, most likely engineered by another parasite on board with plans to retaliate against Trill, Akaar warns Kira aboard Gryphon, who incorrectly concludes that the parasite is Captain Elaine Mello, the ship’s C.O. Kira stages a takeover of the ship, only to learn that she has been deliberately misled by the ship’s first officer, Commander Alejandro Montenegro, the true parasite host. In the battle to regain control of the ship, Captain Mello is killed, but Kira succeeds in killing Montenegro and thwarting the parasite’s plan. Shortly thereafter, Kira is contacted by General Taulin Cyl of the Trill Defense Ministry, who informs her that he has information about the parasites, which are still a clear and present danger not only to Bajor, but the entire Federation.

On DS9, a parasite enters the body of Gul Macet.

In the Gamma Quadrant, the Even Odds is detoured by a troubled Tosk to a class-M planet in the Idran system, which Opaka senses is the source of a tremendous residual concentration of pagh, spiritual life-energy. Working together, Jake and Opaka trigger an ancient mechanism that retrieves from subspace the lost Eav’oq civilization, natives of Idran and followers of the Prophets, who fled into subspace millennia ago to escape the Ascendants, violently aggressive religious zealots seeking the location of the wormhole. As the Eav’oq return, the Idran system instantaneously shifts three light-years back to its original position, with the Gamma terminus of the wormhole now inside it. As Jake, Opaka, and Wex set out for the wormhole in Tosk’s ship, the craft begins to break apart. The passengers are rescued by a Jem’Hadar ship commanded by the newest clone of the Vorta Weyoun.

* As the Defiant nears the Gamma terminus of the wormhole, the crew is shocked to learn of the physical rearrangement of local space, and even more surprised when Weyoun’s ship makes contact to exchange the Founder aboard Defiant for Jake, Opaka, and Wex.

September