By Inferno’s Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edgeplay and prison camp stratagems

Rewatching ST:DS9

After the recap of last week’s “In Purgatory’s Shadow,” we see the Defiant, a couple of runabouts, and Dukat’s Bird of Prey lining up against the huge Dominion fleet.

But instead of attacking, the invaders head for Cardassia which (we learn from an even smugger than usual Dukat) has joined the Dominion.

In the prison camp, Bashir shows Garak the tunnel where Tain had macgyvered an old life support unit into a long-distance transmitter. (The setup is a nice nod to “The Great Escape.”)

Dukat, his face filling a huge viewscreen in a Cardassian city, delivers a chilling “Make Cardassia Great Again” speech. 

On DS9, Sisko and his team reacts, and it’s the impostor Bashir who suggests the saboteur must be a Changeling.

As Garak tinkers in the crawlspace, his claustrophobia intensifies. Meanwhile Worf faces increasingly more challenging opponents in hand-to-hand training matches with Jem’Hadar opponents. 

Martok gives ringside advice and locker room pep-talks, Bashir binds his wounds, and Worf keeps winning, but the strain is clearly starting to show. Still, the Jem’Hadar training leader Iktat’Ika is obviously impressed.

A brief scene on the station features Ziyal hoping for Garak’s safe return.

Klingon Chancellor Gowron passes through the station, initially planning to retreat and “prepare for a fight to the death.” He perks up when Sisko suggests instead an alliance. Fortunately he has a legal document all ready, and the hopeful  Gowron gives his thumbprint without even reading it. 

Of course, all this happens in the infirmary, right in front of the fake Bashir, so we, the audience, aren’t nearly as happy as Sisko.

The action cuts between the main storylines — the station’s attempts to find the saboteur, Worf’s increasingly difficult opponents, and Garak’s increasingly debilitating claustrophobia, as our heroes (conveniently assigned to the same cell) do what they can to buck each other up.  

In a video call, Dukat offers Sisko the chance to save the Federation by joining the Dominion. Fake Julian tries to chat with O’Brien about his family and darts, and Ziyal cheers up a despondent Quark. 

As the Dominon fleet races back to the station, this time with the Cardassian fleet, Klingons and Romulans have joined forces to defend the station, and Bajor.

The game-master Ikat’Ika finally manages to knock Worf down, and respectfully observes, “I cannot defeat this Klingon. All I can do is kill him.”

A timely transporter beam, a timely emergency communication, a timely sensor scan, a timely use of a warp drive and a tractor beam provide techno-nerd plot twists and di ex machinis galore.  (I had to look up the plural for “deus ex machina”.)

The big battle we’ve been expecting never happens, which leaves time for an infodump from Sisko, and brief but satisfying reunions between Garak and Ziyal, O’Brien and Bashir, Dax and Worf, and even Gowron and Martok.

The final scene leaves no doubt — upon his return to power, Dukat is more dangerous than he ever was, and we fully expect he’ll be back.