Fire Frog fell asleep here.

Fire Frog fell asleep here.

Section 31 set out to snare Julian in their machinations once again. This time it is to stop one of their own, a rogue agent. Like Bashir this agent was genetically enhanced as a child.

The bad guys name is Dr. Ethan Locken and he some how comes off as being both well rounded and two dimensional at the same time. He's got ahold of a Jem'Hadar hatchery and plans to bring peace to the quadrant his way. Tired of the bloodshed from the just finished war he's gone a little loopy, torturing the forest dwelling local's children by nailing them to trees, developing pathogens that will kill most races of sentient beings, torturing and killing people aboard passing ships. (He's hiding out in the Badlands, on a near deserted planet.).

Nog devises a way to return power to DS9 (It dropped its core in Avatar 2). While talking about him Julian says to Dax "I'll have you know that inside that narrow breast beats the heart of a very sensitive young Ferengi." Ro thinks of him as ...an interesting combination of Federation Boy Scout and scoundrel... Yay, positive Ferengi stuff!

Julian says about Vic Fontain. "And just in case something does go wrong while we're away, I forwarded a copy of his program to Felix." Continuity! Julian also worries that if Nog blows the place up (installing his 'fix') "...could someone please rescue my ficus?" (His houseplant, mentioned in a previous episodes.)

Julian has been promoted to Lieutenant Commander.

Taking The Euphrates with Julian to do away with Dr. Locken is Ezri Dax, Ro and the Jem'Hadar liaison Taran'atar. They have the blessings of Colonel Kira and the mysteriously impassive response of Commander Vaughn.

Revelation sort of thing! Julian talks with Taran'atar, who says humans are omnivores, yet he has observed that Julian has not eaten meat (not in front of him, anyway) "Very rarely," Bashir said. "I never make meat for myself, but I'll eat it if someone else prepares it." Taran'atar - "This is a cultural prohibition?" Bashir shrugged. "Call it a lifestyle choice." Whoo - nice dodge! Explains all those chowing down on animal flesh scenes while placing Julian's character on the moral high ground (yep, I'm a vegetarian too! )

Dax, about Julian and spy games - "I don't think he's played it since he's learnt about Section 31. I think it lost its innocence." "Maybe," Ro said. "Or maybe he lost his."

The runabout is hit by the orbiting weapons platform. Locken scoops up Dax and Bashir when they crash land and sets out to woo Julian to his side. He knows rather a lot about Doctor Bashir. Locken, "You're a vegetarian, aren't you, Julian?" "More or less," Bashir said, lifting the cover off a small bowl. He sniffed the contents. "Plomeek soup?" "Yes."

"He's very charming," Ezri said. "You have a weak spot for charm, Julian...I still remember when you first met Garak..." "Garak?" Bashir said. "I always thought of Garak as more mysterious than charming." "He was both. It's a potent combination - charm and mystery - particularly for you." So, Dax thought Julian had a crush on Garak too!

Ro and Taran'atar escape before the crash and contact the locals (Ingavi - look a bit like sloth), whom Ro knows from before (naughty, she didn't tell anyone). Locken shows Dax and Bashir around his hatchery. He hasn't got the ketracel white to feed his creations correct yet, they are weaker for it and have had no proper training, relying on brutality. Locken then shows them what he hopes to win the rest of the quadrant over with - a clone that you can transport emotions and memories into - giving everyone immortality! (this bit doesn't go with the wipe out all sentience virus he's made and packed into a missile ready for launching, but you can't have everything.)

Taran'atar, talking to Locken's First - "The human I came here with is equal to your Khan in every way, perhaps even better, but he is not a ruler. He is a medic...He is no fool. I believe he could rule the humans if he wished to - some of them at any rate - but he chooses not to. He is a soldier of a sort, but he fights a different war...." He barely understood his own words, but couldn't deny the truth he felt lay at the center of them. Whoo, falling in love or what?! (Hmm, Jem'Hadar are sexless, right? But they can feel 'brotherhood'.)

Ezri and Julian get tense as Julian begins to ponder some of Locken's ideas. She whacks him one on the jaw. Eventually he goes with Locken, but smuggles something to Ezri first to help her escape and cause havoc. She does, spiking the Jem'Hadar ketracel white. Taran'atar, Ro and the locals prepare to attack as well.

Locken finds Julian sabotaging his virus missile, sending it into the orbiting weapons platform. Boom. The Jem'Hadar First, much impressed with Taran'atar, corners and kills Locken with his fellow soldiers who are going nuts with white withdrawal (Julian was trying to save Locken for rehab). Taran'atar stops Julian from rushing in and getting killed along side him.

Nasty surprise, Ezri and Bashir find four growing clones of Julian, one already broken open and (apparently) dead. They are children still, the youngest looks about three, one of them has been engineered to be female. "Breeding stock," Bashir whispered...There was only one thing he could do. He shoots them. (I thought killing your own clone was still considered murder?)

Section 31 turn up to kill everyone in sight and grab any info not wiped out already. The Jem'Hadar First leads what is left of his men to battle Section 31. Our team escape in the runabout. Ro is devastated by her feeling of betrayal of the Ingavi. Taran'atar is questioning his belief in the Founder's godhood (and wondering - should he kiss Bashir now or wait until they are back on the station where he can offer dead plant matter, food and rare metallic ornaments before laying a lip lock on him. Sorry, had to add that in there ). Ezri is wondering about Bashir. Julian is in a black mood for failing to get any evidence of Section 31's dealings, not saving Locken, not helping the white affected Jem'Hadar, killing his own clones etc. He's now wondering how much it would take to turn him into another Locken as well.

Looks bad, but Ro's Ingavi were all saved by Commander Vaughn, who is also fighting 31. He offers to help Julian bring the group down, making Julian give him a roguish, almost boyish grin. And hope for the future looks bright.

The Defiant goes to rescue a scientific survey that went down in space nominally held by Klingons. And surrounded by neutral zone, contested by Cardassians. The science vessel (Victoria Adams) is holding a retired ex starship Captain code named George (he-llo tribute to the guy who played Sulu, George Takei.) and which almost held Jadzia, if her worry wart of a Klingon boyfriend hadn't tricked her out of the trip.

They find their people are on an unstable planet being bombarded by flaming comets (no, really.) Kira, Dax and Bashir (and nurse Heiser) beam down to search for survivors. They find nasty drug making Klingons, haughty 'we-would-rather-die-with-dignity' Klingons, and Greenpeace Klingons. Non of them are related to Worf in any way.

The Klingons have all been dumped there as exiles, and honor demands they stay there and die.

Dr. Bashir takes an olfactory suppressant to deal with the planets strong smells but - he still greeted the cessation of smell with a kind of guilty relief; the animal mind at work, convincing him that no one with half-million credits worth of biological enhancements should need something so trivial as protection from unpleasant odors. But the guilt didn't stop him from using it. So, half a million credits. How did his dad make that much cash?

The shield rippled one last time, then vanished. Bashir promptly crossed into the center of the Klingon encampment, drawn by the universal sounds of suffering that he could now hear clearly. He boldly rushes in to help, much to the chagrin of his companions.

The survivor stirred when Bashir started his examination, his hands rising in a move Kira recognized as a standard defense...She caught his hands back easily from Bashir's oblivious throat...

"He's slim and dark, with dark hair." Then she (Kira) remembered the awkward Human handshake, and realized the girl might have mistaken her for Human, despite her distinctly Bajoran features. If recognizing more subtle racial differences was challenging for Klingons, she didn't want to think about how hard it might be for the girl to tell Human male from Human female. Especially when the female was as tall and strong boned as Dax. "He's the one with short hair, and no freckles." Kira conveniently points out the Doctor to a Klingon girl who promptly kidnaps him.

Unlike another 'kidnap the Doctor and have him fall for the girl' story I could name (Eeek), this one works in with the plot. He doesn't fall in love, but comes to respect the position she is in (she is way to young for him, but gets a crush on him nonetheless. Join the queue, kid!) and this time nobody expects him to enjoy being held prisoner. The girl, K'Taran, does a lot of Bashir manhandling, carrying him about etc. But she sort of takes care of him, too. "Stand aside! Humans are fragile - let him breath!"

It transpires that K'Taran and her friends are trying to help the natives on the planet, by getting them to safety in deep caves, away from meteor strikes. They have the missing science ship personal, but are holding them hostage until Starfleet can figure a way to stop the meteoric bombardments.

Kira and Dax try to rescue Julian, but the planets thick foliage turns them back, in time to almost get hit by a big meteorite. They end up temporarily deafened by the strike and wonder about aimlessly, falling into rivers of mud and other pseudo erotic things. Bashir helps the native xirri that K'Taran and her crew are protecting. The xirri are gentle, apparently semi intelligent, mute, butterfly primates. The warm plush bodies that had nestled on all sides of him during sleep popped up with alarm...He reached to instinctively smooth the fur on the closest xirri's skull. They like him.

The Klingons and the Cardassians play tag with the Defiant.

 They left the medical assistant Heiser at the first Klingon camp, near where the comet hit. The poacher's camp...and Heiser. Bashir watched the blackening cloud slowly turn itself inside out. It was a terrible thought, but he found himself hoping dismally that the comet's destruction had been horrifying - that a lone Human physician's assistant would have barely had time to notice the approach of the light. That no one had felt any pain. The rank stink of burning wood feathered into their clearing like fleeing ghosts. "Come." K'Taran pulled insistently at his hand.

Despite K'Tarans fondness for him, he is still a prisoner and some effort goes into showing this. And then her arms were around him, iron-hard and tight. Bashir barely had time to gasp a protest ...New hands - bigger, stronger - pinned his arms, lifting him against an armor plated side. "Let me go!"

 The comet had set the thick foliage afire and Julian's captors run for the safety of the caves. During the mayhem, the xirri doctor and another are trapped. Bashir escapes his captors and runs to save them Thank god and his parent's vanity for the strength needed to navigate the deadly course. He reaches them in time, but falls into burning underbrush, as he try's to help them escape.

He lifted the little xirri over his head to roll her to safety...He couldn't take her with him - refused to let her fall and burn...When K'Taran's ash-stained face appeared above...Bashir thrust the xirri towards her. "Take her! Take her!" ...and he went plunging into the abyss.

Kira and Dax try again to locate Bashir. "No. We're going to stay and locate Bashir, even if we have to throw away our communicator pins to do it."

Julian didn't die earlier (duh!) but in rescuing him K'Taran broke his leg at the knee. They get him to the caves, where he diagnoses himself as in shock, low blood pressure, loosing blood and in need of some help, preferably from someone other than the young Klingons, who keep asking him if he is going to die.

This is where he finds the other Starfleet refugees from the science vessel Victoria Adams and the mysterious ex Captain, referred to only as George. The slim, elderly Asian man rolled smoothly to his knees and closed both hands protectively around the doctor's upper arm. "It's alright - I've got you."

George and the little native xirri doctor care for Julian, using primitive blood transfusion and plain old TLC. K'Taran demands Bashir name restitution; she will kill herself or maim herself in equal measure to pay for hurting him. He asks that she go and find his friends, Kira and Dax, and offer the cave shelters to them and the other Klingons as well. But first, he gets her to set the bones of his leg. Minus anaesthetic. Owch.

Kira is happy to be 'rescued'. If I ever get home...I am never walking anywhere without pavement again. They have to fight K'Taran's Mother to gain the clan's right to protect themselves and go to the caves. They win, and Mother and some diehards stay behind to die a fiery comet death while the rest of the Klingon exile families flee to the caves.

A suffering Doctor Bashir manages to look after the scrapes, burns and contusions of the injured, before returning to his own blood splattered corner of the caves. He finally figures out that the xirri use radio waves to communicate and jury-rigs his tricorder as a translator. "A doctor and an engineer," the older officer commented playfully after watching Bashir work for several minutes. "You're a man of many talents." "You have no idea."

Sisko and crew battle Klingons hand to hand for honor and a peace treaty, of sorts, for the planet. They have to, the prime directive is involved! "Benjamin, some of the natives are sentient!" "Not just sentient," That voice Sisko hadn't heard in to long. It's weary British accent and carefully precise language dissolved a knot of tension he hadn't even realized he was feeling. "The xirri are a full-fledged Class-two civilization, Captain: oral history, medicine, long distance radio communication - "

The science crew is rescued, the Cardassians sent packing, the Klingons agree to help protect the xirri, and the Defiant makes another triumphant flight home.