Another one of those episodes that only happened in DS9. It would be like having Wesley get caught in a war zone and have to learn to deal with death and his own fear all in one episode. Pretty dark stuff, and this show gets a lot darker from here on out. Also it totally figures that all this fighting takes place while a cease fire is being worked out giving it that wastefulness of war feeling to it too. The only real B story in this one is Ben having to handle his son being stuck in the middle of a battle with nothing he can do about it. On the upside for Jake this is the kind of experience he can draw on for his writing.
The episode opens with Jake and Bashir returning from a medical conference. Jake is bored out of his mind listening to Julian rant about how wrong the medical establishment is to not take his work seriously when they get a distress call from a Federation colony under attack by Klingons. On the station things are pretty calm until word of the Jake's situation arrives. The USS Farragut will be there in a day and a half, but that isn't soon enough for Sisko. At the colony they land and walk right into the middle of the hospital with injured patients everywhere. Bashir is right at home and jumps in taking care of people but Jake doesn't know what to do. He watches a man come in claiming to have been shot in the foot by Klingons and then sees how everyones treatment of him changes when they realize he shot himself to get out of combat. Jake eventually gets recruited to help move patients around and really gets into it, but at the end of his shift he throws up at the sight of food.
Things get worse when the power generator gets knocked out by shelling and Jake goes with Julian to get the generator from the runabout. News also comes in that the Farragut was destroyed so help will be significantly delayed. On DS9 Ben can't get the Defiant underway fast enough. As soon as Julian and Jake head out for the runabout they start taking fire and are separated. Jake comes across an injured Federation soldier who volunteered to stay behind to save his platoon. Jake helps him get a hypo of pain killer, but it runs out and the man dies. Jake can't take it and runs off again ashamed of his inability to save him. Ben isn't holding it together very well on the Defiant but Jadzia manages to calm him down a bit at least.
Jake manages to make his way back to the clinic and everyone is glad to see him, especially Bashir who managed to drag the generator back himself and was injured in the process. His failure compared to Julian only makes Jake feel worse. He takes food to the man who shot himself and can clearly see some of himself in the man who is deeply ashamed of what he did and wants to be punished for it by starfleet. After in the mess hall some of the other medical staff are discussing how they would want to be killed by Klingons in that way that people do when they are under a ton of stress but Jake takes it badly and yells at them. Bashir pulls him aside but Jake is breaking down. He wakes up to the shaking of explosions, the Klingons have broken through. While the others flee Jake cowers under a desk. A soldier is killed in front of him and after hesitating Jake grabs his phaser and starts shooting blindly and in the process collapses in entry tunnel ending the assault and saving most of the rest of the people in the clinic. He wakes up to his father telling him that he saved their lives and is a hero, but he isn't really buying the hero part. The episode ends with Jake writing his experience up in a story about the thin line between courage and cowardice.
Review: A deeply moving episode about one of the less frequently featured characters in the show. But really this could have been about any war from any time period, it is a story about being afraid in the face of war and how a person deals with that incredible stress.
8 out of 10
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