No other trek series has ever managed to be as dark as DS9 and this is a great example. Sure, in TNG it always seemed possible that Data could lose control or something and take over the ship or whatever. But to have a major character stab a crewman in the chest with a flux coupler is pretty hardcore. Even before he was under the influence of the psychotropic drug Garak was already bugging O'Brien about being the hero of Setlik III so when he starts doing it even more it is hard to tell that he has changed. I love that despite the message being that O'Brien isn't a soldier any more, he is still the one who gets to deliver the action movie one liner in the fight with Garak. This episode introduces four crewmen and gives them names and stuff, but since none of them make it through the episode I am not going to be too specific about who's who.
We begin in Quark's where there is a horrible noise coming from somewhere in the bar. It seems Miles and Nog are working to repair a damaged plasma manifold but it is finally and truly broken. Since it can't be replicated and they aren't on great terms with the Cardassians right now the best option seems to be to scavenge one from the abandoned Terok Nor station. O'Brien assembles a team of four crewmen, Nog and Garak since these stations are notoriously booby trapped. On the way there in a runabout Garak tries playing the game kotra with Nog, but the ferengi is too risk averse to play properly. Garak tries to goad Miles into playing, but he isn't interested. As soon as they arrive Garak prove to be a good person to have along as there is a booby trap in the airlock.
In the Terok equivelent of Quark's Garak touches the stairway and gets some sort of mystery blue goo on his hand. But never mind that, he stops three stasis pods through a doorway. One has a dead cardassian, but the other two are empty other than more of the blue goo. Nog is helping O'Brien and heads back to the runabout for a tool only to watch it explode. About the same time a stasis field goes up blocking communications. They split into three teams to work on a plan to send a signal to DS9 which immediately turns out to be a bad idea. One of the teams of crewmen is attacked and killed by a cardassian soldier and Garak seems to be acting a bit off. He insists on setting off on his own to hunt the two sleeper soldiers while the others work on the communications plan.
Garak ambushes one of the soldiers in the room with the stasis pods, kills him and takes a tissue sample which shows he is all hopped up on a psychotropic drug which he fortunately tells O'Brien and Nog. Garak tracks the other soldier but another crewman is killed before Garak can kill the soldier, but he doesn't stop there, he also kills the surviving crewman. When he doesn't answer O'Brien and Nog rush to the crewman just in time for him to tell them Garak did it and die. Seemingly knowing this Garak starts talking to them via their comm badges. He manages to capture Nog and lures Miles into a confrontation on the Promenade. They both set their weapons down but Miles sets his small phaser on an open tricorder for some reason. They fight but Garak detects correctly that Miles isn't really into it. But that turns out to be because he has a trap laid which goes off exploding his phaser and almost killing Garak.
Review: Miles and Garak are two of my favorite characters on this show so getting to see the two of them have a showdown was awesome. I also love all the off kilter shots of Empok Nor to show how it was just drifting in space.
7 out of 10
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