While Cadet Nog uses Captain Sisko's advice to make the Klingons aboard Deep Space Nine respect him, a captured communiqué from the Maquis brings grim news. As a last resort, the Maquis have used cloaking devices that they obtained from the Klingon Empire to mask thirty missles. The missles were then fired from a remote location in the Badlands towards Cardassia. The loss of so many lives could lead to even more passings should the Dominion find reason to believe that humans had been behind the attack. A possible Quadrant war needs to be diverted and Sisko turns to the only man who can help: Michael Eddington.
When the Cardassian occupation of Bajor ended in 2369, the mining space station Terok Nor was left abandoned, its systems ripped out. By invitation of the Bajoran provisional government, Starfleet stepped in to oversee the rebuilding and day-to-day operations of the newly christened Deep Space Nine.
The years of Starfleet's nonintervention into Cardassian matters, however, had taken its toll on relations with the Bajorans. Consequently, Starfleet's position was a tenuous one; many Bajorans, suspicious and hostile as a result of decades of Cardassian oppression and brutality, did not greet the Federation's presence with open arms. The Federation's assistance is put to the test as DS9 becomes a center of travel and commerce that stretches into the Gamma Quadrant.