Needing a stabilizer on the Defiant, Captain Sisko orders Chief O'Brien to have part in place on the ship when he returns in three days. Unfortunately, O'Brien won't be able to procure the item for three weeks. Overhearing the conversation with the Captain is Nog, who offers to use a bit of his Ferengi sense of commerce to find the stabilizer for the Chief in three days. Elsewhere, Odo receives a message from his Cardassian contact, long thought dead, to rendezvous with him at their usual location. While there, Odo discovers that his contact is in fact dead. In his place stands Weyoun, who has decided to defect to the Federation.
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.