Myriad Universes: Hearts and Minds Part 1: For the Glory of the Empire
Major Kira is holding down the fort in the Ops office, having a heated argument with a woman who demands she be allowed to open an establishment on the Promenade, even though there are no vacancies. It’s Maura, but if you didn’t read “Requiem” you wouldn’t know that. Just as things are about to get ugly, Jadzia Dax pages the Major to tell her they have a little situation she might want to take a look at. The situation in question is a fleet of Klingon warships, who have Deep Space 9 surrounded.
Kira orders Commander Sisko to be brought up to Ops at once, forcing Ben to give Jake and his baseball game yet another rain check. While still in his baseball uniform, Sisko meets with Captain Kol, the commander of the fleet’s flasghip, the ‘Avwi. As a staunch ally of the Federation, Kol offers his support and protection to Deep Space 9, which he claims will be the most strategic location in the forthcoming war with the Cardassian Empire. This takes Sisko somewhat by surprise, as he had been unaware there was a war between the Klingons and the Cardassians. Kol recaps the events of the prologue for anyone who might have missed it, explaining how their cruiser the K’Tang has been missing for several days, and an investigation has led the Klingon High Council to the belief it was destroyed by a Cardassian Galor Warship in an unprovoked attack. While Sisko presses for evidence, Kol is reluctant to provide any, but declares that he and his crew will stand by him no matter what. As Kol leaves, Sisko and Kira are unconvinced even the Cardassians would be brazen enough to provoke war with the Klingons, and they summon the senior staff to conference.
Over subspace, Commander Sisko express concern to Admiral Kernwill that the Klingons will expect the Federation to support them, and the admiral asks him to hold on until the Cardassians can send a delegation, and they can get negotiator Tal Berel to come out of retirement to sort things out. In Ops, Odo complains his security staff is overstretched dealing with the Klingon delegation, let alone having to handle a Cardassian one on a Bajoran station. Miles O’Brien pulls some people from engineering to help in the meantime, and Doctor Bashir offers his help too. Although Odo brushes him off with a snide remark, Sisko says he has a special mission for him: He and Dax will take the Rio Grande into the Gamma Quadrant to conduct their own independent investigation into the K’Tang‘s destruction to find out who really destroyed it and, if the Klingons are right and it was the Cardassians, why. But before they can take off, a Klingon named Koleth reports for duty. He was assigned to the mission by Kol, which annoys Commander Sisko because he didn’t go through him first. But Sisko lets him on, so long as he agrees to be subordinate to Dax.
As Dax, Bashir and Koleth depart through the Bajoran Wormhole, the Cardassian delegation arrives.…