Star Trek: Solstice - Recaps

Jen Kras reveals the death of the Dai’Loq Thearch and the potential rise of Archbishop Kearas. The Solstice departs Starbase 212 to investigate the possible location of the Dominion presence in the sector. The senior officers bond a bit with K’tral and Ssleestak. Shortly after lunch, Jen has a seizure and her future self emerges. Captain Kras informs them Chevranek’s sister, a Romulan senator, will destroy Sarek City in a few hours. The Solstice reverses course, and Captain Kras replicates an advanced cloaking device, and tweaks the EPS grid to get the ship up to warp 9.998. Fal speaks with Chirurgeon Karzanna and confirms Jen’s earlier intel.

Using a low-EM transmission from the days of the Bajoran Resistance, the crew communicates with Ota Basric, who deliberately starts a fight with Ambassador Jannek’s people to secure their assistance. Captain Kras upgrades their shields and warns them of the Tokari. She also accesses Jace’s modifications to grant disable access to Mel, Saval, Fal, and Shan’taar. They successfully drop out of warp, decloak, and open fire on the coordinates, revealing a Romulan D’deridex-class warbird! Their first strike cripples the warbird, and then a second Solstice emerges from a temporal anomaly in the negative space between the Romulan hulls. The Vanguard also joins the fight, and Mel orders the ship evacuated Edgly loses the first three hundred Romulans but beams nine hundred safely to the starbase. Edgly manages to beam off Senator T’rell and her bridge crew despite interference as the second Solstice vanishes – as does the cloaking device. The Solstice and the Vanguard safely destroy the warbird.

The senior officers meet with Captain Shras’aan for the briefing. Jen reveals she was in 2387 and passes a redesign of the plasma injectors to Ssleestak, claiming she is operating under Admiral Shras’aan’s direct orders – and she butchers Andorii to prove it. She reveals her trip to the 29th century and meeting Meridian and lays out much of the basics of the Temporal Cold War – including Jessa’s presence at the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Mel views a message from UFP President Jonathan Archer, recorded circa 2190, on a 29th century data rod. Jen, Jessa, and Fal get dinner and talk, and Mel joins them. Ssleestak begins the upgrade. Jen, Jessa, and Mel go to the shooting range. The following day Fal manages his department while Jessa sees her patients after yesterday’s events. Ssleestak continues with the upgrades.

The Solstice arrives at the Kordikar system and encounters three Jem’Hadar attack ships, commanded by Ublis the Vorta. Chief Purveyor Zivan forces the Dominion to stand down and invites Mel to join her for lunch. The Solstice buzzes the Dominion ships and lands on an atmospheric platform. They meet Zug, Zivan’s chief servant, who leads them to a monorail. Thal’tirian peppers Zug with questions while Ssleestak enjoys worms in a citrus sauce, with aphrodisiacs, and Jessa imbibes a hallucinogenic wine.

The monorail leads them to the mansion, and they are brought into a pleasure room first and then into the ‘champagne room,’ where they meet Zivan. They join her for lunch, and enjoy various Earth dishes, culminating in lasagna. Over the lasagna, Zivan has a frank conversation with Mel; the others chip in as needed. They cover Tizit history, Federation Secundus, the Dai’Loq, the NX-07 Solstice, the Dominion, and the nature of commerce within the Federation. Zivan formally requests diplomatic and military ties and wants Mel of an incoming swarm of ravaging aliens, inadvertently repeating the same warning the Mother-Confessor gave her back on March 11th.

A Prophet possesses Jen Kras, but this time They take direct action to control the Solstice. The ship powers through the atmosphere, revealing a Wabai spy-ship, and uses Sleestak’s quantum surprise to slide to the edges of the Kordikar system. They reveal They are fulfilling a pact that The Kras demanded. A N’Dari refugee ship suffers an explosive decompression within the gravitational eddies, and the Solstice is at the exact spot to help. The Dominion ships attempt an ambush, but the Prophet intervenes and a fleet from Kordikar launches an assault as soon as Zivan revokes the system’s neutrality. The Dominion is chased off and the Dai’Loq assist the Solstice. The N’Dari ship is rescued and the Solstice leads the flotilla back to Kordikar. The away team collates all information on the N’Dari and starts working on practical solutions to help them.

MacDougal reports from engineering that the Solstice is transferring all available power to the batteries and potentially overloading them. They discover an additional power transfer from the NCC-72409-A USS Solstice. Mel hails her ship and demands an explanation, the Kras-Prophet tells them an attack is coming very soon. Fal manages to contact his future self, who provides a little more information. Six Krenim ships appear, including a temporal weapon ship. Mel hits the 29th century data rod, and then Phillip finds himself briefly on an alternate Solstice in Daphne Hatfield’s body before everyone materializes in the 29th century onboard the FCV-1772409-G UTS Solstice. The meet Meridian, who explains what they need to do upon their return to the 24th century: get to the surface of Kordikar and infiltrate an ancient Iconian temple! She sends them home, but Ssleestak ends up fighting Captain Kirk briefly, Phillip kills Peel’s father and kicks her in the head, and Fal spends thirty years in ancient Bajor.

Zug brings the away team quickly to his ‘dropper,’ a repurposed maintenance vehicle. Phillip copilots as the pod plunges to the ziggurat below, but they manage to exit safely – if not gracefully – and communicate with the native red-skinned… Orions? They head into the ziggurat and Ssleestak triggers a Matruse Device; thankfully, Phillip recognizes it. They find shorn Wabai body parts and have to dismantle a second Matruse Device before they are ambushed by the Krenim. Threy’shaan is killed and Fal’s leg is blown off before they manage to kill the Krenim. They keep going and find Captain Galan’noor, the commander of the downed Wabai holo-ship; he and his team join them after a confrontation with Zug. They reach the Iconian hub and Ssleestak jumps into a portal that deposits him one hundred and fifty thousand years into the past so he can repair the device. Two other Starfleet teams – the U.S.S. Boston downtime and the U.S.S. Stargazer-A uptime – activate Iconian Gates, giving the 29^th century Timefleet the signals they need to emerge in orbit of Kordikar and destroy the Krenim – which partially resets the timeline. Threy’shaan is alive and Fal whole, and the Timefleet uses their temporal transporters to return Ssleestak safe and sound – and confused.

The combined away team retraces their steps through the ziggurat and the two dead Wabai rejoin them, also having been resurrected by the temporal reset – although one is missing his boot and sock. They get to the top of the stairs and the natives move the slab. The old crone roars at Ssleestak before Chief Edgly beams them aboard. The Solstice is in shambles, and the crew splits up to handle the repairs. Phillip settles into flight control even though it’s dead. Mel changes and gets a report from Saval; she learns the Solstice was erased for three minutes. Fal is treated and released. Shan’taar detects three Miranda-class vessels entering the system, but they cannot communicate until the Starfleet vessels are fifteen minutes out. They identify the U.S.S. Boston, the U.S.S. Sacramento, and the U.S.S. Montgomery Scott from Starbase 212, literally across the Federation.

The crews of the Boston, Sacramento, and Montgomery Scott pitch in to help; Mel meets Commander Shil’vala and then Captain Aaron Englyss of the Boston – and then the Bynars. The Bynars help repair Sola while Mel and Aaron talk and try to keep the temporal paradoxes straight. Aaron returns to the Boston and Thal’tirian reveals to Mel that the Tizit and the Ra’vin’ka are the same species! Fal falls asleep in engineering and Ssleestak falls asleep in sickbay as Dr. Vrax massages cream into his seared skin. Jessa brings Phillip to his cabin, but he relocates to sickbay to be with Peel.

With the other senior officers asleep, K’tral takes command of the repairs and clashes with Commander T’kora of the U.S.S. Boston over Ssleestak’s schedule. Mel is drawn in, but K’tral realizes T’kora’s corrections are more efficient and apologizes. Vrax discharges Peel to Phillip’s care while Fal tries to distract the Bynars at Sola’s request. The senior officers – and Jen Kras – gather for staff meeting; Saval runs down the damage and shows them footage of the space battle – including the destruction of the Nova-class U.S.S. Solstice and the arrival of the Akira-class U.S.S. Solstice-A! Jen warns them of another disaster looming in the next five days and tells Phillip to send a message to his parents, so they call in sick next Tuesday – and Sola already has something queued up. Phillip heads out to weld and avoid Jessa. Ssleestak works with Tor, the chief engineer of the Montgomery Scott, who proposes a radical way to temporarily repair the Solstice – with phasers. Mel signs off but ends up talking to Zivan, who demands her son and the Wabai be turned over to her before the Solstice departs. Zug does not want to go and drunkenly tells his mother he is declaring his independence and the Wabai have applied for political asylum with the Federation – which is the first Galan’noor has heard if this. Mel realizes Zug isn’t truly free on Kordikar. Jessa leads Zug and Galan’noor to sickbay while Zivan cuts the channel.

Phillip discovers self-replicating Dai’Loq nodules in the EPS grid; Ssleestak bodily picks him up and pushes him head-first into the conduit for a closer look. The nodules try to push him out and trigger a medical alert on his behalf but cancel it when Ssleestak extracts him. Sola and the Bynars attempt communication and realize the Dai’Loq nanites were inadvertently introduced by Jen Kras six months ago, shortly after she was ‘gifted’ with the nanites herself. Jessa replicates pants and a shirt for Zug, and he hails his mother and reiterates his desire to leave. The nanites request an E7-grade technician, so Mel strikes a deal with the archbishop of the dreadnaught – Jen will lead a ritual while they get the technician. The away team beams over and meet Archbishop Krella, while Technician Kivo beams to the Solstice. Jen performs the Ritual of Release, turning two thousand Dai’Loq into frenzied maenads. Jen triggers a beam-out with a Dai’Loq stasis tube as a ‘gift.’ Shan’taar removes the trap covering the tube and the Starfleet officers stare down at a complete stranger.

Ssleestak brings Kivo to the nodule manifestation and then to main engineering. Kivo taps into the master systems display and reveals the Dai’Loq technology and programming. She discovers Sola and realizes the nanites are operating with a future operating system. Jen accesses the data on the stasis pod and discovers this man was abducted in 2365 but has been continually rejected by the Dai’Loq. Three nodules jump to the bridge and repair flight control. Saval reveals the man in the stasis box in Andrew Deelor, an agent of SI and one of Bjornson’s most hated foes – and makes it clear she supports Bjornson in this. Mel declares this is now SI’s problem and Saval takes the stasis box to her office. The nodules jump to tactical. Kivo deactivates Jace Fortis’s modifications and the EPS grid stabilizes immediately by ten percent. Phillip brings up concerns if they lose Jen, so Kivo ties the nanites to Sola. She meets Mel privately and reveals some additional upgrades – the ability to track Questoria agents with internal sensors. Kivo departs with her bodyguards after taking her mask off for Ssleestak. Jessa helps Zug choose clothing, despite the clashing shades. The Solstice receives messages of thanks from many Tizit citizens and one from Matriarch M’Greer of the N’Dari, and Mel sends a text message to Zivan. The Starfleet flotilla departs Kordikar, the Solstice under tow. The first four days of their journey is quiet, although Jessa learns the truth about the Capellan blade.

The Solstice and her flotilla of Starfleet escorts arrive at their home system. Upon being hailed by Admiral T'konra, Jen suddenly screams an order to vent cargo bay five on the starbase. The Admiral immediately does, beaming all staff inside back to safety aboard the station. Moments later a powerful explosion detonates among the vented cargo.

The Solstice reels from the vented explosion as the staff scramble to stabilize and figure out what just happened. Shan'taar and Jessa figure out the explosive agent used and the amount. The Solstice stabilizes and Phillip guides her into spacedock.

The senior officers along with personnel from their escort ships are summoned for a briefing with the Admiral and Jen Kras attempts to explain her involvement in what happened. afterward the staff is split between investigating the bomb or ship repair. Ssleestak and K'tral discover it will take months of repair and upgrades before the Solstice is fully spaceworthy again. While presenting their repair plan to the Captain, all senior officers are abruptly summoned back to the Admiral's conference room, along with the four religious heads of New P'jem; they are then told of the attacks on Earth and Starbase 375. Phillip is informed privately that his parents are all right, as they had called in.

K'Tral inquires about Romulans on the Solstice. Mel assists Zug and the Wabai gain their respective diplomatic statuses. Fal visits Armina to process his experiences on the last away mission. Jen visits Peel and a very drunk Phillip. Mel recieves new orders from the Admiral and gains a temporary First Officer; they are to transfer to the USS Varich for an exploratory mission. The new orders are forwarded to the crew.

Ssleestak has some feelings about leaving Sola behind, but is reassured. He brings cinnamon buns to alpha shift staff meeting, which are well received. Senior staff go over the impending transfer. Phillip returns to quarters and Sola offers him a few minutes of real-time communication with his parents on Starbase 375. They are all right, but Harrison Dade passes on some doubts about the official story of what happened. Peel enters the cabin and is introduced to the Dades. Ssleestak takes a meeting with Cidhela about the Solstice while EVA on her hull. Jessa counsels Edgly regarding his work on the Ra'vin'ka transporter buffer; Ssleestak later offers insight on Dai'loq tech that may help. Galan'naar offers the service of his navigator for the mission.

Phillip spends some time mollifying Peel after her unexpected "meeting" his parents. After consulting with the Admiral, Mel accepts Galan'naar's offer of his navigator (who is also his daughter) Merek'miir. Phillip later reports to Elias Vaughn to pass along what his father told him about the attack on Starbase 375 and finds out that Armina is waiting for him outside.

Jessa heads to Kelroc's for lunch and arrives back on the Solstice bearing treats. She stops at sick bay and asks Swims for a life size holo for Kel. Swims is confused, but agrees to get one. Jessa next stops in Engineering and thanks Ssleestak for the cinnabuns. Phillip stalls, but finally has to leave SI, leaving him no choice but to walk to the Varich with Armina. After briefly asking about the bloody knife, Armina tells Phillip he may continue his duties if he agrees to see her for 30 minutes per day. Phillip protests to no avail.

Shan'taar leads the officers in a tour of the Varich, during which they meet Lt. Park, who is still working on reconfiguring sickbay for Swims. Afterward the officers scatter to pack, examine their temporary ship further and other necessities before departure. Jessa beams to new P'Jem to look in on the Janneks and the Ra'vin'ka.

The staff of the Solstice prepare for departure. After staff meeting and the christening ceremony of the USS Varich, the crew transfers ships and departs. While at warp, security discovers they have again accidentally(?) kidnapped an engineer. Phillip begins processing his experiences during the temporal disjunction with Armina. Fal invites Science for a drink, which results in testing the carpet for kinetic properties and bemusing other members of the crew.

The Varich approaches the Rupture Zone after a week at warp with no issue. Lieutenant Merek'miir briefs the senior staff on what is known about the zone, including that the area was seeded with probes thousands of years ago. Of interest is the primary probe, whose distorted signal contains two discernable voices. She also talks about the three star systems contained within the zone.

Mel chats with Armina about her apparent problem with temporary XO Hall. The Varich drops out of warp at the edge of the Rupture Zone and captures the broadcast by the lead probe. After processing the first message the crew hears Peel Atuun spewing invective, and the response from an unknown Bolian superior commanding her to follow orders. The second message is dated eight years in the future and is from Captain Shay'taal of the USS Varich, stating they are marooned inside the zone and warning off rescue attempts. Engineering reports energy readings similar to those observed from Kordikar.

Cliff is launched into the Rupture zone and immediately splits into 17 copies of itself, as it has moved into a subspace rupture and scattered. Phillip guides the Varich into the Rupture Zone, showing off with some fancy flying. Power fluctuations and life form signals begin to indicate that several components and crew members are duplicated - it seems the Varich-A are nearly occupying the same space in different time streams. Communication is possible between the two ships.

An older version of Jen Kras and what appears to be 9 foot tall black werewolf suddenly emerge from the turbolift. The wolf introduces himself as Hey'yooth and reveals himself to be psionic, as he immediately picks up Jessa's and K'tral's desires to scratch his ears and he cheerfully complies. The crew eventually understands this Jen is from another point in her own timeline if she had never been picked up by the Solstice. Mel finds out from Captain Shay'taal that in their timeline the Solstice had been lost with all hands. Without them the Krenim succeeded in wiping out the Tizit Consortium, allowing the Wabai Unity to expand.

Alexandria after having a minor breakdown, reveals to Other Jen that they have met before in the distant past, and gives her a chip. Hey'yooth and Ssleestak, under K'tral's supervision, rewires the Varich's warp core to allow the two ships to separate back to their own timelines and the Varich-A to escape the Rupture Zone. While tinkering with the warp core, Hey'yooth also passes on the specs for a kinetic carpet and programs the core to play Rush while executing his changes. He and Jen return to the Varich-A via a subspace transporter he rigged up on the fly, and he and Ssleestak trigger the command button, successfully separating the two timelines to Tom Sawyer. Merek'miir asks again, somewhat hysterically, if this is a normal day for the crew. Of their three possible destinations within the Rupture Zone, Mel opts to go to the third planet as it seems the safest.

Most of the crew experience two days of downtime, as the Varich continues to operate with no problems, with the exception of flight control, which means most of the pressure falls of Phillip. This is suddenly interrupted when a ship resembling a large dirty snowballs appears in front of them. It fires what appears to be smaller snowballs at them and disappears. This appears twice more, at 45 minute intervals, with a noted increase in power of 1% each time. The crew discover the snowballs are ships belonging to a species of being called the Androkai. During the third attack Shan-taar fires at the snowball causing a chunk of it to separate and collide with the Varich, but it is like passing through a cloud; the ship and crew emerge on the other side wet and musty smelling.

Ssleestak suggests on the snowball's next appearance that they fly into the snowball purposefully and into a subspace tear. Mel dismisses the idea as exceptionally stupid and risky, much to Jessa's and the science department's dismay. They agree to send one of the copies of Cliff instead. Upon the snowball's next appearance they fire the probe but the Androkai dodge the fire, and slam into the Varich, which then falls into the subspace tear inside the snowball.

As a result of entering the tear the entire crew of the Varich experience some strange alternative universe versions of themselves before suddenly emerging back into their own reality having cut all but an hour from their original travel time. At the expected time, instead of an Androkai attack, subspace instead ejects several versions of Cliff reflecting the alternative universes the crew briefly visited in their fall through subspace. They collect them and continue.

The Varich continues exploring the Rupture Zone encountering several unusual planets on the way. One of the attempt to follow the ship as it's gravitational force supercedes that of the system; some quick thinking by Fal, Ssleestak and K'tral enable them to slingshot the wayward planet back into its original orbit. They encounter the Dominion base they've been assigned to find, but it has been completely stripped bare of usable tech and life forms.

They continue exploring and find an apparently uninhabited planet, as well as another ship flying casual in the system. The other ship clearly has design elements from an older Starfleet vessel, so Mel decides to hail the other ship, initiating first contact with the Urathi. Two members of that crew, Guardian Galeb Shi'zor and his daughter Ileeya beam over to the Varich.

Through conversation and the consumption of cinnamon buns thoughtfully provided by Ssleestak, the Urathi reveal the fate of the long lost Starfleet vessel Marie Curie and how it helped their people to free themselves from Tizit occupations. They also learn that the "unihabited" planet nearby is seemingly occupied by a human settlement modeled after the Roman Empire, the Urathi have developed modifications to their sheilds that allow them to traverse the subspace tears of the Rupture Zone safely and that cinnamon has an intoxicant effect on the Urathi physiology. The cultural exchange is interrupted by subspace rippling and the appearance of several warp capable ships bearing Roman eagles.

The Varich makes tentative first contact with New Gaul, one of the Vestan Hearthwords. They learn that allegedly the goddess vesta whisked away many of her followers in 380 CE and brought them out here, leading to the rise of the Hearthworlds. They agree to pass on a message to the rest of the Hearthworlds via buoy, and when the Vestans vanish back into subspace, they leave another buoy with tips on how to break free. The Urathi realize they are likely responsible for New Gaul's predicament.

Mel, Fal, Ssleestak, K'tral, Phillip, Jessa, and Peel all suffer from some sort of temporal glitch during the night as a possible temporal signature is detected. They all wake up groggy or worse; Fal has trouble transitioning from Ota Verik and his recipes, while Jessa has to correct which memory goes with which host. The officers investigate and discover a single verteron particle inhabited them briefly, and this particle contained a trace of Jen Kras's DNA. Peel sees the alternate timeline where Phillip killed her father and kicked her; she confronts him about it and he confesses. However, familial homicide apparently leads to sexy times… Later, the affected officers on the bridge have another incident when She-Who-Swims meets Armina and they swear she shrank from the morning meeting. The Varich and the Valiant evade a Tizit prototype warship.

At 1536 hours a more violent temporal anomaly strikes the ship, and Mel, Fal, Jessa, Phillip, Peel, Ssleestak, and K'tral are briefly mind-swapped with their future-selves for thirty-three seconds! Future-Ssleestak tears Ensign Jaden Yetra apart in that brief time before the temporal inversion ends. Fal caries a Prophet that immediately jumps into Jen, and she vanishes. The seven officers are immediately quarantined in the engineering conference room and try to piece together their fragmented memories of the future they witnessed; Mel was an admiral, Ssleestak was in engineering, K'tral was at tactical and Peel was at ops, Phillip remained at flight control, while Fal was the executive officer under Captain Jen Kras. Their ship was under attack by the Oligarchy and taking heavy damage. The Varich responds to a distress call from the Tizit vessel as they were hit by the temporal shockwave. Armina and Swims arrive and Armina fills them in while Swims discovers over half an hour of memory engrams that were burned out of the affected officers! Chief Edgly materializes a pattern that appeared in the buffer, a half-human/half-Betazed boy from that future, Malachi MacDougal. Jen reappears with a new Bajoran padd that is quantum-dated to ten thousand years ago, and the nine-month-old Fal Luca. Malachi, Jen, and Luca join the quarantined officers and Malachi gives a brief explanation.

Malachi gathers the senior officers, plus Alexandria, Jen, and Jericho. He admits his future birth and parentage and tells them of the Oligarchy and it’s connections with Betazed’s distant past. He explains the Harbingers and how some Harbinger ships remain in the Milky Way. He also reveals the Harbinger on Betazed, and how his mother Jetra Yaden psionically attacked the people in main engineering when Oligarchy/House Ollikar connection is revealed to the Federation in 2380, and that ‘Mr. Stack’ killed her then. The seven affected officers head to sickbay for hours of intense scans, but Swims is able to fully acquit Ssleestak. Fal gets child-rearing tips from Nurse Akorim and Doctor Vrax. The following day, the senior officers meet for their morning meeting, and then Ssleestak gathers the engineering crew and lays everything out. Alexandria is hiding from Jen and lands on Jessa’s desk. The Tizit vessel is repaired by 1030 hours and departs; Mel orders the Varich to resume course.

Mel meets with Armina while Hall tasks Fal and K'tral to tap into the ancient network of probes to increase scanning range. Jen unwittingly taps into a future version of herself; Fal trusts her and his faith and enters the code she's repeating. Although K'tral is incensed, the code activates temporal shields for the Varich, much to Ssleestak's delight. The probe uplink succeeds, but they get an alternate version of Phillip Dade who promptly claims the vacant 'Phillip-probe' in cargo bay three. Fal and K'tral find an Oligarchy ship stalking them, while Phillip II reveals the Oligarchy ripped out his psyche at some point in their future; he's from the U.S.S. Varich-A under Captain Shay'taal. Jessa locates Alexandria and brings her to engineering while K'tral pokes the Oligarchy's psychic gestalt, inadvertently providing them with the anchor they needed. The Oligarchy ship jumps forward and attacks the crew psychically; Phillip falls, and Phillip II takes flight control. Jessa retreats inside her mind, allowing Terjan to take over. Jen helps Ssleestak stun several engineers that fall under Oligarchy control. Alexandria blocks the assault but panics, throwing the Varich and the Valiant into transwarp - inside the Rupture Zone!

The Varich and the Valiant are wrenched from transwarp into the gravity well of a tropical planet. Phillip II takes charge and as he bleeds momentum, he has the others extend the shields in something called the 'Gupta Maneuver' and snag the Valiant in a tractor beam. Both ships crash land on a beach but avoid slamming into an underwater city. The Valiant takes far less damage than the Varich, which is buried two decks' deep in vitrified sand. They make first contact with the natives and learn this is a Dominion world and the Jem'Hadar are on their way. Phillip II and Shan'taar bring Phillip I to sickbay as the Jem'Hadar arrive and deploy on the Varich's hull. Mel orders Virgil and K'tral to accompany her up to meet them, leaving Christopher in charge and Terjan working on a way to blow the ship free of the vitrified sand.

Phillip regains consciousness and Shan'taar and Phillip II fill him in on the way to sickbay. Mel, K'tral, and Virgil make contact with Third Omar'atan and his squad, but several things seem very off, including an offer of medical assistance and a total lack of knowledge regarding the UFP. Then Ublis the Vorta joins them, declares the area a black zone, and reveals they are in the Mirror Universe! Ublis makes an offer of medical and engineering assistance if they assist the Dominion with tracking down the U.S.S. Agincourt, which crossed over last year and carried an infiltrating Founder. A medical/engineering corps of white-armored female Jem'Hadar arrives and swarms into the Varich to help with the wounded. Ssleestak finds much to appreciate - and is appreciated in turn - but is distressed when he learns Terjan is running around with explosives. The Jem'Hadar start working brusquely in sickbay, and Phillip, Phillip II, and Shan'taar are treated and discharged; they head to Two-Forward and help Paj clean up. Peel is roughly healed of six hairline fractures with a bio-staple gun. Ssleestak tattles on Jessa/Terjan, so the Jem'Hadar head out to deal with that. Terjan triggers the explosives to the Terran Carol of the Bells and flirts with the Jem'Hadar until they do something for Jessa to resurface. She bolts inside in shame and finds Raj with Jen and Simon in the arboretum. The Varich tips forward dangerously, but the Jem'Hadar snatch the ship in a tractor beam.

The Dominion brings the Varich and the Valiant up to an orbital installation for repairs. The crew focuses on repairing the ship. Phillip learns much from Phillip II. The next day Ublis negotiates with Mel - with Paj's assistance - for tactical data on the U.S.S. Agincourt in exchange for updates to Starfleet shields making them resistant to polaron weaponry. She and Hall have a difficult talk. Ssleestak opens diplomatic channels with the female Jem'Hadar. The day after, Ublis joins the staff meeting. The First Prophet possesses Jen, causing a psionic shockwave from an unprepared Malachi. She repeats her second prophecy from last July, causing Malachi to realize today is the coup and the prophecy is about the Selense family. Ssleestak accidentally secures a ride home. Jessa 'walks' Fal per Jen's request.

Fal visits Jen in sickbay and gets a warning for Mel that "Simon is looking for her." Armina suffers side effects from the Dominion anti-psionic drug, rendering her high as a kite. Mel assembles an away team and boards a Dominion disaster recovery ship containing the twenty Starfleet personnel from the Agincourt; those crewmembers refuse to come out of their suite. The away team approaches them cautiously, and meets Command S'ten, Lieutenant Sabra, the hot-headed Ensign Trelar, and the Betazoid Oakes Eveanox. He scans Jessa's and Sslestak's minds, running into Terjan and the wall blocking their memories of the future, but he declares them genuine. The Agincourt crew boards the Varich with severe emotional reactions. The Valiant and the Varich depart the installation with a Dominion flotilla to confront the Agincourt.

Phillip works on scaling up his delodestoning project. Fal gets sucked into the scientific discussion about the subspace tear. Phillip brings a proposal to Fal, which includes a potential to get them home. K'tral assists Jessa with counseling. Jen 'bakes' a fake Orb of Prophecy and Change in the warp core, dramatically increasing their speed and setting another Starfleet record. Jen sends K'tral, Ssleestak, and Jessa back in time to February 18th, 2371, to swap the Orbs; they're gone for ten seconds. The Varich and the Agincourt intercept each other and Mel matches wits with the changeling, who is posing as Commander S'ten! Ssleestak, K'tral, and Jessa can see the Orb inside the false S'ten and warn Mel. Mel reveals the deception as Jen summons the Orb of Contemplation; the Orb rips out of the changeling's chest and hurls itself onto the Varich. The changeling escapes into the life support ducts, but Jessa, K'tral, and Ssleestak can still track it.

Mel leads an away team over to the U.S.S. Agincourt with a quantum stasis field emitter. They assume command of the security department and Phillip leads them to the nacelle access room ahead of the changeling. They disable a Dominion booby trap and capture the changeling. Both ships depart quickly to avoid the incoming Karemma fleet. S’ten baits the Karemma, and they give chase but give up after an hour, putting them further away from the target colony. They reunite with the Dominion, but the Great Link demands a trail; Commander S’ten volunteers. Mel speaks with Jonathan Archer using the 29th century device. The trial is swift, and the Founder acquits S’ten and the Agincourt due to the extenuating circumstances. Jen opens a wormhole back to their reality but warns of a collision. The Varich, the Valiant, and the Agincourt hurtle through the wormhole to exit by Starbase 212, and then a Type-6 shuttle bounces off the Varich!