Stardate 46423.7: In the midst of being inundated by a spate of maintenance requests, O'Brien inadvertently triggers a device that releases a virus, causing an advanced form of aphasia in his brain that makes him unable to communicate with anyone. As the virus keeps spreading through the food replicators and then mutates into an airborne strain, the station's officers gradually become incapacitated. Even worse, the virus turns out to be lethal. Bashir still finds out that not the Cardassians but the Bajorans created the virus before he is affected too. Kira travels to Bajor and kidnaps the co-creator of the virus, Surmak Ren, by beaming him into her runabout and infecting him as well. When Captain Jaheel tries to escape from the quarantined station and overloads his ship's engines, Odo and Quark have to work together to remove his ship from the docking ring. Surmak Ren soon manages to develop a cure based on Bashir's research.

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