Stardate 48212.4: Commander Sisko arrives at Deep Space 9 with the Defiant, the only Starfleet vessel built especially for combat and equipped with a Romulan cloaking device. His plan is to meet and to come to terms with the mysterious Founders of the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant. Odo, who has been replaced by Commander Eddington as head of security, grudgingly joins the Defiant crew. They proceed into the Gamma Quadrant under cloak. Staring at a star chart of the sectors ahead, which show the way to a comm relay of the Vorta, a race belonging to the Dominion, Odo feels strangely attracted to a place called the Omarion Nebula. Dax and O'Brien have to be left behind on the communication relay on Callinon VII. Moreover, the Defiant, in spite of the cloaking, comes under attack by three Jem'Hadar vessels and is boarded. Odo manages to escape in a shuttle with an unconscious Kira and sets a course for the Omarion Nebula. Inside the nebula they land on a planet that turns out to be Odo's home. He is told by a female shapeshifter that their kind has sought refuge on this world after their species had been persecuted by the "Solids" for a long time. Meanwhile, Sisko and Bashir, traveling in a shuttle, are rescued by O'Brien and Dax, who have met up with the Founders. When the four arrive on Deep Space 9, peace talks are already on the way, the Founders being represented by a man named Borath. But the Romulans have been excluded, and Jem'Hadar soldiers continue to terrorize the station. Sisko, Garak, Dax, Bashir and O'Brien decide to collapse the wormhole in a suicide mission to protect the Alpha Quadrant from the hordes. On the shapeshifters' homeworld, however, Odo discovers a secret: Sisko and the other Defiant crew members are held prisoners. The are all unconscious, and the whole story about their return to Deep Space 9 was an illusion, a test of the Federation's determination. Moreover, Borath is not a Founder but a Vorta. The shapeshifters, Odo's species, are the real Founders. Odo demands that his friends be released and joins them on their way back to Deep Space 9, repelled by the criminal conduct of his people.

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