Stardate not given: An explosion shatters Garak's tailor shop on Deep Space 9. Partially due to Garak's unwillingness to talk, Odo does not find any solid evidence against the main suspect, a Flaxian named Retaya. Upon leaving the station Retaya's ship explodes, apparently because of Romulan sabotage. Odo surmises that Garak himself is responsible for the explosion in his shop to get the security chief involved. When he tells Garak that five Cardassian agents died in unfortunate accidents the same day that the shop was blown up, Garak becomes uneasy that someone might kill his mentor Enabran Tain, the former head of the Obsidian Order, likewise. Odo and Garak take a runabout to investigate Tain's recent disappearance when they are pulled inside a Romulan Warbird. To their surprise they find Tain who has forged an alliance between the Obsidian Order and the Romulan Tal Shiar under Colonel Lovok. A combined fleet of Warbirds and the ships that the Obsidian Order secretly built in the Orias system is going to destroy the Founders' homeworld in the Delta Quadrant. Garak was actually on Tain's assassination list as he could know too much, but now Tain grants him an opportunity to redeem himself - by torturing Odo in order to find out more about the Founders. Sisko is warned by Starfleet of the imminent military operation, and is ordered to stand by to be prepared for retaliatory attacks of the Jem'Hadar. But Sisko takes the Defiant to the Gamma Quadrant, hoping to find Odo on one of the attacking vessels. Commander Eddington, however, disables the cloaking under orders of Starfleet Command. On the Warbird, Garak finally disables the restriction device and allows Odo to return to his fluid state. In orbit of the planet known to be the Founders' homeworld, all 19 Cardassian and Romulan ships open fire and devastate the surface. But the planet has been evacuated, and a fleet of 150 Jem'Hadar vessels ambush the Romulan-Cardassian fleet which is totally destroyed. With the help of Lovok, who is actually a Founder, Garak and Odo manage to escape and are rescued by the Defiant.

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