A damaged Cardassian ship limps its way to Deep Space 9. On board are three occupants: Natima Lang and her students, Rekelen and Hogue. Claiming that they ran afoul of an unexpected meteor storm, the threesome request repairs.
On the promenade, Odo is engaged in his favorite hobby: grilling Quark on whatever illegal nonsense he's involved in. This time he's investigating rumors that Quark is in possession of an illegal cloaking device. As the three Cardassians wander the promenade, Quark catches sight of Natima and quickly rushes out of the bar to greet her like an old friend. He gets a slap to the chops for his trouble, but he doesn't seem to care, announcing, "This is the happiest day of my life!"
Natima and the crooked Ferengi have quite a history together. While Quark tries to reignite their past relationship, Bashir meets with Garak over lunch and resumes his hobby of sussing out whether the Cardassian tailor is a spy. Garak is as coy as ever. As he departs, he spots Natima and her students and gives them an enigmatic smile. They panic, not realizing there was another Cardassian on the station.
Their worry is soon explained. Their ship wasn't damaged by any meteor storm. It was attacked by another Cardassian ship. It turns out that the three Cardassians are fugitives sought by the government for trying to incite a revolution against the military control over Cardassia.
Things get worse when a Cardassian warship shows up at the station, weapons charged. Garak strolls into ops, informing them he contacted Cardassia Central Command. They want Natima's students. Sisko warns him that any show of force against the station will be returned in kind.
Quark, still trying to reignite his romance with Natima, offers Rekelen and Hogue his ill-gotten cloaking device as a means to escape the Cardassian warship. But he'll only give it to them if Natima agrees to stay with him.
In his quarters, Natima begs for him to give them the device. When he refuses to do so if she doesn't stay, she produces a phaser. Quark is confident she won't shoot him... until she mistakenly stuns him with the thing. The two share a good laugh at the incident, and Natima admits that she does love Quark. All seems well until Odo enters and arrests Natima.
The provisional government on Bajor has agreed to hand the three over to Cardassia in exchange for Bajoran captives. But other plans are in motion.
In his shop, Garak is visited by his old rival, Toran, who has become a Gul while Garak has languished in exile. He tells Garak that the Cardassian government wants Natima and her students dead. If Garak will do the deed, he can earn his way back home at last.
Quark goes to Odo and desperately pleads with him to release his captives. Odo rebuffs his entreaties, but admits that he does not believe that anything Natima or her students have done deserves the death sentence they will certainly receive, so he agrees to release them. Quark escorts the Cardassians to their ship with a disruptor, where Garak is waiting with his own disruptor.
Garak disarms Quark, who vainly tries to convince Garak to not kill them all. But then Toran emerges, which surprises even Garak. The Gul was just using Garak to lead the dissidents into a trap. Taking Garak's gun, he informs them he's going to kill all of them... until Garak whips out Quark's disruptor and vaporizes him. With his deal busted, Garak cuts his losses and allows the dissidents to leave with their lives.
Though Quark tries one last time to convince her to stay, Natima is more determined than ever that her political work is more important than her personal happiness. Quark bids her a bittersweet farewell as she and her students leave the station.
Tropes
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Quark begs Odo to help him free Natima and her students.
- Ambiguous Situation: At the end, when Quark asks Garak why he acted as he did, the tailor will only reply that he had to, because he loves Cardassia. This could mean that he sympathizes with the goals of the dissident movement — or it could just be that he feels it's a better place without Gul Toran in it. This being Garak, of course, we'll never know.
- Bond One-Liner: After vaporizing Toran, Garak reflects, "Well, some people should never be promoted."
- Captain Obvious: After shooting Quark with a phaser, Natima asks him if it hurts.Quark: She wants to know if it hurts. Of course it hurts, it's supposed to hurt. It's a phaser!
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Quark has a disruptor out when he's escorting Natima, et al to their ship. When Garak steps out of hiding, he takes Quark's disruptor away. When Toran steps out of hiding, he takes Garak's disruptor away, but never checks for a second gun. Garak still has Quark's disruptor, so he uses that to kill Toran.
- The cloaking device is mentioned early on by Odo when he grills Quark about it. It turns out Quark does have one and uses it to help Natima escape.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: The Cardassian military had already gotten what they wanted by following Garak's suggestion, as the Bajoran Provisional Government had agreed to turn over Natima and her students. All they needed to do was follow through with the exchange.
- "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: After hearing a Nothing Personal-style line from Garak when Garak seems to be about to kill him, Quark simply says "I'll keep that in mind", in a tone like he just had to deal with a minor annoyance.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Quark notes that Odo is reading I, the Jury moments before Odo unilaterally decides that the Cardassian dissidents don't deserve the death sentence they would receive at trial.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Garak switches sides a couple times over the course of the episode, unless he does what he meant to do the whole time.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Said verbatim by Toran when he sees former master spy Garak now operating as a tailor.
- I Owe You My Life: After Garak helps them, Quark promises that every Ferengi on the station will buy from his shop.
- Interspecies Romance: A Ferengi and a Cardassian.
- Karma Houdini: Garak kills Gul Toran in cold blood and is never held accountable, since neither station security nor the crew of the Cardassian warship seem to notice or mind. While Garak could probably convince Odo and Sisko that he acted in self defense, you'd expect the Cardassians to raise hell about a high ranking officer being murdered, but apparently, nobody cares much about Toran.
- The Cardassian Union protesting the death of Gul Toran would probably reveal that he was planning to execute dissidents on a Federation-Bajoran installation, which would prove diplomatically embarrassing.
- Kavorka Man: Natima is pretty for a Cardassian. And she loves... Quark.
- Love Makes You Crazy: In Quark's case, it makes him offer people gifts. For free.
- New Old Flame: Hey, remember the love of Quark's life that he's never mentioned before?
- Nothing Personal: Garak makes sure Quark knows that there's nothing personal about his plan to murder them all. When the deal goes bust, Garak quite graciously helps the Cardassians he was just about to murder step into the docking bay.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Provisional Government. Sisko and Odo are strongly against their decision to turn over Natima.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Quark continually tries to throw his money and his bar away for Natima's sake throughout the episode, saying that even though the bar would be bankrupt within a month under Rom's care, he wouldn't care if he was with her.
- Sarcastic Confession: When Julian jokingly says he doesn't know if Garak is an outcast or a spy, Garak sarcastically suggests "outcast spy". This is finally confirmed later in the episode.
- Series Continuity Error: The Bajorans turn over Natima in exchange for captives the Cardassians are holding... even though all remaining Bajoran prisoners were supposedly released earlier this season in "Homecoming."
- Shout-Out: Odo is reading I, the Jury, the very first Mike Hammer novel.
- Status Quo Is God: This episode shows that Quark has a more serious side, and the ending implies he's still holding a candle for Natima, the love of his life. But Natima is never seen or mentioned again after this, and just two episodes later, in "The Maquis Part I", Quark is back to his womanising ways, trying to seduce Sakonna.
- Swiss-Cheese Security:
- Invoked by Odo when he deliberately lets Natima and her students escape from the holding cells.
- Played straight when Garak kills Toran, no one seems to notice that someone is vaporized in one of the cargo bays.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never found out how the crew of the Cardassian warship reacted to their captain mysteriously disappearing at the same time the dissidents they were hunting manage to escape Deep Space Nine.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The episode is essentially Casablanca IN SPACE!, with Quark as Rick, Natima as Ilsa, her two students as Laszlo, Garak as Captain Renault, and Toran as Major Strasser.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Quark is inadvertently proven wrong when Natima accidentally stuns him. He's ultimately validated when she hangs around to make sure he's OK.
