 Bajor is about to elect a new
spiritual leader, and Kira's lover, Vedek Bareil, is the leading
candidate, having been Kai Opaka's personal choice to succeed
her. After spending time with Kira on the station, Bareil
prepares to return to Bajor, but the two of them first come
across Vedek Winn, who is running against Bareil for Kai. Kira
can barely contain her anger toward Winn, as she still blames
her for an attempt made on Bareil's life. After this
confrontation, Kubus, an older Bajoran, attempts to come onto
the station unnoticed, but is spotted by another Bajoran, who
recognizes him as a known Cardassian collaborator. As a crowd
gathers, Odo arrives and arrests Kubus, while an inconspicuous
Winn watches the entire scene.
From his cell, Kubus tells Odo
and Kira that he wants to return to Bajor, where he can live out
his last years, but Kira insists he remain in exile. Later,
however, she learns that Vedek Winn has met privately with Kubus
and now plans to take him back to Bajor. Kira stops her ship
from leaving, then finds out that Winn has been investigating
the Kendra Valley Massacre, in which 43 Bajoran freedom
fighters, including Kai Opaka's son, were killed by the
Cardassians. A Bajoran monk, Prylar Bek, admitted to betraying
the group's location before committing suicide. Winn then
reveals to Kira that she has given Kubus sanctuary in exchange
for information about the massacre — information that implicates
Vedek Bareil as the collaborator who ordered Bek to reveal the
location.
Winn offers Kira the chance to prove Bareil innocent before the
accusations become public. Kira questions Kubus, who reveals Bek
saw Bareil just after the massacre, then killed himself. Bareil
later claims to Kira that he only counseled the troubled monk.
Odo then makes a disturbing discovery. The communications
records between Bek and the Vedek Assembly for the week leading
up to the massacre have been sealed — an act which only a Vedek,
like Bareil, could perform.
Kira and Odo find Quark and convince him to bypass the seal for
them. When he does, he finds that all transmission records have
been erased. O'Brien attempts to learn who did this by searching
for fragments of the responsible party's retinal scan and
cross-referencing the data with the Assembly archives. Kira's
worst fears are realized when O'Brien's search identifies Vedek
Bareil.
Kira goes to Bajor and confronts Bareil with what she has
learned, and he admits that Bek was ordered to reveal the
location of the Kendra Valley resistance fighters to prevent the
Cardassians from wiping out every village in the area in search
of them — a scenario in which more than a thousand Bajorans
would have died instead of 43. Feeling betrayed, Kira is unable
to forgive Bareil. Later, she reluctantly contacts Winn, who
says that Bareil has withdrawn from the election. Certain that
he is too honorable to cover up his own misdeeds, Kira
investigates further. After Winn becomes the new Kai, Kira again
finds Bareil and presents proof that he did not give Bek the
order, then tells him that she has figured out the truth. All
this time, Bareil was covering for the real collaborator — Kai
Opaka, who sacrificed her son to save the Bajoran villagers.
Bareil kept Opaka's secret, but at the cost of handing the
spiritual leadership of Bajor to Winn.
See Also: Image Captures |
