 Meeting Keiko upon
her return from Bajor, O'Brien is shocked when his wife says, in
her own voice, that she is really an entity that has taken
possession of Keiko's body and is holding her hostage. She
states O'Brien must reconfigure some communication and sensor
relays on the station or Keiko will be killed, and sends Keiko
into a convulsion to prove her point. Seeing no other
alternative and assured no one will be harmed, O'Brien
reluctantly agrees to the entity's demands.
Since he must pretend
everything is normal, O'Brien attends the birthday party Keiko
planned for him. The entity fools their friends, so no one
suspects anything. The next morning, she orders him to
recalibrate and sequence the impulse response filters in the
subspace communication emitters. O'Brien isn't sure this
complicated assignment won't hurt the station, and decides to go
to Captain Sisko. As he walks toward the captain on the
Promenade, he suddenly hears his wife call him, and looks up to
see Keiko, her eyes filled with tears, leaning over the railing
on the upper level. Before his horrified eyes, she plummets to
the Promenade.
Keiko was lucky — she was left with no permanent injuries.
O'Brien hurries in to see her, and winds up speaking to the
entity still inside her. It warns him again to not tell Sisko,
and says he has thirteen hours to complete his task. With no
idea how he will finish in time by himself, O'Brien swears Rom
to secrecy and puts him to work on the project. At three that
morning, a worried Dax approaches O'Brien. She inadvertently
discovered O'Brien's alterations and is led to the conclusion
that there is a saboteur. Sisko calls an emergency meeting,
where O'Brien must pretend to know nothing. Keiko interrupts the
meeting and reminds O'Brien that he is running out of time. When
Odo brings in Rom for questioning, O'Brien uses the opportunity
to finish his work. But Rom refuses to speak to anyone but
O'Brien — alone. This forces O'Brien back to Security. Rom
secretly tells O'Brien he has done as he's been told and hasn't
revealed anything. He only has one question. Why are they
recalibrating the deflector in order to kill the aliens within
the wormhole?
The question brings it all together for O'Brien. Their
recalibrations will focus a beam at the wormhole that, while
harmless to humanoids, will be deadly to the aliens inside it.
Rom reminds O'Brien that these aliens are the Bajoran Prophets,
and is told that, according to Bajoran legend, Pah-wraiths are
the enemies of those Prophets. Keiko visited the mythical home
of the Pah-wraiths during her trip to Bajor — and it is
apparently one of them who is using her body. O'Brien finishes
his job, but is confronted by the suspicious Odo. Unable to lose
any more time, O'Brien knocks him out, then arranges to meet the
Keiko entity in a runabout. They take off and target the center
of the wormhole. Sisko orders O'Brien back, but he activates the
beam. Instead of firing into the wormhole, however, the beam
blasts the runabout. Keiko is hit with a massive shock and falls
to the ground. However, she awakens free of the Pah-wraith.
Having saved his wife, O'Brien then returns to the station ready
to explain his bizarre behavior to Sisko and the crew.
See Also: Image Captures |
