A crashed Jem'Hadar vessel becomes a trap for the crew.
While Sisko leads an away team on a mineral survey of an uninhabited Gamma Quadrant planet, a Jem'Hadar warship crashes nearby with its crew dead. A second Dominion ship destroys the team's runabout and beams down Jem'Hadar soldiers under the Vorta Kilana, who demands the wreck. Sisko's group takes shelter inside the crashed vessel.
As the siege drags on, O'Brien's crewman Muñiz slowly dies of his wounds and tempers flare between O'Brien and Worf. The prize Kilana wanted turns out to be a dying Founder hidden aboard; once it dies, her Jem'Hadar kill themselves and she has no reason to keep fighting. The Defiant tows the ship back to the station, and Sisko struggles with the five crew members lost to obtain it.