Kira uses the Orb of Time to visit her mother during the occupation and learns she became Gul Dukat's mistress to keep her family alive.
On what would have been her mother Meru's birthday, Kira receives a message from Dukat claiming that Meru, whom she remembers as dying a hero in a refugee camp, was his lover. Using the Orb of Time, Kira travels into the past, befriends Meru under a false name, and sees her taken to Terok Nor as a comfort woman for the Cardassians, where Dukat makes her his mistress.
Kira joins the resistance on the station, condemns her mother as a collaborator, and plants a bomb in Dukat's quarters. Then she sees a message from her father thanking Meru, because her arrangement has fed and freed the family. Realizing she owes her own survival to Meru, Kira warns them and they escape the blast. Back in the present she learns her mother remained with Dukat for years. The sixth-season episode looks at the occupation through Kira's family and the difficult choices it forced on people.