“Empok Nor” is episode twenty-four of season five of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Worf, Kira and Dax arrive at Quark’s bar to find the place almost deserted. The reason quickly becomes apparent; Chief O’Brien and Nog are conducting repairs of a conduit. Very noisy repairs (even noisier for a Ferengi). So the three leave.
The repairs are apparently complete, but then something springs a leak. The problem is more serious than O’Brien thought, and the parts they need are Cardassian. Which can’t be replicated. Odo suggests contacting Gul Dukat. Sarcasm. O’Brien suggests sending a salvage team to another Cardassian station, Empok Nor, in another system that uses the same design as DS9. The Cardassians pulled out of the station about a year ago. Odo says that there is a potential problem – Cardassians booby-trap their facilities when pulling out of them, and the traps specifically target non-Cardassians. So, Sisko suggests taking a Cardassian along on the mission.
The Cardassian is, of course, Garak. Sisko bribed him. Garak is also a bit unnerved by how people are trusting him at the moment. He’s worried that people will soon start inviting him to their homes for dinner. O’Brien promises that he will never invite Garak over to dinner. Which Garak appreciates. Nog also accompanies them. Garak plays a Cardassian board game with Nog on the journey; Garak is not impressed with Nog’s skills at the game. So he wants to play Chief O’Brien.
The salvage mission intends to get as many useful spare parts as possible, not just what broke during the chief’s repairs. Garak quickly proves to be useful, with his knowledge of the type of booby-traps the departing Cardassians are likely to have left behind. And his ability to disarm traps, being the only Cardassian. There is another booby-trap though – Cardassian soldiers in stasis, and entering the station awakens them.
Garak and one of the engineers discover the stasis tubes, one of which is occupied by a Cardassian skeleton. Very dead. Another two tubes are empty. When Nog returns to the runabout, he sees it drifting away from the docking pylon before it explodes. O’Brien’s team is mostly comprised of engineers. He has military experience, which Garak brought up on the journey, and O’Brien was quick to say he was no longer a soldier. Which seems like a bit of foreshadowing; a soldier is exactly what they are going to need. They also have no transport and no communications to call for help. So they are also going to have to reengineer the station as a makeshift means of communication.
Garak is also concerned about why the soldiers were in stasis. He believes that it can’t be to simply guard the station. The engineers have separated into teams – which seems like an excellent way to get picked off. Garak wants to take more of an active role than standing around waiting for the soldiers to kill them. Whatever was really going on with the Cardassian soldiers is having an effect on Garak as well. With a dark and deserted station and a hidden enemy, it’s rather reminiscent of a certain type of video game.