“The Sound of Her Voice” is episode twenty-five of season six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Odo is telling Quark that he needs to remove the bar stools that he has added to the bar because they are a violation of a station regulation. As is the dabu wheel, but before Odo can continue, Major Kira arrives and asks him to go with her for lunch. Which Odo does. Which Quark finds interesting, because Odo changed quite noticeably when Kira entered. With Odo distracted by Kira, Quark sees this as an opportunity. Quark suggests that Odo buy Major Kira an anniversary gift celebrating the first month of their relationship. Odo thinks it sounds ridiculous, but when Jake agrees Odo decides to go looking. Jake is working on a crime novel, and he wants to follow Quark around for research for the characters in his novel. And offers to base the lead character on Quark. Somewhat surprisingly, Quark agrees. On the condition that anything Jake sees or hears ends up in print – and nothing gets back to Sisko. Things do not go as smoothly as Quark hopes.
The Defiant is returning to DS9 after successfully completing an escort mission, Kasidy Yates has been acting as the liaison officer with the convoy ships and is not impressed by the amount of paperwork. Then Worf asks Sisko to come to the bridge. They have received a distress call from a Starfleet officer who says that she thinks she is the sole survivor of her ship. The Defiant is the closest ship to the world she is on, but it is still six days away. Sisko orders the ship to proceed to the sector and asks O’Brien to set up a two-way comlink. Which proves more difficult than expected, as the officer, Lisa Cusack, is using an odd transmission method. Finally, they do mange to communicate back to the shipwrecked officer.
The woman was the captain of the Olympia, a Starfleet ship that left the Federation 8 years ago on a long range mission to the Beta Quadrant – it was odd that Captain Cusack didn’t seem to be talking as if there was a war going on; she probably didn’t know. They were on the way home but, when they scanned an energy barrier around a planet, it provoked a strong reaction and disabled their engines, causing the craft to start crashing. She got knocked unconscious and woke up in a damaged escape pod on the surface. The planet she is on is not exactly habitable. Cusack wants someone to talk to her as she’s been alone for two days. So she finds out about the war. Which is depressing. So, much of the episode is spent with various crew members talking to the absent Captain Cusack. The conversations seem to help the crew with their own problems.