The Quickening

Bashir, Kira and Dax visit a Gamma Quadrant world where the Jem'Hadar once punished the people for resisting the Dominion by unleashing the blight, an incurable disease. It marks its victims with spidery black lesions and sooner or later quickens into an agonising, fatal stage. The only medical help comes from Trevean, who offers the afflicted a gentle death. Bashir refuses to accept that nothing can be done and, working with Dax, tests treatments on volunteers whose disease has recently quickened. But the fields given off by his equipment make the virus mutate rapidly, and his attempt ends in failure. When the others prepare to leave, Bashir stays behind to care for Ekoria, a pregnant woman whose disease has quickened. She dies after giving birth, but her baby is born free of lesions: his treatment works as a vaccine, offering the next generation a life without the blight. Back home, Sisko praises his work.