...Nor the Battle to the Strong

Jake, hungry for a story worth writing, accompanies Bashir to a Federation colony that is under attack by the Klingons. At the overstretched field hospital he is quickly out of his depth, struggling with the grim logic of triage and meeting a soldier whose wound turns out to be self-inflicted. When the power fails during the fighting, Jake panics and runs, leaving Bashir behind. Shaken and ashamed, he finds himself beside a dying soldier who asks pointed questions about why he has come. When the Klingons assault the hospital itself, Jake fires a phaser rifle blindly in terror and brings about a cave-in, which holds back the attackers long enough for the patients to be evacuated. Everyone hails him as a hero, but the article he writes afterwards is an honest one: the line between courage and cowardice, he has learned, is far thinner than he ever imagined.