In the aftermath of a war that brought the Alpha Quadrant to the brink of destruction, Starbase Deep Space 9 – the galaxy's nexus of scientific and military intrigue – is once more the flashpoint of impending Armageddon as a surprise attack cripples the station, killing hundreds and threatening the fragile new peace.

Colonel Kira Nerys and the survivors – together with several controversial new officers – are all who stand against the outbreak of a new war and a terrible doom tied to the unborn child of Captain Benjamin Sisko.

Elsewhere, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the starship Enterprise make a startling discovery… one that will affect the destiny of an entire civilization and forever change the lives of those aboard Deep Space 9.

As the Federation prepares to launch a counterstrike against the Dominion, Colonel Kira Nerys searches for a way to prevent another galactic holocaust. But when a newly discovered prophecy propels Jake Sisko on an impossible quest and threatens to plunge all of Bajor into chaos, Kira is forced to choose between being true to her faith… and being true to herself.

Meanwhile, as the combined crews of Deep Space 9 and the Starship Enterprise struggle to stop a terrorist plot to destroy the station and the ship, lives change, new friendships are forged, and the shocking truth behind a grisly murder is revealed.

Section 31. They are the self-appointed protectors of the Federation. Amoral, shrouded in secrecy, answerable to no one, Section 31 is the mysterious covert operations division of Starfleet, a rogue shadow group committed to safeguarding the Federation at any cost.

Mere days after the startling events of Avatar, Doctor Julian Bashir faces his darkest nightmare when Section 31 compels him to undertake a mission to stop one of their own. But this renegade is no ordinary agent. Like Bashir, Dr. Ethan Locken is genetically enhanced, a Human superior in body and mind. But Locken dreams of remaking the galaxy in his own image – and creating a new Human empire based on the example of the infamous Khan Noonien Singh.

And as he begins to understand the terrifying truth about his opposite number, Bashir will learn more about himself than he ever wanted.

Scattered throughout the galaxy are Gateways which link star systems across unfathomable distances. The technology that built them has been lost for tens of millennia… but that doesn't mean that it can't be found again. Once they moved from world to world in a single step, through innumerable transdimensional gateways that spanned the galaxy. They were masters of space, and to those that feared them, they were demons of air and darkness. But long ago they left their empire and their miraculous technology behind. Now the key has been rediscovered, and all the doors have been flung open. Open for exploration… or open for invasion. On a world near space station Deep Space Nine, Colonel Kira Nerys, her crew, and some unexpected allies fight to avert destruction on a planetary scale. Meanwhile Lieutenant Nog and Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane search for a way to shut down the portals forever; and behind the scenes Quark plays a dangerous game that could determine, once and for all, who wins control of the Gateways…

The time has come… for a new era of exploration. With the Dominion War behind them, the crew of the USS Defiant journeys through the wormhole as Commander Elias Vaughn leads a "corps of discovery" to blaze new trails into the unexplored reaches of the Gamma Quadrant.

The time has come… for a civilization to reach a crossroads. As political forces throughout the Alpha Quadrant intersect at Deep Space 9 to determine the future of Bajor, the planet's theological unity threatens to shatter. And for Colonel Kira Nerys, the path of the Prophets may become a road to ruin.

The time has come… for a father and daughter to confront their past while a mother and son fight for the future, for lovers to be tested and for friendships to transform, and for worlds on opposite ends of the galaxy to face the dusk …or the dawn.

The political intrigue aboard Deep Space 9 escalates when Gul Macet's warship arrives at the station with an unexpected passenger. Cardassian Ambassador Natima Lang has returned to the station on a mission of hope, but it's one that will bring back old wounds and old ghosts. As tensions rise on all sides, Colonel Kira Nerys discovers that the line between friend and foe is narrower than she ever imagined.

Elsewhere, the crew of the damaged Starship Defiant forges an uneasy alliance with an unusual alien species – one whose unique biological makeup is the key to the balance of power in that region of the Gamma Quadrant. As the crew becomes ensnared in a web of deceit, Lieutenant Ezri Dax and Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane struggle to stave off a genocidal civil war.

As a small child, Jules Bashir underwent illegal genetic enhancements that forever altered the natural course of his life. As an adult, ever since the day he discovered what his parents had done, Dr. Julian Bashir has wondered what he might have become if "Jules" had been allowed to live, certain he would never know the answer. But when the lure of a strange alien artifact in the Gamma Quadrant inexplicably begins to reverse Bashir's enhancements, the person he had thought long dead is given a second chance at life.

Ninety thousand light-years away, as the crew of Deep Space 9 tries to comprehend a shocking tragedy, Ro Laren makes a fateful decision about her life aboard the station. And although political maneuvering and failing diplomacy have already extinguished all hope of a real, lasting peace between Bajor and Cardassia, one man's search for his true calling may lay a new foundation for the future.

Chaos erupts aboard Deep Space 9 as the crew begins a desperate search for a killer in their midst, catapulting Colonel Kira Nerys on a dangerous chase into the heart of the Federation. But the crime she seeks to avenge is part of a plot more ancient and far-reaching than anyone suspects, and that secret, if exposed, could divide worlds throughout the Alpha Quadrant.

Meanwhile, as the Starship Defiant makes its way back toward the wormhole and home to DS9, a startling discovery shakes Commander Elias Vaughn to his core and brings to light the truth behind the most tragic mission of his long life. As the crew struggles with the implications of what they've found, their captain's judgment comes into question… and casts doubt on the final outcome of their historic voyage through the Gamma Quadrant.

Months ago, young Jake Sisko came upon a mysterious prophecy in the ruins of B'hala, one that told of a Son destined to enter the Celestial Temple of the Prophets and return home with a lost Herald. Certain that the ancient text was intended for him, Jake entered the wormhole to bring back his father, Captain Benjamin Sisko – missing since his final, fateful confrontation with Gul Dukat in the Fire Caves of Bajor. But Jake's quest has failed. Or so he believes.

Flung across the galaxy by a power beyond his understanding, Jake is rescued by a strange ship with an even stranger alien crew. Joining them on a voyage unlike any he has ever experienced, Jake learns that his search for the truth will lead him to find the last thing he ever expected, and to discoveries far beyond his wildest imaginings.

On the eve of Bajor's formal entry into the Federation, First Minister Shakaar was assassinated, derailing the induction and plunging the planet and station Deep Space 9 into chaos. Investigation into the murder revealed the presence of a parasitic conspiracy threatening not only Bajor's future with the Federation, but the very survival of both. At the same time, the fracturing of Bajor's theology has put its people on the threshold of a startling transformation – and the consequences now rest on the shoulders of Colonel Kira Nerys, who months ago defied the religious authority of her planet by making public an ancient heretical text that challenged the very foundation of the Bajoran faith.

Now, after a harrowing and historic voyage of exploration in the Gamma Quadrant, the weary, wounded crew of Starship Defiant is at last coming home. But the joy of their return is short-lived as the crew becomes swept up in the crisis aboard the station, with many of them confronting personal issues that force them to make life-altering choices. Among those is a grief-stricken Commander Elias Vaughn, who reaches a crossroads in his life's journey and learns the true purpose for which he was touched by the Prophets… as well as the ultimate fate of Captain Benjamin Sisko. And… somewhere on Bajor… a child long awaited is about to be born.

Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before… in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien.

CARDASSIA: The last world ravaged by the Dominion War is also the last on which Miles O'Brien ever imagined building a life. As he joins in the reconstruction of Cardassia's infrastructure, his wife Keiko spearheads the planet's difficult agricultural renewal. But Cardassia's struggle to remake itself – from the fledgling democracy backed by Elim Garak to the people's rediscovery of their own spiritual past – is not without opposition, as the outside efforts to help rebuild its civilization come under attack by those who reject any alien influence.

ANDOR: On the eve of a great celebration of their ancient past, the unusual and mysterious Andorians, a species with four sexes, must decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure their survival. Biological necessity clashes with personal ethics; cultural obligation vies with love – and Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane returns home to the planet he forswore, to face not only the consequences of his choices, but a clandestine plan to alter the very nature of his kind.

Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before… in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien.

TRILL: They are a people with secrets. For centuries they kept their true nature hidden, even taking disturbing steps to protect the small population of near-immortal symbionts with whom a privileged few Trill are joined, body, mind, and soul. They are a people who hold memory to be sacred, yet deny their own past. Now amid a whirlwind of scandal, accusations, and growing civil unrest, Ezri Dax must penetrate millennia of lies and deceptions, and rediscover what should never have been forgotten, before her civilization rips itself apart.

BAJOR: The honeymoon is over. Following the euphoria of Bajor's marriage to the Federation, the real business of making that union work has begun. But even on a world where politics and religion are intertwined, conflicting visions of Bajor's role in the interstellar arena divide the planet's leadership. As newly minted Captain Kira Nerys sets the tone for the kind of Starfleet officer she will be, First Minister Asarem makes a bold move to define Bajor's voice in the Federation, while the returned Benjamin Sisko prepares for a future that only he, as yet, can see.

Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before… in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien.

FERENGINAR: Quark's profit-driven homeworld is rocked with scandal as shocking allegations involving his brother's first wife, the mother of Nog, threaten to overthrow Rom as Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance. Making matters worse, Quark has been recruited by Rom's political adversaries to join their coup d'état, with guarantees of all Quark ever dreamed if they succeed in taking his brother down. While Ferenginar's future teeters on the edge, the pregnancy of Rom's current wife, Leeta, takes a difficult turn for both mother and child.

THE DOMINION: Since its defeat in the war for the Alpha Quadrant, the Great Link – the living totality of the shape-shifting Founders – has struggled with questions. At its moment of greatest doubt, its fate, and that of the Dominion itself, is tied to Odo's investigation of his kind's true motives for sending a hundred infant changelings out into the galaxy.

As Odo searches for answers and takes a hard look at his past choices, Taran'atar reaches a turning point in his own quest for clarity… one from which there may be no going back.

They were created to be killing machines. Highly intelligent, resourceful, and deceptively complex, the Jem'Hadar are a species engineered for war and programmed at the genetic level for one purpose: to fight until death as soldiers of the sprawling stellar empire known as the Dominion. No Jem'Hadar has ever lived thirty years, and not even their masters, the shape-shifting Founders, know what such a creature is capable of becoming were it to be freed of its servitude.

One Founder, however, has dared to wonder.

Appointed by Odo himself to learn peaceful coexistence aboard Deep Space 9, Taran'atar, an Honored Elder among the Jem'Hadar, had for months been a staunch, if conflicted, ally to the crew of the station, ever struggling to understand the mission on which he was sent… until something went horrifically wrong.

Consumed by self-doubt and an ever-growing rage, Taran'atar has lashed out against those he was sworn to aid. While Captain Kira Nerys and Lieutenant Ro Laren both lie near death aboard Deep Space 9, their assailant has taken a hostage and fled into Cardassian space, pursued by Commander Elias Vaughn on the USS Defiant. But as the hunt unfolds, Taran'atar's true objective becomes increasingly less certain, as the rogue Jem'Hadar leads the Defiant to a discovery even more shocking than his crime.

A surprising tale of doubles, secret pasts, and alternate realities. In our universe, a Cardassian sleeper agent – Iliana Ghemor – was once surgically altered to resemble and replace Bajoran resistance fighter Kira Nerys. That plan never reached fruition, and the fate of the agent remained unknown… until now.

Robbed of the past sixteen years, and on the brink of madness, Iliana is back with a vengeance. She has already made one attempt on the real Kira's life, and the heroes of Deep Space Nine must now stop the false Kira without derailing the delicate flow of history that must unfold if two universes, and countless others are to survive.

There is a void in the alternate universe that demands to be filled. Iliana Ghemor, the Cardassian operative who years ago was altered in both body and mind to replace Kira Nerys, dreams of fulfilling a prophecy that will mark her as the one true Emissary of that other reality–a messianic figure who could lead her followers into an era of renewed hope… or an age of deepening darkness.

Ghemor's claim to the mantle of the Emissary is by no means certain, however, as the inexorable pull of providence tugs also at other souls who are swept into the vortex of the Prophets, the remote and timeless beings who have set these strange events in motion.

But the stakes are higher than anyone imagines: for the outcome of this struggle for the fate of one universe will ripple across many others, and become the key to unlocking a future that will prove to be the greatest trial yet for the heroes of station Deep Space 9.

A boy looks up. He sees a Cardassian's hand on his shoulder and knows that this is usually a prelude to a beating or, if he is fortunate enough, arrest. The boy knows how many disappeared during the Occupation of Bajor. So he does the one thing he can think of: he bites the Cardassian. Then the nightmare begins.

He is ripped from the family that took him in as an orphan, clothed him, fed him, always loved him unconditionally. And no matter how earnest, how caring the commander of Deep Space 9 is, the boy knows this is all a horrible mistake. How can someone from Starfleet judge him by what he looks like, not by what he is? He prays to the Prophets; he is Bajoran. They all keep telling him that the test proves the large Cardassian man is his father, that the other Cardassian – that oily gul – took him away from his father. But the boy keeps telling them that he is Bajoran, he only wants to go home with his father. So they send Rugal home – to Cardassia.

On the homeworld of the Cardassian Union where sacrifice and devotion to the state are surpassed only by the government's need to keep its people in check, one very lonely boy discovers that if he doesn't resist, his life – like those of so many others – will be added to the tally of the never-ending sacrifice.

Half a decade after the Dominion War and more than a year after the rise and fall of Praetor Shinzon, the galaxy's greatest scourge returns to wreak havoc upon the Federation – and this time its goal is nothing less than total annihilation.

Elsewhere, deep in the Gamma Quadrant, an ancient mystery is solved. One of Earth's first generation of starships, lost for centuries, has been found dead and empty on a desolate planet. But its discovery so far from home has raised disturbing questions, and the answers harken back to a struggle for survival that once tested a captain and her crew to the limits of their Humanity.

From that terrifying flashpoint begins an apocalyptic odyssey that will reach across time and space to reveal the past, define the future, and show three captains – Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise, William Riker of the USS Titan, and Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine – that some destinies are inescapable.

On Earth, Federation President Nanietta Bacco gathers allies and adversaries to form a desperate last line of defense against an impending Borg invasion. In deep space, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Ezri Dax join together to cut off the Collective's route to the Alpha Quadrant.

Half a galaxy away, Captain William Riker and the crew of the Starship Titan have made contact with the reclusive Caeliar – survivors of a stellar cataclysm that, two hundred years ago, drove fissures through the structure of space and time, creating a loop of inevitability and consigning another captain and crew to a purgatory from which they could never escape.

Now the supremely advanced Caeliar will brook no further intrusion upon their isolation, or against the sanctity of their Great Work. For the small, finite lives of mere mortals carry little weight in the calculations of gods.

But even gods may come to understand that they underestimate Humans at their peril.

The soldiers of Armageddon are on the march, laying waste to worlds in their passage. An audacious plan could stop them forever, but it carries risks that one starship captain is unwilling to take. For Captain Jean-Luc Picard, defending the future has never been so important, or so personal – and the wrong choice will cost him everything for which he has struggled and suffered.

For Captain William T. Riker, that choice has already been made. Haunted by the memories of those he was forced to leave behind, he must jeopardize all that he has left in a desperate bid to save the Federation.

For Captain Ezri Dax, whose impetuous youth is balanced by the wisdom of many lifetimes, the choice is a simple one: there is no going back – only forward to whatever future awaits them.

But for those who, millennia ago, had no choice… this is the hour of their final, inescapable destiny.