Defiant (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

William Riker arrives on Deep Space Nine and proceeds to charm the crew, especially Major Kira. She takes him on a tour of the station and its new ship, the Defiant. Once aboard, he draws a phaser and stuns her, fakes a warp-core breach, and steals the ship with Kira aboard.

The station crew soon discovers that the thief is not Will Riker but his duplicate Thomas, who was created in a transporter accident and inadvertently stranded for seven years. Trying to distinguish himself from his more-successful doppelgänger, he has joined the Maquis. The heavily-armed Defiant under Maquis control now poses a serious threat to Cardassian forces. Commander Sisko is faced with the challenge of retrieving the Defiant intact while avoiding an incident with Cardassia that may start a war. He agrees to travel to Cardassia Prime to cooperate with a Cardassian operation led by Gul Dukat to hunt Riker down. The operation is observed by the Obsidian Order, the feared Cardassian intelligence agency.

After infiltrating Cardassian space and attacking an outpost, Riker takes the Defiant to the Orias system, which he believes contains a secret shipbuilding facility. When Sisko analyzes Riker's movements and realizes that his target is Orias, Dukat, believing the system to be barren and of no value, orders his ships to intercept. His Obsidian Order observer Korinas, however, warns him that any ship, Cardassian or otherwise, that approaches the system will be destroyed.

The Defiant manages to outrun its pursuers into the Orias system, but is confronted by several more Cardassian ships appearing from the system itself. Suspicious, Dukat confronts Korinas, inferring that the ships from the Orias system must belong to the Obsidian Order, who are strictly forbidden from possessing military equipment of any kind. With the Defiant trapped between the two fleets, Sisko arranges a deal with Dukat: In exchange for the Defiant's sensor logs of the system, which will provide evidence of the Obsidian Order's illegal military buildup, the Defiant will surrender to Dukat's lead ship and will be returned along with its crew to the Federation, and Riker will be sentenced to a Cardassian labor camp rather than to death. Kira persuades Riker to accept the terms. The opposing ships approach the Defiant and its Cardassian escorts, but abort the confrontation and return to the Orias system. Riker beams to the Cardassian ship, leaving Kira in control to return to Deep Space Nine.

In the later episode "The Die Is Cast", the purpose of the ships operated by the Obsidian Order is revealed. Thomas Riker was first introduced in "Second Chances".

In 2015, Geek.com recommended this episode as "essential watching" for their abbreviated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine binge-watching guide.[1]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Defiant

• "Defiant" on IMDb
• "Defiant" at TV.com

• Defiant at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• Defiant at StarTrek.com