Sacrifice of Angels

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Operation Wipeout is underway, with (if my math is right) about 400 Federation starships destroyed in the Battle to retake Deep Space Nine.

200 ships eventually get through, begging the question: exactly how many starships does the Federation HAVE, anyway? Answer: a lot less now. (Though, of course, some of those were Klingons, winging their way to glory in Sto'Vo'Kor, lucky stiffs.)

Speaking of divine intervention, it must be nice to be on speaking terms with the Almighty. Case in point: Captain Emissary's impassioned speech urging the Prophets to intervene in linear matters and save Bajor. Ever enigmatic, they do so, but they exact a game penalty: "The Sisko is of Bajor, but he will find no rest there."

In return for Sisko's deferred retirement, the entire Alpha Quadrant will not be enslaved... THIS week.

The Petulant Gods have spoken: all the Dominion ships en route through the wormhole vanish, Egyptian-Chariots-in-the-Red-Sea-style.

But there are some small victories without which the station would still have remained in enemy hands. Quark and Ziyal spring Kira and Rom from the hoosegow, and Odo stops linking long enough to save their lives. Well, except Ziyal.

During the Dominion's "Scurrying Away" Maneuvers, panicked Damar kills his boss' daughter and somehow fails to win Dukat's approval. Although this DOES drive Dukat insane. MORE insane. Insaner?

The "Sacrifice of Angels" turns out to be Ziyal. Which is too bad because now Garak will never know why she loved him. Indeed, why DID Ziyal love him? Why, he could be old enough to kill her grandfather!

Deadlock

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Ensign Wildman, while toiling for Neelix on her lunch break (why, oh why, is he making a heavily pregnant woman do these repairs? More significantly, why did he have a science officer do these things? There are at least four crewmen in gold- the colour of engineers- right there!) ...anyway, she goes into labour. Due to complications (the nice way of saying the fetus' terrifying forehead horns get stuck) the Doctor must beam her out of the womb. The question of why he didn't do this in the first place is answered in a unique and tragic way. It ain't safe. The first baby born on Voyager dies. But only in 50% of reality. Let me explain... No, it's too much. Let me sum up:

Subspace turbulence in a plasma drift caused the ship to be duplicated somehow within the same space. Each copy got only half the antimatter, and the proton bursts designed to... something... it makes boom-boom on the other vessel. Explosions start rattling everyone like beans in a can. See? Clear as trilithium resin.

Hold onto your hats, because Harry is blown out a hull rupture. He dies in space! How's that for a commercial break, bitches?

The reference to the EMH doing triage on Holodeck 2 made me wonder something. Why don't they have a fully holographically staffed hospital program? With 10 holographic Doctors? Or 20? If it's a question of computer storage capacity I can think of a few Jane Austen holonovels that could be deleted...

They have no android dreaming Freudian dreams that something invisible is sucking them dry, nor a Klingon to sort one parallel reality from another, so they had to figure it all out on their own.

The Torreses (Torri?) manage to communicate across the spatial scission but fail to re-merge the copies.  They're losing antimatter so fast now that they have only half an hour to scratch their heads. Then heads, scratching, and everything else will be problems no longer.

Because it's 'Suicide Season' the Janeway with the bloodiest nose intends to blow her Voyager up to save the other one. Let's call 'the other one' Sameway.

Unhelpfully, Vidiian ghouls choose that moment to start stealing all the good bits out of Tuvok, Tom, Kes, and everyone else. Sameway of the ship under attack thoughtfully orders her Ensign Kim and her Baby Wildman onto the copy. Then she takes the Vidiians with her to hell, and the banged-up version sails off to relative safety.

I say relative safety because this is a reality where Ktarian young get teeth in the first month, acceptable only if you have SCALES on your breasts, which I'm assuming Samantha Wildman does not. Yet as the Captain tells the existentially baffled Harry: "We're Starfleet Officers. Weird is part of the job."

"Deadlock" was a great SF concept. Of course, I saw it on Red Dwarf first, but still.