“Melora”
Written by Evan Carlos Somers and Steven Baum and Michael Piller & James Crocker
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 2, Episode 6
Production episode 40512-426
Original air date: October 31, 1993
Stardate: 47229.1
Station log. Bashir is showing off to Dax the wheelchair that he and O’Brien constructed for Ensign Melora Pazlar. An Elaysian, she’s the first member of her low-gravity species to join Starfleet, and she has to use a wheelchair on the station because her antigrav unit won’t function on DS9. She also wears an exoskeleton and carries a cane. She refuses Dax’s help to get into her “trolley car,” and generally has a big-ass chip on her shoulder. She objects when Dax tells her that she’ll be accompanying Pazlar on her Gamma Quadrant mapping mission, as she’s perfectly capable of working on her own (and also apparently slept through the classes in the Academy that discussed the concept of the chain of command). Dax tartly points out that Sisko wouldn’t let any ensign take a runabout by herself on her second day on the station. O’Brien also adjusted her quarters so the gravity will be the norm she’s used to.
Quark closes a deal with a Yridian just as Fallit Kot walks in. He’s been in a Romulan prison for the last eight years, and he announces to Quark that he’s come to the station to kill him. Quark’s response is to do everything he can to make Kot happy and comfortable: gourmet food on the house, two dabo girls, and so on. This has no effect on Kot’s desire to kill Quark, though.
[I’ve come to kill you, Quark.]