''Rocks and Shoals'' Line-by-Line

Keevan: Ah, I am alive.

 

BASHIR: No self-diagnoses, please. I'm the doctor here. Internal hemorrhaging has stopped. your free collagen levels are dropping... tissue growth factors have stabilized... and there's a fifty percent rise in cell oxygenation. You're alive. Careful. Most of your insides are being held together with cellular micro-sutures and a lot of hope.

 

KEEVAN: Leave us, and take your men with you.
(The Jem'Hadar leave.)
KEEVAN: May I have that case, please?
(Bashir brings the Ketracel White box.)
KEEVAN: There are ten Jem'Hadar soldiers on this planet, Captain.
(Keevan opens the box.)
KEEVAN: And that is the only vial of Ketracel White we have left. When it's gone, my hold over them will be broken and they'll become nothing more than senseless, violent animals. They'll kill everyone they can. Me, you, the rest of your men, and finally turn on each other.

 

Sisko: Why are you telling us this?

 

KEEVAN: I'm ordering the Jem'Hadar to attack your base camp in the morning. But I will provide you with their precise plan of attack. You should be able to kill them all.

 

Bashir: They're your own men.

 

KEEVAN: Yes.

 

Sisko: You still haven't answered my question. Why are you doing this?

 

KEEVAN: That's a communications system. It needs repair, but I'm willing to bet that you've brought one of those famed Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators. He should have a lot more success at repairing it than a Jem'Hadar suffering from withdrawal. Once you've take care of the Jem'Hadar, I'll give you the comm. system and surrender to you as a prisoner of war.

 

BASHIR: And you spend the war resting comfortably as a Starfleet P.O.W. while your men lie rotting on this planet

 

KEEVAN: I see we understand each other. I'm going to order the Jem'Hadar to attack your position tomorrow regardless of whether you agree to my terms or not. So you can either kill them or they'll kill you. Either way, they're coming.

 

Commercial break.

Later in the Starfleet Cave, Sisko draws a map in the sand.

Sisko: ... And when they've reached this point, we'll have them in a crossfire.

 

GORDON: They won't have a chance.

 

Garak: That is the point. In case you've forgotten, we're at war.

 

O'BRIEN: There are rules, even in war, Garak.

 

GARAK: Correction. Humans have rules in war. Rules that tend to make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion.

 

GORDON: So we just... shoot them down?

 

NEELEY: They wouldn't hesitate if the situation was reversed.

 

NOG: But we're not Jem'Hadar. Don't we have a duty to --

 

SISKO: This isn't a vote. The decision's mine. And Mister Garak is right. We are at war. Given the choice between us or them, there is no choice. Let's move out.