In terms of where's Sisko, IIRC the Stardates basically line up with when he's in the Badlands with Edington, right?
Yup. Or more precisely, if we assume that stardate-free adventures fall in their airdate order slots between stardated ones, then the movie takes place after "Soldiers of the Empire" but before "In the Cards", leaving "Children of Time", "Blaze of Glory" and "Empok Nor" as the undated candidates.
And the first features the
Defiant and Worf while the last involves Sisko, no matter how peripherally - but the middle one tells the story of a prominent Sisko absence, from the nicely concealing viewpoint of said absentee.
Of course, Sisko already mentions "the recent Borg attack" several episodes earlier, in "Purgatory's Shadow". But that episode has a pre-movie stardate, or at least its other half, "By Inferno's Light", does. And it makes no mention of damage to the
Defiant.
Ultimately, we have plenty of reason to think the Borg made several attacks prior to ST:FC, as Picard speaks of them advancing and the heroes falling back, something never described in any episode past "I, Borg". So when the Admiral ominously tells Picard the Borg have returned, we are to take this in the spirit of them returning
once again, this time being even worse than the one last month...
Timo Saloniemi