Michael Eddington

Michael Eddington was a Starfleet security officer assigned to space station Deep Space 9. He became disillusioned with Starfleet and the Federation, and joined the Maquis, becoming a leading member. Eddington was captured, but was later killed during a special operation while serving his sentence. He was of Canadian descent.

2371
Although Eddington joined Starfleet with the long-term goal of someday becoming a captain, he was stationed to DS9 as the station's Chief of Starfleet security – with the rank of lieutenant commander – in 2371, after first contact with the Dominion.His assignment there was arranged in part to increase Starfleet control of the station's security operations, as Starfleet did not have full confidence in the current security chief, Constable Odo. Consequently, Eddington's deployment to DS9 was despite strenuous objections from Commander Sisko, the station's commanding officer.

In compliance with a request from Romulan Sub-Commander T'Rul, who had likewise been newly assigned to DS9, Eddington commissioned a security detail of two officers to guard the USS Defiant, which had just been brought to the station by Sisko. Eddington then attended a meeting of the station's senior staff along with T'Rul and, after she stormed out, he declared that, unlike her, he was there to make friends, introducing himself to Major Kira Nerys and Constable Odo. Though Eddington's assignment to DS9 posed a considerable annoyance to Odo, Eddington was tasked with accompanying the Defiant and its crew on a mission to find the Founders of the Dominion.

Eddington worked closely with Odo from that point on, coordinating security operations aboard the station. According to Eddington, he even considered Odo a friend. When Commander Sisko defied direct orders from Admiral Toddman not to pursue a joint Tal Shiar-Obsidian Order fleet intent on destroying the Founders, Eddington was ordered to sabotage the USS Defiant 's cloaking device, a task he completed without damaging any of the ship's weapons systems or the engines. He then freely admitted his deed to Sisko, Major Kira, and Chief O'Brien. Whereas the sabotage severely frustrated the latter officer, Eddington was not relieved of duty, as he assured Sisko that he had been issued no further orders from Toddman, that he intended to subsequently fulfill his duty to the commander as chief security officer on the Defiant, and had ensured the craft was still able to protect itself from the Jem'Hadar. Once the cloak was repaired, more than three hours later, Eddington participated in battle from a station on the bridge, as the Defiant combatted numerous fleets of Jem'Hadar ships in order to rescue Odo and Garak from amid the fray.

During a ceremony on Deep Space 9 that was held to celebrate Sisko receiving a promotion to the rank of captain, Eddington congratulated Sisko, referring to himself as "someone who is obsessed with rank and title." He next accompanied the Defiant and its other crew members on a mission to patrol the Tzenkethi border. Eddington first formally announced the captain's arrival on the bridge and later met with Sisko privately, in the ship's mess hall. There, Eddington was assigned by Sisko to be personal guard for Ambassador Krajensky. Eddington dutifully agreed to do so, even if the ambassador had to be escorted off the bridge for his own safety but had qualms about that. Despite a pleased Sisko then dismissing him, Eddington turned back to make another approving comment on the recent promotion, although Sisko believed it didn't count for much. In reply, Eddington mused that everyone who entered Starfleet aimed to eventually become a captain, that he himself once had that ambition, but that the possibility of him achieving it was now highly unlikely, due to him "wearing a gold uniform." Although Sisko advised Eddington he could transfer to command division, Eddington rhetorically asked, half-jokingly, about who would then protect Krajensky, a remark which elicited a laugh from Sisko. Eddington was again dismissed, and gratefully left, this time.

On the Defiant 's bridge, Eddington was present when a Changeling infiltrator revealed it had replaced Krajensky. Since the intruder managed to hurriedly escape from the bridge, Eddington took part in extensively searching for the invader aboard the Defiant, a mission that he speculated grimly about and in which he was temporarily partnered with Odo, though the whereabouts of the intruding shapeshifter remained unknown. After Odo explained that blood testscould determine who was a Changeling and blood tests of the crew were therefore ordered, Eddington was eager to be done with his. The sample extracted from him appeared to show he was a Changeling as well. Despite protesting the results, he was to be placed into custody, but the test was proven to be false when it was determined that the Changeling had impersonated Doctor Julian Bashir and administered the screening test itself, a discovery made when the real Bashir attempted to burst out of a set of quarters he was apparently locked in. After watching Odo chase after the other Changeling, Eddington returned to duty. He was continuing to serve on the bridge when the intruder was finally caught and killed by Odo. Eddington later learned and subsequently relayed to the senior staff, when they were all back aboard DS9, that Starfleet Security suspected Krajensky had actually been abducted or possibly killed.

In 2372, Eddington assisted a trio of Trill scientists from the Trill Science Ministry, headed by Dr. Lenara Kahn, with efforts to create an artificial wormhole. During a failed second phase of the experiment, he was slightly wounded in an explosion and fire that occurred following a plasma leak in main engineering aboard the Defiant. Eddington was unable to rescue Dr. Kahn from the fire and when Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax arrived with a damage control team of two engineers, he reported the blaze was so out of control, it couldn't be put out with fire extinguishers that the engineers were equipped with. He instead recommended venting the room into space before the fire engulfed the warp coreand thus caused a warp core breach, though Dax was determined to retrieve Dr. Kahn. He helped her do so, then vented the compartment to space, and sped out of engineering, the last crewman to leave the area.

Later that year, Eddington was left in command of the station while Captain Sisko, Major Kira, Lieutenant Commander Dax, Chief O'Brien and Lieutenant Commander Worf were absent, attending a conference. Upon their return in runabout Orinoco, Eddington greeted them via audio communication. When it became clear the runabout had been explosively sabotaged by a terrorist organization called the True Way, Eddington quickly stored the transporter patterns of the five officers in the transporter buffer, wiping all computer memory to create space necessary to store such a complex set of information. The computer, in order to maintain the integrity of the transporting officers, deactivated all non-vital systems, and stored the patterns in one of numerous holosuiteswhich were at Quark's, where they appeared in a secret agent program simultaneously being run by Bashir and Garak. Eddington assisted Odo, Quark and Rom in successfully rematerializing the five officers, despite finding the holosuites in Quark's to be extremely complicated and poorly maintained. Eddington allowed Rom to make similar messy rewiring in the Defiant 's transporter bay but feared O'Brien would be furiously angry with him upon returning. About an hour later, Eddington was there to meet the five officers in person when they were finally beamed aboard. He told O'Brien, who demanded to know what had happened to the Defiant, that the mess would "take some explaining" and immediately contacted Bashir, letting him and Garak know they were free to leave the holosuite, as their imperiled co-workers had been retrieved.

Several weeks later, Eddington was on leave from Deep Space 9. His absence was covered by Worf, as he temporarily commanded the station's Starfleet Security detachment while Eddington was gone.

In reality, Eddington secretly sympathized with the Maquis, though Captain Sisko was unaware of this. Eddington had frequent contact with the captain, who saw him almost every day. His reports were read by Sisko, and Eddington also once dined in the captain's quarters. On another occasion, Eddington was taken by Sisko to a baseball game in the holosuite. Eddington was even once put up for a promotion by the captain. All the while, his sympathies towards the Maquis were never noticed by Sisko, even though it was the captain's job to be a good judge of character.

In late 2372, Eddington presented an extremely sensitive security briefing to the DS9 senior staff, regarding a shipment of class-four industrial replicators that were about to pass through the station in three days, being sent from the Federation to the Cardassians. As Eddington reported in the briefing, Starfleet Intelligence suspected the Maquis might try to stop or seize the shipment and were building up tactical resources in the Demilitarized Zone. Eddington was thereafter assigned by Sisko to give him daily briefings on these matters, until the replicators had been handed over to the Cardassians.

Along with Odo, Eddington stayed behind after the briefing in order to confidentially report to Sisko they suspected his then-girlfriend, Kasidy Yates, of being a Maquis smuggler, also citing an example of circumstantial evidence for why they had arrived at that theory. When Sisko refused them permission to conduct heightened surveillance on Yates without some more substantial proof, Eddington at first voiced an objection to his decision but then accepted it and left with Odo, permitted to carry out a search for evidence of Maquis involvement aboard Yates' freighter, the SS Xhosa, under a cover story. Eddington didn't directly participate in the search but secretly advised Captain Sisko in his office, while the examination was about to proceed. When Yates began to protest the inspection, however, Eddington strongly recommended that Sisko authorize the search nevertheless, though his advice abruptly wasn't followed by Sisko, allowing the freighter to depart.

Eddington, remaining a seemingly loyal officer, submitted to Sisko ordering him to accompany the Defiant, under the command of Worf, as it tracked the Xhosa. The Defiant covertly pursued the freighter on an altered heading into an area Eddington pointed out was referred to as the Badlands. In response to O'Brien conversationally asking him mid-journey how he felt about the Maquis, Eddington claimed to be indifferent to them, so devoted to his duty that he didn't much care about anything else. He reported to the bridge officers that the Xhosa was transporting its cargo to a Maquis raider which had just arrived, confirming Kasidy Yates was indeed involved in supplying the Maquis with non-military supplies.

In another briefing aboard DS9, Eddington showed the senior staff a route the Xhosa had subsequently taken to leave the Badlands and proceed on its scheduled heading, though the freighter hadn't yet returned to the station. He discussed with Odo, at length, how to deal with the crew of the Xhosa, concluding they should wait for the freighter to make another rendezvous with a Maquis raider then seize both ships and arrest everyone aboard. Upon learning from Sisko that the Xhosa was to depart on another run that night, Eddington urged the captain that they should take advantage of the opportunity, which Sisko agreed with. On his own formal request, Eddington then talked privately with the captain, appealing to stay behind on the station and supervise the security detail which was to oversee the passage of the industrial replicators, rather than him being held responsible for Kasidy Yates' safety during the raid. Though Sisko initially asserted that Lieutenant Reese could handle the security detail, Eddington's suggestion was thereafter accepted by Sisko, who planned to take command of the Defiant himself, and Eddington thanked him.

Eddington was actually planning to defect to the Maquis by using his position within Starfleet to hijack the shipment of industrial replicators. He had diverted the attention of Captain Sisko by raising suspicions about the business activities of Kasidy Yates, implicating her as well as those individuals she commanded aboard the Xhosa. While that crew and the one from the Defiant began to realize they had been set up to divert Sisko's attention away from DS9, Eddington organized a Starfleet security detachment on the station, to whom he claimed that new orders – purportedly from Starfleet Command – instructed that the newly arrived shipment was to be loaded aboard a Vulcan freighter which was about to show up and was actually in Maquis service. Eddington also told the Starfleet security officers that the transportation of the industrial replicators was a secret operation hidden from even the Bajoran security force and that the station itself was to initiate a communications blackout. Next, once he was alone with Major Kira, Eddington incapacitated her with a phaser blast, covertly assuming temporary command of the station and locking Kira's unconscious body in DS9's wardroom. After the replicators had been loaded onto the Vulcan freighter, Eddington made final preparations before departing aboard the ship, placing Lieutenant Reese in temporary command of the station, much to Reese's surprise. Eddington intentionally left his own combadge behind on the station, and by the time the Defiant returned, he and the replicators had disappeared into Maquis territory, leaving the crew members (especially Sisko) feeling fooled by him. Eddington had worked under Sisko's command for a year and a half. Remarked Constable Odo, "Eddington anticipated every contingency. I'm sure he had his escape route well planned."

Life with the Maquis
One of Eddington's first acts following his defection was to contact Captain Sisko with a message he received on a wall monitor in his office while alone. At first, Eddington refused to reveal his motive for changing loyalties. He intended only to ask Sisko to leave the Maquis alone but an argument developed between them, Eddington threatening Sisko about what would happen if the Federation kept sending replicators to the Cardassians, since they were whom the Maquis opposed. Eddington passionately voiced a long diatribe in which he recalled he had once been similar to Sisko but had then become more aware about the Federation, which he criticized as "even worse than the Borg." In response, Sisko negated Eddington's spiel and wordily declared he was insistent on seeing Eddington court-martialled and sentenced to life imprisonment for his betrayal.

By 2373, Eddington had risen to become an important leader of the Maquis rebels in the Demilitarized Zone, and Starfleet continued to search for his whereabouts. Captain Sisko arranged to meet with an informant named Cing'taat a Maquis settlement on Marva IV to acquire information on Eddington. However, the Maquis were able to uncover the activities of Cing'ta, and Eddington had him marooned on an inhospitable planet in the Badlands. Eddington then confronted Sisko on the surface and attempted to communicate the demands of the Maquis to be granted recognized autonomy, to no avail. Upon returning to his raider, Eddington initiated an attack on the Defiant that inflicted heavy damage, because vital systems were disabled by a latent computer virus that Eddington had installed before his defection. Similar viruses were located aboard Deep Space 9 and deactivated by Odo. Following this incident, Starfleet opted to remove Captain Sisko from the mission to capture Eddington, and assigned it to Captain Sanders of the USS Malinche instead.

At relatively the same time as these events were transpiring, two Bolian freighters carrying several thousand tons of selenium and rhodium nitrite were reported missing near the Badlands. With some chemical restructuring, these two substances could be used to create cobalt diselenide, a nerve agent that is harmless to most humanoids but deadly to Cardassians. Eddington initiated a biogenic weapon campaign to poison the atmospheres of all Cardassian colonies in the Demilitarized Zone, succeeding in doing so at his initial target, Veloz Prime. He was also responsible for an attack against the Malinche that left it adrift. The Defiant returned to the chase, pursuing the Maquis, and accurately predicted the next targeted Cardassian colony, Quatal Prime, which Eddington attacked instead of committing a more logical raid on Panora. The Defiant arrived at the location too late; the cobalt diselenide devices had already been detonated in the atmosphere. Eddington disabled a fleeing Cardassian transport, and this action forced Sisko to look to the aid of the Cardassians before he could pursue the fleeing Maquis. Sisko, determined to prevent the destruction of further Cardassian colonies, detonated a trilithium resin device within the atmosphere of the Maquis colony on Solosos III, and threatened to perform the same action on every Maquis colony in the Demilitarized Zone. In order to spare the other Maquis worlds, Eddington turned over the remaining biogenic weapons and surrendered to Starfleet for court martial.

When Starfleet uncovered communiques indicating that the Maquis had initiated a devastating attack against Cardassia shortly before the organization had been destroyed by the Dominion, Eddington was released into the care of Captain Sisko. The two men journeyed to Athos IV, a small planetoid in the Badlands where the missiles had supposedly been launched from. It was learned that the attack was a ruse engineered to allow Eddington to rescue the survivors of the Maquis, but the Dominion had previously uncovered the location. The Jem'Hadarhad located the base and captured it, inflicting significant casualties on the Maquis survivors. A dozen prisoners were kept under surveillance, but together with Sisko, Eddington was able to gain entrance to their cell and help liberate these few survivors. Included among the prisoners was Rebecca Sullivan, the wife of Eddington whom he had married two weeks before his capture. Unfortunately, the couple were once again sundered, as he was killed by Jem'Hadar soldiers while covering the escape of Sisko and the other survivors. The last thing Eddington did before he died was call out his wife's name.

Illusion
In a simulation created by the Founders shortly after Eddington was first assigned to Deep Space 9, an illusory version of him was presented as a tool of Admiral Nechayev. As such, Eddington rigidly enforced the terms of a treaty between the Federation and the Dominion, against the will of the Deep Space 9 senior staff. He firstly broke up a bar brawl between Dr. Bashir and a Jem'Hadar soldier, sympathetically assuring the Jem'Hadar that he wouldn't allow such a situation to transpire again and then allowing the Jem'Hadar to go freely, even though he had been the initial attacker. After Commander Sisko was arrested, Eddington could be found overseeing the security office, as Odo was absent. While on duty there, Eddington was visited by Bashir, Garak, and Jadzia Dax, who asked to see Sisko. Eddington refused the newcomers access, advising them to instead consult Admiral Nechayev. He was rendered unconscious by Garak, who sneakily administered him with a hypospray dosage in the interests of expediency.

Interests
Eddington was particularly fond of the novel Les Misérables. He saw himself as the hero, Valjean, pursued by the inflexible policeman Javert, whom Eddington envisioned as his former commander, Benjamin Sisko.

Eddington had a valued family heirloom in the form of a Canadian one dollar coin he called his "lucky loonie", which had been in his family for over two hundred years.