For months now, Damar has been undergoing extensive rehabilitation at a Dominion biotechnology center in Breen space.  Although the Dominion has declines to release information regarding the precise manner in which Damar came to be rescued by Jem'hadar soldiers on Cardassia Prime, it is known that he was found with a close range phaser blast to the back of his head and that, at the time of his discovery, he had been dead for some time.  Only the Dominion's advanced biotechnology allowed the Cardassian hero to be revived.  However, during the period prior to Damar's resuscitation, he suffered extensive brain damage and neurological trauma which the Dominion has worked to repair over the past months.  Despite the generosity and selflessness with which the Dominion has acted in rehabilitating Damar, Cardassian officials were quick to investigate the possibility that their beloved leader had been cloned, replaced by a Founder or otherwise tampered with during his time with the Dominion.  Their investigations proved groundless and the ailing war hero was cleared to return home.

According to an exclusive Dateline Dominion interview with Damar conducted earlier this year, Damar retains only a few, garbled memories of his  final moments on Cardassia Prime.  However, even these disjoint recollections are enough to make him a prime witness at the ongoing war crimes tribunal currently underway on Khitomer, investigating the Federation's misdeeds in relation to Cardassia Prime.  With the help of Betazoid or other telepathic interrogators, Damar may yet recover enough of his memory to reveal what truly transpired during the final, fateful days of the Dominion's residence on Cardassia.  

Still confined to a wheelchair, Damar looked on proudly from the grand stand as a parade in his honor clamored through the streets of Cardassia's capital.  In a reverential ceremony following the parade, the ministers of Cardassia's personal government presented Legate Damar with the keys to the Cardassian Sector.  The following is excerpted from Damar's speech accepting this honor from his people:

"Thank you. . . Over the past months of my time with the Dominion, I have come to miss you, my people, more and more, and to long, each day, for a return to my homeland. . . I have heard that many of you, now that we know that the Federation and not the Dominion is responsible for the destruction of our homeworld, have called for a new alliance with the Dominion, that we might rise from these ashes to strike at our enemies.  I say to you today, this must never be permitted to happen.  We are a proud and noble people, not bent easily beneath the desires of outworlders.  But in this dark time, we must quiet our appetite for revenge and look inward to heal our own wounds. . . Over the past years we have suffered at the hands of both the Dominion and the Federation.  For the time being, we have driven all of the barbarians out.  We must not invite them back in. . ."

Damar's xenophobic rhetoric was greeted warmly by the Cardassian crowd which cheered thunderously in response to the words of their sickly leader. The members of the unsteady provisional government could be seen casting nervous glances among themselves as they watched the legitimacy of their regime further decline with the return of the man who is, perhaps, Cardassia's only legitimate statesman.  His speech urging the Cardassian people to reject ties with the Dominion sparked a fervor in Dominion headquarters in Breen space that reached all the way to the Founder.  Since withdrawing from Cardassia Prime, the Dominion has continued to insist that Cardassia will not be released from its political alliance with the Dominion.  Damar's speech implied a direct challenge to the Dominion, seeming to dare them to respond to his call to the Cardassian people to abandon their Dominion allies.

Despite the stir that Damar created with Dominion headquarters, no official statement was released detailing the Dominion's position or responding directly to Damar.  Whether this silence indicates a new willingness to allow Cardassia to slip from the Dominion's grasp or something more foreboding, none can say.  As celebrations continue across the face of Cardassia Prime, war rages through the Klingon Empire only a few parsecs.  The war crimes tribunal investigating the Federation's role in razing Cardassia Prime continues on Khitomer.  Ferenginar is under martial law following a crackdown on illegal arms dealers by the harsh Rom Regime.  it seems all of the Alpha Quadrant has fallen on troubled times.  For today, confetti still hangs in the soot blackened skies of Cardassia Prime.

From Cardassia Prime, Eruth