Sisko tries to convince the fleet top brass that they must take back the space station, because the Cardassians (Dominion allies) figured out a way to deactivate the mines around the wormhole. Sisko’s knows that a large fleet of Dominion ships are waiting to reinforce the fleet already on this side of the Galaxy.

The Admirals agree and Sisko has his fleet, but the Klingons haven’t joined this major battle, so he knows that they could lose to Dominion’s bigger Armanda.