In this episode, budding journalist Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) finds himself helping out in an emergency field hospital at a Federation colony under Klingon attack.
One of the patients, a Starfleet soldier, claims to have been shot in the foot by the Klingons, but Bashir discovers that the wound was self-inflicted, intended to get him out of the fighting.
On Deep Space Nine, Jake's father, Captain Benjamin Sisko, takes command of the starship Defiant to come to aid the colony after the ship intended to deliver those troops is destroyed in transit.
He encounters a mortally wounded Starfleet soldier and tries desperately to help him, but the dying man accuses Jake of merely trying to atone for his cowardice.
Although Jake is considered a hero for his actions, he writes the truth in his article, concluding that the line between courage and cowardice is much thinner than he originally believed.
The title comes from a line in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:11, which reads "I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, ... but time and chance happen to them all."