Jim walked into the medical bay where Bones was standing ready, along with his staff. Andrea was also there with the baby. "What are we doing, Jim?" Bones asked.

"You're coming with me," Jim replied. "We have to get down to the science lab and get you one of these suits."

"What about everyone else?"

"They have to stay in here and keep this door sealed. Shoot first. Come on."

Bones looked at the others. "Just stay put," he said.

Jim and Bones left the medical bay. "Did you get a chance to look at those samples that Gordon brought you?" Jim asked.

"No," Bones replied. "I was barely back on my feet when the lights went out."

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Mostly. I have a headache and I still feel like my nerves are buzzing a little but other than that, I'm alright."

"Let's get to the science lab."

They hurried down to the science lab, and Bones got into a suit that repelled the electrical charges. Jim gave him a large blaster rifle. "Now, we're going after this guy, and we're picking up teams as we go," Jim informed him. "Spock took a team and Sulu did as well."

"There's no way to track him at all?" Bones asked as he checked the light on his arm.

"No. That was what I was hoping we could find with those samples."

"I have to tell you, I don't like the idea of looking for this guy in the dark."

"I don't either, but we don't have a choice."

Jim looked at Carol. "Get anyone outfitted who comes in here," he said and kissed her. "And get into a suit yourself in case that maniac comes through here."

"You be careful," Carol replied.

Jim and Bones went out the door and almost ran into Solan. "Man, I'm glad I finally found someone," Solan said.

"Get in there and get a suit on," Jim said. "We have to get moving."

Solan went into the room and soon came out with one of the suits on, and he also had a blaster rifle. They started moving down the corridor then. "What if these blasters have no effect on that guy?" Bones asked.

"We'll have to figure out something else," Jim whispered. He came to another corridor and looked around the corner to his right while Solan looked to the left.

They ran to the right and moved around the next corner which led to Engineering. "You think he's down there?" Solan asked.

"It's the place where he can access everything," Jim replied. "Where else would he want to go?"

They moved into the corridor that led through the heart of Engineering. "Turn off the lights," Jim whispered.

They turned the lights off and could see nothing except the slight glow of the warp core. Jim looked around them, but he saw nothing that looked unusual except for the fact that everything was shut down…but then he saw something else. It looked like two glowing yellow points of light, but there was more. It was definitely Jerah.

Bones was looking as well. "Jim, I never saw anything like that," he said.

"That's almost what he looked like when he blew the wall out of that ship," Solan whispered. "When I shot him with that device, it was like he drew power from it."

"Well, let's hope he can't draw power from a laser blast."

Jim took out his communicator. "Spock," he said quietly.

"Yes, Captain," Spock answered.

"We found Jerah in Engineering. Solan, Bones, and I are going to see what we can do."

"We will be there shortly."

Jim ended the transmission, and he and his team moved closer to the area where Jerah was. He did not seem to be doing anything, but as they got closer, suddenly, he looked at them with his glowing yellow eyes. Then the eyes disappeared from sight, and there was a slight blur of light. Before they could react, Jerah tackled Jim.

Jim hit the floor, but he was not on his back long as Jerah jerked him up from the floor. He grabbed Jim by his wrists and let go an electrical charge, but it simply traveled around Jim's suit. Jim could see the surprise on Jerah's face, and he took advantage of it. He punched Jerah as hard as he could, knocking him to the floor.

Bones and Solan pointed their blaster rifles at him. "Don't move!" Bones yelled. He was not sure how a blaster would affect Jerah, but he had stopped when Jim pointed one at him on the planet.

Jim started to turn Jerah over to cuff his hands, but Jerah grabbed him by the wrist and jerked him over between him and the blaster rifles. While he had him there, he shot an electrical bolt at Bones which took out his blaster rifle. He then grabbed Jim by the head and slammed his faceplate down on the floor trying to break it, but it was not that easily broken.

Solan and Bones grabbed Jerah by his arm and managed to get him over onto his stomach. Jim got his knee into his back then and tried to pull his arms behind his back, but Jerah was not ready to give up yet. He managed to knock Jim off his back, and then tripped Bones and Solan at the same time. Jim jumped up and ran after Jerah as he was running fast down the next corridor. He stopped suddenly and waited for Bones and Solan. "Why are you stopping?" Bones asked.

"Water," Jim said. He looked at Bones. "If there's anything that doesn't go with electricity, it's water!"

"The water turbine!"

They all ran down the corridor and turned for a shortcut. Although the systems were all down, he could still manually override the water turbine, and when he saw that Jerah was about to step under it, he opened the water release valve and water poured out onto Jerah. Jim was sure it would not have been good for anyone to be there at that moment because it was definitely an electricity meets water moment and would have certainly electrocuted anyone who was in or near that water.

Jerah fell to the floor with electricity traveling over his body but he was unable to move now. Jim took Solan's blaster rifle, and he, Bones, and Solan walked slowly over to Jerah who looked at them as he was still having electrical impulses shake him. His face now looked burned. "You always destroy what you don't understand," Jerah said.

"You attacked us," Jim replied.

Jerah simply stared at him. "You should take a look, Captain." The yellow in his eyes seemed to fade and then there was nothing left but emerald green.

"You think he's dead?" Bones asked.

"Well, that would be your department," Jim replied.

"I don't have a tricorder with me. I was kinda in combat mode."

"Well, then, go get one."

"Right."

Jim and Solan stood there while they waited for Bones. "What do you think he meant?" Solan asked. "Take a look at what?"

"I don't know," Jim said. "It must have something to do with Nervala Four. What's going on down there?"

"There's only one more week in their window."

Jim considered that. He was not sure he wanted to go down to that planet and run the risk of being stranded there. "Maybe we should just report this to Starfleet and…stay out of it."

"I guess that's up to you, but if this guy came from Nervala Four: how did he get like this?"

"We'll let Bones figure that out."

Soon, Bones came back with a tricorder and scanned Jerah. He stood up and looked at Jim. "I don't know if he's dead or not," he said. "There's definitely something bizarre about this."

"You have to find out what," Jim replied. "Obviously, he's a humanoid and he's not supposed to have electricity running through him like that. Get him to the medical bay and do an autopsy."

Bones nodded. "You should get the systems running again."

"Right."

Jim went to a computer terminal and ended his captain's plan. Everything came back on except the lights. He did not know what Jerah had done to the lighting but they would just have to wait for Scotty to find out.

An hour later, they were still sitting still with no lights. "Mister Scott, can we move?" Jim asked.

"Yes, Captain," Scotty answered. "There are no lights, but the rest of the systems are working fine. He fried the circuits for the lights, Captain. I'm afraid we're going to be without lights for a while."

"But we can go to warp and all that. We just have to do it in the dark."

"Yes sir."

"Great. Get that warp drive ready then. We're not going to just sit here."

Jim sat down in the captain's chair. "Take us out of here, Mister Sulu," he said.

"Gladly," Sulu replied.

They were soon at warp, and Jim could not say he had ever been at warp with no lights on in the ship. It was a rather odd experience. "Take care of the Bridge, Mister Spock," he said. "I'll be back shortly."

Jim went down to the medical bay where Bones was still analyzing tissues and samples he had gotten from Jerah. "You found out anything yet?" Jim asked.

Bones looked at him. "I found out something when I first started this," he replied. "Have a look."

Jim looked into the high-powered microscope and could definitely see DNA strands…but they definitely did not look normal. "What is that?" he asked as he could see tiny sparks in the DNA.

"I don't know. The best I can tell is that somehow his DNA has been infused with electrical characteristics, not like the normal electrical impulses that flow over DNA, mind you. Normal electrical impulses on DNA are absorbed, or they would do damage. This is nothing like that. It's like the DNA is fused together by the electrical charges. I've never seen anything like this. Are they experimenting with DNA on that planet?"

"Are you telling me that his DNA had been changed somehow with electricity?"

"That's what I'm saying. That would explain why his eyes were glowing like that."

"What did he mean when he said I would know what it was like to want to help someone and couldn't?"

"Jim, it's too dangerous for you to go down to that planet. You don't know what they might do, and you could get stranded there. You told Starfleet, didn't you?"

"Yes. Uhura sent them a message."

"Good. Let that be it."

Jim looked at Bones. "Don't you wonder?" he asked.

"I do, but I know when we need to let someone else handle it. Jim, eight years is a long time."

"I realize that, Bones, but there's one week left in that window. If they're doing illegal experiments down there, someone needs to stop them."

"And that has to be us."

"Not necessarily, but we're close."

"What do we do if you get stranded down there? We can't sit around here and wait for you for eight years."

"How do you know I would get stranded?"

"Because I know you."

"I didn't say I was going so just relax."

Bones went back to his work as Jim left the medical bay. He knew once Jim had something in his mind, he could not just let it go. He had to wonder what was going on at Nervala IV. This was the time that one could get to the planet, and then it would be closed again for another eight years. A lot could happen in eight years, and there was no escape. He stopped what he was doing and thought about that. He knew something had happened to Jerah, and then he was stranded on another planet…and he was angry.

Jim went back to the Bridge and began looking through all the data that had been entered about Jerah and what they knew. He had been the victim of something that he did not voluntarily become a part of. He had either been forced into it or coerced. Either way, it was not right, and Jim wanted to do something about that to stop this from happening to anyone else. He would talk to Admiral Winston about it himself when he answered. He would have to answer…this was too serious.

After two days, the Enterprise came out of warp at Nervala IV. Jim sat in his chair and watched the planet a moment. He could see ships going to the planet, and some coming from it. It did not appear that anything unusual was going on there, but he could not believe nothing was going on that should not be. "Captain, we're being hailed," Uhura said, interrupting his thoughts.

"On screen," Jim replied.

A human appeared on the screen who had emerald green eyes much like Jerah's had been when they were no longer yellow. "Greetings," he said.

"Greetings," Jim replied. "I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise."

"I'm Kyle Brandon, the administrator of Nervala Four. What brings you to our planet?"

Jim considered how he wanted to answer that. "We encountered a being on Argus Ten who said he came from this planet…"

"Jerah." The look on Brandon's face was enough to let them know he knew exactly who they were talking about.

"What happened to him? He was definitely not normal."

"Was?"

"He's dead. He attacked us and…"

"I'm afraid I cannot discuss that matter with you, Captain. If Jerah is dead, then you are fortunate."

"But we want to know how he got like that. Are you doing experiments there?"

"What we do here is not your concern, Captain Kirk. If you have no business here, you may just leave. We only have four more days to our window, and I must attend to serious business."

"Well, we could use some supplies if you can spare them."

"What sort of supplies?"

"I'll send you a list."

"You can bring a shuttle down, Captain, but I must warn you, if you go sneaking around where you don't belong, you will only find trouble."

"Thanks for the warning."

Jim ended that transmission, and looked at Spock who was standing beside him. "I assume you intend to ignore that warning," Spock said.

"Why, that wouldn't be polite of a captain to ignore that, now would it?"

"I do not believe so."

"Get a list together and have it delivered to me in the shuttle bay," Jim said as he stood up.

"Jim, may I remind you that the access window to this planet closes in four days."

"I know."

"I will get the list together."

Jim left the Bridge and went to his quarters to change into something different. Carol was there. "You're going down there to snoop around," she said.

"Not at all, Dear," Jim replied. He decided he would just wear his blue uniform that he wore on away missions at times.

"Perhaps you should wear your suit to repel electrical charges."

"I wouldn't want to look suspicious. Solan can wear his."

"You're going to send Solan out into that place to snoop?"

"He's the best snooper we have."

"Have you told him yet?"

"No, but I will."

"Who else are you taking with you?" Carol asked.

"Korax. He's pretty intimidating."

"You think he'll keep the attention off the fact that you brought a sneak down to the planet?"

"I hope."

"Be careful. I don't want to have to be without you for eight years."

Jim stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her then. He thought that would be unbearable. "I'm not going to get trapped there," he said.

"And suppose they find out about Solan?"

"I don't think they will."

Jim finished dressing and Carol went with him to find Solan. "Solan," he said into his communicator.

"Yes sir," Solan answered.

"I want you to meet me in the shuttle bay. You're on this away mission with me, and Korax too. Oh, and Solan, wear your electro-suit."

"My what?"

"You know, that suit that repels electrical charges."

"OH."

"I thought I would give it a name."

"I'll be ready."

Solan wondered what he was about to get into but he went and got into his suit. He met Jim and Korax in the shuttle bay where they would be boarding a shuttle to go down to the planet under the guise of picking up supplies. Jim figured Kyle Brandon would be suspicious, but he would not be expecting Solan, who was wearing the suit that would hide him from all scanners. It was a very handy piece of equipment to have around.

"Remember to just wait until we get him away from the ship," Jim said. "Don't stay in there too long but see what you can find out."

"I'll do it," Solan replied. He had been in plenty of places sneaking around and finding out information, especially since he had been onboard the Enterprise. He always went to find information for the captain when they went to a strange planet. He liked investigating and "sneaking" around.

Jim landed the shuttle in the specified place and he and Korax walked down the boarding ramp with their list of supplies. Brandon met them there as he was the administrator of the place. "Welcome, Captain Kirk," he said.

"Thank you," Jim replied. "Here's our list of supplies we need."

Brandon looked at Korax a moment, but he took the list. "The two of you will abide by the rules, I assume," he said.

"Of course. It's okay if we just look around, right?"

"Do not go into any restricted areas."

Jim nodded and watched Brandon walk away. He and Korax stood at the back of the ship for a few more moments, and then he pressed a button on his communicator that let Solan know he could come out. Solan exited the ship and sneaked around the back of some crates there in the supply warehouse. He wondered how many times he had sneaked around in a place like this one. He came around to the side of the area, and made sure his suit was activated to hide him from scanners. He was not sure that would be enough to hide him, because his suit did not look exactly normal. It was certain that no one else around there was wearing anything like it. However, he was also wearing a long, brown robe with a hood and he would use it if he got out into the public.

Jim watched Solan disappear around the corner, so he decided he and Korax would do something to keep anyone from looking anywhere else for someone who did not belong. They walked over to the exit of the warehouse which led out into a world that was rather unexpected. Jim had thought it would not have many inhabitants, but the city was busy with traffic. How would they ever find anything there?

Jim looked at Korax. "Well, where do you think they would hide an experiment?" Jim asked.

"It would seem that they would not care much for hiding it since there is only access to this planet for a month every eight years," Korax replied.

"You think they have the people here scared?"

"There is only one way to find out."

Jim looked up at the yellowish sky as they walked further out from the warehouse. The inhabitants had flying transports as well as those that moved on the ground. He had to wonder if any of them ever wanted to leave this planet, but none of these seemed to care about leaving. They walked on down to the street and began walking along the sidewalk so that they could observe people who were there. None of the people there seemed to look at anyone around them, but simply walked on keeping their eyes down. Jim thought they should at least be curious about two strangers walking down the street.

Jim decided he would try and make conversation with someone. A young woman was passing by them, and she was wearing a brown robe of some sort, and it looked rather tattered. "Excuse me," Jim said.

The woman gasped as she was completely startled. Her light blue eyes showed how afraid she was too. "I didn't mean to startle you," Jim said.

"I don't have time to talk," the woman said and walked on rapidly.

Jim watched her a moment and then turned back the way he and Korax were walking. "Do you notice that buzzing sound?" Korax asked.

"Yeah," Jim replied. "You know what it is?"

"I do not, but it seems to be everywhere."

"There's obviously something going on here."

Just as Jim was passing by a passageway between two buildings, someone grabbed his arm and jerked him into the alley. They would have had an angry Klingon on them except that they let go of Jim and put their hands up. "Wait," Jim said to Korax who was just about to grab the one who had grabbed Jim. He looked at the person who was cowering beside the wall. He was also wearing a robe with a hood on it, but when he looked at Jim, he had those yellow eyes like Jerah had. "Who are you?"

"The question is: what are you doing on this planet?" the other asked. "I am Helek. You do not want to be stranded on this planet."

"What's going on here?"

"We cannot talk here. Do you have a ship?"

"Uh, why don't you tell me more about yourself before we discuss that. Why are your eyes yellow?"

"It is the experiments. You do not know of them?"

"No. Why don't you tell me?"

"Not unless you help me escape this planet."

"You mean you can't leave?"

"I cannot talk to you more now. Do you have a ship?"

Jim looked at Korax who simply waited for him to make a decision. "We have a ship," Jim said. "But we cannot take you on it until we find out more about what's going on here."

"I can meet you at your ship. It must be tonight."

"Well, we're in hangar twelve. Why can't you talk here?"

"You do not want to know, and I would not go any further if I were you. Go back to your ship unless you want to be stranded here forever."

"Why is anyone stranded here? There are ships going in and out of here."

"They are not those who live here. You do not understand."

"I would if you'd tell me."

"I will tell you later."

Jim figured they were not going to get anything else because the man ran down the alley. Jim and Korax went back out the way they came in. "Maybe we should go back to the ship," Jim said. "I sure don't want to get stranded here."

"What is so fearful in this city?" Korax asked. "This planet is supposed to be a peaceful research post if I have heard correctly."

Jim nodded. "It is, but apparently, it's not."

"Do you intend to take his advice and go back to the ship?"

"I don't think so. We need to give Solan time to find out something. If they're watching us, he'll have more chance of not being discovered."

"You hope."

"Korax, are you being pessimistic?"

"Perhaps I have spent too much time around Doctor McCoy."

Jim could not help but smile at that remark. They walked out of the alley and he took out his communicator. "Mister Spock," he said.

"Yes, Captain," Spock answered.

"Just making sure we still have contact with the ship."

"You are coming in loud and clear."

"The sun is shining down here, but it seems to be getting dimmer all the time."

Spock was silent a moment. He knew that Jim meant the situation was bleaker than they thought. "It will probably get dark very quickly."

"The more I talk, the more I think people are listening," Jim said.

Spock knew that meant that Jim thought they were being monitored. "Have you talked with the officials?"

"Not much. We're waiting for the supplies to be loaded."

"Remember, Captain, there are only four more days."

"I remember. We should be out of here by tomorrow anyway. Kirk out."

Spock was sitting in the captain's chair. Sulu looked around at him. "He thinks people are listening?" Sulu asked.

Spock nodded. "And the situation is worse than we thought," he replied.

"What kind of danger is Solan in?"

"Hopefully he is as stealthy as we believe he is."

"What do you think they're doing down there?"

"I wish we could have talked more with Jerah, but he did not give us much choice when he attacked the ship."

"Why couldn't he just tell us?"

"He was very angry, and saw everyone as an enemy."

Just then, Doctor McCoy said, "Spock."

"Yes, Doctor," Spock answered.

"You better get down here. I just found something you're going to want to see."

"I will be there shortly."

Spock looked at Sulu. "You have the Bridge, Mister Sulu."

As Spock was going down the corridor toward the medical bay, his communicator whistled. "Yes," he answered.

"Mister Spock, I think I have finally repaired the relays to the lights," Scotty said. "I'm ready to try them."

"Go ahead, Mister Scott."

Spock stood still and waited a moment, and suddenly, the lights came on throughout the ship, and it was rather dazzling for a moment. "I believe they are working, Mister Scott," Spock said. "Nice work."

"Thank you, Sir," Scotty replied. "I'm going to secure this now that it's repaired."

Spock went on to the medical bay where Bones was waiting for him. "What have you found, Doctor?" he asked.

"You know that unusual DNA we found?" Bones asked.

"Yes."

"Well, I've been analyzing it further. They've been playing with DNA alright, Spock. It wasn't just Jerah's DNA, but it seemed like other DNA was infused with it."

"Clarify."

"You ever heard of a Capellan power-cat?"

Spock frowned, and then looked at Bones. "That would explain a great deal," he said.

"Yeah, and if he came from this planet…"

"I must warn the captain."