I just saw "The Lights of Zetar" again, and slightly changed chapter six. Why use cargobay 1 if there is an antigrav chamber on board? :-)

- Small reference to "Space Seed"

o0o

Kirk watched Spock's body float in the confines of the narrow chamber. You can get claustrophobic in there, Kirk thought, remembering how he himself had been trapped in it, thanks to that augmented human, Khan Noonian Singh. It wasn't one of his favourite moments.

Spock turned his head, he'd regained consiousness again, and when he turned to look at him, Kirk knew it was Spock again. The dark eyes showed an amount of remorse, grief and despair which momentarily stole Kirk's breath. He'd never believed that Spock wasn't capable of feeling such emotions, he'd only believed that he'd never see them displayed so clearly on his face.

He restored gravity and Spock was brought out of his emotional state the moment his body hit the bottom of the chamber. He had composed himself when Kirk helped him out of the small tube.

"Spock? Are you alright?" Kirk studied the Vulcan's eyes. Only yesterday he would have said they were emotionless, but now he knew better. He had seen them truely emotionless, cold as ice, in the mess when Spock had said he'd stabbed McCoy right into the heart. Now, they held a certain gentleness, compassionateness? Something that before he hadn't realized was there.

"I believe I am quite myself again, Captain," Spock said.

"What do you remember?" he asked him carefully.

"I remember ... stabbing Doctor McCoy with a scalpel in the biochemical lab, seconds after he found a way to neutralize the pathogen."

"You didn't kill him, Spock. Dr. Pulliam is operating on him at the moment," Kirk hoped he was right.

Spock closed his eyes briefly. "I am relieved to hear that, Captain. When I realized what was about to happen I tried to warn him. I told him to run, although I knew it was impossible for the doctor to escape my attack. I couldn't summon enough control over myself."

"Spock, don't reproach yourself, Bones wouldn't want that. In fact, before he passed out, he even told me not to blame you."

Spock looked up at that. "Yes, he would do that."

"And I don't, Spock. That virus, it controls its host! Down on the planet, all Romulans and Vulcans were under its influence. They were phlegmatic, passive, like sloths, the only thing they did was eat extremely sugary fruit. M'Benga said the sugar probably boosted their rate of reproduction. When he tried to take a blood sample, he also was attacked."

"By one or by all of them, Captain?"

"By one, but the others also reacted. We beamed up before they could attack us. M'Benga is also in surgery."

"Interesting. It is possible that they communicate telepathically."

"A telepathic, intelligent virus?" Kirk found that hard to believe, however, a lot of phenomena they had encountered were hard to believe.

"They seem to only befall Romulans and Vulcans who have telepathic abilities. The humans on the P'Jem were killed, which leads to the possible conclusion that they knew that they posed a threat to them, they obviously possess the will to survive. Also, they made me delete the logs which shows they are capable of anticipatory thinking."

"You deleted the logs?" Kirk was surprised. Since when had Spock acted out of character? He remembered Bones asking him if he hadn't noticed Spock being "a little off".

"Captain, I do not remember the exact moment when I contracted that virus, nor when they started to control me. However, I believe the most probable theory would be that Mr. Scott and the engineering team who were on the Romulan ship to repair their warp and impulse drives brought the virus on board. I remember having some disturbing dreams after that event which is not very common for Vulcans. I also remember feeling threatened by Dr. McCoy, which is why I wanted to avoid him first, and when I found out he was about to discover the virus, I wanted to ..."

Spock hesitated uncharactaristically, and before he had to finish the sentence, Kirk cut him off.

"But Commander Tamulok said his crew was suffering from the Vulcan flu."

"It is not the Vulcan flu, although it seems to be related to it. It is possible the virus mutated on their ship, or that they contracted it someplace else and mistook it for the virus that causes the Vulcan flu."

"Delihan said it had killed a third of the crew. Now, there's no evidence that this virus is deadly. And wouldn't it be highly illogical to kill the host you depend on for your survival?"

"We do not know how the infection will affect the body in long term. It is possible that it will ultimately kill the host. Although this is illogical behaviour, it is similar to the behaviour of many intelligent civilizations. In earth's 21st century, the human civilization came close to destroying the environment they needed to survive."

"Well, we need to contain it. First, we must cure the Vuclans and the Romulans on that planet. We could shut off artificial gravity and transport them all into cargobay 1. What do you think?"

"I am uncertain if this would be permitted by the Prime Directive, Captain."

"What, killing a virus? Really, Spock, a virus isn't even a life form!"

"In the biochemical laboratory Dr. McCoy said he did not agree with that common doctrine. Captain, I think we also have established that it is intelligent."

"We have also established that it is a parasite which turns its hosts into zombies and wants to kill our doctors."

"As a means of self-preservation."

"Why didn't it try to communicate then, Spock? It had the means to. You said yourself you completly lost control over your actions. Hell, you almost killed Bones! Maybe you did, we don't even know yet if he's going to survive!"

Kirk hadn't meant to bring that up, however, he couldn't help himself. "Now, don't tell me you feel bad about eliminating a disease!" he almost shouted at Spock who only looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face.

He turned away and quietly said: "Jim, I normally would say I don't feel anything, but at this moment that wouldn't be the truth."

Kirk regretted his own emotional outbreak immediately. "I know, Spock. I - well, why don't we go to sickbay. As far as I can tell, the people on the planet are in no immediate danger."