Stardate 3619.2: During the investigation of an alien planet Kirk smells what appears to be a familiar odor to him. He warns his men of a strange cloud that my show up. Briefly later, two of his landing party are dead and one is dying after something has drained all the red corpuscles from their bodies. Kirk orders the young Ensign Garrovick to beam down with another team, but again two men are killed. Kirk confines Garrovick to his quarters because of the ensign's failure. It transpires that eleven years ago Kirk encountered the cloud himself and did not fire on it in time, which he thinks cost the lives of 200 of the crew of the Farragut, including Captain Garrovick, the ensign's father. The cloud now heads out into space at warp and attacks the Enterprise, once gain killing someone. While Spock is talking with the young officer, it enters Garrovick's quarters through the ventilation. Spock shoves Garrovick away and is attacked but not harmed thanks to his blood's composition. The cloud leaves the ship. After it turns out that the creature can be destroyed with antimatter, rather than with phasers, Kirk orders to pursue it to its home planet Tycho IV, the place where Kirk once encountered it. He and Garrovick place an antimatter bomb on the surface and are beamed back just before the detonation that kills the creature.

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