Jim Kirk mentally steeled himself for his last class of the day. The last was always the hardest since the compounding work from the earlier classes caused him to grow weary and filled him with dread for the upcoming tests and assignments he knew he was about to receive in this class. Kirk was still lost in his thoughts when the teacher's monotone drawl began to pierce his sub-consciousness.

'Due to the upcoming anniversary of the Tarsus IV massacre, the next few assignments will be based on this event. As it may be, your forthcoming assignment is a practical one.'

Majority of the class momentarily woke up from their discreet naps and found enough energy to grin at each other before giving in to the effort and slumping forward again in their seats. Kirk however, slumped lower as a tirade of memories overwhelmed him.

Tarsus IV.

It was a nightmare to have to hear that name let alone have to study it as a part of his class. He quietly began to hyperventilate and strangled the edge of his desk before regaining control over his memories and return to his normal seating position.

'Your practical is relatively simple enough; half of you will be assigned as the locals of Tarsus IV, and the other half will be the soldiers hunting them. You will all go into the forest nearby the academy and attempt to 'survive' for two nights. The soldiers will be issued with phasers as well as rations and the locals will only be allowed to wear civilian clothing. Locals can attain food by stealing from the soldiers or each other and vice verses. If you are stunned you will be considered 'deceased' and teleported back to the academy to spend the rest of the duration of this assignment in the academy hall. Locals who survive will be rewarded with 20 credits by the end of the three days.'

Kirk's face was sheened with sweat as he struggled to keep his emotions in check. It wouldn't do to start crying and invite suspicion from his classmates. If word ever got out that he was one of the Tarsus 9 – the 9 that survived the Tarsus IV massacre – he would be bombarded with an endless flow of questions. The teacher read out the names of the cadets who were to be soldiers or locals. Kirk was assigned to be a local. By the time he had controlled his nervous breakdown class was over and they were dismissed.

'Cadets assemble at the edge of the forest 0500 tomorrow to start your assignment.'

Kirk forced himself to his feet as the rest of the class started to pack up and leave the class. As soon as he was out of the classroom Bones caught up to him, a deep frown plastered on his face.

'Damn practicals, what do teachers ever think we'll get out of running around anyway?'

Kirk just shrugged and continued his stiff-legged gait towards his dorm. Bones narrowed his eyes at his friend at the apparent lack of answer but glanced down at his timetable and gave a shrug of his own.

'I've got a test to study for, might as well head over to the library and start. You want to come?'

Kirk shrugged again. Bones rolled his eyes.

'Whatever.'

He turned left towards the library and left Kirk to his thoughts. Returning to his dorm, Kirk went straight to bed and lay there afraid to go to sleep with all his memories filling his head. Eventually he did and the nightmares rushed in.

At 0430 Kirk woke up, still tired from his restless sleep. He had been plagued with nightmares of his time on Tarsus IV and now he was about to experience them again in real life, not just in his head. Reluctantly he dressed in civilian clothes and went down to the kitchen to grab himself a quick breakfast before heading down to the forest. After all the dread that had been shadowing him since the announcement of their practical, he was now strangely calm. He had come to Starfleet Academy to become an Officer, possibly a Captain. Whatever had happened to him in the past had to be retained. If the cadets and teachers at the academy knew how traumatized he was they might look at and treat him differently, Kirk figured that wouldn't put him in their favor as a Captain if they knew how weak he was – emotionally. If anything, his experience could help make this assignment easier as a result of his years of practice.

He reached the forest at 0455 and joined the small crowd of cadets dressed in civilian clothes. He spotted Bones and began to make his way towards his friend.

'Freezing my bloody ass off is making that 20 credits less of a motivation compared to the hypothermia I'll get when this damn assignment is over!'

'Morning to you too Bones,' replied Kirk.

'It's not like a starship will ever be stranded on a freezing planet, the likelihood we'll need this sort of experience is practically never.'

Kirk decided to remain silent; he let Bones continue his rant, he knew that Bones would eventually calm down enough to accept the situation and go with it. The conversations of other cadets died down as their teacher walked through the cadets to confirm that they had followed the requirements and that none of the 'locals' had hidden food. Once confirmed, she walked over to stand where the ground was slightly elevated.

'Locals will be allowed 20 minutes to scatter into the forest – you will be alerted when the soldiers enter the forest by a brief klaxon alarm. As of now your practical has begun.'

Kirks heartbeat raced as adrenaline surged through his system, he was about to relive his past – now all he had to do was make sure he didn't have fall apart while they were in the forest. The other cadets slowly began to realize what their teacher had said and they hurried to enter the concealment of the forest. Kirk and Bones tagged along with the group and Kirk broke into a light jog.

'What do you think you're doing?' Uhura asked him irritably; she was in a bad mood at being assigned to the locals – a group she saw as less superior and unacceptable for her high grades. 'Your wasting your energy you idiot.'

Kirk didn't so much as glance in her direction, he kept his head faced forward.

'It won't matter if we have less energy when we're dead. I'm going to put as much distance between them and me before our 20 minutes are up.'

Bones raised his eyebrow at Kirk's reasoning but shrugged at Uhura and jogged after Kirk. A couple of the cadets got the idea and started to jog as well, the other cadets rolled their eyes at them and continued walking. Kirk regarded them indifferently; he had seen others who had made their mistake, wrongly concluding that the soldiers were far behind them when they were really only a few metres behind. None of those people had survived.

After 20 minutes the small group heard the klaxons – now far behind them – and quickened their pace, after a few more minutes they all stopped and some of them doubled over in an attempt to catch their breath. Kirk slowly breathed in through his nose and out his mouth. He knew if he took the same gasping breaths as the others he'd sooner get a stich.

'We…need…. a plan' One of the cadets gasped in-between breaths.

Kirk shook his head.

'Even it we made one there are a lot of things that could go wrong and then we'd have no idea what to do next. Better to rely on ourselves, just go with whatever happens the next few days.'

The Cadet glared at Kirk.

'At least we'd have a plan; anything is better than nothing, you got any better ideas pinhead?'

Kirk shrugged, he didn't bother pointing out that he'd already suggested an alternative. If the cadet wanted to trust his life with a plan he could do whatever he wanted so long as he didn't drag Kirk into his suicidal idea. He decided to split from the loudmouth but then realized that the other cadets had more or less agreed with the idea and Kirk didn't fancy running off into the woods by himself. Might as well stick with the group for now he thought.

'Alright everyone gather 'round under this tree and we'll make a plan of what to do from here on out,' loudmouth announced

At the word plan he glared pointedly at Kirk but Kirk shrugged to himself mentally and let the idiot continue his ridiculous rant. Irritably, he noticed that the rest of the cadets easily obeyed loudmouth and had simply let him be the leader of the group when they couldn't be bothered to use their noggins. He counted 6 cadets in the group. Majority was human including himself, Uhura, Bones and loudmouth. The other two cadets were an Andorian and a Tellarite.

'First things first, we'll need food and water if we're to survive here. I don't think shelter will be much of a problem, just find a bush or something to sleep in or a tree if there are soldiers around.'

Well what do you know, he's actually uses his brain mused Kirk

'Why the hell would we want to sleep in a tree?' grumbled Bones

'To hide from the soldiers, weren't you listening?' sneered the Andorian.

'What's the point of hiding when you wake up in the middle of the night with broken bones in your leg?

'Better broken bones than getting caught!'

'You might as well be caught if you have broken legs,' Kirk told the Andorian.

'I don't care how you sleep, if you get caught that's not my problem!' hissed loudmouth.

Kirk smiled inwardly when he saw the frustrated expression on loudmouth's face.

'The point is, we need to get food from the soldiers. We'll probably be able to find running water somewhere in this forest but if we don't eat we'll get weak and definitely get caught.'

The Andorian rolled his eyes but didn't argue with loudmouth, everyone knew what loudmouth said was correct, even if some of them didn't agree.

'How are we going to split the food?' asked the Tellarite.

'Well I'm definitely not sharing whatever I take; if I risk getting stunned I think it's only fair that I get to keep my winnings,' announced the Andorian.

Loudmouth nodded his head in agreement, 'Yeah that sounds fine to me, survival of the fittest aye?'

The Tellarite nodded too. Despite the fact that they had more or less formed a group, the three cadets had resigned to selfishness without a thought to the wellbeing of anyone else. Kirk shook his head in disgust, this was no way to survive; on tarsus iv, his group had trusted Kirk and each other. The older ones always helped the younger ones and Kirk himself had always made sure that his boys were properly fed (as properly as you could get in their situation) before attending to himself. The only reason the group had survived so long was because of their reliance on each other and their bond that made them like family.

'You got a problem with that?' spat out loudmouth

He and the others obviously weren't going to give up their hold on future food so Kirk didn't bother voicing his thoughts.

'Nothing. You guys can keep your own food but I'll share mine with Uhura and Bones.'

The Andorian snorted 'whatever, you humans are such weaklings. Don't expect anything from me.'

'I don't' replied Kirk.

Bones shrugged empathetically at Kirk.

'Thanks.'

Kirk gave his own shrug. Uhura narrowed her eyes at Jim for a few seconds than nodded. Kirk took that as a thank you.

The group hiked through the bush until the sun had sunk low over the earth and darkness started to settle in. They had kept their eyes and ears open for any sign of guards or locals with food with no such luck. At one point in the afternoon the Tellarite found a small pond and they had stopped to drink and rest before setting off again. Thankfully, loudmouth had ceased his talking as the sun hiked higher into the sky but as the shadows grew longer he began to whine much to the annoyance of everyone in the group.

'Stupid practical, all this walking has left me starved – and for what? 20 lousy credits if we 'survive'?'

No one said anything and he took it as a sign to continue his ranting.

'I haven't eaten all day and that incompetent pond was filthy, wish I'd been assigned as guard; anything's better than this.'

'That's the point you idiot, this practical's suppose to be an empathy task; help us understand how the locals on tarsus iv felt and give us skills on survival' snapped Uhura.

'No one asked your opinion' retorted loudmouth.

'Yeah? Well no one asked yours either.'

'I never said my opinion! You want to hear it? I could go on all day!'

'Really? You never said your opinion? Then what's with all the complaining for the last hour! Everyone here's hungry and tired and we can manage to keep our mouth shut!'

Bones unconsciously took a step back as the argument rose turned into a shouting match.

'Both of you shut it! There could be guards nearby for all we know and you two are yelling at the top of your lungs for all of them to hear!' snapped Kirk.

Uhura stopped but continued to glare at loudmouth.

'Who made you Leader? Eh? Says I got to listen to you? I don't think so,' loudmouth spat the words out – literally; Bones could see tiny torpedoes of spittle launching from his mouth.

'Does it matter? It's late and we need to get sleep. Your empty stomach is making you and everyone else cranky.' Jim hissed back.

Loudmouth looked at Kirk for a long while, conflicting emotions visible on his face, then he glared at him and trudged off into the shelter of the trees. Kirk looked at Bones who shrugged and started to walk after loudmouth, after a moment Kirk and everyone else followed too.