Psychotic Academy

Cadet Hill had been at Starfleet Academy for three months now, and thought he had seen everything that august establishment had to throw at him. Until, that was, they decided to throw a field exercise at him. Hill couldn’t for the life of him decide why on Earth (or any other planet for that matter) the Admirals who ran the place felt the necessity to send a bunch of hapless cadets off on a hiking expedition into the Rockies.

“It’s not fair,” he grumbled to his room-mate, who, like Hill, was packing for the trip.

“I know. You said. Three times already.”

“Well, I wanted to make the point.”

“Whatever.”

Hill, ignoring the blatantly unsubtle hint to shut up, carried on: “What’s the point in this trip? What bearing does it have to life on a starship or space-station?”

Despite himself, his room-mate replied, “It’s going to teach us team-work, and stuff like that.”

“Oh yeah, great.”

Before Hill could find something to whinge about on the new subject, his room-mate disappeared out of the door, bag in hand, and Hill was left alone to pack his bags.

 

Once he had finished packing, he went out onto the shuttlepad, where the other cadets were waiting for the shuttle to arrive which would shift them out into the Rockies. There they would spend the next four days trekking across the mountains towards a destination that the cadet picked to lead the expedition would be told just as they touched down. Their provisions would be sparse, the maps inadequate, and the conditions ghastly.

Just when some of the cadets were wondering how quickly they could process their resignations, the officer giving the briefing gave them a last crumb of hope, “You will be paired off. You will rely on your partner for anything and everything. As an aside, I know that many of the most durable friendships in Starfleet have been formed on exercises such as this. Try to enjoy yourselves. It’ll be hard work, but treat it as an extended stroll in the country and you’ll do fine.”

As she finished speaking, a large shuttle touched down on the pad behind her, and the cadets bustled aboard.

 

The flight was short, which was just as well from Hill’s point of view, as he was stuck next to the toilets at the back and had to spend the entire flight watching cadets troop backwards and forwards, looking marginally happier on the way back. When they touched down, the cadet who was to lead the expedition was handed a map with a big red cross on it showing where they had to go, and the cadets were paired off. Hill, remembering what the briefing officer had said before they left, was quite looking forward to meeting his partner. Especially if his partner was that drop-dead gorgeous blonde from C Block.

Unfortunately, the drop-dead gorgeous blonde got paired off with someone else, but Hill remained hopeful. There was still the brunette he’d bumped into that time outside the simulator room, or even the redhead who’d thrown him over her shoulder during martial arts. Much to his disappointment, they too were partnered with other people. Finally, he heard his name read out. Stepping forwards, he found himself paired with a cadet, who, on first glance, was not human. Hill had to correct his assumption as he looked closer. The cadet was in fact human, but was the owner of an abnormally large cranium.

“Cadet Hill, this is Cadet Graham. Go sort your stuff out.”

The two cadets found their kitbags, and moved to one side to check through their equipment. While they were doing that, Hill said, “Hi. I’m Rich Hill. Pleased to meet you,” and held out his hand.

The other cadet looked blankly at the outstretched hand. Hill realised that this cadet must be from a colony world where the traditional handshake wasn’t observed any more.

Then, the cadet spoke. “I’m sorry, but I don’t enjoy physical contact with other life-forms. Please put that hand away.”

Hill abruptly dumped all his enlightened twenty-third century preconceptions and decided he’d been paired with a freak. They finished checking through their gear in silence, then slung their kitbags over their shoulders, and prepared to move off with the rest of the group. As the shuttle lifted off and turned for home, the lead cadet held up his hand, and with the odd cry of “This way my party!” set off.

 

For the first few hours it was easy enough, trudging along in total silence over what was rough, but essentially flat, ground. But after a while, Hill felt he had to say something.

“So, where are you from then?”

“Earth.”

“Oh, right! Me too.”

There was a pregnant pause (in other words, it felt like nine months had passed), before Hill tried again. “What branch of service do you want to go into?”

“Engineering.”

“Oh, right. I haven’t decided yet.”

There was something lacking from this conversation, Hill felt. Like enough of a response from Graham to make it a conversation, rather than just a monologue. Still, they were stuck together for the next few days. Hill was determined to break the ice, even if it meant using the linguistic equivalent of a tactical nuclear detonation (antique, of course, but fun in an anachronistic kind of way) to do it.

“So, how come you want to do engineering?”

“So I don’t have to talk to irritating mortals such as yourself.”

Wham, Hill thought. His nuclear strike had not only been pre-empted, the area around the launch site had been rendered a barren radioactive wasteland by that one. He stopped talking.

 

Several hours later, as it began to get dark, the lead cadet called a halt, and Hill and Graham dumped their kitbags down, and turned to the business of organising bedding. This was where the partner system came into its own, as, while one cadet carried the tent for the two of them, the other carried the rations, thus making an effective team. Hill already knew relations between the two were strained, but the final conclusive evidence he needed came when Graham pitched the tent and shortened the sides so Hill couldn’t actually fit in it with Graham already in there. Then, while Hill was fuming about that, Graham raided his kitbag, extracted the rations he needed and retired to bed. Hill was forced to curl up next to the tent and spent the night shivering away and thinking very insulting thoughts about his partner.

 

The next day, they set off early, and were, they were assured, “Making good time.” The first indications Hill had of trouble came when they took the fifth break in twenty minutes to look at the map.

He turned to Graham and muttered, “I think we’re lost.”

Predictably, he got no answer. Finally, the lead cadet turned pale, and Hill, along with the other members of the expedition, knew that they were lost. He looked around him helplessly. They had managed to wander their way into a narrow-sided gorge, along a dried-up river bed. It narrowed their options down quite a bit, really. They could either go on, or return the way they had come. The lead cadet decided to carry on, and hope for the best. With a great deal more grumbling than there had been before, the cadets moved on.

 

Finally, they reached the end of the gorge. And, in many respects, the line. The gorge terminated in a sheer wall of rock. Staring up at it, Hill was hoping that the berk with the map would swallow his pride, admit defeat, and call for a shuttle to pick them up. He wasn’t that lucky.

“Right! We’re all going to link our tent-ropes up together, and we’ll attempt an ascent of that. From the top, we should be able to pinpoint our position.”

A current of muttering swept through the cadets. Hill looked across at Graham. As he had feared, Graham was clutching his kitbag protectively. Hill could tell it was going to be difficult to persuade Graham to let him have the ropes. He decided to start right away.

“Come on, now, let’s have the ropes.”

“No!”

“Now, look, you heard what he said, we’re going to need all the ropes to get up there.”

“No!!”

“Why not?”

Graham’s face assumed an expression of almost total panic. “Because then other lifeforms will have to touch them!!!”

Hill shrugged. “So?”

“It’s not allowed!!!!”

“You don’t think they were new when they were issued, do you? People will have touched them before, and will do again.”

“Nyaaargh!!!!!” Graham threw the kitbag to the ground, and Hill, stunned by the reaction, but heartily glad that it had happened that way, grabbed the bag and pulled the ropes out before the traumatised Graham could recover. Then, something else occurred to him. He wiped his hands all over the fabric of the tent, while Graham, paralysed with shock, watched in horror. Hill took the ropes over to join the growing pile by the foot of the rock wall.

Once all the ropes had been fastened together, the lead cadet began free-climbing the rockface with one end of the rope tied to his belt, and the other dangling loosely. As he climbed, the cadets clustered together in groups, and very quickly a betting syndicate was formed, and a sweepstake began. Hill got ‘makes it to the top, but gets stuck twice on the way’ to win. Graham, needless to say, didn’t enter. So, while the lead cadet clambered painfully slowly up the sheer rockface, the other cadets watched hopefully.

Eventually, and boringly enough, he made it to the top without incident. Hill threw his ticket away without thinking about it too much, but the cadet next to him, who’d got ‘falls horribly to his death’, tore his up in disgust, and wandered off, muttering darkly. Graham continued to stand there, clutching his rucksack, and swaying backwards and forwards on the spot.

The lead cadet fastened the rope to something secure, and waved for them to begin the ascent. The cadets began to climb the rope, one after the other. As soon as one reached the top, the next one started their ascent. When it was Hill’s turn, he climbed slowly but surely, not wanting to look down too much, just in case he actually realised how far up he was. He stopped about halfway up for a breather, and it was then that he got a rude shock. Up here, two hundred feet above the ground, in what was supposed to be complete silence, he could hear breathing! He looked around him. Nothing.

Then, summoning up all his courage, he looked down. And saw Graham, climbing the rope at speed, and with a face like thunder. Hill, suddenly receiving a burst of adrenaline, began to climb once more. But Graham was rapidly overtaking him, and soon Hill felt a hand clamp round his ankle. Another hand grabbed his leg above his knee, then his belt, then his collar, and before he knew it Graham had climbed over him, and was using his head as a foothold in his climb. Somewhat dazed, Hill carried on climbing. When he reached the top, it was almost to depart for the bottom again, as Graham’s boot hurtled towards him as his head appeared over the ledge. Luckily for Hill, he chose that moment to flop down onto the soil, so the threatening foot skimmed the top of his head without causing major damage.

Hauling himself up onto his feet, Hill demanded angrily, “What the hell was that for?!!”

Graham refused to respond, turning on his heels and walking away.

 

The next two days passed abominably slowly. They were trekking somewhere high in the mountains. Whether or not they were supposed to be there was another question. At least now there were no more rockfaces to ascend, simply because they had reached the top.

Despite the hardships, Hill was quite happy. Having ‘soiled’ the tent, he now got to sleep in it, while Graham, apparently willingly, slept outside. Hill was gracious enough to let Graham have his rations, although what he wasn’t telling the other cadet was that the reason why Graham’s standard-issue pack of M&M’s was full of blue ones was because they were the ones Hill hated, and had therefore found their way into Graham’s pack in what Hill regarded as a fair swap for all the others.

 

Finally, they reached their objective. It was a small hut, with a large shuttle parked next to it. The cadets were tired, smelly and in pain from blisters, corns, and in Hill’s case, a black eye when Graham found out about the M&M’s scam, and in no mood for the cheerful banter of the Starfleet officer who had come to pick them up. Which was just as well, as they didn’t get any.

“You blistering idiots! We gave you simple instructions, and you still managed to foul them up!! We’ve been tracking your progress from satellites! You managed to go 250 kilometres off course! I still don’t know how on Earth you managed to make it here!” Then, in a less stentorian tone, he said, “And, in case anybody’s interested, you’ve just broken the record for that particular walk by four hours. Well done.”