This is a silly little one-shot I came up with whilst having a conversation with my friend about how in Starfleet they have tests designed for you to fail (we were revising, well, meant to be revising for GCSEs at the time and decided our lives would be far better if we could just enrol in Starfleet.) Hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Gene Rodenberry, Paramount and JJ Abrams.
Kobayashi Maru
Commander Beckett didn't much like teaching cadets. He particularly didn't like having to prepare cadets for the impassable test, the Kobayashi Maru. But with the usual instructor on a recruitment drive and his ship not due to leave for another month (a month that really could not go fast enough), Beckett had been given the joyless task of filling in. It was, he reflected, really not his week. Teaching a bunch of young and irritatingly optimistic bunch of cadets how to fail was not exactly his idea of fun. In fact, those who did consider it 'fun' or 'rewarding' or 'intellectually stimulating' should be sectioned.
And of all the topics. The Kobayashi Maru. Just the name still sent shivers down his spine. The anticipation, the nerves, the fear and finally the blind panic that set in as you realised that just like everyone else, there was nothing you could do. You were destined to fail.
The Kobayashi Maru. A test like no other. A test that did not test your ability to pass a test but to fail with grace.
No-one had ever passed this test. Except for that one time, if that could be called passing. That one time someone had beaten the unbeatable test.
But Starfleet didn't talk about that.
Resigning himself to his fate, he turned back to the class of infuriatingly eager cadets.
'Bet they won't be so eager and enthusiastic when they have to watch their ship torn apart by Klingons and their crew slaughtered.' He thought with a sort of vindictive pleasure.
"So, class, Kobayashi Maru's coming up, please don't try to pass or freak out about it, the point of the test is to measure your command abilities under stress. No-one passes this test."
And already a hand was waving eagerly in the air. He sighed and gestured for the cadet to speak.
"Sir?"
"Yes Cadet Pine?"
"Didn't Captain Kirk himself beat the program?"
Damn. He should have known someone would bring that up. Five years later and the then Cadet Kirk's antics seemed too have been passed down as Starfleet legend.
Damn Kirk to hell wherever he was, the infuriating, cocky, too intelligent for his own good bastard.
"Cadet?"
"Yes sir?"
"We don't talk about that."
"Captain Kirk does sir."
Oh but Commander Beckett really didn't like teaching cadets.
Hope you enjoyed it, please let me know what you think!
TheWordThief