OK. ths story was written as a request from the three mousketeers who asked for an Academy story and how Hutch and Starsky met. Of course, there was trouble around every corner, even in the early days, and it always seems to target Curly boy.

I always find it difficult to write about them in their early years, but...here goes.

Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money from them...you know how it goes by now!

Chapter 1

'Gentlemen, the Colt Python Magnum is a double action handgun chambered for a powerful .357 Magnum cartridge. Pythons have a reputation for superior accuracy, smooth trigger pull and a tight cylinder lock-up which is why Bay City Police Department choose to use them. We do not play fast and loose with our officers' lives. It features precision adjustable sights, a smooth trigger, solid construction, and is heavy enough for you to be reminded again and again that this is a lethal weapon. Any questions?' Sergeant Ball puffed out his chest importantly and looked around the group of a dozen police cadets as if challenging them to ask him anything.

'Sir, will we always have to use the Colt?' The voice came from a tall, slim, curly haired cadet with piercing blue eyes that held a trace of amusement. While all the other cadets were taking in Ball's show of confidence and expertise with the weapon, Cadet David Michael Starsky had seen it all before. He tried to keep the edge of indifference out of his voice and show the proper respect for the man he considered to be a show off, but it was tough. As an ex soldier Starsky had fired everything from SA70s and anti tank guns through to small, lightweight Berettas and the Colt had never been one of his favourite weapons.

'Did you have something else in mind?' Ball asked coldly. In the three weeks since the new intake had been at the Academy, he'd seen how the brunet and one or two of the others could handle themselves and he saw the young man with the indigo blue eyes as something of a threat to his superiority. Ball was a man who preferred raw recruits who he could impress with his made up stories of daring and Starsky, Hutchinson and that oddball Colby all had the air of men who'd seen it all for real. They weren't impressed by his fantasies at all.

'No, I just wondered' the slim man said quietly. He didn't want to stand out. He wanted to fit in with the crowd and just be a decent cop. His experiences in the Army had been such that he'd suffered at the hands of the Vietnamese, had been rescued from a POW camp and had finally ascended meteorically to the rank of Major. At 23 that was young, but his experiences withstanding the torture the VC had meted out and his excellent marksmanship record had led him to become an expert in the field of coercion and mind altering techniques and he'd lectured on those subjects. Yet it hadn't left him swell headed and he had no problem in going straight from being one of the commanders back to being a minion. When his time had come to make the decision to leave the Army or to make it his career, he'd gone with the former option and had swapped khaki for the black uniform of a cop. Everyone had to start somewhere.

Ball stared at him, bracing himself for some sort of argument or fight. He longed to bring the three cadets down a peg or two, even though they'd not caused any trouble, but Starsky, Hutchinson and Colby had never given him the opportunity. In particular the brunet's few years in the service had drilled into him the need for the chain of command and also the need to remain tight lipped, even when he didn't agree with his senior officer. His loud mouth had been the start of his problems in 'Nam and after his release from the POW camp, he'd made a conscious decision to curb his hot temper. Now Starsky stared straight ahead as he stood with his legs a regulation foot apart and his hands clasped neatly in the small of his back. Ball waited for another moment, hoping for some clever retort, but none came and his anger rose.

'You must have had some reason to ask. Are you going to enlighten the class?' the Sergeant bawled.

'No Sir. I was just wondering' Starsky said quietly. He'd dealt with loud-mouthed drill Sergeants before and he could tell that this man was what he liked to call "all mouth and no balls". The kind of cop who couldn't cut it in the real world, so liked to deal in hypotheticals at the training facility.

'Nope, sorry. There was something there' Ball said loudly, determined to make an example of the curly haired cadet. 'The Colt Python is the finest handgun in the world son. It can shoot the dick off a gnat at 100 paces, which most of your fancy automatics would find impossible to do. Watch and learn.'

Ball turned and placed the ear defenders over his ears and jammed on the safety glasses. He positioned himself so that he faced the paper tracing of a human outline head on, brought up his gun and fired six shots into the target. Calmly, he replaced the gun on the table in front of him and pressed the button on the tracking device to bring the target to him. Six clean holes dotted the central target area, three of them in or very close to the bull. Ball unclipped the large sheet of paper and showed it to the cadets, most of who looked suitably impressed. Starsky made a good pretence of looking at the target and made the right noises, but Ball wasn't mollified.

'Do you still say the Python is faulty?' he asked.

'I didn't say it was faulty Sir. There's nothing wrong with the weapon. It's just big and um… clumsy. I just prefer smaller weapons, like the Smith and Wesson range.'

'What's up cadet? Is this too big for ya? Too much of a man's gun?' Ball taunted.

'No I didn't…'

'Why don't you come up here and show us just what a mess you can make of this' Ball crowed. 'Don't be shy cadet, c'mon. We all need to fire this thing today, you may as well be first.'

With a slight shake of his head, Starsky stepped forward and watched in open-mouthed disbelief as Ball clipped on a new paper tracing and hit the button. He sent the target twice as far back as when the Sergeant himself had fired and now the bull on the target's chest was no more than a pinprick in the distance. Ball grinned at him.

'Not all the flakes you chase down are gonna be so close' the Sergeant grinned. 'It don't matter if ya miss. We all have to learn sometime.'

The brunet could feel the anger rising inside him. In the past three weeks he'd tried so hard to keep a lid on it, swallowing down retorts and balling his hands into fists as Ball had made an example of him and his two friends time and again. Both his friends, Ken Hutchinson and John Colby had asked him how he managed to keep his cool, and the brunet had snorted and told them it was tough. Now, with Ball's words ringing in his ears, the temper finally bubbled over.

Starsky stepped forward, placed the safety glasses and the ear defenders on his head and expertly checked the weapon, inserting six bullets with practiced ease before slipping the chamber back into place, rolling it showily then positioning himself.

Unlike Ball, he preferred to stand side on to the target, sighting down his left arm at the tiny bullseye in the distance. He stopped for a moment, feeling the warm hunk of metal heavy in his hand. In his head, helicopters buzzed overhead, machine guns rattled off their staccato beat and the damp, cloying heat of the Vietnamese jungle hugged him. He felt the familiar tide of panic rise in his chest and he took a deep cleansing breath, reassuring himself he was in Bay City and not being hunted by the VC. He closed his eyes, breathed out and at the point where the breath was gone from his body and his heart calmed, he opened his eyes and fired off the six shots in rapid succession. Calmly, he put the gun back down on the table, removed the earphones and glasses and took a regulation three steps back.

Behind him, there was a ripple of applause from the cadets and he relaxed. Ball, however, shut the other men up quickly and stepped forward to push the button on the electric track to bring the target back up to him. He sneered at the brunet.

'Nice show son. But it's one thing to do the fancy handwork. It's another thing to hit a moving perp who's intent on shootin' back.' The target slid into range and there was a collective cheer from his back as the Sergeant looked at the six bullet holes. They were grouped so closely round the bull that they appeared as one large ragged hole and Ball sniffed, unable to think of anything to say.

'Good enough' he mumbled.

'The rage flowed away from Starsky like rain washing down a storm drain. Now that he'd held the weapon and shot, the tension left his body and he almost felt sorry for the drill Sergeant. He cursed himself under his breath. He'd never wanted to draw attention to himself like that; he'd never wanted to loose his temper and he'd never wanted to make an enemy of the Sergeant. All he wanted was to learn to be the best cop he could. But the look in Ball's eyes told him he'd made an enemy and he tried to salvage something of the situation.

'Beginner's luck?' he asked as he went back to stand in his place in the group.

'Whatever' Ball grunted. 'Lunch time. Dismissed. Back at 2:00 o'clock prompt.'

As the cadets started to disperse, the three friends regrouped. Ken Hutchinson, John Colby and Dave Starsky were older than the rest of the cadets. They were what BCPD liked to term "mature entries" and were 23, 24 and 23 respectively. John Colby had come to the Academy from a background he liked to keep quiet. Neither of his two friends knew much about him, other than he was from Seattle and had previously been employed as a security guard. However much they pushed, he never told them who he'd worked for or what he'd guarded, and to be honest, they didn't really care. He was a friend and they enjoyed his company and the slight air of mystery that surrounded him.

Ken (call me Hutch) Hutchinson was much more open about his background. The 6'2" athletic man with the flaxen blond hair was from Duluth, Minnesota and had previously been a medical student. He'd explained very briefly that while his father was a surgeon who had his own practice and was forever travelling round the country, his mother also pursued her own lifestyle leaving him for the most part alone and independent. Hutch had mentioned also very briefly that he'd needed to get out of Duluth to get away from his father's aspirations for him. He hinted at some major trauma having taken place the previous year which had caused him to make his decision to leave his home town and had been open with his two friends about his failed marriage to Vanessa. (See "The legend Trilogy Part 2 – Ken" by this author.)

For his own part, Starsky kept his description of his time in the Army to the bare minimum. He hated bragging and when asked about it, mumbled something about being a jobbing soldier and left it at that. Hutch, who was very perceptive had seen the hunted look and the hurt in his new friend's indigo eyes and knew not to push. If Starsky was hiding something, his buddy will tell him if and when he was ready.

But mostly, the three older men found a level of friendship and camaraderie because of their age and their extra life experiences. Even though they were only maybe 3 years older than the other cadets, they had all been through enough in their short lives to have found a measure of respect and comfort in each other. But even then, Colby was always something of an outsider. Hutch and Starsky had hit it off the minute they saw each other. Both had been the victims of physical abuse, either from kidnappers or the enemy and that made them somehow closer; as though they shared a common bond while Colby was always that little bit more reserved.

Now, the three headed for the canteen together, lagging behind a little from the other fresh faced cadets.

'That was impressive' Hutch said as they walked along. 'Ya learn that in the Army?'

'Well yeah. I always kinda liked shootin.' But it's no big deal' Starsky snorted, trying to brush off his show of expertise.

'Ball thought it was a big deal' Colby said with a snicker. 'You should've seen the look on his face when that target came back. He was pissed as hell!'

'I know. An' I never meant to do that. He just has this way of getting' right up my nose.'

Hutch grinned. 'Well I know ya don't mean to buddy, but I think the feelin's mutual. He seems to have a healthy growin' loathin' for all three of us, though God knows why. We've done nothin' to upset him. But ya did seem to um… upset him some. You should watch your step.'

'Uh huh. Ya know, I get sick of watchin' my step. One of these days, I'm gonna not bother who's toes I step on.'

'Well you an' me both buddy. But my Granddaddy used to say "Be careful who's toes ya tread on on the way up, coz they could be fixed to the feet ya have to kiss when you're comin' back down".

Starsky looked at the blond and snorted. 'Is that a down home Minnesota home truth?'

'Nah, just the down home Hutchinson variety. For the most part I think it holds true.'

'Yeah? Well I don't aim to be meeting Sergeant Ball any time soon after I leave here. I'd be glad if I never saw him again. I had enough of his type in the Army.'

Colby snickered. 'Tell ya what. We'll take you mind off things hot shot. What about we hit the town tomorrow night? It's our first Saturday off an' I'm in the mood for a little dancing action.'

'Name the place buddy. After being cooped up on this base for three weeks I'd dance with a geriatric chimp' Hutch said with feeling.

'There's a decent disco on Channing. I've been before. It's not too expensive and the chicks are cool. Wanna try there?' Starsky asked.

Colby nodded. 'Sounds good. Ya fancy yourself as a chick magnet, do ya?'

Starsky grinned. 'After three weeks with you lot I'd be happy for a porno mag. an' my left hand! Eight o'clock tomorrow?'