Part 2: Survival of the Fittest
"Did you see the list?" Commander Collins asked, setting her tray in front of him.
"What list?" asked Commander Goddard.
"The list of the people scheduled for the survival test."
"Oh, you're on it, huh?"
She nodded. "I have to go with the students on their survival test, and since I was off of active duty for a year, I have to go too."
"Well, have fun," he smirked.
"Oh!" She arched one eyebrow and smirked back. "You're going with me."
"WHAT!"
"You never bothered to get your mission status renewed," she said. "You have to go on the survival test this month or you can't be put on active duty."
He groaned. "Do you like torturing me?" he moaned.
"Oh come on, Seth. It's only three days. What could go wrong?"
*****
Rich Cooper groaned and threw his double-bladed super Swiss army pocket knife with laser into his pack. "I can't believe this is happening! Can life get any worse?"
Zac looked up from his pack, in which he was putting the regulation first aid kit. "Rich!" he hissed. "He can hear you."
"I don't care! I don't see why we have to get the zombie anyway."
"We drew names fair and square," Barrett reminded him.
"Besides," added Zac, "it's not like you'd be happy if you were in a different group."
Rich glowered at him. "It's not my fault I'm in a class full of losers. Still, Gianluca! He's the weirdest."
"Oh yeah right, I forgot," Zoe said sarcastically from the door, "you're totally normal."
"Hey," Barrett said. "Are you and Arin ready to go?"
"Hi!" Arin called, bouncing into the boys' room.
"Guess that answers that," Zac muttered under his breath.
"You are so not nice!" Arin said indignantly. "So, are you ready to go, Gianluca?"
The others snickered. Everyone knew that Arin had a mad crush on Gianluca. Whether he liked her or not, though, was anyone's guess. He always ignored her. Then again, he ignored everyone.
Now he closed his pack and sat down on his bed facing the wall. He didn't look at her or even seem to notice that she was there.
"Well, have fun!" Arin said after a while. Sheepishly, she rejoined Zoe and the others. "I'm, um, going to go get something from the room."
As she left, her pale cheeks burning pink, Zoe's brown eyes flashed with anger. She marched over to Gianluca.
"You could be a little nicer to her," she snapped.
He continued to stare at the wall.
"Are you even listening to me?" she demanded. "You need to be nicer to Arin--to people in general, actually!"
He stood up, picked up his bag, and walked out of the door.
"Hello! I'm talking to you. Where are you going?" She followed him out of the room, still yelling at him. The others followed, mainly out of boredom, even Arin, whom Barrett dragged along when she stuck her head out of the door.
Gianluca led them into the shuttlebay. An older cadet who was on duty there looked up at them. "Are you all ready to go?"
They looked at each other. "Um, not exactly," Zac admitted. "We need to go get our stuff."
"Okay, well, you'd better hurry up. The ship leaves in ten minutes."
The students, except for Gianluca, ran back to grab their things. By the time they got back, their teacher, Commander Collins, and another teacher, Commander Goddard, were just getting there.
"Hey Commander, what are you doing here? Is the government trying to silence you?" Zac asked Commander Goddard.
Commander Goddard resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "No Zac, but my mission status is out of date, so I have to take the survival test too."
"Neat!" Arin exclaimed. "Are you Commander Collins' partner?"
"Yeah. What about you? Who's in your group?"
"Well, Zoe, Barrett, and I are in one group, and Zac, Rich, and Gianluca are in the other."
Commander Goddard gave Commander Collins a skeptical look. He didn't know any of them very well, but from what he had heard, putting Zac, Rich, and Gianluca together was like pushing a ship down a black hole and expecting it to come out the other side. She just shrugged.
"Well, let's get going," he said, motioning the kids towards the ship. They boarded the Kobayashi and headed out of the Starcademy. As Commander Goddard flew the ship towards their destination, he recalled Kaci's last words to him. "What could go wrong?" he said aloud.
*****
"Well," Zac said, surveying the area that they had been assigned, "this can't be that bad."
"Yeah right," Rich said.
"We need to set up camp and find water," Zac continued, ignoring Rich. "Which would you like to do?"
"Water, I guess," Rich said.
"Okay. Gianluca and I will set up camp."
Rich snorted. "Good luck getting the zombie to help you," he said as he headed off with a jug to find a stream.
When he returned, he was surprised to see that everything was already done. An area was cleared of debris and a circle of stones lay in the center for a fire.
Rich walked over towards Zac, who was making notes in their log. They would document everything so that they could be accurately graded on their performance. "Amazing. Camp actually got set up. Did the dummy help you?"
"Rich..." he said warningly. "Did you get any water?"
"Yeah. There's a stream nearby."
"Good work. Hey, Gianluca, are you hungry? We should get some food."
Rich flopped on the ground. "Not me. I had to lug that thing all the way over here."
"Fine," he sighed. "I'll go find us something to eat."
Once he was gone, Rich looked over at Gianluca. He was sitting on the ground and staring straight up at the clouds.
"Hey dummy! What are you doing?" He sat up and stared at him. "HEY! DUMMY! WHAT! ARE! YOU! DOING!" He walked over to him. "Are you stupid or something? HEY!" he cried, kicking a rock at Gianluca.
Gianluca continued to stare straight ahead.
"Figures I get the zombie in my group," Rich grumbled, turning away. "This trip couldn't get any worse."
*****
"Rich! Rich, wake up!"
Rich rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "What?"
Zoe leaned over him. "Get up!"
"Why?"
"You have to come. Get up quick!"
"What's going on?" Zac asked, yawning. "It's the middle of the night."
"You have to come quick."
"Different teams aren't supposed to help each other, Zoe, you know that."
Zoe's face gained her customary defiant expression. "Do you think I care about that right now? Arin's really sick. You guys have to help her."
Zac jumped up. "Where is she?" he asked, pulling on his boots.
"We camped over that ridge," she said.
"Let's go."
Zac and Rich ran after Zoe, their handlights leaving bouncing circles of light on the ground. They reached the other group's camp in record time.
Zoe knelt by Barrett. He looked up at her blearily. "Did you get help?"
"Hey Barrett," Zac said, crouching down beside them. "How is she?"
"Not good. She started complaining of stomach pains a couple hours ago. We tried to make her feel better, but she just kept getting worse."
Rich joined them around Arin. "What did you guys do for her?"
"We gave her some painkillers and a muscle relaxant, but nothing helped. We tried to give her something to eat, but she threw it up. All she can keep down is water." Zoe looked worried. "She's burning up, but nothing seems to help."
"Arin? Can you hear me?" Zac whispered.
She moaned a little and covered her eyes from the light that they shone on her.
"Arin, what's wrong?"
"My stomach," she moaned weakly.
"Where's the first aid kit?" Zac asked.
"Here," Barrett handed it to him. "But I don't know what you can use in there that we haven't already tried."
Zac rifled through it. "Let's see...poison remedies, sleeping pills, anti-inflammatories, pain killers, muscle relaxants...I don't see anything," he said, shaking his head.
"Well we have to do something!" Zoe explained. "We can't just let her die!"
"What should we do?" Barrett asked.
"We could go get the teachers," offered Zac hesitantly.
"What?" Rich exclaimed. "We'll fail the test!"
"Oh, and letting Arin die will really save our grades!" said Zoe.
"We don't even know where they are!" Rich shot back. "What do you want us to do, wander around in the woods all night!"
"We have to do something!"
"All right, you two, cool it," Zac said. "How did you find us, Barrett?"
"I saw Rich at the stream," Barrett explained, "so I could tell Zoe where to look. I agree with Rich, though; we can't just run around blindly all night long. We should wait until tomorrow. We can send off an emergency flair."
"What if Arin doesn't make it through the night?" demanded Zoe. "She's really sick!"
"Could it be poisoning?" asked Zac.
Barrett shook her head. "We all ate the same thing, and we checked it three times. It was safe."
Zac paused for a while. "Let's send off a flair now," he said, "so that maybe they'll see it. If not, we'll send off another tomorrow morning."
Rich reached for the emergency kit, but before he could light the flair, a beam of light fell on the group.
"Are you kids okay?" Commander Collins asked.
"Commander?" Zac asked incredulously.
"What's going on here?" Commander Collins told them.
"Arin's really sick," Barrett explained.
Commander Collins knelt beside the girl. "She's burning up. We have to get her out of here."
"How?" asked Zoe.
Just then the Kobayashi landed near them. Goddard stepped out. "Is everyone all right?"
"She's really sick, Seth," said Commander Collins.
"Let's get her out of here, then."
*****
The students jumped up when Commander Collins left Arin's room.
"What's happened?"
"Is she okay?"
"She's fine. The doctors said that she ruptured her appendix, but she should be okay."
"What about the test?" Zoe hit Rich. "What?" he demanded. "I for one would like to know whether or not we passed, as I'm sure Arin would when she wakes up."
"Well, the principal and the Survival instructor reviewed what happened. I told them as much as I knew. I said that Arin became ill, and, because Zoe and Barrett couldn't help her, so they asked Zac, Rich, and Gianluca for help. Zac and Rich went with her, and Gianluca went to get Commander Goddard and myself."
"Gianluca got you?" asked Zac.
"Yes." She looked at him curiously. "Did you wonder how I found you?"
"Well yeah, but we were all so worried, I didn't really think about it," Zac admitted. "What happened next?"
"Well, I went out to find you guys. Luckily, Zoe, Barrett, and Arin's camp was closest. I knew where you were, of course, as a safety measure. Anyway, Seth--Commander Goddard, that is, told me that Gianluca ran to the ship and started up the engines. Commander Goddard got in the ship, and Gianluca programmed the autopilot to take them over to us."
The others stared at each other. "He did that?"
"Yeah. You guys should thank him. The doctor said that he probably saved Arin's life. If she hadn't gotten medical attention immediately, she could have died." She looked around. "Where is he?"
They shrugged. "We haven't seen him since we docked."
"Well, why don't you go on in? She's asleep, but you can see her."
They filed in silently and stared down at Arin. She looked even paler and smaller than normal on the infirmary bed. But she was breathing slowly and evenly, and she looked peaceful.
"Hey Arin," Zac said.
"Hey. How are you doing?" asked Barrett.
"The doctor says you should be all right," added Rich.
"I hope you get better soon," said Zoe. "We'll see you tomorrow, okay? Just rest now."
The group filed out slowly, but as they did, they saw Gianluca silently enter the infirmary. He didn't look at them. He didn't even acknowledge their presence. His attention was completely fixed on Arin.
He walked towards her and knelt on the ground by her bed. His eyes were on her; not staring blankly like they normally were, but actually looking right at her. None of his classmates--indeed, no one who had ever known him--had ever seen him look so focused. They watched, completely stunned, as he knelt by her bed, looking at her. He was literally trembling as he watched her lying there.
He leaned over and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. Then he fled the infirmary, not looking at his dumbfounded classmates.
"Did you see the list?" Commander Collins asked, setting her tray in front of him.
"What list?" asked Commander Goddard.
"The list of the people scheduled for the survival test."
"Oh, you're on it, huh?"
She nodded. "I have to go with the students on their survival test, and since I was off of active duty for a year, I have to go too."
"Well, have fun," he smirked.
"Oh!" She arched one eyebrow and smirked back. "You're going with me."
"WHAT!"
"You never bothered to get your mission status renewed," she said. "You have to go on the survival test this month or you can't be put on active duty."
He groaned. "Do you like torturing me?" he moaned.
"Oh come on, Seth. It's only three days. What could go wrong?"
*****
Rich Cooper groaned and threw his double-bladed super Swiss army pocket knife with laser into his pack. "I can't believe this is happening! Can life get any worse?"
Zac looked up from his pack, in which he was putting the regulation first aid kit. "Rich!" he hissed. "He can hear you."
"I don't care! I don't see why we have to get the zombie anyway."
"We drew names fair and square," Barrett reminded him.
"Besides," added Zac, "it's not like you'd be happy if you were in a different group."
Rich glowered at him. "It's not my fault I'm in a class full of losers. Still, Gianluca! He's the weirdest."
"Oh yeah right, I forgot," Zoe said sarcastically from the door, "you're totally normal."
"Hey," Barrett said. "Are you and Arin ready to go?"
"Hi!" Arin called, bouncing into the boys' room.
"Guess that answers that," Zac muttered under his breath.
"You are so not nice!" Arin said indignantly. "So, are you ready to go, Gianluca?"
The others snickered. Everyone knew that Arin had a mad crush on Gianluca. Whether he liked her or not, though, was anyone's guess. He always ignored her. Then again, he ignored everyone.
Now he closed his pack and sat down on his bed facing the wall. He didn't look at her or even seem to notice that she was there.
"Well, have fun!" Arin said after a while. Sheepishly, she rejoined Zoe and the others. "I'm, um, going to go get something from the room."
As she left, her pale cheeks burning pink, Zoe's brown eyes flashed with anger. She marched over to Gianluca.
"You could be a little nicer to her," she snapped.
He continued to stare at the wall.
"Are you even listening to me?" she demanded. "You need to be nicer to Arin--to people in general, actually!"
He stood up, picked up his bag, and walked out of the door.
"Hello! I'm talking to you. Where are you going?" She followed him out of the room, still yelling at him. The others followed, mainly out of boredom, even Arin, whom Barrett dragged along when she stuck her head out of the door.
Gianluca led them into the shuttlebay. An older cadet who was on duty there looked up at them. "Are you all ready to go?"
They looked at each other. "Um, not exactly," Zac admitted. "We need to go get our stuff."
"Okay, well, you'd better hurry up. The ship leaves in ten minutes."
The students, except for Gianluca, ran back to grab their things. By the time they got back, their teacher, Commander Collins, and another teacher, Commander Goddard, were just getting there.
"Hey Commander, what are you doing here? Is the government trying to silence you?" Zac asked Commander Goddard.
Commander Goddard resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "No Zac, but my mission status is out of date, so I have to take the survival test too."
"Neat!" Arin exclaimed. "Are you Commander Collins' partner?"
"Yeah. What about you? Who's in your group?"
"Well, Zoe, Barrett, and I are in one group, and Zac, Rich, and Gianluca are in the other."
Commander Goddard gave Commander Collins a skeptical look. He didn't know any of them very well, but from what he had heard, putting Zac, Rich, and Gianluca together was like pushing a ship down a black hole and expecting it to come out the other side. She just shrugged.
"Well, let's get going," he said, motioning the kids towards the ship. They boarded the Kobayashi and headed out of the Starcademy. As Commander Goddard flew the ship towards their destination, he recalled Kaci's last words to him. "What could go wrong?" he said aloud.
*****
"Well," Zac said, surveying the area that they had been assigned, "this can't be that bad."
"Yeah right," Rich said.
"We need to set up camp and find water," Zac continued, ignoring Rich. "Which would you like to do?"
"Water, I guess," Rich said.
"Okay. Gianluca and I will set up camp."
Rich snorted. "Good luck getting the zombie to help you," he said as he headed off with a jug to find a stream.
When he returned, he was surprised to see that everything was already done. An area was cleared of debris and a circle of stones lay in the center for a fire.
Rich walked over towards Zac, who was making notes in their log. They would document everything so that they could be accurately graded on their performance. "Amazing. Camp actually got set up. Did the dummy help you?"
"Rich..." he said warningly. "Did you get any water?"
"Yeah. There's a stream nearby."
"Good work. Hey, Gianluca, are you hungry? We should get some food."
Rich flopped on the ground. "Not me. I had to lug that thing all the way over here."
"Fine," he sighed. "I'll go find us something to eat."
Once he was gone, Rich looked over at Gianluca. He was sitting on the ground and staring straight up at the clouds.
"Hey dummy! What are you doing?" He sat up and stared at him. "HEY! DUMMY! WHAT! ARE! YOU! DOING!" He walked over to him. "Are you stupid or something? HEY!" he cried, kicking a rock at Gianluca.
Gianluca continued to stare straight ahead.
"Figures I get the zombie in my group," Rich grumbled, turning away. "This trip couldn't get any worse."
*****
"Rich! Rich, wake up!"
Rich rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "What?"
Zoe leaned over him. "Get up!"
"Why?"
"You have to come. Get up quick!"
"What's going on?" Zac asked, yawning. "It's the middle of the night."
"You have to come quick."
"Different teams aren't supposed to help each other, Zoe, you know that."
Zoe's face gained her customary defiant expression. "Do you think I care about that right now? Arin's really sick. You guys have to help her."
Zac jumped up. "Where is she?" he asked, pulling on his boots.
"We camped over that ridge," she said.
"Let's go."
Zac and Rich ran after Zoe, their handlights leaving bouncing circles of light on the ground. They reached the other group's camp in record time.
Zoe knelt by Barrett. He looked up at her blearily. "Did you get help?"
"Hey Barrett," Zac said, crouching down beside them. "How is she?"
"Not good. She started complaining of stomach pains a couple hours ago. We tried to make her feel better, but she just kept getting worse."
Rich joined them around Arin. "What did you guys do for her?"
"We gave her some painkillers and a muscle relaxant, but nothing helped. We tried to give her something to eat, but she threw it up. All she can keep down is water." Zoe looked worried. "She's burning up, but nothing seems to help."
"Arin? Can you hear me?" Zac whispered.
She moaned a little and covered her eyes from the light that they shone on her.
"Arin, what's wrong?"
"My stomach," she moaned weakly.
"Where's the first aid kit?" Zac asked.
"Here," Barrett handed it to him. "But I don't know what you can use in there that we haven't already tried."
Zac rifled through it. "Let's see...poison remedies, sleeping pills, anti-inflammatories, pain killers, muscle relaxants...I don't see anything," he said, shaking his head.
"Well we have to do something!" Zoe explained. "We can't just let her die!"
"What should we do?" Barrett asked.
"We could go get the teachers," offered Zac hesitantly.
"What?" Rich exclaimed. "We'll fail the test!"
"Oh, and letting Arin die will really save our grades!" said Zoe.
"We don't even know where they are!" Rich shot back. "What do you want us to do, wander around in the woods all night!"
"We have to do something!"
"All right, you two, cool it," Zac said. "How did you find us, Barrett?"
"I saw Rich at the stream," Barrett explained, "so I could tell Zoe where to look. I agree with Rich, though; we can't just run around blindly all night long. We should wait until tomorrow. We can send off an emergency flair."
"What if Arin doesn't make it through the night?" demanded Zoe. "She's really sick!"
"Could it be poisoning?" asked Zac.
Barrett shook her head. "We all ate the same thing, and we checked it three times. It was safe."
Zac paused for a while. "Let's send off a flair now," he said, "so that maybe they'll see it. If not, we'll send off another tomorrow morning."
Rich reached for the emergency kit, but before he could light the flair, a beam of light fell on the group.
"Are you kids okay?" Commander Collins asked.
"Commander?" Zac asked incredulously.
"What's going on here?" Commander Collins told them.
"Arin's really sick," Barrett explained.
Commander Collins knelt beside the girl. "She's burning up. We have to get her out of here."
"How?" asked Zoe.
Just then the Kobayashi landed near them. Goddard stepped out. "Is everyone all right?"
"She's really sick, Seth," said Commander Collins.
"Let's get her out of here, then."
*****
The students jumped up when Commander Collins left Arin's room.
"What's happened?"
"Is she okay?"
"She's fine. The doctors said that she ruptured her appendix, but she should be okay."
"What about the test?" Zoe hit Rich. "What?" he demanded. "I for one would like to know whether or not we passed, as I'm sure Arin would when she wakes up."
"Well, the principal and the Survival instructor reviewed what happened. I told them as much as I knew. I said that Arin became ill, and, because Zoe and Barrett couldn't help her, so they asked Zac, Rich, and Gianluca for help. Zac and Rich went with her, and Gianluca went to get Commander Goddard and myself."
"Gianluca got you?" asked Zac.
"Yes." She looked at him curiously. "Did you wonder how I found you?"
"Well yeah, but we were all so worried, I didn't really think about it," Zac admitted. "What happened next?"
"Well, I went out to find you guys. Luckily, Zoe, Barrett, and Arin's camp was closest. I knew where you were, of course, as a safety measure. Anyway, Seth--Commander Goddard, that is, told me that Gianluca ran to the ship and started up the engines. Commander Goddard got in the ship, and Gianluca programmed the autopilot to take them over to us."
The others stared at each other. "He did that?"
"Yeah. You guys should thank him. The doctor said that he probably saved Arin's life. If she hadn't gotten medical attention immediately, she could have died." She looked around. "Where is he?"
They shrugged. "We haven't seen him since we docked."
"Well, why don't you go on in? She's asleep, but you can see her."
They filed in silently and stared down at Arin. She looked even paler and smaller than normal on the infirmary bed. But she was breathing slowly and evenly, and she looked peaceful.
"Hey Arin," Zac said.
"Hey. How are you doing?" asked Barrett.
"The doctor says you should be all right," added Rich.
"I hope you get better soon," said Zoe. "We'll see you tomorrow, okay? Just rest now."
The group filed out slowly, but as they did, they saw Gianluca silently enter the infirmary. He didn't look at them. He didn't even acknowledge their presence. His attention was completely fixed on Arin.
He walked towards her and knelt on the ground by her bed. His eyes were on her; not staring blankly like they normally were, but actually looking right at her. None of his classmates--indeed, no one who had ever known him--had ever seen him look so focused. They watched, completely stunned, as he knelt by her bed, looking at her. He was literally trembling as he watched her lying there.
He leaned over and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. Then he fled the infirmary, not looking at his dumbfounded classmates.