-peeks out from behind a shield- Uh, hey guys and gals... Please don't hit me for taking so long to write this! And please don't hit me when you realize this isn't exactly my best work. I actually kinda hate this chapter. Not the stuff in it, but just the fact that it took me FOREVER to write it and that it's really choppy because I didn't know what to write. I thought this would be kinda cool to write but then I realized that it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be D:

So, I hope you, who have so wonderfully decided to stay with me on this story even though I'm a terrible updater, yes, you are happy with this. I'm not but maybe someone will. Also, thank you so much for sticking with me (if you're saying 'I'm not sticking with you, what are you talking about?' then I ask you this: Why are you reading this if you quit reading the story? hmm? Food for thought xD). Reviews mean the world to me.

Oh, and I think I said something about changing chapter four around, but I don't think I'll do that. I think I can work with what I wrote. I started to change it but then I realized that I liked my original idea better because it meant that I wouldn't have to invent some new element or compound or something. Okay, well, I still have to do that, but... I don't know, just... ignore the thing I said about changing chapter four :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the DVDs my family bought.


"Tarsus IV? That's the one where Kodos butchered all those people right?" McCoy asked, his eyes widening in surprise. He had a hard time believing this girl had been to such a planet, seen such horrific events, but he could find no reason to doubt her, especially since it would explain why she had visited a psychologist six years ago.

He did a quick mental calculation and realized the date of her vaccinations were around the same time of the famine. A quick glance down at his PADD and a few pressed buttons told him the vaccinations were only two months before the terrible event.

"Yeah," she replied, her unfocused eyes lowered as if she were recalling an unpleasant memory. "It was… bad." She was silent for a moment before snapping her head back up in alarm. "You can't tell anyone! The admiral that debriefed all the survivors told us not to tell!"

"I won't tell anyone I don't have to," McCoy promised. "But I'll have to tell Doctor Hartell. She's the Dean of Medicine." Rachel nodded slowly but said nothing. "You can trust Hartell," McCoy continued with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "She takes things very seriously and I think her father was in Starfleet so she'll understand when I tell her it's confidential Starfleet information." Rachel was silent for a few moments, her eyes staring off in space and McCoy let her be for a few moments. "Would you like to talk about it?"

After a slight hesitation, Rachel nodded and hugged her knees to her chest. McCoy couldn't help but notice how young she looked sitting like that. It reminded him of his own daughter.

"The records Starfleet has on file blame both the fungus and Governor Kodos for what happened. They're correct, of course, but they never mention that Kodos had only just taken authority over the colony a few weeks before. He was originally something of a vice-governor but after the sudden death of the actual Governor, Kodos took over. I don't think he ever had any real leadership experience before becoming Governor but the old Governor trusted him and that trust was passed on to the other members of the government. That's how Kodos was able to get rid of half the population with such little interference.

"I don't think he would have had any problems getting people to follow him anyway. Everyone was so scared. The fungus infected the animals' food first. The farmers didn't understand why their livestock were dying so quickly until other people in the town started getting sick too.

"When it was obvious things weren't going to clear up before help would arrive, people started panicking more than before. Mobs were raiding stores that sold food that wasn't made on the colony and some people had even been killed in arguments over food. That's when Kodos stepped in. His original orders were for the police to kill any adult that was fighting over food. He had strict orders to keep teenagers alive though and no one's sure why, even years after the event.

"It wasn't until Kodos realized there wouldn't be as much food as he thought there would be that he ordered his men to kill anyone who was sick, which was quite a lot of people since many people had been infected with the fungus by that time, anyone who was a nonessential adult over the age of forty, or any child younger than the age of eight."

Rachel paused for a moment, watching McCoy's expression. There were many things McCoy wanted to say but all he could manage to get out was "Why?"

"Because he figured people between the ages of eight and forty would have a better chance of survival," Rachel sighed. "And even after that, he went on getting rid of people that he felt would have a better chance to survive. He mostly got rid of adults. He decided that since they ate more than children, they should die first. One adult for two children was what he thought."

"So what did you do?" McCoy asked. He noticed his voice was quiet though he hadn't made it that way intentionally.

"I ran," Rachel shrugged. "Jim and a few other kids about my age decided that we should all run, try to hide from Kodos. We took a few kids that were below Kodos's age line too. We had seen some of them die at the hands of the police and we weren't going to let that happen again if we could help it. I don't know how far we ran before we had to stop and rest, but we ran for a long time, trying to find somewhere to hide. We didn't think Kodos's men would come after us, but they did. Kodos had been 'hiring' some of the older teenagers and even some of the adults that survived his killing spree to act as temporary police officers. The ones that came after us were only sixteen and barely knew how to handle the phasers they were given. I knew them before the fungus hit. They weren't bad people. I was so shocked when they actually fired at us. Most of us got away. Two didn't." Rachel took a slight pause, no doubt lost in her memories, before continuing.

"We lived off whatever we could find which wasn't much. It was late autumn there so most plants had died. Luckily we were found by Starfleet personnel a after a few days. They came earlier than Kodos expected they would come but they were too late to help half the population. I'm glad they at least came that early. Tarsus IV is inhabited by a lot of wildlife and one species is this wolf-like animal only it hunts alone. Good thing, too or else I probably wouldn't be here," Rachel added as she released her legs and pointed to her right ankle. There were old scars surrounding her ankle on all sides. "We were attacked by one of them when we were moving from one hiding spot to try and find a warmer one. It jumped on top of me and tried to drag me back into the thicker part of the forest. Scariest moment of my life. Jim found a stone and bashed its skull into its brain before it could get too far though. We all debated over whether we should build a fire and cook it but in the end we decided it was too dangerous unless we could a way so no one would see the fire or the smoke. Now that I think about it, it was too wet for us to build a fire anyway."

After examining Rachel's scar for a few moments, McCoy ran his medical scanner over it to see if it was still healed or if there was anything to learn. Scans showed nothing McCoy didn't expect but McCoy was still wary.

"The thing wasn't venomous, was it?" McCoy asked as he put his medical scanner away. Rachel shrugged.

"I'm not sure to be honest. It might have been. I wasn't really thinking straight by the time the Starfleet officers found us which was only a day after the bite, but I thought that would have just been from blood loss."

"Do you know what it was called?" McCoy asked, ready to take note on his PADD.

"I never got a good look at it until Jim destroyed its head," Rachel said, shaking her head. "Jim might be able to recognize it though if he looked through the database," she added.

McCoy nodded. "Do you think you can get him to come down here?"

"Sure," she replied, "It's still the weekend so he should be able to come down either today or tomorrow." McCoy nodded and both were quiet for a while.

"Did you learn all the details of Kodos's actions from Starfleet's files?" McCoy asked after a minute or two of contemplative silence. "I can't imagine they'd let you see them." Rachel gave him a small smile.

"If I tell you the answer is confidential, can you figure it out for yourself?" She kept eye contact with McCoy for a few moments, as if trying to send him a message. McCoy got it.

"You mean you actually saw that guy?" McCoy asked, astonished. Rachel nodded.

"Shakespeare mentioned in Macbeth that 'there's no art to find the mind's construction in the face,' and he was right. No one would have thought Kodos would have such a thing just by looking at him."


I was so happy that I got to quote Shakespeare xD

Anyway, that's the back story I made for Tarsus IV. I tried to stay close to canon but I made some of my own stuff up as well. That wolf thing is my idea too.

The thing where Kodos was trying to keep all the teenagers alive was from the Star Trek novel Academy: Collision Course and it's not really important for this story. I just felt like alluding to it because I rather liked that book.

Review please :D