After Joshua's fight with Tristan, Sarah was able to help with lowering the swelling of his bruises. Sarah also used the old steak trick to make his black eye not look so purple. She was surprised to hear that Tristan would do something like that to Jim and Joshua just because he was threatened by them. But then she took it back considering it was Tristan. During his healing, Joshua, Jim, & Sarah got the chance to talk a little more. Jim finally pointed out to Sarah that se had the same name as his mother; Sarah didn't know how to respond to that.

Joshua lived on a planet that was almost completely covered in water with only 5 large islands, before moving to the planet Tristan lived on 3 years ago. Jim told them a little bit about Montressor and his life before the academy. While Sarah was taking notes for geographic navigation Jim and Joshua ask her about where she was from and what happened before coming to the academy.

Sarah tapped her pencil on the edge of her notebook, and moved to the edge of Jim's bed. (She was hanging out in their dorm) "I'm from a planet called Ander. There's not much to look at since it's a small planet, but its home." She said happily. "It's almost completely covered in land except a couple lakes. I stayed at home read most of the time since there weren't many kids my age around. My dad is a first mate on a ship and my mom is a map maker. My dad tried to teach me to fly once, but I'll tell you that story another time." She said.

"Come on! We've been trying to get that story out of you since that our second day!" Josh complained.

"Yeah, it's time you told us the big secret." Jim said.

"Nope. You have to wait until I feel like telling you." She said winking.

After that, the days passed and not much happed unless you count the day that Jim's combat class changed its lesson plan. Jim went into combat class thinking that they were going to blaster training again. He was surprised to find that the shooting range was closed, and square made of tape had been laid out on the carpet portion of the room.

Jim sat down on the carpet with the other students and the teacher stood in the middle of the square. "I decided that you all had improved in your blaster training and that it is time to move on to hand-to-hand combat. You won't always have a weapon on you, so you need to know how to defend yourself. We would normally start with defensive combat, but since you have your survival trip coming up we'll start with offensive combat."

Everyone was taught the basics of offensive combat; the people who were learning fast (Jim and others) were taught more advanced techniques. Jim was wondering when exactly he was going to use these techniques, but then the teacher called them together for the last part of their lesson.

"Everyone has been paired with a partner, and each of you is to try and beat your partner. Get to it!" the teacher said. Jim looked at the list and was at first upset with his partner. Then it dawned on him what an opportunity it presented him with. He smiled to himself. Jim and Tristan were called to the square on the floor after the other groups fought in front of the class.

Tristan wasn't smiling his normal arrogant smile, and Jim knew why. Tristan didn't have nearly the same skills as Jim had in hand-to-hand combat and he knew that he was in for it. The whistle blew and they started.

Tristan tried to gain the upper hand by hitting Jim first, but he had far less experience in fighting than Jim did. Jim dodged his punch easily and grabbed him by the wrist to flip him over his back. Tristan got up from the floor and charged at Jim again and tried to kick him in the stomach.

Jim ran to the other side causing Tristan to fall to the ground from shifting his weight. When he stood up to charge again, Tristan didn't get a chance because Jim had punched him in the jaw. Tristan didn't falter and stood his ground. Jim gave him a hard kick to the diaphragm and the air escaped Tristan like a balloon that popped.

Tristan was on his knees trying to catch his breath. The teacher was about to stop the practice match, but Tristan stood up again to continue. Jim admired his resolve, but that wasn't going to lessen his beating because of it. He gave Tristan a quick punch to the stomach. "That was for Sarah!" Jim said to Tristan. Then he punched him in the face. "And that one's for Josh!" Tristan tried to stand tall, but fell to the ground and passed out.

Tristan was breathing heavily not having fought so hard in his life. "Don't mess with my friends or I hit you harder next time." The other students dragged Tristan out of the square on the floor and leaned him against the wall. Jim went to get a drink of water and the teacher walked up to him saying, "Mr. Hawkins, I can see you are a skilled fighter and your aim has improved too. If you keep this up and keep flying then you may be able to graduate from the academy by the end of this year.

Jim was delighted to hear this. If he could graduate this year, he could return to his family on Montressor and would start working on a ship and work his way up to captain. There was one thing that was lingering on his mind though. If he graduated this year would his friends be able to follow him?