Kirk woke up early the next morning. In truth he had woken up several times during the night every time an animal had disturbed the campsite but that was a habit that had long since stuck after his time on Tarsus IV. It was a survival instinct he had developed which had alerted him to the presence of guards all those years ago when he was still a kid. Although it made for a light sleep it had been the difference between life and death on countless occasions and hopefully would help him avoid getting stunned during the duration of the assignment. He clawed his way out of the leaf-covered ditch he had slept in and was surprised to see that most of the group – save for loudmouth – were already awake given the extreme early hours of the day they were in.
'Lucky thing he's still asleep, I was ready to dislocate his jaw if he didn't stop whining about his stomach,' Kirk indicated to loudmouth's sleeping form.
The Tellarite moaned and clutched his belly.
'Please don't talk about food,' he groaned, 'I haven't stopped getting hunger pains since last night. No idea how I slept.'
Uhura looked at the Tellarite sympathetically, 'Me too… except that I didn't sleep.'
Kirk noticed that Bones and the Andorian looked as miserable as Uhura and the Tellarite. Truthfully, Kirk had stomach pains as well but compared to his constant starvation on Tarsus IV, they were unnoticeable. Unlike the others, he felt relatively normal but it was clear that if he continued this drastic fast, he would eventually succumb to hunger as they had. On cue, loudmouth woke up. He rubbed his eyes and looked around blearily as the affects of sleep clung to him.
'I'm hungry' he stated.
Bones glared at him.
'Everyone's hungry!'
'Well what are we all sitting around here for then? Didn't any of you think to get food?' loudmouth complained.
Bones simply stared at loudmouth, 'words cannot describe the immense happiness I feel towards your earlier suggestion that none of us share our food.'
Leaning against a tree, Kirk smirked.
Loudmouth fixed his glare on kirk and struggled to get to his feet, his stomach grumbling in protest at the energy consuming action.
'Mock all you want, but I'm going to go out there and steal some food, and not give a single crumb to you!'
Kirk smirked again, 'yeah, we already established that remember?'
If looks could kill, loudmouths could – his face was a mask of absolute rage. Savoring his victory, Kirk smirked again and then shifted his eyes to the rest of the group. He addressed the Tellarite and the Andorian.
'You two both said that you didn't want to share your food – which is fine – but if you change your mind I'm about to go out and see what I can get. I'll share, but everyone needs to chip in and help get the food.'
The Andorian scoffed and wiggled his antenna's, 'I can find food just fine by myself. Don't need no human to burden me.'
He promptly stood up and began to march into the forest, his back ramrod straight and stiff – showing the other cadets his utter independence and implying offence at Kirks offer of help. Kirk shrugged, his loss he thought, with the noise the Andorian was making he was sure to be stunned as soon as he reached 30 metres of a soldier.
The Tellarite hesitated, Kirk could see his confidence in selfishness wavering – he just needed a small push.
'Your reputation won't matter when your stunned and fail the assignment,' Kirk murmured, 'Don't worry about what the other cadets will think, there are strengths in numbers and those who think they're invulnerable always realize that too late.'
The Tellarite wiggled his snout and gave Kirk a half-smile, then nodded his head. Kirk clapped his hands.
'Great! Now, lets go get some food.'
He grinned at Uhura who merely rolled her eyes in reply and stood up off the ground. Bones and the Tellarite followed suit then the trio followed Kirk into the forest.
Loudmouth watched them go for a moment, and felt a strangely unfamiliar feeling that his 'followers' had abandoned him. Then he shook his head, angry with himself to have allowed that infuriating cadet to bring him so low. Turning in the opposite direction that Kirk had taken, he stumbled off, determined to satisfy the groaning beast that had become of his stomach.
It was well past midnight when they had finally found a soldier – correction – soldiers. They were sleeping under a small copse of trees; a bag of rations, guarded jealously was squashed under the leg of a now sleeping soldier. The other two soldiers were in a similar state to their companion, except for the fact that they had shoved their ration bags underneath their shirts. It was extremely lucky that Kirk had found these three; if it weren't for the incredibly deafening snoring from one of the guards with the swollen belly, he would have simply missed their campsite entirely. Throughout the day he had expected to be attacked at least once by the soldiers, at least, that was how it was when he was on Tarsus IV. You couldn't even move 2 metres out of your hiding spot to take a leak before one of Kodos' soldiers took out their gun and –
Kirk shook his head in frustration and screwed his eyes shut in an attempt to stop the tears that were threatening to expose themselves. The thought had triggered long since buried memories and he had to wait until his breathing and heart rate had returned to normal before he risked opening his eyelids. Thankfully, they were dry.
Kirk studied the sleeping soldiers for a moment more before squirming back down into the ditch where other three were waiting.
'Well?' Uhura demanded.
'Three soldiers, each have a ration bag, two are impossible to get but we might be able to get the third.'
'What do you want us to do, fight them?' whispered the Tellarite.
'No,' replied Kirk, 'Bones can you paralyze the soldier? Hit a nerve or something? You learn that stuff in med-school right?'
Bones scrunched up his face, Kirk held his breath while Bones thought – it was a tedious request he knew; doctors believed in the healing of patients, not the reaping of bad health.
'Temporarily of course,' he added quickly.
Bones sighed; the affects of an empty stomach do wonders to a person's rational thinking thought Kirk. He grinned and jogged Bones with his elbow.
'Knew you'd agree to it.'
Bones glared at Kirk.
'Lets get this over with.'
Kirk turned to the Tellarite.
'If the other two wake up, you and Uhura attack. Ok?'
They both nodded. Kirk acknowledged Bones and gestured him to move up the ditch with him. Sighing, Bones complied. Once over, Kirk pointed to the soldier he wanted incapacitated. Quickly and swiftly, they made their way to the soldier and Bones knelt down next to him. Extending his thumb and index, Bones quickly reached out and pinched a nerve on the soldier's neck who twitched and then fell still. Nodding in confirmation to Kirk, who grabbed the soldier's leg and gingerly raised it to free the ration bag. Then the pair began the journey back to the ditch.
Ironically, it was the hunger they had come here to satisfy that betrayed them.
Metres away from the ditch, Bone's stomach grumbled. Kirk snapped his head around to glare at Bones who mouthed a silent 'sorry' before his eyes grew wide at something behind Kirk. Quickly, Kirk spun around – unfortunately, not quickly enough. He saw a brief flash of movement before a right hook caught him in his face and he fell onto the ground.
'Uhura!' Bones managed to holler before the soldier tackled him to the ground.
Kirk recovered from the brief fuzziness that had clouded his head and swung his leg out in a wide arch, kicking the the second soldier's legs out from under him. He scrambled to feet and heaved his elbow into the soldier's gut, effectively forcing the wind out of him. A final punch to the soldier's face rendered him unconscious.
Panting, Kirk pushed himself up to one knee and twisted around in time to see Uhura deliver a quick head butt to the first soldier who then slumped to the ground.
'Good work guys,' Kirk said.
Uhura nodded and went to collect the other ration bags. Bones grumbled and went to help her, rubbing his wrist he'd hurt during the fight.
'Should we stun them?' Asked the Tellarite, 'should give us 3 less to worry about and we can keep the phasers for protection.'
'Might as well,' Kirk agreed.
'Dammit!' swore Bones, 'Two of the bags are stuffed with leaves and only one of them actually has food in it.'
Kirk shrugged mentally, he'd expected as much. Each bag would have only contained the amount of food an average person would eat for dinner. Not many people would be able to have the self-control to ration out that little food; he was surprised the three cadets hadn't eaten everything already.
'Leave the bags, just take the food and hide it in your pockets, we don't want anyone else to know we have food.'
'Not for long,' Bones said.
Three bursts of blue lit up the campsite temporarily as the Tellarite stunned the three soldiers. A few seconds later their bodies were a swirl of atoms and then disappeared. Kirk noted that the sky had lightened considerably.
'Let's go, we can eat when we've found a safer area,' he declared.
The group set off through the forest again, energy restored with the promise of food.
'There's a rock formation there, looks like it could give us shelter,' Uhura pointed.
Kirk glanced in the direction she had indicated and his eyes dropped to the floor, scanning the undergrowth. He shook his head and pointed to the ground where the grass had been trampled and snapped branches dropped from the trees, hanging on by the barest piece of bark.
'Someone's already gone that way, they broke through the undergrowth.'
Uhura shrugged, 'We better find someplace fast then, my stomach's killing me.'
They soon found a place behind a row of closely grown trees, positioned in a 'C' shape similar to the purpose of a shield. Bones collapsed onto the ground, his back against the tree stump.
'Ok, let's eat,' he announced, grouping his pockets where he had stashed the rations.
Uhura sat down heavily on the ground next to Kirk, her face slightly pale.
'You alright?' Asked Kirk.
'Yeah, just a little hungry,' she smiled in an attempt to reassure him.
Bones finished distributing the food and started attacking his dried beef.
'Whoa! Bones stop! You'll throw it back up if you eat like that!' Kirk reached out and grabbed Bones wrist holding the mauled piece of beef.
The Tellarite hesitated as he heard Kirk's warning and resumed eating at a slower pace than before.
Bones looked suspiciously at Kirk, 'what do you expect? I'm starving!'
'I know, I know, just… don't rush ok? It's not much and it'll be gone faster if you keep eating like that.' Bones rolled his eyes and Kirk slowly let go of his wrist.
Kirk returned to his spot next to Uhura as she finished her food. He tore the stale beef in half and gave her half. She shook her head.
'Kirk you need your strength too,' she protested weakly.
'You need it more than me,' he insisted, 'you look like you'll collapse any second.'
Still she hesitated.
'Uhura take it, I'm fine I can go without food for a while.'
Reluctantly, she took the beef and began to eat it. Kirk tore a small chunk off his and chewed it slowly. The Tellarite looked at Kirk thoughtfully.
'What do you mean you can go without food?' he asked Kirk.
Kirk shrugged, 'I've gone without eating before.'
He didn't clarify and the Tellarite gave up asking him. After their incompetent meal the group fell asleep, however Kirk stayed awake. He was afraid that if he closed his eyes he'd be plagued by old memories.
