"Go back to sleep, Jim," Bones whispered as he slid into bed. Jamie rolled over to face him; he was exhausted.

After spending nine days with his family, they had to go back to class. Jamie wasn't surprised when Bones took up a new research project for the year; curing pyrrhoneuritis. He spent every moment that he wasn't in class or working in the emergency room, in the lab. She didn't argue about it, he was doing what he needed for his dad. This was one of those nights where he's only in bed because someone –Uhura and/or Spock, if she had to guess- forced him to go home. Blue Squad made sure he didn't work himself to death, they pulled him out of the lab or forced him to eat when he needed it. The team went on missions in the nearly three months since they'd been back, but nothing as major as the first one.

The next day marked the beginning of the Assassination Game, Jamie –and the rest of Blue Squad- was making Bones play. He grumbled but agreed since they were all there. Everyone gathered at the designated staging area and listened as Cadet Luther, a pretty girl studying navigation, laid down the ground rules.

"Welcome to the Assassination Game. The whole thing is pretty simple. You will each get the name of another player, you track them down and eliminate them. When you get the kill, you also get their target, the game ends when one player stands," Luther told them. Everyone broke into quiet but excited conversations. Bones looked at Jamie and Gaila.

"Why'd I let ya'll talk me into this?" he asked the two women.

"Because you love us, Leonard," Gaila replied.

Sulu looked at him, "We aren't gonna let you wear yourself thin. We know what you're working in is important but if you burn out, you can't help your dad or anyone else."

Kelso jumped in, "Yea, and I don't know if you noticed but there are whispers that you and Jamie broke up since no one sees you together anymore. That Thanas guy won't leave her alone." Bones glanced over at the Andorian that Jamie, Gaila and Uhura told him about. Even though they ignore him, when he thinks there's an opening, he asks one of them out. Bones wrapped his arm around Jamie's waist and pulled her closer.

"You didn't tell me that," he said against her shoulder.

Jamie shrugged, "Nothing you can do about it. You got more important things to worry about and I can handle him. He's annoying but so are a lot of people." They turned their attention back to Luther who told them the rules; you have to get your target alone and the only 'weapon' was the standard issue titanium spork from the galley. Kelso offered to help pass them out; Jamie, Gaila and Uhura couldn't help but tease him.

"Lee," the girls sang. He liked Luther. Jamie liked the woman; she was smart, pretty and brutally honest.

"The Varkolak!" Someone yelled from the back of the room. The cadets all shifted to look out the windows at the latest arrivals for the Interspecies Medical Summit. Most humans saw them as monsters, it didn't help that varkolak is the Bulgarian word for werewolf. Jamie looked at them and all she could see was leather, metal and fur.

"My uncle says they howl at the moon," one cadet said from the back of the room.

Another cadet joined in, "I heard that they bite the heads off of animals and drink the blood."

Brax spoke from next to her, "Professor Entarra says they want Theta Cygni." Jamie shook her head as even another cadet spoke.

"Federation wants the Gavaria Sector but I don't see them giving it up anytime soon," the kid said.

"Alright, children. The show's over," Bones said as the group entered a building and disappeared from view.

Jamie nodded, "Yea, some of us are part of the Added Security Detail, we gotta get this over with and report in."

Jamie, Brax, Sulu and Gaila -who decided to take up some extra combat training- were all part of the extra security. Luther got everyone's attention and instructed them to draw a name from the bag she held in her hand; it was their targets. Jamie smirked at the name and serial number she got. A few people got their own names and had to redraw. Once they each had their targets, they all left the room in small groups to go about their various tasks.

She and Bones made it out of the room and rounded the corner into an empty corridor. "I doubt anyone will come after you, Bones," she told him.

He looked at her, "How do you…" Bones stopped mid-sentence and found her touching his side with her spork.

"Sorry, sweetheart." She showed him the tag with his info on it.

"Dammit, Jim." She chuckled, gave him a quick kiss and took his target.

"You didn't even want to play. Love you, gotta go." She ran off to join Brax, Sulu and Gaila.

"Cadets, you are assigned to the Added Security Detail for as long as the Varkolak are with us. You will be assigned various shifts and posts though out the areas that they have been granted access. As you may not be aware, the fleet already has well-trained security officers, we don't need A.S.D. but Admiral Barnett thinks it's a good idea to let you get up-close with these creatures. Don't talk to them and let the real security handle any issues." Jamie could taste the disdain coming off the chief who was charged with looking after them. She doesn't know if it's the Varkolak or if it's the group of cadets that bothers him more.

Jamie and the members of Blue Squad had their own orders, they were to report back to Barnett if anything happened and they had standard rules of engagement like the 'real' security. The chief didn't know that though. Chief Hard-Ass issued orders and Jamie found herself and Braxim assigned to a conference room.

"So, Brax, you want the spot with no window or the spot with no window?" Jamie asked her friend. He chuckled and picked the spot opposite to hers.

"How's McCoy?" he asked. Everyone on Blue Squad was worried about him.

Jamie took a breath, "He's ok, mostly. He doesn't think he'll be able to do anything for his dad, but David convinced him that he made be able to help others."

Brax looked at her, "That's noble. Maybe playing the game with the rest of us will help." Jamie shook her head and laughed.

"Nope, I already took him out, I'm after his target now."

Brax gave her a look, "It's not me is it?"

Jamie smiled, "No." Her new target was an Orion guy named Ard. Jamie would have to come up with a plan if she wanted to catch him. The idea to use her 'relationship issues' to her advantage crossed her mind for half a second but she pushed that to the bottom of her list.

The door opened causing Jamie and Brax to go to attention. It was a science team, and judging by Uhura's presence, a linguist or two.

"Hey Ny." Uhura didn't say anything, she just waved her greeting and went to help set up the desk-sized computer. Uhura walked over to her but before she could say anything, the door opened again and three Varkolak entered the room.

Damn, they were as ugly as people told her they were and they smelled like dogs. A better description of them would be bipedal wolves. The important one of the group sniffed the air and did a visual sweep of the room, his eyes stopping on the two female cadets.

The Federation scientist spoke, "Doctor Lartal, thank you for joining us. Please take a seat." Lartal snarled for some reason and Jamie knew already that she wasn't going to like him.

The scientist, whose name Jamie didn't know, explained that the linguistics department was interested in enhancing the Varkolak entry in the universal translator. Lartal played along for a while, eventually, he got pissed off, "This is a waste of time."

The scientist convinced him that the information was useful and convinced him to continue. The scientist asked if he could tell them some common phrases, he rattled off something that the technician at the computer read as 'Wind above… with a man who stands out from its prey… becomes predator.' Jamie didn't have to be a linguist to know that wasn't what Lartal said. Even though she wasn't supposed to, she spoke up.

"I think the Doctor said something closer to 'The man standing upwind from his prey becomes the prey.' It's like that saying we have here about the hunter becoming the hunted." They all looked at her and she shrugged, "My focus is tactical."

Lartal barked a laugh, "At least someone in this room has teeth." If Jamie had to guess, that meant she had guts or balls.

The scientist asked for more phrases; she didn't know when to quit and Lartal decided to fling insults. Braxim was getting upset.

Jamie whispered, "Don't do it, Brax." Her usually happy and easy-going friend was getting angrier and angrier as Lartal kept talking. "Man, it's not worth it." Lartal looked over at Jamie, and then at Brax.

"So, you all aren't simpering weaklings like your Admiral Barnett. Soft and shapeless like a Regulan blood worm." Jamie knew Brax well enough to know that he was ready to strike.

"Come on Brax, don't do it. He's entitled to his opinion," she told her friend. How the hell did she end up being the peacekeeper?

"That's right," Lartal said. "If I think Barnett is a Denebian slime devil, I'm entitled to that opinion." Jamie wished that he would shut up; she was sure he was baiting Brax at this point.

"Stand down, Braxim. We have our orders," Jamie was almost pleading with him, "We can take a couple insults." Brax looked at her, nodded and took a step back.

"Are there no men here whose blood boils with the spirit of the hunt? The call of the wild?" Lartal asked.

Jamie answered him, "Not today, Lartal."

The Varkolak looked at her, "Nobody ever told you, Cadet, that prey never chooses its day to die?"

She smirked at him, "Who says that I'm the prey? Or that I'll roll over and play dead? It's not my style." Lartal smiled –actually smiled- at her. The lead scientist –captain oblivious- asked how Lartal said something, he shook his head.

"No, you couldn't say it, you don't have the … What is the word?" Lartal told him.

Uhura spoke up, "Wildness… ferocity."

"Yes," Lartal nodded. Uhura took a breath and repeated the phrase, perfectly. Lartal and his bodyguards lit up. She translated the phrase for the group.

"From tooth and claw are the Varkolak born." Jamie smirked; Nyota was awesome. Lartal looked at Uhura, then at Jamie, then back to Uhura, a leer on his face the whole time.

"There aren't many earth women worthy of a Varkolak warrior," he told them. He looked them both up and down, "A bit less ample than our women, perhaps. Hairless and thin liked shaved katu, but that just makes them easier to mount." Jamie closed her eyes for a second.

"Maybe you want to rephrase that, Doctor. I think something got lost in translation," she told him. Lartal grinned and moved to stand in front of her.

"I didn't mean to say 'easy to mount.' What I meant to say is that I would take you both to bed and make you my bitches."

Jamie squared her shoulders, "Yea, that's what I thought you meant." Jamie reared back and slugged him; she was going to be in so much trouble later.

AN: This is my spin on the Starfleet Academy novel, The Assassination Game. I changed some stuff... because I could. And because some of the story is close to STID.