First Day Of School

Posted on Fri Oct 21st, 2011 @ 11:03am by Major Maxim Kamarov

Mission: In Our Time of Need
Location: Room 106, Satellite Academy

STAELLITE ACADEMY
CLASSROOM 106

The eager, fresh-faced cadets were talking nervously amongst themselves about the new course they were suddenly required to take and pass. Survival courses were generally reserved for officer trainees at risk, like pilots and intel weenies. The cadets were all quietly wondering why they had to take this class, and some were resentful.

Professor Kamarov, late commander of the Marine Forces on the base, strode into the room, looking refreshed and fit in his Academy attire. As he was not yet a tenured instructore, Kamarov's proper title was merely "Mr. Kamarov" "Good morning, students!" Maxim said brightly as he laid his briefcase on the desk and extracted a large padd from it. "This is Survivial 101, the foundations of what is hoped will be your ability to survive in hostile environments such as planets with no food, prisons, and other hell-holes. The techniques I am going to teach you have been around since the time of Hernann Cortez, a Spanish conquistador, burned his ships when he reached the New World in order to motivate his men to adapt quickly to their new homes. That action had its desired effect and the sailors and soldiers with him learned quickly from the natives how to survive. That in itself is lesson number one: always look to the natives; what they wear, what they eat, live in, sleep on, use for weapons. Then, just maybe, you'll come back to Mom and apple pie and your girlfriend.

"This course will not be easy. It is not designed to be easy. It is in place to test the limits of your mental and physical limitations in the field. Those cadets here training to fly, this course will determine if you fly fighters or shuttles for your career. Cadets in engineering will be asked to build things under impossible conditions, operations people will be asked to keep the simplest systems working in the worst environments around. You all will get a taste of what it is like to be a prisoner of war, and you will all be given the skill sets needed to escape prison if you are taken."

Maxim stopped and saw the wide eyes of the cadets. They knew he was no middle-aged desk jockey parroting what he read from a manual, but a for-real, flame-spitting, raw-mat-eating Marine that ate drive plasma for breakfast and pissed napalm. "This course will be divided into two parts. Part One is Theory. What it takes to survive, schools of thought on how to survive, specific case scenarios, psychology of survival, and hopefully some guest lectures. Every one of you will submit a term paper relating to survival, which will account for 1/4 of your grade. The remaining quarter of your grade will be from classwork, quizzes, tests, and the like.

Kamarov grinned evilly. "The second half of your grade will be the practical side of this course. Each of you will spend six weeks in a hostile environment via the holodeck. This exercise has been carefully planned to give you cadets just a taste of what is out there. The six-week unit will be dividied into two-week segments; first two weeks will be spent in a desert environment, the second two-weeks, in a jungle environment, and the third two weeks in a prison camp. The prison officers will be members of the Marines and Strategic Operations department. If you are injured during this part of the course, you will be recycled and give another chance to retake the field exercise. If you fail, you fail. Are there any questions?"

Nobody raised their hands. "One thing you will learn from me, cadets is that there is no such thing as a stupid question. I will not punish a student for asking me things related to class work."

Still no one raised their hands. Kamarov shrugged. "Okay, for your first assignments. I want you all to research a disaster and tell me hw the personnel involved survived. In addition, read chapter one of your texts and do the odd-numbered review questions at the end. Dismissed."

The cadets all rose and left the room quickly, leaving Maxim alone. If they only knew what I know he sighed.

A post by

Professor (Major) Maxim Kamarov
Survival Instructor
Starfleet Satellite Academy
Starbase 900