“…lost all power. Our hull is penetrated and we have sustained many casualties.”

The message had degraded during its transit in subspace. Some of the syllables had an almost imperceptibly artificial pitch to them where the ship’s computer had enhanced and filled-in milliseconds of audio, but the strain in the man’s voice as he tried to stay calm was still clear.

“Life support systems failing–”

“Captain Anand, your response?”

The sound of his name triggered the first release of adrenaline as the scenario began to unfold in earnest. Simulation or not, his performance today mattered.

Anand cleared his throat and hoped he was still calm enough to project his voice without shouting. “Set a course for the freighter, best speed. Tell them help is on the way and give them our ETA. Tell all transporter rooms to stand by and prepare all shuttles for launch.”

“Captain, as your first officer, it’s my duty to point out that any advance towards Breen territory past this point will certainly be seen as a hostile act.”

Anand leaned towards his XO, gripping his armrest as if to channel the authority of someone who’d already earned the center seat. 

“Duly noted and acknowledged commander, but right now I’m more worried about the status of the freighter’s life support than about the Breen.”

The commander nodded and the slight upturn of her mouth surely wasn’t imagined. 

“So she approves of my actions? That must be a good sign,” Anand noted with some relief.

They seemed to reach the freighter very quickly, with barely enough time for Anand to start second-guessing himself. As soon as they dropped out of warp, one of the console alarms trilled.

“Three Breen warships about to drop out of warp, sir!”

Anand gripped his armrests even more tightly. “Open a channel the second they do, but prepare for evasive maneuvers. I have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next.”

Hours later, back in the dormitory, Anand shifted in his desk chair so that the slanting rays of the setting sun weren’t shining in his eyes. The comm panel continued its persistent jingle until his sister finally picked up the call. He couldn’t help smiling at the pale holographic image in front of him, even if the rest of his body was communicating anything but joy.

“Sanjiv! Nice to see you, my little ray of sunshine!” Her delighted expression dulled as she read his face. “You look a little cloudy, though. How did the Kobayashi Maru test go? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

Anand waved his hand dismissively. “It went okay. I was fine.”

“Define ‘fine’.”

He took a deep breath that petered out into a sigh. 

“I lost my ship and most of my crew–” He paused for a beat as he felt the distress well up in his chest, and continued only when he was sure he could keep his voice steady.

“But we took out all the Breen ships and got some of the freighter passengers to safety on the shuttles.”“All the Breen ships? That must’ve helped your numbers. What was your final score? How long did you last?” she asked.“I’ll send you the stats when I pull up my course files later today.” 

She nodded and leaned back a bit, relaxing into a chair Anand couldn’t see. 

Maybe he could nudge the topic off-course. “Did you have to fight the Breen when you did your test?”

“Yeah. I think it was Cardassians before the war ended and the Romulans before that.”

“Hmm.”

Anand had been trying for a “how interesting” hum, but it petered out into an “I’m still sad” hum, and before he had a chance to nudge the topic any further, his sister leaned forward. “Hey now, cheer up! At least you’ve got it over with.”

“Yeah, but I’m just…” He slouched in his chair under the weight of his oppressive thoughts. “I’m not really happy with how I handled it.”

“That’s okay! As much as the Kobayashi Maru is an academic evaluation, it’s a learning experience too! Perhaps even more so. You’re still a cadet; you don’t have to worry about being perfect.”

Anand nodded absently as his eyes picked over the now-familiar details of his sister’s Starfleet uniform, and came to rest at the rank pips on her neck. She had five years of experience on him in Starfleet just as she did with life in general. She always gave solid advice.

“I’m definitely not worried about being perfect,” he said.

“Well, you can retake it as many times as you want. Just give yourself some downtime before your next attempt, or I’ll steal a runabout, warp back to Earth, and kick your butt!”

He was helpless against the real smile that bloomed on his face as he imagined his older sister doing exactly that. 

“Yessir, Lieutenant Didi!”

“…lost all power. Our hull is penetrated and we have sustained many casualties. Life support systems failing–”

“Captain Anand, your response?”

Anand felt the solid armrests under his tightening grip again and imagined holding the entire ship in place as he tried to stay present in the moment. The departure point for his new plan had a very narrow window of opportunity. 

“Set a course for the freighter, best speed. Tell them help is on the way and give them our ETA. Tell all transporter rooms to stand by and prepare all shuttles for launch.”

“Captain, as your first officer, it’s my duty to point out that any advance towards Breen territory past this point will certainly be seen as a hostile act.”

“Duly noted and acknowledged commander, but right now I’m more worried about the status of their life support than about the Breen.”

They reached the freighter. The console alarm trilled.

“Three Breen warships about to drop out of warp, sir!”

“Open a channel the second they do.”

Another alarm trilled as the three ships appeared almost simultaneously on the viewscreen. “Channel open, sir!

Anand pushed himself out of his seat and clenched his fists, projecting his voice as clearly and steadily as his jangling nerves would allow. 

“Captain Anand of the USS San Francisco to Breen ships: If you can hear me…” He took a deep, steadying breath. “We desperately need to purchase at least 200 of your cold storage units.”

For a moment the only sounds on the bridge were the ubiquitous computer chimes while every last person turned to their nearest neighbor to exchange confused and incredulous glances. 

“The, uh– um. Incoming message from the Breen, sir.”

Anand clasped his hands behind his back and nodded. “Onscreen.”

A single Breen appeared on the viewer, fully armored and inscrutable as ever. 

“Thot Zar to intruding Federation starship: is this a joke!?”

“No, sir, this is an earnest plea for aid through commerce.” Anand shifted his feet shoulder-width apart and clasped his hands behind his back, bracing himself for the wave of bullshit he was about to unleash. 

“A deadly illness has taken hold in one of our colonies, and we need cold storage units to ship a vaccine to them. The whole quadrant knows that no one builds them better or faster than the Breen. We sent one of our freighters to broker the deal, but something has clearly gone wrong with their ship and we’re running out of time, so I’m here to finish what they started. Please, can we talk business?”

A slight incline of its helmet was the only response for one long, tense moment. 

“That would be a costly undertaking. Do you or your freighter carry the required latinum?”

“We do not, sir, but I think I can offer you a trade.”

If the constant squeak squeak squeak of his chair as he kept shifting positions was annoying to him it must have been twice as insufferable for the proctor, but he was too nervous to sit still. And yet, the proctor didn’t seem to register the noise at all; she was utterly focused on the PADD in front of her. Anand would have suspected the long stretch of silence to be some kind of intimidation tactic if not for the fact that he could see her eyes rapidly scanning the screen.

Eventually, she laid the PADD on the desk, folded her hands, and cleared her throat. 

“So you gave away your ship?”

“Traded.”

She frowned. “By all accounts, you should not have been able to do that. One of the instructors was convinced that you’d cheated.”

Anand’s face fell, and his heart rate elevated from nervous to terrified.

“We know that you didn’t,” she clarified, her irritation turning to sympathy for the briefest moment. “Our holodeck engineers and security team established that quite quickly. Right now the leading theory is that the program was fed incomplete or inaccurate data on the Breen’s post-war activities. For example, one of the ships we sourced from might have been stationed too close to a nearby trading post. We’ll have to patch it for now and thoroughly review our sources for the next update.”

Anand nodded and felt himself relax a bit, though not enough to risk asking if he’d get extra points for discovering the bug.

“But that still doesn’t address the question of why you attempted to trade your ship in the first place,” said the proctor, the frown back on her face. “You realize your score for the initial test was actually very good, right?”

Anand sighed. “I know.”

“And yet you wanted to retake the test to– what, play out this exact scenario?”

“I wanted to retake it with the aim of losing as few lives as possible. And I succeeded!” He leaned forward to tap at the PADD. “Not one life lost past the initial explosion for either side!”

The proctor snatched the PADD off the desk. “Yes, and that will be factored into your score. I’m just not sure why you want it entered into your file that you broke the law by relinquishing Starfleet property to a hostile foreign power– a sentence that doesn’t fully convey the implications of you handing over an entire ship.”

Anand shrugged. “I simulated breaking the law.”

“To save simulated lives,” the proctor pointed out.

“Ah, well, you got me there.” He nodded and folded his hands in his lap, hoping to appear contrite so that they could move on and get the rest of the evaluation over with. 

But he couldn’t stop smiling.