Spring 2385…

Smoke filled the bridge as superheated plasmas met chilled atmosphere, and sparks flew as a console exploded somewhere behind. A crewman cried out in pain, but the lieutenant in the center chair didn’t turn. The enemy was dead ahead, and that was all that mattered.

“Starboard dorsal shields failing,” reported the officer at tactical.

Lieutenant Jake Lewis pictured the battlespace in his mind, the angles of attack for each oncoming vessel and the new weakness that’d just developed in their own posture. He knew exactly what they needed to do to compensate: “Helm, pitch ten down, roll forty five to port, and keep us on a forward heading!” His voice didn’t waiver, even against the cacophony of the chaos all around him.

“The ship can’t take much more of this,” warned his first officer, his eyes full with terror. They couldn’t win, not with the limited arsenal fitted to this frigate. “Our only chance is to run for it.”

A fool crippled by fear, Lieutenant Lewis thought to himself. They couldn’t run from the enemy, not in this old clunker. He also didn’t have it in his heart to run, not with those civilians still out there in harm’s way. “Negative! Maintain course and speed! Tactical, if we’ve got it, shoot it!”

Energized nadions erupted from every emitter, and torpedoes tore out of every tube. They threw everything they had at the enemy, but it wasn’t going to be enough. There were just too many.

They took another hit amidship, and the ship shook again. Hard. Too hard. Not like the impact of a torpedo rippling across the shields, but like an explosion tearing through the duranium double hull that separated their innards from the vacuum of space. Lieutenant Lewis didn’t need to ask for a report. He knew that feeling. It was like the Battle of Cardassia all over again, except this time, there’d be no Romulan escort to swoop in and save them from their end, to give itself to save… wait, that was the answer. This time, they’d be that escort.

“Helm, bring us about,” Lewis ordered, much to the chagrin of the first officer who’d advised this course of action before they’d taken that last hit. “Put some distance between us and that fuel carrier, but let the enemy continue to close.”

As they executed the maneuver, the ship continued to shake as it took hit after hit. Lewis, though, was calm. The hits no longer mattered, and the deaths suffered were no longer relevant. He just sat there, calculating the distance needed to avoid enveloping the Class III neutronic fuel carrier from the coming cataclysm. 

Once he was satisfied with the distance they’d made, he tapped his combadge: “Engineering, bypass all safeties and crank the antimatter injectors to full.”

“Sir, do you realize what that will do?”

“I do,” Lewis confirmed. He knew what he was ordering. “There’s no choice. Do it now!”

Three seconds later, their ship was no more, the uncontrolled deuterium-antideuterium reaction overwhelming the containment chamber and evaporating the subatomic bonds of the hull, the compartments, and the crew. Three milliseconds after, the shockwave reached their pursuers, and they too were no more as the conflagration swallowed them whole. As for the Kobayashi Maru, its fate was uncertain, dependent entirely on if the lieutenant had done his math right.

And then the lights came on.

The command cadets grumbled with frustration. What could they have done differently? How could they have avoided their failure? Lieutenant Lewis, though, stood proudly, center stage, with a triumphant expression emblazoned across his face.

Their instructor, a prickly commander in a perfectly pressed uniform, stepped onto the mock bridge. His eyes danced from student to student, studying them. “Why do you look so smug, Lieutenant?” he asked as his eyes came, at last, to rest on the man who’d just ordered their destruction. “Are you not taking this seriously?”

“I take everything seriously, sir,” Lieutenant Lewis replied coolly. “But we succeeded, didn’t we?”

“How exactly do you figure? Your actions led to the destruction of your ship and the deaths of two hundred fine officers.”

“Sure,” Lieutenant Lewis shrugged flippantly. “But let’s be real. Our lives were forfeit the moment the Klingons decloaked.” The tone in his voice suggested he was not bothered by the outcome either. “We died in service of the greater good, and in defense of the defenseless. We can go proudly into the long night.” 

Lieutenant Lewis’ classmates, though, looked unconvinced for they valued their lives, and the instructor looked supremely disturbed as the lieutenant seemed far too comfortable with this outcome. The intent of the exercise had been to create fear, not to train martyrs.

“You are not a Spartan, lieutenant,” the instructor cautioned, his tone equal parts judgemental and disapproving. “You are here as an aspiring Commanding Officer who, for reasons beyond me, they are actually contemplating putting in command of others.” He was familiar with Lewis’ colorful past, and it was a shame that deserving command candidates had been passed up to let this lunatic into the program.

“Then tell me, sir… what was the point of this whole exercise?” Lewis asked pointedly.

“To place you in an unwinnable situation, to let you feel the fear that causes, and to see how you maintain control of yourself and your crew under these conditions,” the instructor explained.

“Then I think we can both agree that I passed with flying colors,” Lieutenant Lewis insisted as he folded his arms proudly across his chest.

“An inexperienced assessment of a complicated situation,” the instructor said as he folded his arms across his chest. “One should not be so quick to throw life away.”

“Were I to have been any slower, we’d have been struck down before we had a chance to strike back,” Lieutenant Lewis shook his head, confident in the assessment he’d made. “But if you’re so certain you know better, then why don’t you tell me… when you’ve found yourself in a moment like this – in the real world – what did you do, sir?”

“If I was faced with a situation like this, what I would do…” the instructor began, preparing to recount his own experience with the Kobayashi Maru.

“What you would do?!” Lieutenant Lewis interrupted incredulously as he stared at the lanky little man with soft hands, unblemished skin, and an unscuffed uniform. This supposed instructor had never seen the darkness, he was now certain. “You see, that’s the problem. You speak in hypotheticals. You’ve never actually been there, yet you’re expected to prepare us for it?!”

The commander stood there, shocked to silence by the insolence. His classmates, too, looked equally stunned. Had the command cadet seriously just interrupted their instructor?

“Me, on the other hand? I have been there,” Lieutenant Lewis pressed, paying no heed to rank or position. They didn’t matter to him in this case, for when the long night came, everyone died equal and alone. “And I can tell you with absolute certainty that I’d do it the same every time, just like I did today, until, at last, death comes for me.” He didn’t blink, and there was no hesitation in his voice. “Fail me, if you dare, but you and I both know I passed, and it’ll be your loss when I’m not there to fight for you on the line.”

And then, without another word, Lieutenant Lewis was gone, storming out of the room. What a joke, he thought to himself. What could an instructor living in an ivory tower teach him, a man who walked the walk and spoke his truth? He made his way through the halls of the academy, passing classrooms where Starfleet’s “best and brightest” learned about policy and procedure, labs where they played with plasmas and photons, and holodecks where they practiced and prepared. It all seemed so insignificant. Why the hell was he even here?

“I hear you had your run in with the Kobayashi Maru today,” came a bemused voice from behind him, one he’d never expected to hear in the halls of Starfleet Academy.

“What in the hell are you doing here, Frank?” Lieutenant Lewis asked, a smile fluttering across his face as he laid eyes on his old mentor. Frank Negrescu had four pips on his collar now, but beneath that collar, he was still the same man who’d hunted smugglers, slavers and spies with him out beyond Acamar. Those had been simpler times.

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood, and I thought I’d stop by to check on my favorite operator,” the captain said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Former operator, Frank,” Lieutenant Lewis corrected, doubt seeping into his voice. What the hell had he done in accepting this opportunity? Should he have just stayed where he was? “They’re trying to make me a CO now.”

“And you’re doing your best to ensure they don’t, aren’t you?” Captain Negrescu frowned, a hint of disappointment in his tone. “I heard about your little stunt today.”

“The commander is a fool,” Lieutenant Lewis scoffed. “He’s not like us. He’s never had to look death in the eye, to accept there’ll come a day he won’t return. To him, it’s just playtime on the holodeck.”

“You can’t be so naive as to think that kid created the Kobayashi Maru,” Captain Negrescu chuckled. Jake Lewis was one of the most committed and convicted men he’d ever met, but sometimes, that same attitude made him such a dunce. Negrescu knew he’d just have to put it in terms Lewis would understand: “It was designed by wolves to prepare the sheep for what awaits them beyond these walls.”

“But I already know what awaits us,” Lieutenant Lewis insisted. He’d seen it in that cell with the Jem’Hadar, and on the bridge of the Hornet as he stared death in the eyes. He’d seen it too on Starbase 89, and then alongside Negrescu and aboard the Serpent. “I’ve seen the dark heart of the galaxy.”

“Yes, you have,” Captain Negrescu acknowledged. “But have you stopped to ask yourself why you reacted as you did today?”

“No.”

“So why then?” Captain Negrescu prodded, unwilling to let the lieutenant off so easily.

“I considered all the possible options,” Lieutenant Lewis asserted. “And, after it was clear we couldn’t shoot our way out, I chose the only option that…”

“No, kid, I didn’t mean why you blew the ship up. That was obvious,” Negrescu interrupted, giving Lewis no credit for what others might have called courageous and noble. For them, such sacrifice was simply expected. “I meant how you reacted after.”

“I… umm…” Lieutenant Lewis fumbled. He hadn’t given it a moment’s thought besides to discredit his instructor. “Uh… why is this relevant?”

“Because, as a commanding officer, it won’t just be you out there, Jake. It’s you and all those you rely on to faithfully execute your orders,” Captain Negrescu pointed out. “If you don’t understand how they feel, in the moment when you most need them, they will let you down.”

It was a perspective he’d never considered.

“Think about when I first came to you, eight years ago. You hated us, and everything we stood for,” Captain Negrescu recalled. “I could have written you off as foolish and ignorant, much as you did today, but I didn’t, and we can both be damned glad about that.”

“I’ll… I’ll take it under advisement.”

“That’s all I ask,” Captain Negrescu smiled, confident the lieutenant actually would. After all, he’d been the one to select Lewis for his unit all those years ago, and more recently, it’d even been his invisible hand and quiet influence that saw Lewis get a shot at the academy’s command transfer program.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Frank,” Lieutenant Lewis asked, flipping the conversation. “What did you do with the Kobayashi Maru?”

“I tried to ally with the Klingons,” Captain Negrescu offered flatly. “Figured if I helped them with the Kobayashi Maru, we’d get an inside track to use against them down the line.”

“Creative,” Lieutenant Lewis smirked. He hadn’t even thought of that, but he should’ve. “How’d that turn out?”

“Well, as it turns out, the others didn’t have the stomach for taking out a civilian freighter,” Captain Negrescu chuckled darkly. “The crew mutinied against me, and the simulation ended before I could gun everyone down.”

The callous way with which he described the act would have shaken most, but all Lieutenant Lewis could do was laugh. “What’d they say after?” He could only imagine his instructor’s face if he’d pulled such a stunt.

“They failed me outright – not just the test, but the program as a whole – citing concerns of moral turpitude,” Captain Negrescu frowned. The was why he had been forever relegated to the darkest corners of Starfleet Intelligence, only seeing his fourth pip at sixty years of age. “Don’t follow in my footsteps, Jake. Through my stubborn unwillingness to be something more than an operator, I gave up a profound opportunity. There’s only so much you can do from the shadows. You can do better and rise higher. All you need to do is seize the opportunity that lies before you, and you will make a greater impact than I was ever allowed. ”

For the first time all day, doubt entered into the lieutenant’s mind.