DISCLAIMER:
Paramount owns their characters, I own mine. This concept is one they wouldn't
touch with a barge pole, so no worries there. Please do not steal this story or
any ideas from it, at least not without asking the author/s first.
NOTE:
This story is based in an alternate universe, where the Occupation only lasted
for 30 years, not 60 years. If you are interested in adding to this saga by
writing a novella to go with this world, feel free to contact me.
"Though both logically and mathematically impossible, the students of Starfleet Academy have managed to uphold this tradition for the lifetime of the institute, and show no signs of reaching a plateau."
The wording of the advertising pamphlet for the Academy had lulled many a cadets parents into thinking that 'Haze Week', as the seven days of regulated anarchy was called, was nothing more than innocent fun. This misconception could not have been further from the truth.
During the eighty years the Academy had stood in its current form, it had been the privilege of final year cadets to have a week where they could, within certain boundaries, run amok on campus. The week had initially been in the middle of the academic year, but had eventually been moved to the week after their final exams, and ran from the Saturday morning after the last exam had finished, to the next Monday when results and postings were released. For the intervening week, all senior cadets were given the run of the campus, with the result that the practical joke had become an elevated art form. Many cadets spent their years at the academy planning the pranks they would play during their week, always trying to best the year before.
Past pranks had included a large flock of bright green sheep found grazing on the front lawn, a group of Andorian students painting the entire Golden Gate bridge dark purple, and the year some Vulcan cadets took over the comms and spent twenty-four hours playing nothing but ancient Vulcan chants over the PA system. The few rules were relatively simple; any damage would be paid for by all class cadets, anything changed during the week had to be back in its right place at the end, and nothing must endanger any lives. The other unwritten rule, and the only one strictly adhered to, was that Boothby's gardens were not to be touched in any way. One enterprising cadet had tried to paint the roses an interesting shade of bright blue many years before, and had been found the next morning naked in the gym, unable to remember what had happened. Ever since, the gardens alone had been sacrosanct.
Everything else, however, was fair game . . .
Saturday dawned quiet and unassuming over the Academy campus. Birds twittered in the trees, ferns uncurled their fragile leaves to the warmth of the sun, and the garden waterfalls tripped and played over their stones laughingly. Everything was all right.
For about five minutes.
"Mmm-baaaaa!"
"They've started early this year." Dax's muffled voice came from somewhere under the blanket draped over her prone body on the couch. She and Nerys had been up until early morning celebrating the end of their studies with a bottle or two of 'Mountain Lightning'. Kira Edon, claiming inside information from a friend about her exam results, had sent his sister a crate of the potent Bajoran spirit, along with a message wishing her all the best on her first posting.
"What, by all the Prophets, was that?" Kira raised her head and groaned as drums started again. "Never mind, I think I've guessed."
"M-baaaaaaaah!"
Kira raised her head again, wincing at the light coming into the room. "No, I was wrong, whatever it is, it's definitely outside." Staggering to her feet, she wandered to the window and looked out. "'Zia, have you ever seen an animal with brown and white blotches. Largish, with a long face and makes-"
"Mbwaaaaah!"
"- A very strange noise."
"It's a cow." Dax was still buried beneath the blanket. "Sounds like a young one too, probably been borrowed from the Settlement Training Centre farm."
Kira had had enough. Reaching over, she grabbed the blanket and yanked it off her companion. "If I'm up, everyone's up!" She glanced out the window again at the calf. "Besides, I think someone had better take that animal back to its mother, it looks very lost."
"Why do I get the feeling it's going to be us?" Dax, yawning wildly, looked out at the young calf and groaned. "Stupid cadets, he's far too young to be away from his mother." She dragged her fingers through her hair, then gave up. "Come on. We'll take him home then come back and get changed and plot what we're going to do this week."
The door chime interrupted, and Jadzia groaned again. "Come."
Bashir skipped into the room, obviously wide awake and without a hangover. "Good morning ladies! How do you like the view?"
"Are you responsible for that?" Kira advanced on the man, who rapidly back-pedalled until he hit the wall. "Are you the one who took a poor little animal away from its mother and dumped it on the lawn out there?"
"Err, well, I...." He stuttered helplessly, then rallied valiantly. "He's only been there for an hour, there's no harm done." Edging towards the door, he smiled wanly. "Tell you what; I'll take him back now and apologise to the farm."
"Oh no." Dax grabbed one arm, while Kira took hold of the other and the three of them headed out the door. "We'll all take him back, and then you can help us with our plans."
Signs that the other students had not been indulging the night before were starting to show up on the campus. As they entered the south gates, Jadzia looked up at a building known to all as 'the Tower' and snorted.
Kira followed her gaze. Someone had written, "HELP!" on the side of the Tower, the last stroke of the exclamation point trailed downwards. "Ah, that old chestnut."
"Haze week wouldn't be the same without it," said Dax affectionately.
"Nice to know some traditions are being upheld," said Bashir.
"AH-EE-AH-EE-AH – EE-AH-EE-AH!" A figure wearing only a leather loincloth swung through the trees to their left.
"What the--?" Kira had turned to appreciate the view.
"Tarzan," informed Bashir. "He's a hologram, and so are his vines."
Jadzia sniggered. "I remember when one Cadet was caught doing it in reality. Boothby had him cleaning up the mess for five months."
"Got off lucky, I think," Bashir skipped to avoid a solemn-looking little creature with the body of a turtle and the head, hind legs and tail of a calf.
"I see the holo-engineers have been having a little fun," Dax noted.
Tarzan plopped abruptly in front of them. He truly looked like a wild man, not the clean-shaven version of so many recreations. He peered at them through a forest of dreadlocks. "You Jane?"
"No,"
"No,"
"*No*." Bashir tried to shoo the ape-man off as the hologram sniffed his leg.
Tarzan was, luckily for Bashir, derailed by the presence of a unicorn gambolling by. They made their way through quite an amazing array of bizarre creatures from quite a wide range of fiction. They even had to avoid Flodder and Treevis.
"You call this a little fun, 'Zia?"
"Hate to see what you called a lot," Bashir sidestepped away from a crowd of six-inch high, blue-painted and belligerent humanoid figures abusing them in a Scottish dialect. "What the Hell are those things, anyway?"
"Pictsies," said Dax. "One year, they turned the entire campus into something resembling Mother Goose."
They passed a sign, which read, "Now entering Mundania." Kira raised an eyebrow at it and said, "I think we'll be safe, now."
"Until we find the next prank," amended Bashir.
Almost immediately, they ran into some crossfire from the traditional water fight. Followed shortly by the crossfire from the traditional paint fight. Then a gang of kabuki-style samurai captured them as prisoners of war. Fortunately, they were only after the location of their opposite number, a gang of elaborately dressed turtles. Kira and Dax immediately gave them the location of the paint fight, then all three favoured the better part of valour at Warp Seven.
Sunday morning . . .
Fifteen cadets stood on the roof of the Tower. The most unusual thing about them, so far, was that they were all dressed in chicken suits.
"Crowers ready?" The lead 'rooster' bellowed.
There was a chorus of "Brawk" noises.
"Present; Bullhorns!"
>chk-whack<
"Hready! Haim!"
"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!"
"Fire two!"
"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!"
Somewhere in the distance, someone else had a bullhorn. "We want chicken soup for breakfast!" It had a distinctly Bajoran accent.
Lunchtime.
The holo-engineers, or someone else who thought it was a good jape, had extended the boundaries for the fictional characters, and now the canteen was inhabited by a forlorn mock-turtle singing about the benefits of soup, while Tarzan was busily engulfing all of the banana surprise.
A small, disreputable-looking dog had set up camp near Julian, Jadzia and Nerys. Their conversation, as a result, was periodically interrupted by a mysterious fourth voice that was obsessed with food.
"Doesn't look like many people are pacing themselves, does it?"
"Mmm," Kira said around her mouthful.
"I must admit that Lunchlady Doris is a nice touch."
"How 'bout givin' the little doggy a chip?" Asked a cockney-ish voice from somewhere below their knees.
"The big question is, what do we do?" Asked Kira.
"I dunno. What do you want to do?"
"Julian!"
"Wot about a little bit of chicken skin, then?" The strange voice persevered. "You dunt want chicken skin. 'S full of that klesterol muck; but there's this cute little doggy jus' beggin' for a bite to eat, sort of fing."
"I heard Admiral Jaggerns was last seen being carried off by the Pictsies," Dax informed.
"Couldn't happen to a nicer bastard."
"Amen."
"Bit of gristle then?"
Kira looked around. "Who the flakk keeps doing that?"
"Woof." Said the little dog, a bit too innocently.
Sunday evening at the Launch Pad . . .
"Jadzia, that was a brilliant idea!" Julian raised his glass in mock salute, and the Trill nodded graciously. "I hear Captain Gel hasn't recovered yet."
"Well, after four years of him torturing us in Federation history, I thought he deserved a little payback." Her smile was definitely smug. "Anyway, he worked things out eventually."
"It'll certainly have given him a new appreciation of the border wars, that's for sure." Nerys had helped create the holosuite program they had transported the lecturer into. He'd awoken to find himself on the USS Moscow, fighting a desperate rearguard action against the Klingons in the border wars, and the program hadn't cancelled until he saved the ship and won the battle. His only comment after finally being released from the holosuite was that he was very impressed with the reality and detail of the program, then he'd gone for a lie down and hadn't been seen since.
"The question now, my fellow cadets, is when do we do lay our traps for our beloved tutors?" Julian took a deep swig of his drink and waggled his eyebrows evilly.
Kira cuffed him affectionately. "Well, we don't borrow any more animals for a start." Leaning back, she stared at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. "I suggest we wait until later in the week, to see what others come up with. As long as nobody else has similar ideas, we should be able to spring our traps around Tuesday." She glanced at her companions. "That is, if you two agree."
Dax shrugged and smiled. "Sounds good to me. It'll mean I have time to fine tune the anti-gravity mat for the tunnel."
Monday.
Dawn.
A small group of engineering students, tired, hungry, but satisfied, stood under the statue of Zephram Cochran and admired their handiwork. Delicately balanced on the fingertips of Zephram's outstretched hand was a twentieth century automobile. A Volkswagen beetle, to be exact, with white panelling and the number fifty-three stencilled on it in black.
The chief lecturer in astrophysics and his counterpart in the science department strolled across the grass. "Impressive." Chief Brath smiled. "Where did you find the car?"
"In the New York Museum of Film History." The leading student waved a hand towards the gently swaying auto. "It took us six hours to get the balance right before we could even think about putting it on top of the statue."
T'lasa, Chief Science Officer of Starfleet Academy, nodded sagely. "Very well done cadets. I look forward to watching you get it down again."
"Oh we aren't getting it down." The group started to wander off, as their leader threw the frozen lecturers a grin and turned to go. "We got it up there. Getting it down is your problem."
"Haven't they gotten it down yet?" Julian and Dax shook their head and continued watching the entire engineering department struggle with trying to remove the car without causing damage to the statue. Kira sat down with her friends, shoving their dinner trays out of the way. "I thought they'd have worked it out by lunch, why's it taking so long?"
"The cadets didn't tell them that they'd used locked anti-grav sleds to get it there, but they were keeping it there with three co-dependant forcefield struts and a holo-base." Dax sounded impressed. "They can't shut off the power without the car crushing the statue, and if they try to use sleds to get it out, it'll interrupt the beams for the struts and crash down anyway." She turned to Nerys, a stern expression on her face. "And where have you been anyway? You vanished this morning and I haven't seen you since. What have you been up to?"
Kira tried for the innocent look. "Me? Nothing." Noting the scepticism on Bashir and Dax's face, she smirked a little. "Well, maybe just a little mischief."
"Nerys, what have you done? And why weren't we invited?" Bashir's grin threatened to split his face.
"Well, put it this way, we won't have to do any swimming tomorrow. Not unless you like swimming in port wine jelly."
Captain Fulavoff stepped smartly out of the changing room and headed straight towards the diving board, ignoring two giggling cadets sitting on a bench. He tsked in disappointment, someone had added colouring to the pool, thereby turning everyone else off the idea of actually swimming in it. Well, no mere Haze Week prank was going to stop a soon-to-be-Admiral from enjoying his morning swim.
He carried himself pompously all the way up to the board, and performed a perfect double somersault. Perfect, that is, until one of the sideline gigglers yelled, "Shark!"
He didn't land with the expected splash, either. In fact, it was more of a 'bwoing'.
Fulavoff swallowed down hard on some rising seasickness, and forced his body to go slack until the majority of the quaking was over.
"D'yer want some cream, cap'n?" another sideline giggler catcalled.
Fulovimself gingerly undulated his way towards the edge, only stopping to carefully sample the 'waters' once he was safely on dry land. Someone had filled the pool with an awful lot of port wine jelly. And half a ton of gelatine.
The Volkswagen had gone. The engineering crew stood around the statue looking strangely perplexed.
Bashir turned up at the elbow of one of them. "Something the matter?"
"It's gone," said the bemused techie.
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Yes, but . . ." The techie flailed helplessly. "We didn't do it!"
Dax and Kira stood, looking up at the campus flagpole.
"I don't know about you," said Dax, "but I'd salute."
Kira just grinned, taking in the sight of the Volkswagen, perfectly balanced and upside-down, on the top of the flagpole. "I just had to help those engineering folk out, y'know," she told her friend. "At least now they don't have to worry about the statue."
Tuesday.
A lot of anonymous notes were pushed under a lot of doors in the faculty office building. They declared that a general staff meeting was to be held at ten o'clock sharp, concerning wages and performance evaluations, and that the meeting was to be in the faculty lounge. Each member wended their way towards the lounge, thinking that another of their number called the meeting.
Among the last members of the faculty to enter, two thoughts occurred to them.
The first was, Gee, it's crowded in here. The second was, Why aren't any of the windows open?
The door slammed shut behind the last of them, and everyone inside heard the distinctive noise of the bolt driving its way home.
There was a chorus of, "What the--?" and, "What's going on?" followed shortly by, "Why did you call everyone in here like this?" That, in turn was answered with, "Me? I thought you did . . ."
One of the comm screens flickered to life, but it only showed an indistinct form.
"Good morning, faculty staff," said a disguised voice with a British accent. "Welcome to your exam. It consists of Three Thousand, Five Hundred and Seventy-four questions, which, if you fail to answer one correctly, will result in you starting your exam again. Any attempt to escape will result in an added bonus of an extra Four Hundred and Fifty-eight questions."
"Who is this?" Demanded one of them, who was hurriedly putting away a sonic screwdriver.
The figure didn't appear to hear them. "In order to make things completely fair, you may take notes, and confer, in order to pass. Once you pass, the doors and windows will be unlocked, and you may leave the exam room. Also, you will all undertake the exam under present acceptable conditions for students."
The air conditioning went 'clunk'. There was the steady noise of the system slowly shutting down. Only the air recyclers were left on.
"You may start now," said the figure. It was replaced by question one: Explain in detail the difference between a pre-ganglionic fibre and a post-ganglionic nerve.
"Right!" Bashir clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he joined his two partners in crime on the top floor. "They're out of the way for the rest of the day, at least. Anything you need me to do?"
"Yeah. I forgot the poppers and the party horns."
"And the doughnuts," added Kira.
"Oh, and the toupee detector."
Bashir gave up. "Why don't you just give me the list?"
Dax handed over a datapadd. It contained quite a lot of unusual items.
"Soapy frogs?" Bashir screwed up his face in the effort of understanding. "Pop rocks? Fuzzy teddy bears?"
"Just get them, Julian."
Hours later:
"No, it was D; Elvis died in 1977."
"No way, it's C; '76."
"'78! '78!"
I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAYS, said an incredibly bass voice from a tall figure that had appeared in the room. I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.
Someone had extended the boundaries of the holographic characters, again. The entire faculty suddenly turned and stared directly at Death. The faculty leader absently typed an 'A' as her jaw dropped.
>Bleep< "I'm sorry, that answer was incorrect."
There was a universal groan as Seventy people stared at question one: Explain in detail the difference between a pre-ganglionic fibre and a post-ganglionic nerve.
"Hand over the notes," intoned her second.
"Notes? I didn't think we needed them."
"Congratulations," sniped another, "You now have Six Hundred and Ninety-one questions to remember in detail."
"Oops."
There was a moment of profound, sweaty, and intensely angry silence. Eventually, the head said in the calm, steady tones of one close to committing murder, "If, after Six Hundred and Ninety-one questions, I ever hear the word 'oops' again, I will personally make sure that that person is expelled from the classification 'sentient'. Do I make myself clear?"
Fifty people volunteered writing implements.
Bashir was in charge of the obstacles, which in this case was a float pallet for each floor. He'd been amazed at the range and variety of both keys and hazards in the maze. In-between stamping brightly coloured balls with the number forty-seven, he munched on the contents of a bag of jelly babies.
"Julian, stop eating the obstacles," chided Jadzia, currently held in a gravity field on the roof. She and Kira were busy assembling the maze.
"I bought fese fo' m'felf," he managed around a full mouth.
"Then give us a handful, you selfish sod." Kira stuck out a hand while holding the spring-loaded teddy bear in place.
He surrendered the bag and, after a moment, bought out a packet of doughnuts.
"Amazing, isn't he?"
"I'm at a loss for words . . ."
"Can I ask a question?" Julian asked.
"Ask two," said Dax.
"Why forty-seven?"
"It just turns up a lot, that's all." They returned to work, but not for long, as they heard the distinctive strains of accordion music wafting through the windows.
Julian took his doughnuts to the nearest available window. "Oh . . . my . . . God . . ."
"What is it?"
"You remember those chickens from Sunday morning?"
"Yes." Kira growled the word.
"They're doing this bizarre dance across the lawn." He laughed at the spectacle. "You have got to see this . . ."
Jadzia glanced at her chrono. "Yeah, we're way ahead of schedule, anyway."
They toured to the window and laughed out loud. The Tower chickens were the source of the music. They were also convulsing regularly to the accordion. First, they made little beak motions with their hands, then they folded up their arms and made flapping motions with them, then they performed a few gyrations known as 'the twist'. Lastly, they clapped their hands four times before starting again.
Jadzia was the one laughing the loudest. "It's the duck dance!"
"The what?"
"It's also known as the expo duck dance, the chicken dance, and the Bogan boogey," she informed. "It reached the height of its popularity in 1988, and has yet to be buried respectably."
Below, a group doing the conga intercepted the chickens and came away with one of them. There was a distant cry of, "Traitor!"
"Looks like everyone's dancing," Kira noted.
"It's infectious," Jadzia told them.
Indeed, several dancing groups were converging on the lawns below. A group of 'Klingons' were doing a ceremonial knife dance from a particularly ancient opera; unfortunately, they were doing it to selections from the Nutcracker Suite. Coming in at another angle was a group of Macarena-ing idiots, escorted by a group dancing to 'Cuban Pete'. A brief scuffle ensued.
It was all over when the hover-sled arrived carrying elaborately costumed cadets arrived, dancing to the 'Time Warp'. All others threw up their arms and joined in, only to be interrupted, if only for the staring time, by a driver-less Volkswagen trundling through the crowd and beeping in a cheery way.
"Oi!" Kira yelled out the window. "That was my flakking Volkswagen!"
"Not 'ny more!" Hollered a time-warping cadet.
"Enough of that," Julian trundled back to his former position by the float pallet. "Time to get back to work. Only two more floors and the basement to go."
Kira and Dax snaffled some of the doughnuts on the way.
Seventy exhausted faculty staff tumbled out of their lounge, gasping and airing themselves in the breeze. Many sighed and groaned as others collapsed onto the nearest supporting surface.
"Who votes we find out whoever did this and string them up by their 'nads?" Volunteered the faculty leader.
The Lecturer in Recent History, Professor Alfred Swahila, let his gaze fall on the nearest chronometer. He immediately began swearing.
"What?"
"The little flakkers have had seven hours to get into our offices . . ."
Those still doing the Time Warp on the lawn were treated to the sight of all lecturers, tutors and instructors heading at full speed towards the faculty office building. There was just enough room inside the lobby for all of them to stand and stare, confused, at the solid wall of panelling. Part of it had a comm screen installed.
"If it's that flakking little bastard from the exam, I'll flakking murder the sod."
"You and me both."
It wasn't the same silhouette, nor the same voice or accent. "Greetings. In order to watch this, you will have passed the written portion of your exam. Now follows the physical – an extended obstacle course. Tools to disassemble this labyrinth are available once you enter your office. One tool per office. We have taken care that each tool has been used in the construction of this course, so all of you will be needed to disassemble it. This exercise not only tests your physical capabilities, but also tests your ability to work as a team. Refreshments will be provided as you progress. You may all leave now in order to rest and relieve yourselves, but in order to start this exercise, each of you must leave a personal item in the contribution box. Good luck."
"Rrrr."
"Rrrr."
"Rrrr!"
Three cadets strolled through an amassing crowd; laughing so hard they nearly wet themselves. They were only stopped by the sheer mass of students, and campus security staff.
"Move along, please, nothing more to see here," boomed the security chief.
Above him, three strange women on broomsticks were arguing with another woman with an umbrella and an oddly two-dimensional gentleman in an overcoat with a helicopter stuck in his hat.
Jadzia stifled her laughter long enough to identify them. "There's Inspector Gadget, Mary Poppins, Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, and Magrat Garlick up there . . . They're fighting like cats!"
"What have our holo-engineers been up to?" Kira asked.
"Julian, loan me your shoulder for five seconds. I want to see what everyone's staring at on the ground."
"Alley –hoop."
"Looks like superman crashed with condor-man and . . . a skinny looking guy in a funny red suit . . ." Jadzia hopped back down. "Looks like we're going to have to work for our craziness this year."
"Nothing to see here," persisted the security chief. "Move along, now."
"Wowzers!"
"If you say that one more time, young fellermelad, I'll bloody turn you into one!"
"Tatsukete!" Screamed another holocharacter; an apparently two-dimensional young oriental male in Chinese clothes. He veered away from the crowds and tried to jump the ornamental pond. "Setsujitsni! Hijouguchi!" He didn't make it, landing with a giant splash and emerged at the other end as a red-haired oriental female. "Augh!" She took off at high speed.
One cadet glared at another. "I told you, a million times, no flakking comic book characters."
"I like comic book characters," defended the other.
"We all agreed, fantasy books only. No cartoons."
"You let Inspector Gadget in."
"He's well-recognised."
"So's Ranma!"
"NO!"
"Well, you won't like the next lot, then."
"Next lot?"
There was a howl, from wolf throats and some that weren't. A gang of shrunken Elves, all riding on wolves twice the normal size, thundered past.
"What can I say?" The second one shrugged. "I love the classics."
"You are going straight to the hologenerators an turning off all the comic book characters you put in."
"No way!"
"And why not?"
"The Pictsies have set up camp there with four bottles of Mountain Lightning. Do you want to go in against a bunch of drunken Pictsies?"
"Right," announced the first. "That's it, I'm hiding in a bunker for the rest of the week."
Alfred groaned the instant he looked to his left. Five other professorial heads looked back at him. "Flakking cadets," he grumbled. "We should flakking outlaw the mongrels . . ." Each entryway, allegedly for a different floor, all lead to the same crawlspace. Since he, Alfred Swahila, had his office on the top floor, furthest from the doors, it looked as though he was going to be in for the longest tour.
The ground floor was relatively tame, and full of little notices like, "Take souvenirs" and "Watch out for killer teddy bears". It was the small 'pool' of ping-pong balls, all painted orange, that made him wonder about the sanity of the cadets that set this trap up. He pocketed one of the balls in passing, just in case they were truly insane, while theorising about stress levels and their effects on students' creativity thresholds.
Up ahead, someone set off a teddy bear and was beamed out. Alfred took note of where that particular professor had placed his hand.
He passed that trap without incident, only to fall sideways onto a wall. Lovely. They'd gotten hold of some gravity mats as flakking well!
Grumbling all the way to the basement, Alfred collected a handful of jelly babies [one of each colour] a feathered curlytoot, a cocktail umbrella, a soap rose, a piece of string and a yo-yo. The entrance to the basement had a warning that read, "Dungeon: Wig free zone. If you wear artificial hair, you must surrender it in order to pass safely through."
Considering that their warnings so far had been serious, Alfred surrendered his hairpiece in the little box.
"So, how are we doing?"
Jadzia counted up the tally. "Five expected, two unexpected and one downright surprising."
Julian raised an eyebrow. "Which one's the surprising one?"
"The one with the sideburns," Kira indicated it. "Apparently, Professor Lombardi doesn't have a hair on his head."
"We were all taken surprise by Counsellor Divas, though. Who knew she was a little light on top?"
"I guessed," informed Kira. "It's the way she always wore hats or scarves in windy weather."
"Show-off."
Another hairpiece beamed in. "Lecturer Swahila made it through the basement. Ooo . . ." Dax picked it up. "I knew he had a rug, but I didn't know it was this big."
Bashir grinned, "I bet you say that to all the boys."
Thursday.
There are some things in narrative that are best described by sound. This was not one of them. An impartial observer, well out of the way of incidental harm, would have seen the following at about lunchtime:
A Klingon Targ was running for its life through the open spaces of the campus. It was squealing like - well; like a stuck pig.
The Klingon exchange students were in close pursuit, followed closely by the wolf-riding elves. Then a mass of small blue figures, each with their own battle cry.
"Bigjobs!"
"Ach! Stikkit yer trakkans!"
"Nac mac Feegle wha hae!"
"Dere c'n onlie be whin t'ousand!"
"Wha hae yersel, ya boggin!"
A few minutes after the Targ hunt passed, there was more screaming and hooting. It came from a group of twenty or so cadets running through the campus, stark naked. Their leader was carrying a flag proclaiming themselves to be the Starfleet Skinny-dipping Society. They ran full pelt towards whatever body of water was nearby, and dived in, still yawping in excitement.
After a handful of minutes splashing and cavorting in the water, the Starfleet Skinny-dipping Society took up their banner and headed at a run towards the next body of water.
"Twenty-eight!" One yelled.
"Twenty-eight!"
"Twenty-eight!" Their leader grinned, then hollered at the top of his voice, "YEEEE-HOOO!"
Only during Haze Week would any body of students see how many academy ornamental ponds and fountains they could swim in before someone tried to stop them.
"Scalpel . . ."
"Scalpel."
"Three-eighths gripley . . ."
"Three-eighths gripley."
"Yellow fuzzy teddy bear . . ."
"Yellow fuzzy teddy bear."
There was a pause, and the slight beeping of a scanner set for a certain item giving an error message.
"Bugger. Wrong yellow teddy bear. Try the one with the puce ribbon. And the green feet."
"There's a colour called 'puce'?" Enquired the lecturer holding the float pallet.
"It's the sick pink that looks like a Ferengi's been chewing on it," added another, whose job it was to hand over the 'tools'.
"Just hand it over, will you?" Demanded Swahila. It had been a long day on nothing else but ration packs, and he was feeling very tetchy.
"Yellow fuzzy teddy bear, with puce ribbon and green feet."
Another section of the maze literally fell to pieces, revealing yet another two professors who'd only got as far as the section of hallway immediately outside their office doors. One was holding a tuning fork and another held a soccer swing-rattle.
"This," announced Swahila with exhausted sarcasm, "is going to be so much fun . . ."
Friday evening saw the exhausted academy staff relaxing in their rooms. The maze had been dismantled easily once they had all the 'tools' used to build it, although the wind-up teddy bear with the drum hadn't seemed to be of much use.
'BOOOOOOOM'
Captain Perela shot to her feet and crawled under her desk, tapping her commbadge madly. "Security! We're under attack!"
"Negative." The disembodied voice sounded surprisingly calm. "We are simply experiencing a display of very loud fireworks, thanks to Cadet Dax and the science labs. Security out."
'KA-BOOOOOOOM!'
Perela shuddered and left for her quarters as a giant flaming red kangaroo bounded across the sky trailing blue flames.
It was going to be a sleepless night.
Saturday evening had eventually arrived, to the intense relief of all members of the faculty and planet Earth in general.
All had been quiet on the campus for some hours now, aside from the occasional holo-character that strolled across the lawn, and the sound of construction from inside a large metal container near the front gate. Curious interlopers had been rudely told to 'Mind your own flakkin business' when they tried to peer into the box.
Anyway, with the final night now approaching, most cadets where getting ready for a night on the town and to invade the Launch Pad. The bar in question had put on extra staff, ordered extra supplies, and replaced the traditional glassware with Tupperware. The owner was under no illusions about officer conduct when it came to Haze Week.
The cadets mess was watching happily as the group began to move off to the bar as soon as dinner was finished. It was then however, that clapping and cheering began again, as well as gales of laughter from somewhere near the front gate. Admiral Lombardi, fearing another prank, charged over to the entrance, to find a series of glass-fronted cages, all with certificates and ribbons hanging from them, and containing what appeared at first glance, to be Tribbles.
He too a closer look, and his jaw dropped in shock. They weren't Tribbles, they were the fake hairpieces collected by the lunatics who'd built the maze.
Shocked, he grabbed a cadet and ordered them to go get the rest of the staff, then slowly walked along the line of cages, wincing as he saw the owners name printed neatly on the front of the boxes, along with such comments as 'Best breed in show' and 'Most original colour of breed'. The wince became a tic when he came to his own toupee, and saw it had the award for 'Floppiest ears in show', and obvious reference to the sideburns. Seething with embarrassment, he tried to open the box, but it was another minute before he saw the retinal scanner unlock device at the side.
Snatching his hairpiece out of the container, he watched in horror as a holo-replica of the item appeared in the box. He grabbed a nearby engineering cadet. "Turn that holo-generator off, NOW!"
The cadet grinned and pointed to a sign. "Can't. The generator can only be disengaged after all the toupee have been collected by their owners." he glanced at the item clutched in Lombardi's hand and grinned wider. "By the way, congratulations sir, you must be very proud."
The admiral could only watch as the cadets left for the bar, still laughing. "Banned. I'll have this tradition banned if it's the last thing I do!"
Sunday Night . . .
"We're here because we're here because we're here because we're heeeeeeeere . . ."
There was a group of cadets clutching Tupperware tankards and singing by a large tub. It had a sign, which read, "Punch bowl. All contributions welcome."
Kira poured in two bottles of Mountain Lightening, to the cheers of everyone present. She dipped herself a tankard and had to shout into Dax's ear to be heard above the cacophony, "Do they always sing that?"
Dax shouted into her ear, "Just wait until they start with that old favourite, 'Hello'."
Julian, who must have had excellent hearing added, "Then there's the timeless classic, 'More beer'."
Without missing a beat, or for that matter, changing the tune, the cadets started another song. "More beer, more beer, more beer, more beer; more beer more beer, more beeeeeeeeerr . . ."
The three friends moved away from the punch bowl into a relatively quieter spot; where they only had to shout to be heard above several different music selections, and other cadets singing along with whatever was handy.
"The tune sounds familiar!" Kira said.
"It's 'Auld Lang Syne'!" Dax informed.
"Old what?"
"Traditional Earth song!" Bashir told her. "It's in ancient English." Then he demonstrated at the top of his voice. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot,"
Jadzia joined in, "A-and never bought to mind,"
The nearest twenty cadets joined them, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot; for the sake of auld lang syne."
Before very long, Kira Nerys was treated to more Auld Lang Syne than was probably safe for humanoid consumption. It had an amazing effect on all the humans present. They started crying into their punch and hugging random people as they passed and continued sing.
The bartender, meanwhile, simply screwed in earplugs and settled in for a long, long night.
Sunday dawned bright and sunny, with a few small fluffy clouds scudding across the sky.
This was the day the staff had been waiting for.
At six a.m. precisely, every senior cadets room on the campus was invaded by security - who found them all completely empty.
The gymnasium however, was full, as was the engineering department, where, after a pitched battled with the pictsies, who were eventually pacified with two bottles of scotch, the hologenerators had been turned off and were now being returned to the labs they'd been borrowed from.
The pool was being cleaned of the last of the jelly, although some had found it's way into a huge bowl, along with some custard and cake. The bowl had been thoughtfully labelled 'An unconsidered trifle' by some unknown wit.
The transporters were in full use, as the larger items were beamed back to their rightful owners and place, although the Volkswagen was still on the lawn. Several history students had liberated it, cleaned it up, and announced that they intended to drive it back to the museum before leaving for their first postings after graduation.
Boothby wasn't speaking to anyone. Even holocharacters can damage gardens, and Targs don't help either, especially when hotly pursued by Klingons. His bad temper was somewhat mollified however, when after lunch, the entire class turned up with new plants and seedlings and proceeded to replant and replace what had been lost or damaged.
Dinner that night was a quiet affair in the mess, most cadets returning to their rooms and sleeping. After the fun of the week, everyone knew that the exam results would be posted the next day.
The main notice board outside Academy headquarters was an interesting item. It was constructed from titanium alloy, with duridium inlays. Two steel rods went down the centre of the legs and six feet into the ground. In short, this board wasn't designed to be moved or damaged, which was rather important considering it was where the graduation announcements were placed on the Monday.
The head clerk, with his security detail at his side, glanced nervously out the main door. It was only ten metres to the board, but anything could happen. The year before, a group of cadets had tried to kidnap the announcements clerk as he left the safety of the building, and several years before that, a band of Klingon cadets had transported that years clerk into the basement and held him for the ransom of a barrel of blood wine and access to the comm system with their Klingon opera collection.
Still, this year all seemed quiet, and the clerk almost ran towards the board with his detail, pinned up the notice, then scuttled back to the building, relieved that his job was done. A mere fraction of a second after he was back inside, an unconsidered trifle, replete with its label, landed with a distinct 'splut' on the ground where the clerk had been.
"Bugger," said someone on the balcony above. "Missed!"
With the formal announcement of places and results, Haze Week was declared finished, and life at the Academy was expected to return to normal. Those cadets who had graduated would attend a ball that night in the main banquet hall, exchanging their cadet's uniform for formal officers attire for the first time. They would be formally given their first posting assignments at the ball as well.
The first cadets appeared late that morning, tired and nervous. A steady trickle began towards the board, with most relieved as they saw they'd passed. A few however, returned to their quarters and packed quietly, having either failed their exams and leaving Starfleet, or having to move into holiday quarters and resit the exam again after everyone else had left.
Bashir was waiting for Kira and Dax as they appeared. He was confident that he would have passed this military year, the final part of his Starfleet course, but he knew that Kira was not at all confident of having passed the science component. Dax was calm and relaxed as well, secure that she had passed, but knew that her roommate was nervous.
"Come on, standing here won't make it go away." Kira strode towards the board, the other trailing after her.
"What happened if she doesn't pass?" Julian spoke softly to Dax, who shook her head.
"She has to leave Starfleet and go back to Bajor. She can re-apply in two years, but..." Her voice trailed off and she shrugged again. Julian understood the unspoken comment; Kira wouldn't re-apply if she failed here.
The group clustered around the board was ever changing, as people came and went, but it was a good five minutes before Nerys re-appeared from the crowd, relief on her face. "I passed!" The others immediately enveloped her in a bear hug. "I got sixty-fiver percent, a pass for security. Only just, but still a pass."
"Congratulations." Dax hugged her again as Julian ruffled her hair playfully. "All that extra study paid off in the end. Now the three of us can go to the banquet tonight."
"I don't suppose you saw our results?" Julian tried to look uninterested.
"Yes, and of course you both passed as well." Kira rolled her eyes. "As if either of you were going to fail." They turned back towards their rooms. "I guess we'd better get ready for tonight then."
"I wonder where they'll send each of us?" Dax mused as they strolled off.
"Probably as far away from each other and here as possible," Julian quipped.
The banquet was in full swing, a jazz band providing light and breezy melodies as officers and ensigns chatted and danced. The night had an informal air about it, a buffet-style dinner taking the place of a more formal sit-down meal. There was another dessert consisting of custard, cake and jelly in the buffet and, after a group of snickering cadets passed, it was labelled as "Son of an unconsidered trifle".
As was the custom, the ambassadors of every race of graduating cadet were present, although Kira and the Bajoran ambassador kept each other at arms length, to the extent that even Bashir noticed the tension and nudged Kira.
"What gives? You haven't spoken a word to her the entire evening." He smiled politely at a passing Terellian before turning to face Kira.
She sighed theatrically. "If you must know-"
"I must, I must!"
"As I was saying, if you must know, she and I don't get along." Kira spared a glare for the back of the ambassador in question. "When I didn't pass last year, she almost ordered me to resign and return to Bajor. She said I had no right being an officer and I should go back to my rightful place in society."
Bashir was confused. "And that rightful place according to her is . . .?"
She took a deep breath. "An artist. Or something creative at least." Her smile became brittle. "She belongs to a small group of Bajorans who want to bring back the caste system the D'jarras. Before the occupation, Bajorans lived set lives according to their family name. My clan was a member of the artistic D'jarra, but when the occupation came, everyone had to learn how to live, to grow food, to fight. So we left the caste system behind us. Some Bajorans want to bring it back now, mostly the ones in power who want to stay there."
"Won't that effect Bajor's status in the Federation though?" Dax spoke up from around a mouthful of gingersnap cookies.
"That's why it's a small group. We've become used to the Federation now, we have a place within it. And most people don't want to lose that." She sighed slightly and nodded in the direction of the ambassador. "But some people don't know when they're onto a good thing."
"Attention ladies and gentlemen." Admiral Swahila tapped on his glass and the room hushed. "It's time to announce the postings of this years graduating officers." Picking up a padd, he began rattling off names in alphabetical order. Kira groaned. The others would both know long before she did.
"Bashir, Julian - Enterprise." Julian beamed as surrounding ensigns congratulated him. He'd asked for the Enterprise for his first choice, and was exceedingly glad he'd gotten it. Swahila droned on through the list.
"Dax, Jadzia - Enterprise." Soft whistles of surprise and impression floated on the air as Jadzia smiled and blushed a little. She hadn't expected to be posted to such a prestigious ship at first. She leant over to Julian. "At least I'll have someone to talk to."
Kira, Nerys - " Swahila paused and glared uneasily at the trio, "Against my better judgement - Enterprise." After another glare, he continued with the list.
Kira stared in amazement for a second, then put down her glass. "Come one, let's go outside for a moment."
Out in the cool spring air, all three removed their formal jackets with sighs of relief. Dax spoke first. "I wonder who decides on these postings."
"Definitely not Admiral Swahila." Bashir was grinning like a maniac. "I wonder if he's warned Captain Picard about us."
"I don't know," Kira began chuckling contagiously, "But maybe someone should!"
A few moments later, the departing Bajoran Ambassador was treated to the sight of Kira Nerys and two other ensigns laughing their hearts out on the banquet hall steps.