Coy's Internship: The Weight of the Sky III
Posted on Fri Oct 24th, 2025 @ 2:12pm by Commander Rosa Coy
1,271 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Character Development
Location: USS Sunfire
The next morning began with the hum of engines in standby and the faint, comforting scent of ozone that always lingered in the flight deck’s recycled air. Rosa liked it that way, the scent of readiness, of unspent motion. She’d slept little, though her mind had been quieter. Coy had withdrawn into himself, his presence reduced to the occasional flicker of emotion like distant static in her chest.
Sira was already there when Rosa arrived, her cadet’s colors catching the light as she calibrated a shuttle’s flight controls. She looked up, that same eager curiosity burning behind her calm Bajoran eyes.
“Commander,” she said, voice light but edged with something more cautious than usual. “You’re early.”
Rosa grunted in reply, setting her PADD down on the console. “Discipline doesn’t keep time, Cadet. It keeps expectation.”
It wasn’t meant to sound profound, but Sira’s brow furrowed as though she’d been handed a riddle. Rosa sighed and gestured for her to follow toward the simulator.
They worked through basic formation drills first, the kind that demanded synchronization, reflexes, and trust. Rosa moved like a woman trying to find her rhythm again, while Sira moved like she wanted to impress her. Their ships danced through simulated turbulence, matching vectors and countering invisible threats.
By the third pass, Rosa was calling corrections mid-maneuver, her tone sharp but measured. “No hesitation. Hesitation kills faster than a disruptor.”
“I thought hesitation saves lives sometimes,” Sira countered, her voice uncertain.
“That’s what they tell you in safety briefings.” Rosa cut the thrust and turned in her chair to face her. “But out there, Sira, it’s about reading your instincts faster than fear can argue.”
She’s getting under your skin, Little Pilot, Coy murmured, the first words from him all morning. Careful. That kind of curiosity has teeth.
Rosa didn’t answer. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d flinched.
When the session ended, Sira lingered. “Commander, the other day… I saw you in the gym.” Her tone was hesitant, like she wasn’t sure if it was allowed to be spoken. “That was… intense.”
Rosa paused, expression unreadable. “Was it?”
“You looked like you were fighting yourself,” Sira said softly. “And winning. Mostly.”
Rosa laughed once, short, brittle. “If that’s what it looked like, then I must’ve been doing something right.”
She wants to understand you, Rosa, Coy whispered, a touch of bitterness still in his tone. Or maybe she wants to save you. They’re the same thing for people like her.
Rosa met Sira’s gaze, feeling the weight of the girl’s sincerity. “You’ll find, Cadet, that the hardest fights aren’t against the enemy, they’re against the pieces of yourself that want to quit.”
“That’s what you were teaching yesterday?”
“Something like that,” Rosa said, a wry smile forming. “Lesson two: don’t let the storm inside you become a target.”
Sira nodded, absorbing it as though it were a coded directive.
For a brief, unguarded second, Rosa felt something unfamiliar slip through — not attraction, not yet — but recognition. Like two pilots who had seen the same thunderhead and survived it.
Careful, Coy’s voice warned, softer now. Even wings break under too much sky.
“Permission to try a lead run, ma’am?”
The question came without preamble. Sira stood straighter, the hesitation from earlier gone. The hum of the simulator bay filled the pause that followed.
Rosa arched a brow. “Lead? You’ve barely logged sixty hours of formation command.”
Sira didn’t blink. “Then I should learn to lead while you can still correct me.”
It was bold, a risk. Rosa respected that kind of audacity more than she wanted to admit. She gestured toward the secondary pilot seat. “Very well, Cadet. Show me the sky you think you can command.”
They reentered the simulator, a wide-angle starfield wrapping around them, twin shuttles appearing as holographic constructs. Sira’s hands flexed once over the controls before she powered up. Her voice steadied as she called out maneuvers, the same calm tone Rosa had used a hundred times before.
“Formation Delta. Minimal thrust variance. Keep on my wing.”
Rosa did. For the first few minutes, Sira flew like someone tracing a map she’d memorized — careful, precise, almost reverent. Then came turbulence, a scripted meteor cluster that tumbled from nowhere.
Sira hesitated. Rosa saw it in the twitch of her fingers, the fraction-second delay.
“Breathe,” Rosa said softly.
Sira exhaled and snapped the throttle. The shuttle twisted through the debris, performing a dance of corkscrews and loops, graceful now — like she’d stopped thinking and started feeling. Rosa followed, a ghost to her flame.
She’s got instinct, that one, Coy murmured. Like you before they broke you down to orders and duty.
Rosa ignored him, watching the cadet thread through chaos with a confidence that hadn’t been there an hour ago. Sira’s focus was absolute.
Then came the final simulation curve — a malfunction scenario. One engine flared red on Sira’s display.
“Power loss on port vector,” she said automatically.
Rosa waited. This was the test.
Sira didn’t call for help. She compensated manually, tilting the craft’s axis, bleeding off thrust from the starboard side until the balance returned.
“Compensating yaw,” Sira reported. There was a weighted breathe. The shuttle leveled out. The simulator blinked mission complete.
Silence stretched. Finally, Rosa said, “You kept control.”
Sira turned, a flush in her cheeks. “Barely.”
“Barely is still alive.” Rosa leaned back, arms crossing over her chest. “That’s what separates a pilot from a passenger.”
You’re proud of her, Coy whispered, a tone of wary amusement. That scares you more than crashing ever could.
Rosa pretended not to hear. “End sim,” she ordered. The holographic stars faded into the gray walls of the training bay.
Sira lingered by the console, eyes bright. “Commander… do you ever miss it? Real flight? Outside the training sims?”
Rosa’s lips curved into something halfway between pride and exhaustion. “Miss it? I still do it, Cadet. That’s why I teach — to make sure someone’s ready when I’m out there.”
Sira blinked, realizing what she meant. “You’re still on the active roster?”
“Always.” Rosa stepped closer, her voice low, deliberate. “You don’t stop flying because you start teaching. You teach so you remember why you fly.”
And because you need to feel something that still burns, Coy murmured, voice like smoke in her skull.
For a moment, mentor and cadet simply stood in the afterglow of shared adrenaline. Sira’s curiosity softened into admiration. Rosa, despite herself, felt the echo of it — the dangerous warmth of connection forming in the cracks where pain used to live.
Careful, Rosa, Coy breathed. That’s how it starts. One shared heartbeat… and suddenly you can’t tell whose it is. Which, I'm game if you are.
Rosa shut down the simulator and walked toward the door. “Same time tomorrow, Cadet. We’ll take her off the leash next time, live shuttle run.”
Sira straightened. “Aye, Commander.”
When the doors closed behind her, Rosa let herself exhale, slow and unsteady, before the whisper returned, quieter now, curling around the edge of thought.
You’re teaching her to fly, Little Pilot… but she might be the one teaching you to land.
TBC
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