Coy's Internship: Starboard Lights
Posted on Wed Oct 29th, 2025 @ 1:03pm by Commander Rosa Coy
1,576 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Character Development
Location: USS Sunfire
The USS Sunfire remained docked at Deep Space Station 9 in the Bajoran sector. Every now and then the wormhole opened, bathing the ship in a soft blue and white light. Inside, on Deck 8, the Starboard Lounge hummed with low music and the warm, liquid laughter of people who knew they shouldn’t be this relaxed aboard a warship — but tonight, they’d earned it.
Sira sat at the corner table, Bajoran earring glinting in the dim light, her uniform crisp but her hair slightly undone. An empty glass spun between her fingers — synthehol, officially. But the look on Threx’s blue face suggested someone had “borrowed” a little something from the Andorian rations locker.
Threx herself leaned back, antennae tilted in satisfaction. “So, Ensign Sira. How does it feel to be leaving us mere cadets behind?”
Sira smiled faintly, cheeks warming. “Don’t start, Threx.”
“Oh, I’m starting. Because I know that uniform. That shine on the new pip. It’s the ‘I’m important now’look.”
Across the table, Arven snorted — the cocky Human male who had never met a mirror he didn’t like. “She earned it. Don’t pretend you’re not jealous, Threx. You were ready to deck that simulation instructor last week.”
“That’s called tactical initiative,” Threx shot back.
Jeyna, the Trill thinker, adjusted her glass with the precision of a sensor calibration. “It’s also called insubordination.”
“Semantics,” Threx replied, waving her hand.
Dalko the Tellarite gave a deep grunt, leaning forward over his drink. “You’re all too sentimental. The girl pretended to die in training and still made Ensign? I’d call that efficiency.”
That earned a laugh from everyone, even Veylin, the stoic Vulcan who raised an eyebrow but didn’t entirely suppress the curl of his lips.
Sira laughed, soft but genuine. “You make it sound like I planned to die.”
“Well,” Jeyna mused, “it worked. That exercise forced all of us to look at what we were doing wrong.” She turned toward Sira with open admiration. “You made us better.”
Sira lowered her eyes, a faint shimmer of humility in them. “Maybe. Or maybe I just got lucky.”
Arven leaned forward, smirking. “Luck’s just skill you haven’t owned up to yet.”
Threx clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the first halfway wise thing you’ve ever said.”
The night rolled on in a rhythm of inside jokes and remembered chaos: the plasma relay explosion in training, Threx’s dramatic near-faint in zero gravity, Dalko’s “legendary” argument with a food replicator.
Each story added another layer to the laughter — the kind that echoes not because it’s funny, but because it holds everything that can’t be said aloud: the fear, the closeness, the quiet pride.
By the time Rosa Coy entered, the lounge had dimmed to a late-evening glow. She stood in the doorway, short in stature but presence impossible to ignore, crisp uniform, hair tucked behind one ear, eyes that had seen too much and still noticed everything.
The cadets straightened instinctively, like old reflexes snapping back into place.
“At ease,” she said softly, her voice a little raspier than usual. “Just came to see if the rumors were true.”
Sira rose, smiling, caught between pride and something more personal. “That I’m leaving, or that we broke into Threx’s stash?”
“Both,” Rosa replied, a single eyebrow raised. A smirk tugged at her lips, the smallest sign that she wasn’t here as Commander Coy the instructor, but Rosa the pilot, the one they’d all learned to both admire and fear.
Coy stirred in the back of her mind. They’re so young. You can still smell the hope on them.
She ignored him, crossing to the bar. “One glass. Neat.”
The bartender, a sleepy ensign running double duty, nodded quickly.
As Rosa sipped, the group gradually relaxed again, laughter resuming in ripples. She didn’t insert herself right away. She stood nearby, watching. Listening. Measuring her distance.
But it was Sira who broke the line, slipping away from the group to join her.
“You didn’t have to come, Commander.”
Rosa turned slightly. “Yes I did. You’re my cadet. My first to graduate since…” She trailed off, unwilling to name the last.
Since you almost killed yourself too, Coy murmured, bitter but quiet.
Rosa’s jaw tightened. “I had to see you off.”
Sira’s eyes softened. “It means a lot. Really.”
For a while they said nothing, just watched the others banter. Threx was now arm-wrestling Dalko, Arven cheering for both sides, Jeyna documenting the outcome like it was a science project.
Sira smiled wistfully. “I don’t think I’ll ever find a crew like this again.”
“No, you won’t,” Rosa said. “Not like this. But you’ll find your crew. And they’ll be lucky to have you.”
Silence again, comfortable this time.
Sira tilted her head, studying her mentor. “Do you ever miss it? The early days?”
Rosa’s lips quirked. “Every time I close my eyes.”
And every time you open them, too, Coy whispered.
She swallowed her drink, hard. “You’ll understand when the ship starts to feel like a person. When every hum, every vibration means something. When you start calling it ‘her’ instead of ‘it.’ That’s when you’ll know you’ve become a pilot.”
Sira smiled. “That’s exactly what I want.”
A cheer went up from the table. Threx had apparently won the arm wrestle by biting Dalko’s sleeve, a disqualification that no one enforced. Rosa and Sira returned, the mood lighter again.
Arven raised his glass. “To Ensign Sira! May she never crash unless it’s dramatic!”
The group laughed, glasses clinking.
“To Sira!”
“To Sira!” echoed the lounge.
Sira blushed, ducking her head. “You all are impossible.”
Veylin simply said, “Live long and fly well.”
Threx leaned in close, grin wide. “And don’t forget to send us reports. I want to know which captain you end up terrifying.”
Sira mock-saluted. “I’ll make sure to list you as a reference.”
Even Dalko smiled, a rare, tusky grin. “She’ll do fine. She’s been trained by the best.” He nodded toward Rosa.
Rosa froze for a half-second, not from the compliment but from the truth inside it, that her cadets still looked at her as unshakable. That despite everything, she’d given them a piece of herself worth keeping.
They don’t know the things you’ve done, Coy murmured. The ways you’ve broken yourself to build them.
She exhaled slowly. Not tonight.
Instead, she raised her glass toward Sira. “You’re ready, Ensign. Don’t prove me wrong.”
Sira’s smile was bright and earnest. “Never.”
Later, as the others drifted out , Threx carrying Dalko’s half-empty drink, Arven promising to “polish the simulator controls in Sira’s honor, the lounge quieted.
Only Sira and Rosa remained, the stars outside painting them in soft light.
Sira turned toward her mentor, a question trembling on her lips. “I just wanted to say thank you. For everything. I know I wasn’t the easiest student.”
“You were one of the best,” Rosa said. “And that’s harder.”
They stood there in silence, the hum of the engines beneath them like a heartbeat.
Then, before Rosa could step back, Sira leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss to her cheek.
Warm. Gentle. Grateful.
Rosa froze, breath caught. Sira stepped back immediately, cheeks flushed. “Sorry, that was...”
“It’s fine,” Rosa said, voice softer than she meant. “Just don’t make that a habit with your next CO.”
Sira grinned, eyes glinting. “I’ll try not to.”
She likes you, Coy murmured, tone low, not mocking, almost wistful. And you liked it too.
Rosa didn’t answer him. She just watched as Sira straightened her uniform, squared her shoulders, and walked toward the lift.
When the doors closed, Rosa whispered, “Good luck, Ensign.”
She lingered there for a few moments, tracing the rim of her empty glass. Coy’s presence was quiet — not gone, but… gentler.
You did well with her, he said finally. Didn’t even scare her off.
“Shut up,” she muttered, but there was no venom in it.
Admit it, she reminded you of who you were before me.
Rosa glanced at the stars, lips tightening. “No. She reminded me why I let you stay.”
For once, Coy said nothing. Just a soft pulse of acknowledgment.
Then, from the doorway, a familiar voice:
“Thought I’d find you here.”
Rosa turned, Jenna Ramthorne, leaning against the frame, flight jacket slung over her shoulder, smirk half-hidden.
“Little Red Bird,” Rosa said, warmth in her tone for the first time that night.
Jenna tilted her head. “Come on. Patrol duty in twenty. You look like you could use some air.”
Rosa hesitated only a second before setting the glass down. “Let’s fly.”
As the two pilots walked out, the stars beyond the lounge windows shifted, a thousand points of light reflecting on the glass.
For the briefest moment, Rosa thought she saw Sira’s face among them, smiling, radiant, free.
And then the stars blinked, the engines purred, and the Sunfire carried them onward through the dark.
END
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