Coy Sessions - Baseline - I

Posted on Mon Jul 13th, 2026 @ 3:30pm by Commander Rosa Coy & Remal Kajun

2,750 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Gym / Holodeck 2
Timeline: Pre-Zhian’tara Preparations

The gym held the hour in a kind of suspended quiet, light panels casting an even glow across the mats and equipment while the low hum of the ship’s systems threaded through the air like a steady breath.

Rosa had claimed a corner station near the free weights, where she could move without interruption. She was already deep into her third circuit, shoulders slick with sweat, pulse elevated, breath paced with deliberate control. Each repetition carved heat into muscle. Each lift gave her something simple and honest to answer to.

The week of shore leave lingered far longer than any mission debrief ever could. Trollveggen remained vivid in fragments. The climb itself carried a familiar certainty, each handhold and foothold settling into muscle memory so completely that the mountain felt almost welcoming. The jump carried the same confidence. She trusted gravity, trusted training, and trusted herself.

The ride afterward stayed with her differently. There had been a moment where memory and instinct seemed to separate. Her body continued performing exactly as it should while her thoughts drifted somewhere beyond immediate reach. The sensation lasted only seconds, yet those seconds returned often enough to leave an impression. Echo had stirred similar questions. So had Paris. So had quiet moments she could not easily explain. Experiences accumulated. Reactions accumulated. Certainties accumulated. Understanding lagged behind.

She added weight to the bar and lifted again, shoulders tightening beneath the strain. The repetition grounded her in something measurable. Muscle answered effort. Tendons answered force. The language remained refreshingly direct.

Inside her awareness, familiar presences shifted. That mountain was beautiful. Handzon sounded almost wistful. You enjoyed the jump more than you like to admit.

Rosa exhaled through the lift. "Maybe."

And that nurse... gorgeous. He finished with a sound that resembled longing.

Another voice surfaced from deeper waters. It was never the jump which troubled us. The observation carried the patient precision she had come to associate with Azra.

Rosa racked the weight and rolled tension from her shoulders. He was right. The climb had never frightened her. The fall had never frightened her. The moments where she questioned whether agency belonged entirely to her, frightened her considerably more.

A restless warmth still lived beneath her skin. Attraction, excitement, curiosity, grief, exhilaration. The emotions arrived tangled together now, woven so tightly that separating them required deliberate effort. Some belonged to Rosa. Some belonged to lives that preceded her. Most arrived carrying traces of both.

She tightened her grip on the bar and began another set. The burn spreading through her muscles offered clarity. Every repetition drew a clean line between stimulus and response. For a few precious moments, the weight belonged entirely to her.

Inside her awareness, Handzon stretched like someone waking lazily in sunlight. You know there are more enjoyable ways to work up a sweat.

She did not pause. “Not interested,” she muttered under her breath, adjusting her grip.

You say that as if interest were optional or desire was avoidable. Your pulse disagrees with you.

Her jaw tightened slightly. The lift continued. She exhaled through the effort and racked the bar with more force than necessary. Sweat slid down her spine, cooling against skin that still felt too warm from the inside out.

Across the gym, two officers sparred in quiet concentration, movements measured and controlled. No wasted motion. No spectacle. Rosa let her eyes rest on them for a moment. Contained energy. Directed force. That was something she understood.

The commbadge at her collar chirped. She straightened immediately, thumb tapping the device. “Go for Coy.”

“Good morning, Rosa.” Remal’s voice carried its usual grounded warmth. “When you feel like the gym has put you through enough punishment, could you meet me in Holodeck Two at 0900? I’d like to begin the preliminary session we discussed.”

She grabbed a towel and pressed it to her neck, buying herself a second to settle her breathing. “Today?”

“If you’re willing.”

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the far wall, unfocused.

He senses the current under the surface. Sensible man.

“I’ll be there,” she said.

“Thank you.”

The channel closed. She stood still for a moment, towel draped across her shoulders, heart still beating harder than the workout alone justified.

This should be entertaining. Handzon quipped.

She resumed her cooldown with deliberate care. Long stretches. Slow breathing. She guided air deep into her lungs, held it, released it in measured intervals. Control returned in increments. No perfection, functionality.

By the time she stepped into the corridor, uniform restored and posture squared, her expression had settled into professional neutrality. The ship felt different after a week away. Familiar yet with a slight misalignment, like returning to a room where someone had moved the furniture a few centimeters. She walked with quiet confidence, each step anchored.

Holodeck Two opened at her approach. Inside, the grid stretched across floor and walls, unadorned and waiting. There was no scenery, no distractions, just an open grid of potential.

Remal stood near the center of the room, hands loosely clasped in front of him. He offered a small, genuine smile as she entered. “Good morning.”

“Counselor.” She nodded politely.

He gestured toward two simple chairs that had been placed facing one another. “I thought we’d keep it simple today.”

She glanced around the bare chamber. “You always seem to favor minimalism.”

“It leaves fewer places to hide.” There was no accusation in it, just observation. "Mostly from ourselves."

She took a seat, back straight but not rigid. “You asked for this session. So what are we doing?” Straight to the point.

"I want us to establish a baseline. To gage how you respond to memory. How you respond to influence and how you distinguish between the two."

She arched an eyebrow. “You think I’m unstable.”

"I think you've been carrying a great deal for a long time. Competent people often become experts at making heavy things look light."

He’s perceptive. I approve.

Rosa ignored the commentary. “I’m doing my job. I've had no incidents. No disciplinary notes. My performance reviews remain excellent.”

“I know,” Remal said. “This isn’t about your performance, which I hear is exemplary. What interests me is the person making those decisions."

A faint irritation flickered across her expression. “My duties remain unaffected.”

“Good,” he said. “We're here to make certain that continues.” He activated a small console. A soft holographic display shimmered to life beside him, biometric readings hovering discreetly.

"I'll ask you to recall a recent experience that stayed with you. As you describe it, I'll monitor heart rate, respiration, neural activity, and symbiont harmonics. I'm looking for patterns in how you process memory, influence, and agency."

She studied him for a moment. "You think I'm losing control."

"I think you're asking questions about where control begins and ends," Remal replied. "Before we begin the Zhian'tara preparations, I'd like to understand how your mind and body answer those questions."

After a moment, Rosa nodded once, "Fine."

"Good. To start, tell me about the trip to Trill," Remal said. "And tell me why you think it stayed with you."

The memory surfaced immediately. She consciously ignored her first thoughts about Jexa and proceeded to redirect. Atmospheric entry. The changing colors beyond the shuttle canopy. Long conversations shared between destinations. Quiet moments that seemed insignificant until weeks later when they returned unexpectedly.

"Entry was smooth," Rosa said. "Crosswinds were manageable. The Commission transport arrived on schedule."

Remal's expression remained patient.

She sighed softly. "It was a good trip."

"And?"

Rosa leaned back slightly in her chair. "And I came back carrying more than just my luggage."

An excellent line. Completely smooth. She ignored Handzon.

Remal glanced briefly toward the biometric display as her pulse increased. "What did you bring back with you?" The question lingered.

Rosa considered several answers before settling on the most honest one. "Questions."

Remal nodded once. "What kind of questions?"

She folded her arms loosely. "The kind that arrive when you realize you're carrying centuries of other people's thoughts, emotions and memories."

He remained silent, allowing the thought room to breathe. He found people often discovered their most honest thoughts while trying to fill the void of noise.

Rosa continued. "The events around Trill started it. Then the mountain and the aftermath added to it. Paris made it harder to ignore." A faint crease appeared between her brows. "Echo, an old... acquaintance, finished the job."

Remal's attention sharpened slightly. "The mountain?"

"Trollveggen. The climb was easy." Rosa looked away for a moment. "The jump was easy. I've spent my life trusting my body, and my instincts." Her voice grew quieter. "The part that bothered me came afterward, during the ride back." The holodeck grid reflected softly in her eyes. "There was a moment where I separated from myself, a sort of... disconnect. Only for a moment. Everything was working exactly the way it should have. I mean I was functional. Coherent even, but..."

She hesitated. "I just wasn't entirely the one at the helm."

Silence settled across the room.

That is the point, isn't it? This time, the voice belonged to the collective that was Coy.

Remal allowed the silence to linger before speaking. "And that frightened you." His voice remained gentle. "You trust yourself. Feeling someone else take the controls would shake anyone."

Rosa gave a small nod. "More than the mountain, more than anything really."

The biometric display reflected the truth immediately. Remal studied the readings before returning his attention to her. "Tell me something else."

She raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"When you think about Paris, what stands out?"

The question caught her slightly off guard. She expected him to ask about fear. She expected him to ask about control. Instead he asked about memory. Rosa considered it carefully. "The city?"

"Everyone remembers cities differently." His smile was small. "Some remember architecture. Some remember the food. Some remember the people who made them feel something." He tilted his head. "Which one followed you home?"

"The people." A faint smile touched her lips. "The feeling that I was living my own life and not somebody else's."

Remal nodded slowly. "And how did that feel?"

Rosa thought about the answer. "Wonderful. Though, admittedly, complicated. Pretty much all of the above." 

The counselor smiled faintly. "Now we're getting somewhere."

Rosa narrowed her eyes. "I dislike it when counselors say things like that."

He noticed the way her foot had stopped moving. "I know."

Remal looked over the data he had already gathered, then made a noise with his throat, and refocused on her. "I want to reassure you what this baseline means going forward."

"What does it mean?"

Remal folded his hands loosely, not as a barrier but as a way of slowing the tempo of the room. “It means that you’re not going to be flooded,” he said. “We’re not unlocking everything at once. That would be detrimental, and I have no interest in watching you brace against six lifetimes at once.”

She studied him carefully. “Then what exactly are we doing? Wait, six?”

“Your five previous plus your own. We’re isolating,” he replied. “One host memory set at a time. I’ll construct a controlled holodeck environment anchored to a specific period of that host’s life. You won’t relive their traumaand you won’t be submerged. You’ll simply observe, interact, and remain conscious of your present identity the entire time.”

Her jaw shifted slightly. “You’re projecting them.”

“Yes. Within a safe environment. The program will draw from Commission archival records, your own memory, and symbiont resonance mapping. Enough fidelity for authenticity, not enough to lose you.”

Authenticity is such a careful word.

She ignored the whisper. “And if the resonance spikes?”

“I monitor your autonomic responses in real time,” Remal said. “Those numbers tell me what your body knows before your conscious mind has words for it. If thresholds cross a predetermined range, we pause the simulation. We ground you physically. You remain here, in the present.”

He leaned forward slightly, tone steady. “The goal is differentiation. Right now, your nervous system reacts as if every internal impulse carries equal authority. We’re going to teach your body that memory, desire, regret, and instinct can be recognized without being obeyed.”

Silence held between them for a breath. “You’ll meet each of them as an individual,” he continued. “You speak to them. You listen to them. You observe how your body responds. Then we close the session. We debrief. We let your system settle before the next.”

Rosa’s eyes narrowed, not in hostility but in calculation. “So this is exposure therapy.”

“In part,” he said. “It’s also integration work. Right now Handzon feels loud because you experience him as pressure. Once you see him within context, once you see the others within context, the volume will change. You'll stop reacting to noise and start recognizing pattern, hopefully.”

I do so enjoy being called noise. Handzon seethed.

Rosa’s breathing shifted slightly, then steadied. “You’re building structure,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” Remal answered. “We’re building an internal framework so that when the Zhian’tara ritual begins, you won't be surprised by your own reactions. You’ll already know the terrain.”

Her gaze drifted briefly across the empty grid of the holodeck. “One at a time,” she said.

“One at a time,” he confirmed. “You stay Rosa. The others remain aspects of lived history. We are contextualizing." Then to rephrase, "Right now they're all talking at once. We're simply asking them to take turns."

Something in her chest tightened, though not unpleasantly. Structured. Sequential. Contained. The words carried weight but it was a weight she understood.

A procession. I do enjoy ceremony.

She ignored the voice and focused on the counselor. “You believe this will help establish clarity?”

"I've rarely met a person who was broken by clarity. Confusion, on the other hand..." A sympathetic smile appeared. "Confusion can convince good people that something is wrong with them." he replied. “Right now, your internal landscape feels crowded. We’re going to put chairs in a circle and let each voice speak in turn, so to speak.”

A faint, reluctant huff of breath escaped her. “You make it sound civilized.”

“It can be.”

She studied him for a long moment. Remal did not press. He simply held the space, patient and grounded.

The truth sat quietly beneath her resistance. The cravings. The surges. The subtle moments where her reactions felt half a step ahead of conscious choice. She managed them. She always had. Yet management required constant vigilance. “I won’t tolerate losing control,” she said.

"I'd be disappointed if you did." His smile carried genuine approval. "The Rosa sitting in front of me has earned every instinct telling her to protect the helm." He paused to let that sink in. "I'm not asking you to surrender control. I'm asking you to simply define what control means to Rosa."

Careful, Rosa. Definitions have power. Coy warned from his own experience.

She drew in a slow breath and let it out evenly. “One at a time,” she said. “Structured?”

“Yes.”

“No theatrics.”

“None.”

She rose from the chair, pacing once across the grid-lined floor before turning back toward him. The empty chamber no longer felt hollow. It felt preparatory. “I’ll try it,” she said.

Remal inclined his head, not triumphant, simply acknowledging the choice. “That’s all I’m asking.” The biometric display dimmed and vanished. The room returned to its quiet geometry. Relief came quietly. Not because Rosa had agreed, but because she had chosen. Counseling could never be something done to another person. It was always something done beside them. He could offer maps, ask questions, illuminate paths, but every meaningful step belonged to the traveler.

Inside her, the warmth still lived. The voice still lingered. This will be interesting.

Rosa straightened her shoulders. “Schedule the first session.”

“It’s already on the calendar.”

That almost drew a smile from her. As she stepped toward the exit, she felt the subtle layering of presence within her awareness. Not chaotic. Not yet orderly. Just waiting. The doors parted. The corridor beyond felt steady beneath her feet. Baseline established. The work ahead now held shape.

TBC

 

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