Coy Sessions - The Burdened One - III

Posted on Sun Oct 18th, 2026 @ 6:35pm by Commander Rosa Coy & Remal Kajun

3,730 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Holodeck 2
Timeline: Pre-Zhian'tara Ceremony

Holodeck Two received them again in silence, its neutral grid stretching outward with clinical patience. Rosa stood in the center before Remal gave the command, already feeling the weight of anticipation coil low in her abdomen. Session One had steadied her. Session two promised friction.

Remal watched her for several quiet seconds, reading more than posture. “Today we'll spend some time with Blaze,” he said. “His command decisions. His inheritance and his surrender.”

“I'm familiar with the history,” Rosa replied.

“Possibly, you may know the outline,” he said gently. “Today you will meet the weight, and you will finally have a face to go with the name.” He turned toward the arch. “Computer, initiate Session Two. Program Blaze. Environmental immersion, battle aftermath setting. Sensory fidelity at ninety percent.”

The grid dissolved into smoke. Not theatrical smoke, but the kind that hangs after plasma fire has burned through hull plating. The air was thick with a metallic tang and ionized residue. Rosa felt the deck under her boots shift into scorched duranium plating, scarred and warped in places where heat had buckled structure. Emergency lighting pulsed amber along corridor seams, casting long shadows through drifting particulate.

The space opened into a command deck that had known violence. One forward viewport remained intact, though fractured, with spiderwebbed cracks running through its transparent aluminum. Beyond it floated debris, fragments of a smaller escort vessel drifted in silent orbit around the wounded starship.

The Trill insignia glowed faintly along the bulkhead. Consoles flickered. A tactical display on the main viewscreen replayed the last moments of engagement in a dim holographic overlay. A Ferengi marauder had broken the formation and targeted a convoy of medical transports. Blaze’s starship had intercepted, drawing fire away from the transports. The smaller escort vessel held position longer than expected, too long.

Rosa’s throat tightened. Blaze stood near the central command chair. He wore the uniform of a Trill captain aligned with early Federation cooperation, the cut older in style yet dignified. His hair showed more gray than Azra’s had. Lines at the corners of his eyes spoke of years spent scanning star-fields and reading threat assessments. His posture carried discipline shaped by responsibility. Not broken, but burdened.

His gaze rested on the fractured viewport as fragments of the escort ship drifted in silence. When he spoke, his voice held a controlled gravity, the tone of someone accustomed to giving orders that altered lives. "The convoy survived,” he said quietly. “Twenty-seven medical transports managed to reach safe harbor.”

Rosa stepped forward, boots striking the metal deck with a hollow resonance. “And the escort.”

His jaw tightened once, then released. “The escort captain held position at her own peril. She believed another thirty seconds would allow two additional transports to get clear of the firing range. Maybe she was right?”

“And you ordered her withdrawal.”

“Of course I did.” His eyes shifted to meet hers. They carried no evasiveness. Only memory. “Her name was Commander Thale,” he continued. “She trained under me during her first deep-space assignment.”

The tactical overlay flickered again, showing the smaller vessel pivoting to absorb direct fire from the marauder. Shields flared, collapsed, and flared again. The final impact bloomed in silent light.

She was more than a trainee. A quiet contemplative voice spoke from within, followed by a flood of memories of a woman's face Rosa didn't know, but Blaze did.

Rosa felt desire rise in her chest. “You knew her,” she said.

“I did.”

“Then why did you pull back?”

His gaze remained steady. “Because my responsibilities extended beyond just the one vessel. The convoy carried injured civilians from three systems. I calculated that if I remained engaged, we risked full engagement. I... made a choice. I chose to preserve as many as possible.”

The words echoed in her ears with uncomfortable familiarity.

Someone always pays the price. Handzon’s voice drifted through her awareness, blunt and unvarnished. He was bitter, callous even. You save the herd, one lamb gets eaten. That’s the game. Happens all the time.

Rosa’s pulse quickened at the thought.

Blaze turned slightly toward the fractured viewport again. “Command does not eliminate one's grief,” he said. “It teaches you how to carry it by forcing you to make the difficult choices.”

Rosa moved closer, emotion welling up from a memory she’d hoped would dull. “I remember the memorial,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. She could still picture it vividly - the flowers, the photographs, the faces of people she’d never seen cry before that day. The weight of that afternoon pressed against her chest even now.

The command deck seemed to thin, the fractured viewport giving way in her mind to a chamber lit in soft amber, Trill glyphs etched along curved walls, Commander Thale’s insignia resting atop a folded uniform.

“You stood in front of her family,” Rosa continued, her voice tightening. “You kept your hands folded so they would not see them shake.”

Blaze did not flinch. “Yes.”

“You told her mother that Thale chose to remain in position. That she protected the convoy.”

“I spoke only truth.”

Her breath sharpened. The words replayed in her mind with painful clarity. She could feel Blaze’s throat constricting as he spoke them. She could feel the weight of the room pressing inward.

“Her choice,” Rosa repeated.

“Yes.”

“You gave the withdrawal order.”

“I did.”

“And she acknowledged it.”

“She did.”

Rosa’s pulse began to rise. The two memories overlapped now. Blaze at the memorial. Rosa with Jexa. Words spoken with authority. Decisions made in moments that felt contained and later expanded beyond all sense of control.

“You could have overridden her, changed the outcome,” Rosa said, though she already knew the system latency, the damaged relays, the failed subspace handshake. She knew because she had watched the tactical readouts through his eyes. She remembered what he remembered.

“I attempted a remote lockout,” Blaze replied evenly. “She blocked my overrides." His face showed a grim grin. "She rerouted helm control and sealed out my command authority.”

Rosa felt the data as truth and still resisted it. “You let her carry it,” she said.

“I allowed her the agency she needed,” Blaze answered. “Command does not erase the autonomy of those who serve.” His words struck her harder than any denial would have.

Within her, Handzon stirred. She stayed because she chose to. Just like your little admirer became your willing partner. She wanted you. The comparison landed like an impact against weakened shields.

Rosa’s chest tightened. She knew the memorial. She knew the order. She knew the technical limitations. Knowledge did not soften the guilt. It sharpened it.

Blaze regarded her with quiet gravity. “Memories do not change when we revisit them, just because we wish them to,” he said. “Only our willingness to carry them. I tried for years to forget Thale, the effort only made the memory stronger.”

Rosa was instantly flooded with her own memories of Jexa, standing too close in that corridor. Jexa’s admiration was visible in the way she lingered. Jexa asking about Zhian’tara with a curiosity that bordered on intrusion. Rosa breaking her own attachment protocols to ensure silence. Crossing a boundary she had constructed for her own protection. Jexa looking up at her as if proximity meant permanence. The desire, the smell, the taste all lingered.

Blaze’s voice cut through the rising memory. “You carry another face over mine.”

Rosa’s eyes snapped back to him. “I do not.”

“You do,” he said gently. “Your emotions are aimed elsewhere.”

He sees you. Handzon’s tone carried a smirk. Jexa made her own choices too. You didn’t force her into your bed.

Anger flared in Rosa’s chest. “That situation was different.”

“Explain,” Blaze said.

She hesitated. The deck around them seemed to tilt slightly, though her feet remained planted. “I have rules,” she said. “Professional boundaries. Emotional containment. She pressed into restricted territory. She pushed.”

“And you responded?”

“Yes.”

“With authority?”

“With..." She bit her lip. "Yes.”

Blaze regarded her with quiet intensity. “And the outcome?”

“She... changed afterward.” The admission felt raw.

“You altered her trajectory,” Blaze said.

“So did you,” Rosa shot back. “Your order altered Thale’s.”

“Yes,” he agreed without hesitation. “Command shapes consequence.”

Her heart rate spiked. The ambient hum of damaged systems seemed to grow louder. The fractured viewport reflected her face back at her in distorted segments.

You think you’re different from him, but you're not. Handzon’s voice sharpened. Everyone leaves a mark. Some just manage to play pretend and call it noble. I lived with this man's thoughts in my head for years. Alcohol was the only thing that helped.

Rosa’s vision narrowed slightly at the edges. The damaged deck beneath her boots felt less solid, as if she stood upon two histories at once. Frustration rose, though beneath it lay something more complex.

Blaze stepped closer, the restraint in his movement reflecting discipline learned over decades. “I inherited Coy from my grandfather, you may know,” he said, his voice carrying neither defensiveness nor pride. “Alexzander Coy. The Commission ruled the joining irregular. Family lineage complicates memory, they said.”

Rosa’s jaw tightened. She did not need the explanation. She could feel it through memory.

“When a symbiont passes outside of a bloodline,” Blaze continued, “affection transforms into archive. It becomes history, just another memory. When it passes within family, it remains immediate, sometimes intimate, leading to... complications.”

Images stirred within her. Alexzander’s memories. His daughter’s laugh. The texture of her hands. The scent of her hair when he embraced her as a child. Love preserved as living sensation. Father and Daughter.

Blaze met Rosa’s gaze steadily. “I did not merely remember my mother once I was joined,” he said. “I felt my grandfather’s love for her as if it belonged to me. I carried affection shaped well before my own birth and directed toward someone who held my own blood.” The air seemed thinner. “It unsettles identity,” he said. “The mind understands lineage. The body responds to emotion.”

Rosa swallowed. She knew the sensation of inherited feeling. The way affection or attraction could rise without clear origin, attached to faces from another century.

“Many believed I somehow corrupted tradition,” Blaze continued. “They believed family lines must not close that circle. They feared confusion of attachment. They feared that I would never know which longing was mine.”

“And were they wrong?” Rosa asked quietly.

Blaze did not rush his answer. “Some days I believed I preserved legacy. Other days I wondered if all I managed was to preserve entanglement.”

Silence pressed between them, thick with unspoken recognition.

“You chose,” Rosa said, though this time the words carried less accusation and more probing.

“Yes.”

“You chose to join knowing that you would feel what he felt?"

“Yes.”

“You chose to carry love that was never directed at you?”

“Yes.”

“And you chose command?”

“Yes.”

Her gaze sharpened. “And later you chose to surrender the symbiont?” A shadow moved through his expression, subtle yet undeniable.

“Handzon,” Rosa said.

“Yes. Though illness narrowed my cognition,” Blaze said. "I was dying but did not want the symbiont to suffer." He continued, “Handzon demonstrated adaptability under stress, and the Commission approved.”

“You did not know what he carried,” Rosa said.

“I knew only that Coy must survive,” Blaze replied. “I did not anticipate how his temperament would amplify certain impulses. I understood memory. I underestimated volatility. There was only so much the Commission could teach someone about caring for a symbiont. ”

Volatile, huh? Handzon’s voice carried a low laugh. He handed me a storm and hoped I’d sail it straight. For a while I did. I took this bastard's trauma as my own. Do you have any clue what that does to a man? What it did to me?

Blaze’s gaze did not waver. “I acted to preserve the symbiont’s life. I regret any suffering that followed.”

“You regret giving Coy to him.”

Blaze’s eyes softened slightly. “Inheritance is never clean,” he said. “I accepted the burden of legacy when I joined. I accepted another when I relinquished.”

Rosa felt the weight of all of it settle. Blaze chose to enter the entangled memory. She did not. He stepped into inherited love, knowing it would blur boundaries. She awoke to it without understanding consent. The distinction formed quietly but firmly.

Rosa’s breathing became uneven. The edges of the room shimmered faintly as dissociation began to encroach. The tactical overlay flickered in and out of clarity. Externally, her thoughts were creating one set of emotional responses, while internally a completely different storm was brewing.

“You talk about choice as if it cleanses you of consequence,” she said, frustration rising. “You saved twenty-seven transports and lost one commander. You preserved a symbiont and passed suffering forward. You draw lines and call them necessary.”

“Yes,” Blaze said. The simplicity of his answer struck her harder than defensiveness would have.

“Yes,” he repeated. “The ability to command requires decision under incomplete knowledge. Regret often follows, but self-destruction serves no one.”

Her pulse pounded in her ears.

See, inevitable. Handzon’s tone grew more insistent. People get hurt. You move on. That’s how it works.

The fractured viewport seemed to splinter further in her vision. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides.

Remal’s voice entered with grounded authority. “Computer, pause program.” The environment froze mid-flicker. Smoke hung suspended in the air. The tactical overlay halted in the instant before impact.

The lighting shifted subtly as Remal stepped into the space, visible now, solid against the suspended simulation. “Rosa,” he said calmly as he allowed her to breathe. Once she looked towards him, he spoke simply, “Differentiate.”

Her breathing remained shallow. “That was their choice,” he continued, gesturing toward Blaze and the frozen image of Commander Thale’s ship. “What was yours?”

She swallowed. “I... set boundaries.”

“And then.”

“I crossed them.”

“For what purpose?”

“To control the situation.”

“To silence inquiry.”

“Yes.”

“Did Jexa possess agency?”

The question landed with precision. “Yes,” Rosa said reluctantly.

“Did Commander Thale?”

“Yes.”

“Did Blaze?”

“Yes.”

Remal’s gaze remained steady. “Shared memory does not equal shared blame. If it did..." he said quietly, "none of us would survive the lives we've inherited. Blaze made the choice to withdraw. Thale chose to remain. Blaze chose to surrender Coy. He did so to preserve its life. You chose to cross your boundary and Jexa chose to respond.”

Rosa’s breathing began to slow slightly as cognition reasserted structure.

“Blaze’s command decision belongs to Blaze. His illness belongs to Blaze. His transfer belongs to Blaze. You inherited memories, feelings, not his actions." His words of distinction cut through the fog.

Blaze stood frozen before her, expression mid-thought. The damaged deck remained suspended in time.

“You did not choose to be joined,” Remal continued. “Blaze did. That choice belongs to him. Your choices belong to you.”

Rosa closed her eyes briefly, drawing air deeper into her lungs. The metallic scent of the simulated aftermath remained, though it no longer felt overwhelming. “I seduced Jexa,” she said quietly. “That was mine.”

“Yes.”

“She admired me, and I leveraged that.”

“Yes.” Remal nodded once. “Taking ownership clarifies responsibility. It does not require self-annihilation.”

Her heart rate began to descend from its spike. The dissociative haze thinned. Her pulse eased from its surge. Sensation returned to her fingertips first, a faint tingling where nails had pressed into skin. She opened her eyes and looked at Blaze again. The burden in his posture no longer felt accusatory. It felt humane.

Remal glanced toward the suspended scene. “Resume program.”

The simulation flowed back into motion. Smoke drifted again. The tactical overlay completed its silent explosion.

Blaze met her gaze. “You are not me,” he said. “You may carry the trauma of what I've lived, but you alone decide what you become.”

Rosa studied him carefully. “Do you forgive yourself?”

He considered the question with gravity. “I accept my decisions,” he said. “I honor the cost.” The words settled within her like a weight placed deliberately rather than dropped.

So we carry it. Coy's collective voice sounded now instead of Handzon, It doesn’t mean we have to drown in it.

Or... we can smother ourselves in that pretty blonde that flitters about in deflector control. I mean, given the choices... Handzon's lewd voice finished.

She ignored him and drew a slow breath. The deck beneath her boots felt solid again. The fractured viewport reflected her own face in fewer fractured distortions.

Blaze stepped back toward the command chair, posture straight though never rigid. “Legacy carries both pride and fracture,” he said. “I lived apart from my heritage and still returned to it. You live within it and may still define yourself.”

The lesson threaded through her awareness with clarity. Shared memory did not bind her to shared blame. Influence flowed through her, yet agency remained her own. The principle was sound, but the practice would be more of a challenge.

The command deck lingered for several quiet breaths after Blaze's final words. Smoke continued to drift through fractured light while the ruined escort vessel turned slowly beyond the cracked viewport. Rosa remained where she stood, her breathing steady again, her thoughts still catching up to the conversation that had unfolded around her.

Remal watched the readings on his PADD for another few moments before speaking. "Computer. End program." The battlefield dissolved immediately. The silence that followed felt strangely loud.

Rosa blinked several times, allowing her eyes to adjust to walls she knew were real. Returning from ninety percent sensory immersion always carried a peculiar disappointment. Part of her still expected to smell smoke.

She drew another slow breath.

Remal noticed immediately, "That one was more difficult. I think you came back altered."

She glanced toward him. "I think so too."

He waited. "How are you feeling?" The question hung in the air longer than she expected.

Finally she shook her head "I don't think anything actually changed."

Remal lowered his eyes to the PADD and began recording observations.

"Your autonomic response peaked during moral conflict." He entered another note. "You began to dissociate immediately after talking to Blaze about Thale and Jexa." Another note. "The grounding intervention helped to restore control." His stylus stopped moving. "Most interesting..." He looked back up. "Did Handzon become quieter after you accepted that Blaze's choices were not yours?"

Rosa blinked. "...Yes and no." She frowned. "He actually became agitated in a way I've not felt from him before." She frowned, trying to find language for something that had happened almost beneath conscious thought. "He became quieter... but it definitely wasn't acceptance."

Remal waited.

"It felt more like..." She searched for the right comparison. "Like someone pacing behind a closed door."

His expression remained attentive.

"He wasn't arguing with Blaze anymore." She looked down at her hands. "He was arguing with himself." Another pause. "I've never felt him do that before."

Remal nodded slowly as he entered another observation. "That's significant."

She looked up, "I don't think Handzon expected you to separate his pain from Blaze's." That thought landed harder than she expected.

"He has lived beside those memories for decades," Remal continued. "For him they were never historical. They were likely deeply personal."

Rosa's brow furrowed. "So when I stopped accepting them as mine..."

"He could no longer hide inside them."

"In fact..." He considered his next words carefully. "I think Blaze spent years absorbing pressure that would otherwise have reached the rest of the symbiont. He shouldered the burden of his own Grandfather's relationships while commanding a starship. That's no small feat."

Rosa's expression softened. She looked toward the empty space where the command chair had stood only moments before. "So he wasn't adding weight."

"In his own way perhaps." Remal smiled gently. "From what we witnessed is seems he was helping hold it all together. That's a burden he chose."

He continued, "So far we've noticed that every host we've met solves a different problem," Remal said thoughtfully. "Azra creates stillness. Blaze shoulders the burden of responsibility. Neither of them removes the underlying burden. They simply prevent it from consuming the symbiont. And Handzon inherited all of that without understanding how to manage it."

Silence settled again, though it carried far less tension than before. Eventually Rosa looked back toward him. "Who's next?"

"I had planned to introduce Hendrixi." He smiled. "But after today's session..." He tilted his head slightly. "I think I'd rather let you meet Alexzander first."

Rosa raised an eyebrow. "The engineer?"

"Yes." Remal nodded. "I have a suspicion you'll need someone who understands how to repair structures before we ask you to explore beauty."

She laughed quietly. "That sounds suspiciously specific."

"Perhaps." He walked toward the holodeck doors. "I'd like you to continue practicing your grounding exercises this week. The breathing, the sensory awareness, and one more thing."

She waited.

"When Handzon speaks..." He looked back over his shoulder. "See if you can notice who grows quiet."

She considered that. "I've spent months listening for the loudest voice."

"Exactly. This week..." He smiled warmly. "Listen for the quiet ones."

Rosa nodded. "I can do that."

"I know. I truly believe you are capable."

The holodeck doors parted with a soft whisper.

She paused beside him before stepping into the corridor. "Thank you, Remal."

He inclined his head. "You've done all the difficult work, Rosa."

She smiled, smaller than usual, though far more genuine. "I'll see you next session."

"I'll be here." Together they stepped into the corridor, leaving Holodeck Two behind. The doors slid closed with their familiar hydraulic whisper, sealing away Blaze's battlefield while carrying forward something far more important.

Rosa had entered these sessions believing the Zhian'tara would teach her who the previous hosts had been. Instead, each meeting was quietly revealing another piece of herself. The previous lives no longer felt like strangers occupying the same mind. They were becoming teachers whose lessons she had mistaken for burdens.

TBC

 

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