The Shape of Belonging - I - The Empty Chair

Posted on Tue Sep 1st, 2026 @ 4:58pm by Commander Rosa Coy

1,671 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: USS Veyra

I have discovered that every ship has a sound. Not the engines. Not the ventilation systems or the steady pulse of the warp core. Those are sounds any trained officer can identify, catalogue, and eventually learn to ignore. I mean the sound a ship makes when it has become, familiar.

The Veyra has one. It is the low vibration beneath the deck when the ship is cruising at impulse, the faint rattle in the bulkhead outside my quarters when someone in engineering decides a diagnostic can wait until morning, and the occasional distant clatter that tells me someone has dropped something in the mess again. Oh, and that panel in my quarters that hasn't stopped for weeks now.

I know what each of those sounds means now and it bothers me sometimes. It means I've been here long enough to stop listening for them. Several months ago, I could have told you every single sound the Veyra made. Now I mostly notice the ones that are out of place.

This morning, that sound was Chief Rell swearing. I was halfway through my first cup of Raktajino when his voice carried across the mess. "Who recalibrated the replicator?"

Nobody answered, and I kept drinking. The cup suddenly disappeared from my hand. Lieutenant Kade already walking away with my Raktajino. I stare after him in disbelief.

He takes three steps before turning around. "I believe this is mine."

"It has my name on it," I reply honestly.

He looks at the cup. Then at me. Then back at the cup. "That seems highly unlikely."

"You watched me replicate it."

"I watched you replicate a beverage."

"You watched me put it on the table."

"Really?" He takes another drink.

I stare at him.

He smiles. "I will return it when I've finished."

"You're drinking it."

"That's generally how returning a beverage works."

Chief Rell makes another irritated noise from across the room. "I swear, if you two start arguing before I've finished breakfast, I'm transferring to a deep space station."

"You say that every morning," Ensign Thenn says.

"One day I'll mean it."

"You've been saying that for six months."

"Exactly. Call it six months of preparation."

Thenn laughs. I find myself smiling too. That's how most mornings aboard the Veyra tend to begin. Nobody announces the beginning of the day. Nobody gathers everyone together and reminds us that we are a crew. There is simply noise, arguments, stolen drinks, and people complaining about things that will probably be fixed before lunch.

I used to think that kind of familiarity had to be earned through some significant event. A battle or a crisis, some shared danger. I understand now that belonging can be considerably less dramatic.

Sometimes it's someone stealing your coffee because they know exactly how you take it. Sometimes it's knowing who will complain first when the replicator malfunctions. Sometimes it's hearing a familiar voice from across the room and knowing, before you turn around, who it belongs to.

I finished what remained of my breakfast and made my way toward the flight control station. Kade is already there. My Raktajino is sitting beside his console, half empty.

I pick it up with a scoff, "Thief."

"Pilot."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

"Uh, huh."

He returns his attention to the display. I sit beside him, and the console wakes beneath my hands. The familiar glow washes over my fingers. I still have moments when I remember the Sunfire. Those memories arrive at weird moments. Sometimes it is a smell. Sometimes it is the vibration of a shuttle deck beneath my boots. Sometimes I hear a particular cadence in someone's voice, and suddenly I am back in training, waiting for Commander Coy to tell me what I did wrong.

I miss Bajor too. That one is harder to explain. I miss the light. The open spaces. The smell of the air after it rains. I miss things I never thought I would miss because I had spent so much of my life thinking that leaving home meant proving I could live somewhere else.

The Veyra has given me something different. It has given me people. I'm still trying to understand what that means.

"Leftie."

I look up. Ensign Thenn is standing beside my station with a PADD tucked against her chest. Kade calls me that. Nobody else has managed to make it sound like an accusation.

"Yes?"

"I need you to look at something."

She slides the PADD toward me. "It's the flight plan for the Kessara run. Kade thinks the approach is fine."

"I said the approach is adequate."

"Which is pilot language for fine."

Kade glances over. "I heard that."

"You were supposed to."

Thenn looks at me. "Tell me if I'm missing something."

I take the PADD. The flight plan is good. More than good, actually. I work through the route and make two minor adjustments, mostly because I can see where Thenn is trying to save reaction time during the final approach. "You are entering the turn too late."

"I knew there was something."

"You knew?"

"Well... I suspected."

"That's different."

"Not when I am right."

I hand the PADD back. She looks at the revised route. Then at me. "That is... much better."

Kade leans over from the next station. "She's been practicing."

Thenn looks offended. "I always practice."

"You practice loudly."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means we know when you are practicing."

She throws the PADD at him.

He catches it.

Rell calls from engineering, "If either of you damages my console, I am billing your departments."

"Why would flight control pay for engineering?"

"Because pilots keep breaking things."

"We fly things."

"You break things... while flying them."

I listen to them argue. I watch Thenn trying not to smile. Kade pretending not to enjoy himself. Rell returning to his diagnostics while continuing to participate in an argument he supposedly wants no part of. I realize I know these people. Not their personnel files. Not their service records, them.

Kade hates pears. Thenn hums when she's concentrating. Rell taps his thumb against his palm when he's worried. Dr. Virel becomes almost frighteningly polite when she's angry. I know which jokes will make them laugh. I know which subjects will make them quiet. I know who will come looking for me when they've had a bad day. That knowledge feels intimate somehow.

It also makes me aware of the distance between this place and home. Sometimes I still feel like a guest. Perhaps that's why I notice the empty chair at lunch. It's become a habit. I sit at the same end of the table, usually because it's far enough away from the kitchen that Rell can't complain about the smell of whatever I am eating.

Today I arrived late, and someone was already sitting there. It stopped me in my tracks. The table went quiet. Kade looked at me. Then at the chair. Then back at me.

"What?"

I point. "That's my seat."

He looks confused. "Since when?"

"I don't know, it just... is."

Thenn started laughing. Rell looked over from his plate. "Move."

The person sitting there, a junior engineer I recognize but have not yet learned well enough to call by name, looked around. "Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Why?"

Rell gestured toward me as though the explanation should be obvious. "That's Sira's chair."

The engineer looks at me. I look down at the chair. Then at everyone else. There is no regulation. No assignment. No official designation. I had never told anyone that it was mine, not even as a suggestion. Somewhere along the way, I had simply started sitting there. And somehow, everyone else had noticed.

The engineer gets up immediately. "Sorry."

I laugh. "No, it's alright. You can stay."

Rell points at the empty seat beside him. "Too late. You have been displaced."

The engineer looks genuinely apologetic.

I shake my head. "Really, it's fine."

Kade slides his tray toward me. "You can sit here."

"That's your seat."

He looks at me with complete seriousness. "I don't have a seat."

Thenn nearly chokes on her drink. "You absolutely have a seat."

"I have a seat." Kade corrects himself. "But it is not my seat."

I sit down. The conversation resumes almost immediately. Someone starts complaining about the morning shift. Someone else tells a story about Rell falling asleep during a maintenance briefing. Rell denies this, even though three people had witnessed it. Thenn asks me whether I am still flying the evening shuttle rotation. I tell her I am. Kade suggests that she should come and watch me land. She asks whether that is an invitation. He says it's a warning.

Everyone laughs again as I sit there listening to them. For a moment, I forget that I'm supposed to be finding my place. I forget that I'm the new officer. I forget that I'm supposed to prove something. I simply sit there with them.

And I think about Bajor. I think about the people I left behind. I think about the Sunfire. I think about Commander Coy. Then I look around the table again. At the noise, the arguments, the terrible jokes and the stolen coffee. The chair nobody assigned to me.

I think perhaps this is how a place becomes home. Not all at once and not because someone tells you that you belong. It happens quietly. Someone learns how you take your coffee. Someone saves you a seat. Someone notices when you are missing. And eventually, without realizing it, you stop wondering whether you are a guest.

I look down at the table. Thenn is arguing with Kade again. Rell is pretending not to listen. Dr. Virel has started smiling, if you could call it that. I smile too. Maybe I am not a stranger here anymore. I'm still not sure I believe that, but I find myself wanting to.

TBC

 

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