The Coy Method - SAR in the Badlands II
Posted on Wed Sep 17th, 2025 @ 12:57am by Commander Rosa Coy
1,126 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Character Development
Location: Badlands
Section II – Departure and the Badlands
The Sunfire sat moored to the skeletal arms of Deep Space Nine, her lines sleek and restrained beside the station’s hodgepodge of Cardassian architecture. Commander Rosa Prilen Coy stood in the shuttlebay, helmet tucked under one arm, her stature deceptively small against the line of seven waiting Type-11 shuttles. One for her, six for her cadets.
Her eyes — black as obsidian, marked with the faint sweep of Trill spots — tracked each cadet with the quiet calculation of a predator. She didn’t need an introduction this time. These six had already flown at her side, sweated through maneuvers under her cutting gaze, and lived to tell the tale. Today wasn’t about simulation. Today they were going into the Badlands, where even seasoned captains tread lightly.
”You’re practically salivating,” Coy purred inside her mind. ”Six little birds about to leave the nest. Some will flap, some will plummet. I wonder which will scream loudest on the way down?”
Rosa’s jaw tightened just enough to feel the muscle strain. “Stow it,” she muttered under her breath. A deckhand glanced at her, puzzled, but Rosa’s glare sent him scurrying.
Across the bay, Jenna Ramthorne crossed her own shuttle’s ramp, sparing Rosa a brief nod. Pilot to pilot. No need for words. Rosa returned the nod with professional brevity, though Coy hissed in her ear, ”She’d look better out of uniform. All sinew and fire.”
Rosa ignored him. She stepped into her shuttle and let the doors seal her off from the station’s bustle.
“Cadets,” Rosa’s voice crackled across the comm once all seven shuttles were powered and aligned in the bay. Her tone was measured, clipped, but sharp enough to draw blood if tested. “This is not a drill. The Badlands are no place for holo-scenarios. Plasma storms, gravimetric shear, subspace eddies — they’ll kill you quicker than any Jem’Hadar squadron. Consider today a baptism. Fly well, and you come back with scars worth showing. Fly sloppy…”
She let the silence linger until it itched. “…and you don’t come back at all.”
”Deliciously dramatic,” Coy chuckled. ”You sound almost as though you care which way it goes.”
“Form up,” Rosa snapped.
The bay doors peeled open, and seven shuttles slipped into the stars. For a moment, Bajor’s glow bathed their hulls, the curve of the planet soft and deceptively safe. Then Rosa banked her shuttle toward the storm-riddled nebula looming like a bruise across the stars.
The Badlands were alive. Arcs of plasma lightning flared from one cloud to the next, searing white against the rust-colored maelstrom. Gravitational eddies pulsed visibly, warping the starfield in ragged ripples.
“Maintain two-ship wing formations,” Rosa ordered. “Arven with Dalkor. Threx with Jeyna. Veylin with Sira. I’ll fly lead.”
She watched their icons snap into formation on her HUD. Mostly straight. Arven surged a little ahead of his partner, predictably. Dalkor’s Tellarite shuttle bobbled in correction as though muttering curses the comm couldn’t catch.
”Show pony’s itching to break formation,” Coy noted, his voice a velvety poison. ”Bet you a bottle of kanar he tries to show off in the first five minutes. Maybe pull a barrel roll. Tight curves are always sexier when they leave you breathless.”
“Eyes forward,” Rosa muttered aloud to herself. ”How would a bet even work? I’d drink up either way.” She then thought, Coy wasn't the smartest of her former hosts after all.
They breached the outer tendrils of the Badlands. Immediately, the shuttles rocked under buffeting waves of gravimetric pressure. Rosa’s hands danced across her controls, feathering thrusters, keeping the nose clean. She didn’t need to check the others to know who struggled.
“Cadet Jeyna, you’re too tight on your stick. Relax your grip or you’ll overcorrect into a spin.”
“Y-Yes, Commander,” Jeyna’s voice stammered.
“And Arven,” Rosa added, her voice like the crack of a whip, “your ego’s writing checks your inertial dampeners can’t cash. Rein it in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” came his reply, clipped but smug.
He’s picturing you saying that, naked in bed,” Coy teased. ”All whip and no mercy. Gods, you’d eat him alive.”
Rosa felt the ghost of a flush creep up her neck but buried it beneath her next order.
“Cadets Threx and Sira, hold your spacing. Bajoran resilience and Andorian bravado won’t save you if you tangle wings.”
“Aye, Commander,” Threx replied, her Andorian edge just barely concealing defiance. Sira was quieter, earnest: “Understood.”
The plasma storm’s interior lit up in jagged arcs. Rosa’s shuttle dipped low, thrusters flaring, skimming a pocket of relative calm. The cadets followed, more or less. She scanned their vector — a ragged line, but holding.
“Alright, little birds,” Rosa said, her tone almost playful now. “Time to see how you dance. Execute a Split-S, maintain spacing. Show me you know your nose from your tail.”
Six shuttles rolled inverted and pulled through. Most clean. Jeyna lagged, her nerves making the arc too wide. Threx snapped hers crisp and perfect — almost too aggressive. Arven made his look effortless, drawing a showy spiral at the end that Rosa did not authorize.
“Cadet Arven,” Rosa’s voice went cold, “you improvise again, and I’ll personally weld your flight stick to neutral.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said again, still smug.
Coy chuckled. ”Spank him harder, love. He likes it when you use your teeth.”
Rosa’s hands clenched on the controls. She took a long, steadying breath.
Then the Badlands reminded them all who was in charge.
Without warning, a plasma conduit ruptured off their port side, a blinding eruption of light and swirling force. The shockwave hammered through the formation. Rosa’s shuttle jolted hard right, inertial dampeners straining.
“Brace!” she barked, though most of the cadets were already shrieking.
HUD alarms screamed. Sira’s shuttle yawed wildly, nearly clipping Veylin. Jeyna’s nose pitched down, thrusters sputtering. And Arven — of course — broke formation entirely, his shuttle caught in the storm’s eddy, spiraling toward a plasma funnel that looked hungry enough to eat him whole.
“Arven!” Rosa snapped, voice cutting through static. “Counterthrust starboard, hard — now!”
“I can’t—” His voice was thin, panicked. “Controls aren’t responding—”
Plasma arced around him, curling like fingers ready to close.
Rosa’s gut tightened.
”There it is,” Coy whispered, almost reverent. ”The scream on the way down.”
Rosa’s shuttle banked hard, thrusters flaring as she dove after him.
TBC
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