The Coy Method - Crash Protocol VI
Posted on Sun Sep 28th, 2025 @ 5:19pm by Commander Rosa Coy
1,433 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Character Development
Location: Badlands
The crash was behind them, but the planet itself was no refuge. There was a mission to complete.
The rogue world’s atmosphere clung like oil, ionized clouds flashing violet in the distance. Jagged cliffs carved the horizon into serrated teeth, and the ground shook with low, seismic grumbles as though the world objected to their presence. The cadets regrouped in the shallow canyon where Sira’s shuttle had supposedly gone to ground, battered but not broken.
Sira’s shuttle was gone. At least, that’s what they believed.
The remaining six shuttles landed near the mission area. Each pilot stepping out minutes later in EV suits designed for harsh environments. They each came together near the mission debris at the center, Rosa stood back, watching.
Rosa said nothing. She stood back from the cluster of cadets, her arms crossed, recording every reaction while Coy’s sardonic voice purred in her mind. ”You broke them, Rosa. Just look at their eyes. They’ll hate you for this.”
She ignored him. The test wasn’t about being liked.
Jeyna paced in tight circles, her face pale but composed.
“This doesn’t add up. No debris pattern consistent with a total burn. No plasma residue. It’s… it’s too clean.”
“Too clean?” Dalkor barked, fists balled at his sides. “She’s gone, Jeyna. Don’t wrap it in technobabble. She’s dead!”
Veylin knelt beside the cracked casing of their primary data core, hands already moving to stabilize its dampening fields.
“Dead or not, shouting won’t change our priority. This core contains tactical simulations, restricted intelligence, and logs from the ship’s drive tests. If we lose this, the entire mission collapses.”
Arven slammed a fist into the hull plating. “You think anyone’s going to care about a pile of circuits if we leave her behind?” His voice cracked — the swagger gone, raw nerves exposed.
Threx said nothing at first. His antennae twitched as though tasting the storm air, and finally he muttered: “We need a search team.”
Then Rosa deliberately cut local comms — a subtle interference pulse — the group descended into confusion. Jeyna was the one who pulled them back together.
“Listen to me,” she snapped, sharp Trill command cutting through the rising noise. “We split priorities. One team locks down the cores. The other preps Shuttle Two for a minimum-power ascent. If we waste time arguing, we’ll all be corpses.”
Her logic was clean. Effective. Cold. Almost Vulcan.
Dalkor bristled. “So that’s it? Leave Sira in a crater because your ‘logic’ says so?”
“This isn’t about what I want,” Jeyna shot back, eyes flashing. “It’s about the mission.”
Rosa felt Coy chuckle. ”Mission-first. Efficient. And yet… even her voice shakes. She doesn’t believe it.”
The air suddenly crackled — Rosa’s doing, though none of them could know it. An ion surge rolled across the canyon like a living tide, destabilizing Eagle One’s magnetic clamps. Warning sirens screamed as the vessel groaned under stress.
Threx snapped to action, voice louder than the alarms. “Forget the cores! Jeyna, get your people inside and secure that hull! Arven, you’re with me — we sweep the south ridge. If there’s even a chance she survived, we’ll find her.”
Arven didn’t hesitate. His relief at having a task, any task, was palpable. “Aye, sir!”
Veylin, however, rounded on him. “This is suicide! The surge is unstable, and the terrain is collapsing. We should be preparing for ascent, not chasing ghosts!”
Dalkor smirked darkly. “Finally, someone talking sense.”
The cadets split, tension wound to breaking. Rosa logged every word.
The south ridge answered before Rosa could. A tremor rolled beneath their boots, splitting rock with a sound like thunder. A gaping fissure tore open where Threx and Arven had advanced.
“Life signs!” Arven shouted, his tricorder wailing in his hand. “I’ve got her — I’ve got Sira down there!”
“Stand down, Cadet!” Jeyna yelled, but Arven was already leaping forward, scrambling down a slope of crumbling stone.
The ridge gave way. Arven tumbled, barely catching a ledge as a shower of rocks roared past him. Threx lunged, hauling him back with brute Andorian strength just before the ledge snapped free and vanished into the abyss.
Arven’s eyes were wild, his chest heaving. “I saw her! I swear—”
“It was a phantom echo,” Veylin said, voice flat. “Sensor ghost. She is gone.”
Dalkor’s face twisted. “No. No, this is wrong. This whole thing stinks of manipulation.” He turned toward Rosa, pointing an accusatory finger. “You knew. You set us up. Didn’t you?”
Rosa’s gaze was unreadable. “I don’t interfere,” she said, and her voice was as cold as the storm-wracked sky.
Coy whispered with relish: ”They’re eating each other alive. And you’re letting them.”
Half an hour passed and finally the cadets were on the edge of collapse, half ready to break down and cry, they other half carrying the weight, when the shimmer came.
High above, the storm clouds bent, rippling with a distortion like heat over metal. Out of the air, as if conjured, a shuttle glided into sight — its hull fading into full visibility as its advanced sensor-masking dissolved.
The shuttle touched down smoothly, effortlessly and powered down. The side hatch opened. A familiar figure stepped into the stormlight wearing an EV suit. Sira was alive, shaken but unscathed.
The cadets froze, every breath stolen.
Rosa’s voice carried over the comms. “Your comrade was never gone. This planet was never beyond my control. Every tremor, every echo, every interference — it was orchestrated. Because I needed to know: would you carry grief and duty in the same hands, or would you drop one to save the other?”
Silence followed.
Rosa stood before them, arms folded, eyes scanning each face as though weighing the very core of their choices. The stormlight from the rogue planet’s atmosphere cast long, wavering shadows across the canyon floor, illuminating exhaustion and fear etched into every line.
One by one, she demanded acknowledgment — not of skill, not of survival, but of principle.
Jeyna was the first to lift her chin, voice crisp despite the tremor in her hands. “Mission first,” she said, eyes locking with Rosa’s, unflinching. Her words were sharp, definitive, a Trill assertion of duty carved into the chaos around them.
Threx’s fists trembled at his sides, knuckles whitening, but when he spoke, it was firm, urgent, raw. “Lives first,” he said. The Andorian heat in his voice cracked the veneer of bravado, laying bare the unspoken fear that had driven him to reckless courage moments before.
Arven’s usual swagger was gone. He stood slack-shouldered, chest rising and falling in ragged breaths, voice almost a whisper. “Proof of loyalty,” he admitted, the words heavy with a weight he hadn’t let himself carry before. It was confession and realization, tangled with relief and shame.
Veylin remained stoic, the calm rock against which the storm of emotions splintered. His tone was measured, each syllable precise, calculated. “Calculated survival,” he said, unshaken, the Vulcan logic threading a strange steadiness through the raw vulnerability surrounding him.
Finally, Dalkor’s expression twisted with bitter clarity. Eyes hard, jaw set, he spoke in a tone that left no room for negotiation. “Truth, even if ugly,” he said. The Tellarite’s admission cut like a blade, acknowledging the pain of honesty as a choice — one that had to coexist with fear, duty, and sacrifice.
Rosa let the silence stretch after the last word. Each answer hung in the storm-heavy air, a testament to what they had endured. She allowed herself a brief exhale, feeling the weight of their realizations settle, knowing they had glimpsed something deeper than skill or courage.
And then, her voice cut through — calm, unwavering, and still sharp as a tactical phaser. “None of you were wrong. None of you were right. Leadership isn’t about purity of choice. It’s about carrying the weight of being wrong… and moving forward anyway.”
The cadets re-boarded their battered shuttles.
The storm followed them up, lightning clawing at their hulls. But they rose, united not by clarity — but by the scars of the ordeal.
Rosa’s hand hovered over the console, watching their telemetry. Coy’s voice pressed into her ear, dark amusement laced with warning. ”They think the worst is behind them. Should we tell them the truth?”
Rosa allowed herself a rare smile. “Let them find out the hard way.”
TBC
RSS Feed