“How long has he been at it?” Thompson murmured from the corner of his mouth as he sidled up to the growing group of observers in the corner of Typhon’s vast hanger deck. Two dozen crew members in varying shades of uniform hung in a wide arc around the form of Commander Hijin Tallik as he prepared his next attempt to tick his first box of Typhon bingo.

Krim turned her head towards the large trio of chronometers set into the long bulkhead, gigantic red letters hanging like a flock of ominous temporal buzzards over the deck. Beneath them, the words Earth, Typhon, DS-47 were etched in dark black capital letters.

“Ninety minutes,” Krim announced with an irregular tone of surprise.

“Ninety-one.” She clarified as a three shapeshifted into a four on the wall.

“So far, he’s considered moving a runabout, using the cargo transporter to build a bridge of crates and adjusting the local grav plating.” Foldar turned to the captain as he slid aside to make room.

“Is that a tractor projector?” Thompson asked as Tallik continued calibrating a large device, its heart thrumming quietly.

“That’s correct, Captain,” Foldar replied with glee.

“Where from?”

“He pulled it out from the reserve stock.”

“To do what?”

“He’s going to fly.” Foldar offered the captain a child-like grin before pushing his way through the swelling crowd to witness the man’s attempt up close.

The small group had grown substantially in the last few minutes to witness Tallik’s attempt to, as the crew of Typhon called it, ‘reach the dent’. A large bowl-shaped recess that dominated the upper corner of the hanger deck, ‘the dent’ was a relic of older days when Typon had been birthed into Starfleet’s darkest war. During the ship’s first battle, a returning fighter had been heavily damaged and threatened to explode, taking the ship with it. In a stunning display of quick thinking, the vessel’s very first deck chief had managed to contain the explosion, mitigating the damage to this single corner. The hanger lift beneath it had been replaced, as had much of the nearby bulkheads, but the dent had never been repaired. Initially, due to forgetfulness and later due to superstition.

To touch it was now a rite of passage for every new crew member.

A reminder of Typhon’s heritage.

One of several.

“Does he realise most everyone else uses the antigrav sledges?” Thompson’s brow furrowed as he cast a glance at the stack of transport equipment in a nearby storage bay.

“Apparently, he felt that was not…” Krim chewed her cheek as she assessed the new XO, the man’s answer still ringing in her ears when she had asked a similar question. “… in the spirit of things.”

“Or the lift?” Thompson gestured to the large yellow boxed square beneath the dent that held the recessed form of the hanger bay lift.

Krim offered a slight shrug of her sharp shoulders as her eyes returned to Tallik, who seemed satisfied with his configuration and was taking a takeoff position at the centre of the lift. He dipped to the deck with several deep squats, as much for show as it was for any real preparation.

“Varen said he was adventurous.” Thompson acknowledged as he rocked slightly onto his tip toes to get a better view.

“Is it really the best first impression to make on a new crew?” Krim hissed quietly, acutely aware it would not do to be overheard disparaging the new XO in front of the crew.

Thompson chewed on the thought for a moment. The commander had a fair point, an XO must lead the crew and keep the discipline, setting the standard for safety was top amongst those duties. The young man’s choice to lift himself several metres into the air via tractor beam to reach the ceiling was perhaps not the safest choice.

But it was adventurous.

“He’s taking suitable safety measures, and I think he might be on to something.” Thompson finally decided.

“Captain?” Krim’s bony eyebrows leapt several millimetres up her skull. A minor shift in her stern visage, but enough to indicate her surprise to the well-acustomed colleague.

“We’ve been licking our wounds so thoroughly these last few years. The Lost Fleet, Frontier day, the Borg, the Vaadwaur; maybe we’ve become a bit too risk-averse.” Thompson wrested his attention away from Tallik towards the Cardassian woman. “Risky undertakings are part of the day job. Talik knows this, he wants to set an example that sometimes the risk is worth it.”

“We shall-” Krim found herself interrupted by a wave of quiet gasps as across the bay, Tallik raised one hand high above his bulky shoulders.

Dramatically, he pressed a small control dial clipped onto his belt, and the tractor generator began to pulse with a low phasing warble. With slow, deliberate movements, he scrolled the small dial with a large thumb, and his muscular body began to slowly rise above the grey deck plates as a blue tinge rippled through the air.

The crowd drew in a collective breath, clutching it to their chest as the goliath man began to float delicately towards the ceiling as if he weighed little more than an autumnal flower.

Tallik’s tree trunk legs twitched slightly as the deck finally fell away, causing a young Orion engineer to let out a high-pitched squeal. A friend quickly grabbed her shoulders firmly for fear it would distract the newly angelic commander, but Tallik offered her a suave smile over his shoulder, and she elicited another squeal.

Inch by inch, he rose, his arm still outstretched towards the bent piece of grey sky above the group’s heads. Not a breath escaped the assembled crowd, and the hangar bay fell into a reverent silence as their new leader ascended towards the warped metal.

At the front of the group, Foldar grinned with a wide smile, his rows of white teeth beaming amongst the sea of faces.

At the edge of the crowd, Captain Thomson allowed a hopeful twist of his lips as the man’s hand closed a metre to a foot, then an inch, then a millimetre.

At the very rear of the swollen group, Krim found an unexpected sensation tugging at her stomach, excitement.

When Tallik’s fingers finally touched the cold metal, they heard the cheering on the bridge.