Nova was fifteen minutes late, once again, and they had started the social without her.

Instead of the smattering of tables across Hindsight, her operations department had set up an array of painting easels across the space. Stools for each painter were positioned to look aft, through the wide-set observation ports that put the bridge’s viewscreen to shame.

When she couldn’t find Captain Elbon among them, she nodded to herself in relief. He must be even later than her.

Making her way into the lounge, Nova took hold of an anti-grav easel and dragged it behind her. She offered quick smiles to each crew member she passed.

Farther into the room, she saw Elbon, hunched behind an easel that was crammed into the corner. She hardly recognised him in his outdated Bajoran fashion: a slate wool blazer with pebble patterns on the lapels, over a dark copper shirt and slacks. Watching him fuss with the pots of mineral powders at the base of his easel summed up his command style aboard this ship.

He was just one of the guys. Out of his depth because he didn’t have any advanced degrees in stellar cartography. That was how he had spun the crew into an agitated state: he wanted the senior staff to decide where to begin their first star-mapping mission, but he also reserved the right to overrule them.

Was he part of the pack or was he a Starfleet captain? She’d been trained by captains in command gold, when the great wilderness of space had been unkind to dithering. They all knew their position. They all knew their place.

Even with nothing more important to lead than a paintbrush, Elbon looked lost.

As she closed the distance between them, Nova swung her easel around. When Lieutenant Belarr wasn’t looking, Nova pushed his easel a metre to the right, so she could squeeze in beside Elbon.

She had known Elbon to be confidently calm as acting captain of USS Constellation; he used quick wit to reason his way out of most disasters. Sometimes he lost his patience and chose expediency when diplomacy was called for, or he clung to diplomacy when the world was falling down around him. All the pieces of the puzzle were there; they just didn’t always join up.

Hipparchus wasn’t Elbon’s first command, by far. The crew needed him to be better. And fast.

Nova slid onto the stool beside Elbon, and she leaned in. Conspiratorially, she said, “I don’t see many teal shoulders in here. Do you think any science officer will be managing sleep before your proposal deadline tomorrow?”

Although he smiled at that, Elbon kept his eyes on his creation. He brushed another stroke of the naturally luminescent mineral dust on his canvas, while the ultrasonic vibrations from the brush adhered the dust to the canvas.

He responded at the same speed as his meticulous brushstroke: slowly. “If you’re blessing me with your presence, does that mean your proposal is complete?”

“Sure,” Nova insisted, as if it were as certain as a law of nature. She straightened up her posture and shrugged. “I knocked it together in half an hour.”

“Is that wise?” he asked. Nova knew Elbon well enough to infer how loaded that question was, but he still sounded distracted by the blue rings he was painting on his canvas.

Pursing her lips, Nova stifled a laugh. “Even after a subjective two-hundred years, I’m rarely wise.”

“And I’m serious.” He looked at her now, his bright eyes in movement, studying her face. “Our mission is not only to decide only where to look; we decide what other explorers will ignore. Twenty years from now, ensigns who’ve barely been born yet will be trusting our maps. Don’t you see what a profound responsibility that is?”

Looking back at him from beneath her bangs, Nova shook her head. It was a minuscule movement. Almost brittle.

“I can’t take that on,” she said, but it wasn’t an admission. It was an accusation. “All I hear is you asking what the right decision is.”

Elbon put down his paintbrush. The light behind his eyes dimmed.

“Because it matters.”

Nova’s voice got deeper as she levelled with him. “The crew is just as lost as you are, Jak. That’s the job. You’re supposed to make the decision anyway. You’re just overwhelmed by too many truths.”

Sardonically, Elbon retorted, “Because I’m going feeble as I approach middle age?”

Despite the words, Nova heard no shame in his voice. He was fishing for a compliment, like some insecure lieutenant. She gave it to him anyway.

“You’re up for this decision and this mission.”

“Task force command didn’t seem to think so,” Elbon remarked.

Hearing all the emotion drain from his voice sent goosebumps up Nova’s arms. She’d rather he yell at her than become emotionally inaccessible. He sounded like he was already half-convinced that he didn’t belong in the centre chair.

“I led this entire squadron for the better part of a year, and then I was made to step down,” he said in an undertone. “My track record in the Shackleton Expanse is littered with anomalous readings we never managed to explain and a failed first contact.”

Wait. Why wasn’t he defending his inaction anymore? Her spine stiffened as Nova felt another wave of chills run through her. Elbon was actually starting to trust her.

Elbon met Nova’s eyes for a couple of heartbeats, and then split his attention with his painting. “If I’m going to lead these star mapping missions, I want to know I’m the sort of captain who deserves to make those decisions.”

Nova sighed dramatically, her shoulders slouching. She nudged her easel, and the anti-gravs did the rest, repositioning it as a privacy barrier between her and Belarr.

“This is what I mean: you’re going about this backwards,” Nova hissed at Elbon. Why wouldn’t he listen? “You lead this crew. You make decisions. You live with the consequences. That’s the only way you’ll learn what kind of captain you really are.”

Flatly, Elbon asked, “The only way?”

But Nova was on a roll. “You’re slopping too much meaning into this being your first mission. First is subjective, captain. Hipparchus was here before you; half this crew was here before you. It’s time to make a decision, not a statement. You’re using philosophy to avoid making a decision.”

“It feels meaningful when the ship is changing beneath me,” Elbon said. His words came out measured and thoughtful. Nova found it infuriating after she had spat hard-earned truths at him.

“You and I were not the only crew rotations during shore leave,” he said in a clarifying manner. “Everyone will remember how I handle this choice and live by the same lesson. Hipparchus is a Ship of Theseus.”

“It’s a survey vessel, Jak.”

“Both can be true.”

“So you don’t want a ship of cowards,” she bit back. “Then stop being so afraid of being wrong.”

His head pivoted, gaping at Nova in a snap. Elbon managed to breathe out a huff, but his lips couldn’t immediately decide what words he was trying to form.

He dropped his gaze. “I don’t know how to turn it off.”

If he wouldn’t look at her, Nova looked to his canvas. Elbon’s mineral painting portrayed the collapse of two places as one. She recognised their ship’s engine room, and it was being licked by flames from the very heart of the Fire Caves of Bajor.

Nova thought Elbon meant the entire crew was a Ship of Theseus, but he was talking about himself.

He really wasn’t the same captain as he was yesterday.

Stumbling from her stool, Nova muttered, “I’m sorry, sir.” She dipped her head, and before she bolted for the exit, she shared her shameful truth. “I need to start seeing you for the captain you are and not the captain I wish you would be.”