STAR SICK: The Original Generation

The Space Cloud slowly moved away, disappointed that it didn’t move any merchandise, but unable to resist due to Klaa’ck’s effective mind-melting.

Well, that was mildly exciting. Hope it helped the ratings.

“Captain,” said Lt. Kato, fiddling with the device in her ear, attempting in vain to make it feel reasonably comfortable. “There’s a message coming in for you from Fleet Headquarters. On a private channel.”

Clerk sighed. The last thing he needed was more bad news.

“I’ll answer it in my quarters,” he said, getting up out of his seat. If some bigwig is going to gloat over our imminent demise, I’d at least like to be comfortable.

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Captain’s Blog, Stardate… 12. Does 12 sound right? I’m going with 12. Close enough. Anyways, something major is apparently going on. We have encountered a strange, unknown Space Cloud that is wreaking havoc on this sector of the galaxy. Picnics are being canceled all over the place, and I’m regretting not having rolled up the windows on my shuttlecraft. Additionally, I’m getting a headache from the Red Alert this thing triggered. I didn’t even know we had one of those things. If this is what they’re like, I’m gonna have it uninstalled.

Captain Clerk stood silently and watched the reddish blob slowly move across the main screen. Several minutes passed, with the Bridge Crew nervously looking around, wondering when he was going to say something… like, I don’t know, an order or whatever.

“So… it’s a cloud,” he finally said, puzzled. “Why is this a big deal?”

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As much as Captain Clerk wanted to enjoy The Attic, he was summoned away by the one thing a Captain fears most… a Priority One message. They nearly always come directly from Fleet HQ, and are practically guaranteed to be bad news. And of all the Priority One messages Clerk had received in his career, this one was the one he hoped he’d never get.

Naturally, this meant a Senior Staff Meeting had to be called.

Once everybody got there — and Lt. Kato was searched for projectiles — the meeting began… and Clerk had to drop the tsar bomba on everybody.

“Guys, I’m gonna cut to the chase on this one, I–”

“Oh, please, please… can’t we have at least one lame joke beforehand?” Dr. Flüshaht sarcastically interrupted.

Clerk sighed. “As I was beginning to say, I have just received a Priority One message from Fleet Headquarters. It would seem that our ratings have been considerably low of late, and that we are in danger of… being canceled.”

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Exhausted from an evening of dealing with requests, suggestions, and grievances, Captain Clerk lay down on his bed, trying to think of anything besides reams of paper and frustrated ensigns.

I mean come on, even I don’t get food as good as you guys are requesting.

Just as he was reaching for his Tricorder for his ritual marathon of Tetris, he suddenly remembered: The Attic. That mysterious place on Deck -12 that few know about and even fewer talk about… although Dr. Flüshaht seemed to refer to it like it was common knowledge. The list of decks only mentions its name, not giving any description. How bizarre.

Yeah, I totally need to check that place out… tomorrow.

Two weeks later, when he finally remembered it again, Clerk took the elevator up to the top of the ship, finally ready to see the pinnacle of those decks that had mysteriously appeared all those episodes ago. Sure, it was probably full of some kind of storage units or something, but at least he will have finally seen it. With a name like “The Attic” it couldn’t be that exciting.

The doors opened to reveal a sight the Captain wouldn’t have anticipated in a million years: a small room, dimly it, with “The Attic” in neon letters hanging on the wall, and, at the other end, a line of velvet ropes in front of a very nice looking door.

In front of those velvet ropes, there stood… a bouncer.

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It didn’t take long for the new regulation “hard copy communiqués” to catch on. What really took some time was for crewmembers to stop prefacing their comments with “I hope you read this since you never check your email”. In the five days between the installation of the system and the all-crew meeting, over 700 pieces of paper were routed to the Captain’s desk. Of these,

213 were complaints about the lack of Standard Operating Procedures;
117 were complaints about the presence of Standard Operating Procedures;
152 were complaints about the meal plan for ensigns;
84 were filed under “Miscellaneous Complaints”;
143 were suggestions for new video games for the arcade;
17 were requests for confirmation that Commander Klaa’ck was going to stay on the ship, unlike all the First Officers before him;
and one was just a note asking if “that Jimmy fella” was still the Captain.

Yeoman Janet Rind made sure that Captain Clerk read every single one. Even the one that came from the Downloadable Doctor.

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