Captain's Blog, Stardate: The Middle of the Night, and I'd rather be asleep. The U.S.S. Citation just arrived to jump us off so we can get going and take Captain Safeway to Deep Space Seven-Eleven for her new assignment. Our Head of Maintenance, Lt. Jed Jenkins, is going out in a space suit to perform the outside connection, as apparently he's the only person on board who has any experience with it.

Coffee in hand, Captain Clerk stood in the upper deck of Engineering, staring at a monitor trained on Jenkins, who was still in the process of suiting up.

"No, no, no, you put that tab in the back of -- wait, that's not right -- you tie this up with some cable ties, and..."

"You do know how to do this, don't you?" Clerk said, irritated.

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After taking a deep breath and assuring his Security Officer that he would not damage any of the electronics he was standing in front of, Captain Clerk picked up the headset and resumed talking to Jenkins, who still had not hooked up the jumper cables.

"Look, Jenkins, just focus, okay? We'll get through this. Red is positive, black is negative. Do it and come back in."

"Cap'm, I'm 'bout ta burst here!"

Sigh. "Come on, man... doesn't your suit... uh... account for that sort of thing?" At least Clerk still cared about how he worded things at this point.

"Naw, sir, this is one a-them old school types. I'll stain it if I--"

"Look, I will personally help clean up if anything happens, if you'll just focus and get this done." I can't believe I'm saying this.

"Citation to Secondprize. Citation to Secondprize. Do you copy?"

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Captain's Blog, Stardate: Party Time! I can't believe it! I never thought this day would arrive. As of today, our hybrid First Officer, Commander Klaa'ck, is officially the first First... hmm, that sounds awkward... anyways, he's the first First Officer to last longer than six weeks on the Secondprize! We weren't sure he would make it, especially during the Percy Sludge situation, but still... this is a truly historic event! We'd been planning a party just in case, so now we get to actually throw it for him! As long as he doesn't throw it back at us, we'll be okay. I think.

Captain Clerk took his place among the officers in the dimly lit conference room, waiting for Klaa'ck to arrive. Of course, the First Officer had only been told that "he was needed in Conference Room 22B at 8pm". Six weeks, of course, is not long enough to learn the idiosyncrasies of the Secondprize's crew, and that the fewer details you are given, the more concerned you should be about what you're being called to do.

The only thing that Clerk was concerned about, however, was whether or not Klaa'ck's fight-or-flight response (which for Klingons does not include the "-or-flight" part) would overrule his Vulcan Emotion Blocker.

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A meeting just isn't a meeting without caffeine, and Captain Clerk's preferred source is coffee. However, with tea being all the rage with captains these days, he finally bowed to pressure and decided to give it a try. A hot beverage is a hot beverage, right?

Standing in front of the break room's replicator, Clerk braced himself for whatever grief this thing was going to give him.

"I'd like some tea."

"What kind of tea would you like, Captain?"

Already, he'd run up against a question he wasn't prepared for. "Um... hot?"

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Why anybody thought "Bring Your Ancestor or Family to Work Day" was a good idea was beyond Clerk. Still, he didn't want to go against a long-standing Fleet tradition, especially one that was so popular with the crew. So there he stood, in the "Meet and Greet with the Captain" area that Yeoman Rind set up in Reception Room 14A. No putting on a disguise and escaping this year.

Things were going pretty much as expected... until Clerk saw an entire family of clowns walking around.

"Let me guess," he said under his breath to Rind.

"Yep. That's Ensign Kazoo's family."

"So... they're all like that? I thought he was just wearing make up on his own. So, like, is that their skin? Are they an alien race? I never really--"

"No sir, they're from a human colony. I forget where. It's a cultural thing, apparently. Everybody on the planet wears that stuff."

As the family excitedly made their way over, Clerk said one last thing:

"You need to stop me when I start asking questions, Yeoman."

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