Meanwhile, on another ship called Secondprize...

Captain Willie T. Wrecker stood in front of the bathroom mirror, nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It was the morning of the first day of his first starship command. Sure, he was getting the Secondprize 2.0^[beta], the big shiny new ship that was going to be the testing ground for all new technologies (thereby guaranteeing that something would be broken at all times), but still... a command is a command, and his four fateful weeks as Captain Clerk's First Officer were now ancient history. Not that he would ever hear the end of it anytime soon. Today, however, he faced one of the most monumental career decisions he'd ever have to make, one he'd dreaded ever since he got the assignment, but that he knew was inevitable:

To beard, or not to beard?

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So... should I change my FleetBook^TM status from "it's complicated" to "in an on-again-off-again relationship...again"?

Captain Clerk sat on his bed, staring blankly out his window, still trying to process what had happened the night before. Sure, he and Safeway had gotten back together before, but this time it was... weird. Perhaps it was the overall daze he had been in that night. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't even been asked. She just said it should happen and it did. He wasn't really involved in that decision, which, for all he knew, had taken place in front of Safeway's bathroom mirror as she brushed her hair that morning.

With all of this drama rolling around in his head, Clerk just couldn't handle being a Captain today. Or maybe he just didn't want Info to see him like this, because he knew it would be question after question. Regardless, he called in a Personal Day Off and attempted to relax.

The ringing doorbell didn't help.

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Captain's Blog, Stardate: Season Finale. The trip to Andoria actually was fairly uneventful, contrary to expectations, and we all came away unscathed. That is, except for our Security Chief, Lt. Yarrrrr, who slipped on a small oil slick and fell and hit her head, putting her out of commission. As the Embassy medics took her away, she seemed frustrated, mumbling something about it "not being the way the contract was supposed to end" and her Academy loans. Women are weird. Anyways, I'm riding out the rest of the trip to Starbase Johnny 5 hoping absolutely nothing will happen.

"We're here already?" Captain Clerk had barely sat down in his Ready Room when his navigator walked in and gave him the news.

"Aye, Captain," said Lt. Eric with a smile. "I found a shortcut. We didn't even have to go over Warp 4!"

Wait, how do you...? Never mind. Best not to ask questions. "Uh, good job. Have Kato no--"

"She's already worked everything out. We even found a good parking spot!"

I leave the Bridge for five minutes and suddenly everybody goes into hyper-productivity mode. I get it, I get it.

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