Author: Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

“Look we rescued you, correct?”

“Yes, but-”

“You were floating in a derelict colony vessel. You were a corpsicle. A cryo refugee. We could have LEFT you there!”

“Yeah, I know. You revived me and the other two hundred surviving sleepers. I get it. I’m grateful! But-”

“THIS IS THE SIXTH TIME. And that’s just YOU! That doesn’t count the rest of your kind.”

“Hey, you have to understand. A food replicator is a miracle to us. We’re only human.”

“This is the first ship in the Union that will need to place restrictions. THE FIRST SHIP! It’s EMBARASSING!”

“We’re imaginative primitives new to your time. Like cavemen would have been to us. I’m sorry.”

“Look at this list. You wanted to eat each other?”

“Not literally. Just a taste of consequence-free human meat. And once we found out we could submit each other’s DNA, it just became a party game. Come on. Admit it. You’re curious.”

“NO, I AM NOT.”

“And from there, it was a small hop to tasting all the species onboard we’ve never seen before. Those Tulexians are delicious!”

“I’M a Tulexian, you monster.”

“Okay, I can see how cannibalism, no matter how victimless and consequence-free, might be…. frowned on.”

“Oh, can you?”

“Glad to see sarcasm is alive and well. But what else have we done that’s so bad?”

“The ship’s power went down to 15% this morning.”

“Ah, yes. That.”

“You wanted a….let’s see…I have it in my notes here…a ‘turducken but with every edible animal in the universe’.”

“Yes”

“The main viewscreen crashed in the bridge. The whole ship went down to emergency power.”

“So THAT’S what that was. I was pretty freaked out. My replicator got SUPER hot”

“It was trying to complete your meal! Do you KNOW how many edible animals are in the universe?”

“No?”

“Taking into account that there are 8.7 million species on your Earth alone and there are 237 planets in the Union…..”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Your replicator was literally trying to apply the animal-within-animal turducken principle to…double checking here…yes, 2,961,933,238 recorded animals. That’s nearly three billion layers of meat.”

“In the shape of a turkey”

“Yes. In the shape of a turkey.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t do that again.”

“You can’t. We’ve made it a protocol in the computer that you can no longer do that.”

“Okay. What about an eternal moebius pizza just coming slowly out of the replicator forever?”

“What? No.”

“Anatomically accurate cakes using medical records of fellow crew members?”

“Listen…”

“Bowls of rice with famous paintings on each grain?”

“OKAY THAT’S IT! You’re banned.”

“What?”

“We’ll bring you replicated nutrients and set up a kitchen in the quarters of you and your fellow wakened cryosleepers.”

“Let me have the replicator for ten more minutes. PLEASE? I want the replicator to fry me a copy of your delicious dorsal claws. Then we’ll be cool. We cool?”

“By Tursuk’s tears. No. No, we are not cool.”

“Oh, I just KNEW you wouldn’t be cool about this. I should have eaten a copy of your FACE while I had the chance!”

“By the Hammer of Sherindal! Such depravity. The restrictions stand.”

“Well NOW what are we supposed to do? It’s a long journey back to Earth.”

“We have many means of entertainment available. Although, I’m curious, how come you all haven’t been giving us the same kinds of problems with our holodeck?”

“You guys have holodecks? Can we try that out? That sounds cool.”

“Oh……by Tharlat’s hairy claws. Computer, initiate holodeck lockout procedures alpha prime. Union personnel only.”

“Oh come ON! You guys are the WORST!”