We all stared, silent, for what might have been forever but was likely no more than a minute or two. But as emotionally impactful as the scene might have been, it was also static and unchanging, and not really that much different from the pictures we’d all seen. We all pulled out our phones and spent several minutes taking some pics of our own.

Finally I pulled my eyes away. “Can we go to Mars?”

“Mars is forty minutes away via sublight drive. Proceed?”

“Sure. But can we go FTL?”

“Absolutely. If you want to die.”

“Oh.” Patrick said. “FTL doesn’t work well in-system?”

“It works fine in-system. Being blown up by a Lorannic automated weapons system, though, has very little future in it.”

“Wait, what? Who are the Lorannic?” I said.

“And why would they blow us up?” Patrick demanded.

“And why haven’t you mentioned this before?” Nat added.

“Cheep cheep. Shut your mouths for a moment.” Sheldon waited to ensure silence. “First, they are the Loranna. Lorannic is the possessive form, Just as Gennan is the possessive form of Gen. An individual of the Loranna would be a Lorann.”

“What’s an individual Gen?” Nat asked.

“Still Gen. Different languages, different rules.”

Patrick was unwilling to be deflected or derailed. “Okay, now about the blowing us up part … ”

“The Loranna are a different species. They are what you might call mercenary. If you were being kind.”

“Ah,” Nat said. “Ferengi.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Yes, I see. The wiki page is quite descriptive. And this is the Next Generation you’ve been referring to? Very interesting. I’ll watch a few episodes in my copious time off. And yes, a good analogy, right down to the apparent lack of scruples.”

Nat bobbed her head back and forth, working through Sheldon’s explanation. “Okay, so we have Gen and Loranna in our system. Why?”

“Currently, you do not have Gen in your system, just automated observation posts. Active investigation of your species ended a few decades back, once they had built up sufficient cultural background to establish context for ongoing observations. And barring significant events, that’s the way it will remain. Loranna, you do have. At least according to Alaric.”

Nat turned to me and Patrick. “Which I bet leads directly to my question of why Alaric stole the ship.”

“Indeed. Alaric believed that a group of Loranna are attempting a surreptitious takeover of your planet using a loophole in the Galactic Covenant regarding pre-contact species. He was unable to convince the Gennan government of his theories, so he undertook a desperate gamble in an attempt to both find some proof and possibly get the government’s attention. He stole this ship from the Opah Mal Gennan Foundation’s fleet by hacking me, and then he flew here.”

“To find proof that the Loranna are trying to take over?” I asked.

“Correct.”