I ignored Sheldon’s complaint and Nat’s answering evil grin. “Well, I’ll have to move the truck out, but we’re taking it in tomorrow anyway. I just feel weird about leaving the ship out in a field.”

“But it’s invisible,” Nat pointed out.

“And we found it anyway,” I replied. “All we needed was to know it existed and to have a starting point to search from. Want to bet a concerted aerial search would have found the tripod indentations?”

“Jack is correct, Natalie. Should the Loranna have reason to start an organized search, they would locate the ship within three days at most, based only on that, even without a starting point.”

“You could have parked on rock or something,” she said.

“Alaric was not a strategist. Or a pilot. Or particularly smart, based on his manner of passing. In any case, the ship would act as a canopy over the ground below it, invisible or not. A few rainstorms and a circle would begin to stand out.”

I sat back and crossed my arms, feeling smug. Natalie scratched the side of her nose with her middle finger while glaring back at me.

During this exchange, Patrick had been examining the conn, tentatively pushing on the joysticks on the chair arms. “Hey, Sheldon, if someone’s at the controls, can you override if they’re about to mess up?”

“Only if ordered to do so. Or in cases of extreme danger and impending destruction.”

“Good. I’m ordering you to do so, as a default behavior.” Patrick sat at the conn and fingered the controls. “How about a quickie lesson? What do I do first?”

“Very well. First, get up from the pilot’s chair. Second, hit yourself repeatedly on the side of the head with a rock, you five-fingered cretin.”

“Whoo! Touchy. But seriously, Sheldon, I think at least one of us should have some ability to fly this tu—er, ship. Just in case. And no, I don’t know just in case what.”

“Hmmph. I still prefer my plan, but very well. I have disabled the controls for the moment so you can practice in simulation without running the ship into an asteroid. The joystick on the left controls roll, pitch, and yaw. The one on the right controls acceleration and deceleration.”

“How do you brake?”

“Pushing the control forward accelerates you forward. Pushing it backward accelerates you backward. Or slows you down if you are already moving forward. Otherwise, you coast.”

“Interesting.” Patrick tilted the right joystick. “So you can accelerate sideways. But not up and down?”

“You can pull the joystick up or push it down to get vertical acceleration.”

Patrick played with both joysticks for a few moments. “Nice. Quite intuitive, actually. Does this work for FTL as well?”