The: Orville

A quick transport later, Ed, Kelly, Alara, and Isaac (the Kaylon whose expression of perpetual mild disdain never changed) stood in the Sagan ’s dripping cargo bay. They found two survivors: Dr. Aris Fen, a brilliant xenobiologist, and her husband, a nervous engineer named Klytus who was trying to re-route power through a gelatinous cube.

Kelly smiled. “Because every other ship in the fleet would have tried to negotiate with it or shoot it. You? You made it throw up.”

“Activating,” Kelly said.

“A hundred-year aged Moclan fermented seaweed-malt liquor,” Dr. Fen read the label. “With notes of burnt tires, regret, and ‘a finish that lasts longer than a Union-Danube war.’ It’s perfect.”

“Okay,” Ed said, leaning back in his command chair. “Standard first contact protocol. Kelly, hail it.” The Orville

“You can’t fight it,” Dr. Fen said. “You have to offend it. You need a flavor so vile, so fundamentally wrong, that it rejects us like a bad oyster.”

Bortus looked at the bottle, then at the desperate faces around him. “You are asking me to weaponize… Pepto-Abysmal?” A quick transport later, Ed, Kelly, Alara, and

Ed couldn’t argue with that. He leaned back in his chair. “Helm, set a course for the nearest bar. I need a drink that doesn’t taste like a war crime.”

“It will taste of photons and lies,” Bortus said grimly. Kelly smiled