SCIFI.COM | Farscape: Journey Logs

Our first indication that something was wrong should have been that both Chiana and Rygel chose not to join the others on a shopping expedition to a Commerce Station.

Rygel spent his time learning to use a portable viewing shell to spy on activity in other areas of Moya. At first I thought Rygel's new hobby was a bit rude but basically harmless; but when the DRDs informed me that he was observing Chiana having sex in the freezer pod chamber with D'Argo's son, Jothee, I'll admit, I would have been more comfortable not knowing about either activity, his or theirs.

The crew know the DRDs have ears; they know I am aware of all that goes on throughout Moya. So I am in no position to scold Rygel for spying. But I wish Chiana and Jothee had shown better judgment.

Meanwhile, Crichton, Aeryn, Zhaan and Stark had gone to the commerce station to spend the currency we'd acquired at the Shadow Depository. Once they were on the station, however, a terrible gamma disturbance emerged from a nearby nebula, and the station sustained heavy damage when the storm hit.

The crew immediately began to assist people on the station who were injured in the storm, and to search for survivors in the wreckage. D'Argo searched for other surviving vessels, and found only one: a derelict craft of unknown origin, which we brought aboard Moya. I then began making preparations for Moya's departure — only to discover she had become tangled in the station's docking cables.

In the midst of this chaos, two unusual events occurred. The first: the awakening of one of the Interions, a male who remained conscious for a few microts then suddenly collapsed and died. The second: Jothee, for no discernible reason, took a bath.

Crichton wanted to know why the station's sensors offered no advance warning of the storm, so he asked me to analyze the readings from Moya's sensors. Crichton's suspicions proved justified: the first storm had made a 90-degree turn to hit the station. And to make matters worse, another storm was now heading towards us, much more powerful than the first. This new storm would destroy the already damaged station — and Moya with it.

Chiana, who was busy sealing Moya's ruptured hatches, discovered that one of the commerce station's lower pods was a nursery full of children, and it was cut off from the rest of the facility. Aeryn and Crichton began seeking an alternate passage to the nursery to rescue the children. Crichton and Aeryn became separated in the lower reaches of the structure, and Aeryn continued on alone in her effort to reach the children in time.

Crichton returned to the bar, where Zhaan tried to help the injured bartender. Crichton spoke to an alien woman named Borlik, who tried to convince him the storms were the result of a curse set upon the station by gods who were angered by the buying and selling that took place there.

Regardless of what was causing of the disturbances, as the second storm drew closer it became clear that something was drawing it toward the station — it had increased in both speed and power and would reach us within an arn. The signal could be coming from anywhere on the station, so Stark and Crichton used Moya's DRDs to seek it out quickly. And they were able to narrow the search to the bar — then to Borlik herself.

Borlik began to chant, then she rose into the air. A biomagnetic force kept her stuck to a reactor coolant pipe made of Hydro-Honium steel, and there seemed to be no safe way to remove her without killing us all. And all this time, the mysterious energy emanating from her body was drawing the storm directly toward us.

Crichton formed a plan: he would use a larger quantity of hydrohonium steel to pull Borlik away from the pipe, bring her aboard Moya, and fly her away from the station, drawing the storm away with us. I began searching Moya's inventory for the needed metal, but we wouldn't be able to leave until Moya was freed from the station's tangled docking cables. And now there was another problem:

D'Argo was the only crewmember with the strength and skill to remove them, but he had discovered Chiana and Jothee's affair and was now utterly despondent — and inebriated — and he refused to do what must be done to save us all. Unless Crichton could motivate D'Argo, free Moya, lure Borlik off the ceiling and trap her, and draw the storm away from the station, we would all certainly die in the next half-arn....