SCIFI.COM | Farscape: Journey Logs

As with all my tales, this one was a constant tug-of-war between good news and bad news.

Good news: After years of struggle, I had found my wormhole and come home to Earth.

Bad news: Technically, I was orbiting Earth alone in a space suit with minimal oxygen. This was going to be a brief and lonely homecoming.

Good news: D'Argo, Aeryn, Chiana, Rygel, and Noranti came through the same wormhole in D'Argo's ship and rescued me.

Bad news: We'd pulled a Star Trek IV by accident. The wormhole had dumped us above Earth in 1986, and my presence had already screwed up the timeline. In this version of reality, my dad was about to fly on the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger and suffer its tragic fate. That would mean that I never got into space travel — so no Farscape One, no career change for Aeryn, no prison break for D'Argo, Rygel and Zhaan.

If I could stop dad from accepting the Challenger mission, the timeline would heal. I know that might sound like good news, but when you consider that I've never been much good at convincing my father to do anything, you'll realize that it isn't.

Luckily, it was Halloween. At any other time of the year, my friends from Moya would be more eye-catching than Mr. Spock at a Young Republicans convention. We set up base camp in an abandoned house in my old neighborhood, then I walked over to my home sweet home. Young Johnny Crichton (me at age 17) and his (my) parents were having a screaming blowout in the front yard. Ah, the good ol' days.

My younger self fled from there to his/my favorite spot over by the canal. I followed him, and we had a chat. I didn't tell him who I was, just that he should insist dad skip the mission. Johnny, unfortunately, wasn't stupid enough to trust advice from a stranger he took to be a CIA spook. Plus, he pointed out that dad wouldn't listen to him anyway. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I began formulating a "Plan B."

While I was off talking to myself, Aeryn, Noranti and Rygel were discovering the miracle of television. To her credit, Chiana got bored with the boob tube and went exploring.

Meanwhile, light-years away in the not-so-distant future, Moya waited on the other side of a wormhole to guide us home. That's where the Peacekeepers found her. Commandant Grayza and a team of her PK goons came aboard looking for yours truly.

Back on Earth, the oversized "kids" celebrating Halloween in the abandoned house caught the eye of the neighbors, who called the local sheriff. Before he could tell them about their right to remain silent, D'Argo insulted him and Noranti huffed-and-puffed John Q. Law into Never-Never Land with a handful of one of her powders.

I, meanwhile, had been thinking. In my original history, I'd been trapped in a fire right before dad had planned to leave for the Challenger mission prep. He'd saved me, then refused the mission so he could stay home while I recovered. To fix the future, I would have to re-create that fire.

Dad was planning to leave right away; I needed to stall him. Without revealing who I was, I talked to my mom. I convinced her to make dad stay home through the weekend, which bought us a little time. Seeing mom alive and healthy was so good — and so difficult. I wish I'd had time to warn her what was coming, to see a doctor sooner rather than later, but there was no way to tell her — and I feared causing further damage to the timeline.

With dad's presence assured, Noranti concocted a syrup that would put the younger me into a brief coma to simulate smoke-inhalation trauma from the fire. She tested it on our pal the sheriff, then let him go. Chiana volunteered to lure young Johnny to the abandoned house and keep him busy till we were ready.

I can guess how she did that, but I don't really want to know.

Once we were all set, Chi gave Johnny, a.k.a. young me, Noranti's syrup.

Good news: It knocked him out.

Bad news: It knocked him out so hard his heart stopped. He died. And I vanished.

Then the sheriff returned. Concerned citizens will be glad to hear that my hometown peace officers turned out to be very dedicated. Me? I had bigger problems. Not the least of which was the fact that I was dead....