SCIFI.COM | Farscape: Journey Logs

This is Ka D'Argo, Captain of Moya. Crichton tells me it's traditional to begin my report as follows. Personally, I think I'm being frelled with, but I'll humor him:

Captain's Log, Stardate 90210.

The Coreeshi bounty hunters attacked Moya so efficiently that Aeryn and I have no clear memory of our capture. Along with Rygel, we awoke in Moya's Command area, our hands restrained by powerful magnetic cuffs. Our captors, wearing full-body armor that fully covered their heads, were awaiting Crichton's arrival.

Crichton and Noranti had been on a supply run in a Transport Pod. As they returned, Pilot, though threatened at gunpoint, tipped off Crichton to the danger. In response, Crichton rammed the Pod into the invaders' ship. By the time both vessels blew up, Crichton and Noranti had ejected. Noranti drifted peacefully in space in a drug-induced vacuum coma, while Crichton reached one of Moya's external hatches.

Guessing that Crichton was on board, Aeryn and I gained some hope. Then, while the lead bounty hunter, Axikor, ordered his men to delay contacting the Peacekeepers, I smelled Crichton in the ducts above us. A moment later, John made a sound. Axikor heard him. I began talking to distract the bounty hunters; Aeryn and Rygel followed my lead, and Crichton escaped under cover of our noise.

Axikor refused to begin a reckless pursuit. He interrogated Rygel, demanding insight into Crichton's probable plans. Rygel gave false answers that put himself at risk (I was surprised by his courage), but Axikor's next orders revealed that he knew precisely what Crichton might do. Grimly, we realized Axikor must have been able to read Rygel's thoughts.

We could only wait and hope. Aeryn and I hate waiting — almost as much as Crichton does.

We didn't know that Crichton had a new ally: Scorpius, who had escaped his cell before the bounty hunters discovered him. (That meant Scorpius could have escaped any time since he arrived — but didn't. A troubling notion.) The two set up an ambush in Moya's atmospheric scrubbers, killing one of the bounty hunters.

Undeterred, Axikor ordered his men to "initiate containment procedures." At that, Aeryn and I counterattacked. Unfortunately, our restraints proved too effective, and Axikor too well-armored, but I managed to score one little victory: I snagged a comms with my tongue.

Then Axikor hit me with a beam from his gauntlet. Almost instantly, I shrank — I had become shorter than a DRD. Axikor imprisoned me in a metal cylinder. He then shoved the cylinder directly into his chest.

Chiana, Sikozu and Rygel similarly reduced and placed within Axikor's men, but not before Chiana used her special time-slowing vision to see how the procedure worked. The effort left her temporarily blind, as it had before, but this time she feared it might be permanent. We could only hope that she — and the rest of us — would survive to use her hard-won knowledge.

Axikor forced Aeryn to tell Crichton that his friends were now within the bodies of his enemies; if Crichton shot a bounty hunter, he'd endanger those of us held inside. Then Axikor shrank Aeryn, as well.

Crichton successfully killed a second Coreeshi without harming Aeryn and Chiana, whom he found trapped inside. But, hearing the skirmish from a few sections away, more bounty hunters raced to the scene. One shot Crichton in the leg. At that moment Scorpius intervened, sacrificing his freedom to enable Crichton to escape with Aeryn and Chiana. (Even more troubling ... why is he so protective of Crichton?)

The girls were still tiny, and Crichton was wounded. The rest of us remained imprisoned in the bodies of our captors. Scorpius became my new cylinder-mate.

I wasn't sure I could believe Scorpius when he told me he recognized Axikor's true identity, but he convinced me soon enough. The lead bounty hunter wasn't a Coreeshi and had no intention of turning us in for the Peacekeeper bounty, despite what he'd told his henchmen.

Being turned over to Grayza would have been bad, but Axikor's real plans for us were much, much worse....