LUXAN SHIP (ANCIENT)
Checking the stats, D'Argo's ship Lo'La has a 2-1 record: It's saved me twice, tried to kill me once. Could be worse.
D'Argo found the ship during the gamma-storm chaos on the Commerce Station. The ship was drifting, unclaimed, and enticingly purple, so D'Argo asked Pilot to bring it aboard. For a while we couldn't even figure out how to get inside. Aeryn suggested we ditch it before it did something unexpected and potentially lethal, but D'Argo was getting warm-and-fuzzy vibes off the thing and refused to part with it.
Exactly how we got inside the ship bears mentioning because it's so damn typical of how we get things done here on Moya. While Jool was trying to blow my head off (a typical, minor misunderstanding), D'Argo noticed that her stray shots were activating his ship's force field, revealing a small gap. He touched the ship's skin through that gap and, bingo, the force field was gone.
Once in the cockpit, nothing could stop D'Argo from pressing all the buttons he could find. The ship had everything you look for in a new car — green laser beams, retractable wings, mystery propulsion, bucket seats, you name it.
But one day while I was aboard, it freaked out. It projected an electrical shock wave that fried all of Moya's active power conduits. Then it initiated a self-destructive engine core overload — which meant it would explode in less than an arn, taking Moya and the rest of us with it.
It turned out D'Argo's warm fuzzies for the ship weren't unrequited — the ship felt the same way about him. It was a Luxan construct, possibly ancient, definitely powerful, and it was self-destructing because a non-Luxan had messed with it.
After this breakthrough, D'Argo learned to fly the ship, activate its remote-control functions, and fire its light-based, heavy-duty demolecularizing weapons. It's keyed to his voice identity and DNA signature, so only he can control it. Sure, it's been helpful. Sometimes very. But, while I've encountered devices and people with worse track records, 2-1 is ambiguous enough to keep me on my guard.
JOURNEY LOG REFERENCES
Suns and Lovers
Revenging Angel
Dog With Two Bones
STARBURST TO ANY NOTE
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