The Octopus Star Storm

The Octopus Star Storm

Octopus-like giant stars are causing space storms that have brought the Argo to a halt.  Outer-space doldrums, apparently.  The crew is going stir-crazy.  Wildstar and Venture start a fight over . . . chess.  Avatar calls the department heads to the planning office.  They decide to review the situation.  Venture gives them an overview of the Octopus Star Cluster, and its dangers.  They've lost 21 days in trapped in the storm.  And Wildstar starts in on him. 

It's gonna be one of those episodes.

More time passes.

Wildstar goes to the hangar and boards his fighter without authorization.  Conroy tries to talk him out of it, but he takes off anyway.  The instruments go nuts, and then his fighter is blown back against the Argo and gets trashed.  He is escorted to Avatar's quarters, who then sentences both Wildstar and Conroy to scrubbing the hangar deck. 

At the hangar deck, they find that most of the crew is scrubbing the deck for various infractions.

Nova, meanwhile is trying to convince Avatar to let them throw a party.  Avatar refuses; he's concerned about the food supply.  He decides having them mad at each other is better than letting them worry about food.  Huh.

That night, Orion is up late scrubbing the engines.  Sparks wonders how they'll get back in time to save Earth.  He thinks maybe they should go back to Earth and try to evacuate.  Orion doesn't think the captain would listen to such an idea.

Venture is alone watching the storm when Nova finds him.  He keeps wondering if there's really a way to escape.  Nova points out that they could have simply gone around the black cloud, but Venture insists they should be able to find a channel.

Wildstar is having nightmares.  And then is awakened by the alarm.  Avatar scolds him for being late as he arrives on the bridge.  He sees that the storm has cleared--but there's a Gamilon ship that had been hiding behind the cloud.  Wildstar wants to pursue, but Avatar says they should stay on course.  And then the Gamilon ship disappears into the Octopus Star Cluster.  Avatar sends him out in his fighter to track it.  Wildstar finds a channel which he begins exploring.  He names it after himself, then decides to return when he's lost contant with the Argo.  The bridge crew sees him returning as he calls them about the channel.  He lands his ship to the congratulations of his crewmates.

Then he realizes that he didn't follow the channel all the way through.  Avatar tells Venture to just try the channel and hope for the best.  They start the engines and go for it.  Avatar asks Nova about the party--they can celebrate when they've made it out of the Octopus cluster.

Wildstar tells Venture they have something to settle.  They go the engine room, and Wildstar confronts him.  It turns into a fight, and Nova finds them finding and breaks it up.  Bruised and battered, Venture and Wildstar are back on the bridge and the ship starts following the channel.

Oh yeah, this full episode the Argo has had some weird transparent shield/bubble protecting the upper deck.

The storm starts up again while they're in the channel.  Wildstar and Venture struggle with the controls together (d'awww), the engines strain, and the ship swirls down a whirlpool.  They hang on . . . an the ship emerges from the other side of the storm.  Ventura and Wildstar have a male-bonding moment and Nova says they probably don't remember what they were even fighting about.

Life on Earth is getting more difficult by the day.  There are only 280 days left.