Zik hands Ryan one of the elevator cables, and everyone prepares to lift the elevator. On the count of three they all haul, and it finally lifts! Ryan’s extra strength has helped tip the balance! Poor Craig is hauled out from under the elevator cabin, and the mine workers begin doing first aid to try and save his life. Upstairs, Zik thanks Ryan and shakes his hand. What a close call!
The fire is out! Zik manages to contact Arata on the intercom, which is somehow still operational despite the wreckage of the mine access building. Coordinating with the guys down at the bottom, he hauls on the elevator cables, trying to save the trapped miner, but to no avail! They barely manage to budge it. If only they had a little more help! Suddenly, Ryan appears at the opening of the building and gets the drop on Zik. Zik turns on all his charm to try and convince the young man to help him rescue the miner instead of killing him. Ryan thinks about it. He thinks about everything he’s seen his side do in the last hour, and he comes to a decision. He isn’t on the right side of this fight. He tosses aside his gun and prepares to join Zik to help the miner!
Thinking fast, Zik turns and fires his shotgun, hitting the adult of the two Jairians chasing him! The kid stops in his tracks, afraid that he’ll be next, but Zik just stares him down. He drops the shotgun and turns to fight the fire, hoping that the kid has gotten the message: you’re too young to die, so leave off!
Meanwhile, the Jairian is dying a messy death. He asks the kid to avenge him before praising the Jairian revolution. Then he bleeds out messily, and young Ryan turns his head in disgust. War ain’t pretty, lad!
While Zik hammers away with his shotgun, Arata sees the damage the rocket has done on his security monitors. As it turns out, the main elevator for the mine was damaged! It fell all the way to the bottom, bouncing out of its shaft and crushing the legs of one of the miners at the bottom!
Zik hurries over to get a look at what’s going on. He sees right away that the miners are going to need help to free the poor man. He grabs a fire extinguisher and charges out of a side door, heading for the burning elevator building!
But Morren has spotted Zik and sends three of the Jairians after him! One gets stopped cold by the digger drones, but two more make it past! Worse, one of them is the kid, and Zik certainly doesn’t want to hurt him! What will he do?!
The shotgun Zik is using has the desired effect as the Jairians scramble for cover. Zik, Tanaka and Arata seize the opportunity to get into the security building, where they know they’ll be safer.
No sooner do the doors close, however, than the Jairans begin shooting again! Zik tells Tanaka to go to the third floor and fight back, which he does gleefully! He grabs a machine gun and a belt full of ammo and heads up the ladder.
The fierce Tanaka doesn’t even bother to break the window first, he just starts shooting! With a battle cry he begins filling the air with bullets, trying to fight off the intruders!
Meanwhile, Zik patches up Arata. He’s in no condition to fight, but being a Chadee, he doesn’t want to be left out of the action! Zik suggests that perhaps the digger drones that are used to move dirt around the mine can be used to open a new front on the Jairans. Arata eagerly agrees to try it!
Zik checks to see how badly Frank is hurt, but the poor guy was dead before he hit the ground. The Jairians aren’t done with their aggression, and they open fire on your favorite space hero and his pals! Zik grabs Frank’s shotgun and dives out of the way of the incoming bullets, but poor Arata isn’t quite so lucky and gets hit in the shoulder.
From behind cover, Zik and Tanaka ascertain that Arata is just injured and isn’t in mortal danger. Zik tells the two Chadee to get ready to run inside the security office. He leans out and fires! Frank had loaded slugs in the shotgun, which are devastating at such a close range. Indeed, the round goes right through one of the Jairians and hits the assailant behind her!
Zik gets into an argument with the Jairian who’s demanding they surrender the mine. The man won’t back down! He refuses to leave and start his own mine elsewhere, he’s here for the resources available at this mine!
Frank interrupts the discussion and asks the Jairians to leave, or he will have to declare them trespassers.
The unhinged Jairian has had enough! He shoots Frank dead! A shocked Zik watches as his friend collapses in front of him!
A whole bunch of Jairians armed to the teeth have emerged from the cargo hauler! Zik notices that the thugs are partly made up of trained mercenaries, and there’s a teenager among them! One of the Jairians, presumably the leader of this gang, demands to know who is in charge.
Frank informs them of his role as head of security and general operations, and guardedly welcomes them to Baker Mine.
The lead Jairian demands the surrender of the mining facility, proclaiming it and the employees free of what he calls the corporate slavery of the mining company, Delta Mining Systems.
Zik and Tanaka blurt out their incredulity at this statement. As Zik explains to Amelia, he’s never been scared of anything, and sometimes it leads him into trouble!
Zik and his friends stop what they’re doing to absorb the shocking news! A radical group of socialists has stolen the colony ship that was used to bring humans to Zoz! These Jairians, taking their inspiration from Hugo Jaire, have declared a socialist revolution!
As your favorite space hero absorbs this shocking moment in history, the colony ship arrives in orbit around the planet he’s on! The radicals launch a cargo hauler from the colony ship, headed straight for the mining facility they’re at.
Our friends head outside to the landing pad to see what these scoundrels want. Zik reflects that in hindsight, it would have been wise had they all been armed, but only Frank is carrying! Uh oh!
Welcome to Beta Lalande 4, home of Baker Mine!
The Zozians have started expanding to nearby star systems in search of resources. In the case of Baker Mine, they have found a nice deposit of palladium, among other things on the same planet. One terraformed atmosphere later, the mineral rich planet is ready to be mined! Why terraform the atmosphere? Well, Delta Mining Systems, who run this mine, plan to be working here for a very long time, and it’s inevitable that a deadly atmospheric accident of some kind will occur eventually. It’s also far cheaper to terraform an atmosphere over that length of time than to pay the extra insurance rates it would cost to have such a complex running in a vacuum. It’s just safer and cheaper to make sure walking outside doesn’t kill you.
While a drone unloads Zik’s asteroid rubble into the processing plant, your favorite space hero hangs out in the security office with his pals Tanaka and Arata for a spirited game of dutch blitz, a card game popular among the Chadee.
But they’re interrupted by the station chief Frank, who sees something alarming on the news!
