Defender Zik lands on the central peak of the crater again, debating internally how he should handle this trap of Morren’s. If he stays completely out of the line of fire, Morren will kill Lia, but if he stays in the open, it’s only a matter of time before Morren succeeds.
With very few options, Zik tries to goad Morren into making a mistake. He begins to insult his foe, but just as Morren is about to hurl some invective right back, Sten and Tanaka’s efforts at the top of the crater rim succeed! A huge crack opens in the cliff face!
Defender Zik is now atop the central peak of the crater, desperately trying to reach his employees who have been taken hostage by the evil Jairian Morren. But he’s exposed, and Morren sends a full barrage of exploding shells raining on the peak.
It’s clear that the Jairian isn’t trying to preserve the hostages lives, so one of the remaining two reaches out to the other to get them both under cover. Lia gets up and follows, but Morren spots them! Try as they may, they’re not going to make it to cover, so Lia’s brave companion throws her ahead and takes the brunt of the blast!
Furious, Zik launches himself toward Morren, sending a hail of bullets at the foul villain!
Defender Zik and Dakaasin are out of immediate danger, as they stay close to the side of the cliff that Morren and the other sniper, Rick, can’t see. They attach some ropes to the cliff and keep their jets off to make them even harder to locate as they climb the central peak of the crater. At the top, three frightened hostages await their fates!
But Morren isn’t so easily dissuaded! Adapting quickly to Zik’s ploy, Morren prepares a grenade launcher, and begins launching grenades at the peak to dislodge his mortal enemy!
Springing from cover, Defender Zik and Dakaasin leap forward for their mad dash to the central peak of the crater! Quickdraw lays down some heavy covering fire with his sniper rifle, causing the Jairian in his sights to leap back behind a boulder to avoid getting zorched! As bullets and plasma beams fill the sky, Zik and Dak fly full out, low to the ground to take advantage of any cover they can get! After a harrowing few moments that seem like hours, they arrive at the central peak! They made it in one piece!
As Mikigaazo rushes out of hiding to try and rescue the hostages, the nearest Jairian takes the easy head shot right away. Defender Zik and Dakaasin watch in horror as Miki’s head explodes in a shower of sparks. But Zik remembers that this is just a mech frame for the crystals inside, and calls out to see if Miki is okay.
Sure enough, the crystal pod located in the torso of the Mikibot platform is unharmed, and Miki is able to get back up, reassuring the humans looking on.
This apparent resurrection comes as a complete shock to the Jairian watching through his scope! He jumps up in surprise at his now headless yet animate target. Unfortunately for this Jairian, Trent Quickdraw was watching him through his own sniper rifle’s scope, waiting for just such an opportunity! And unlike the crystalline Mikigaazo, head shots on humans are fatal!
The Temerity crew scrambles for cover at the floor of a crater as bullets zing through the sky. Mizhakwan hurries over to help the maimed Gordon while Zik calls again for Amelia to come back with the ship. But Zoot interrupts to inform Zik that their communications are being jammed! They can reestablish local comms with the team via a tight-beam line-of-sight backup system, but comms to the Temerity are severed!
Assessing the situation, Zik asks how many enemies they face. Sten informs him that there are three adversaries, spread out around the rim of the crater. In that case, it’s time to reply with extreme violence! Zik and the crew open up and send a hail of bullets back at the Jairians!
Taking cover, Morren taps into a local channel to interrupt Zik’s barrage…
In his eagerness to reunite with his daughter, Gordon Mises gets ahead of the rest of the crew of the Temerity. Defender Zik urges caution, because this scenario seems too much like an….
AMBUSH!
From hiding, Morren fires at the person who looks most like how he remembers Zik from their last encounter. But that person is the unfortunate Gordon, whose arm is blown clear off from Morren’s shot!
Gordon falls out of the sky, and while Zik scrambles to catch him, everyone scatters. Bullets are zipping in from all around the crater, and there’s a mad dash for cover while Sten, Tanaka and Trent Quickdraw give covering fire.
They reach the crater floor after some near-misses, and Zik calls out to the Temerity for support – Amelia, come back!
The next day, the Temerity arrives at lonely planet Hypnos, adrift in the galaxy without a star to orbit. Francisco reports that the trajectory of the small world takes it up out of the galactic plane, and it loops back down somewhere up the spiral arm. This planet has travelled a long way in the intergalactic void before its return near Zoz!
DEFENDER ZIK LORE BREAK!
Zoz is quite far away from Earth! And the Zozian colony ship went in a completely different direction than most of the other refugees that left Earth all those centuries ago. Back then, the first people after the Zozians realized that if they travelled within our spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and towards the galactic core, the stars would be more numerous and closer together on average. This meant that as they established their new empires among the stars, they could get from system to system more quickly, which means resupply and defense is quicker and easier. The competition for habitable core-ward worlds was fierce, but the competition up and down was basically non-existent, because one runs out of star systems to go to in those directions.
But up is the direction the Zozian colony ship went. The priority for them was finding the exoplanet that was most like Earth in order to terraform it and establish an oasis of Earth-life in a place where it wouldn’t need to re-adapt to totally new conditions. The world they found happened to be towards the top of the galactic plane, which is why no one ever found them in all that time. Zoz is in a backwater area of the galaxy from the point of view of the other human civilizations!
Zik remarks that planet Hypnos has some incredibly huge canyons scarring its surface, but he gets distracted by the debris field they’re entering. It’s quite thick, and he needs all hands in the cockpit to help identify and eliminate the asteroid threats.
As they plow through the debris field, whatever the flotsam repulsors can’t push out of the way, Trent blasts with the point defense cannons! They finally make it through thanks to great teamwork and Zik’s piloting skills.
It’s time for a closer look at the remote and desolate planet Hypnos, and what they discover is a shattered world of craggy canyons and deep craters! What happened to this place?!
In the galley, Defender Zik lands a solid blow with his club, shattering the visor of Morren’s helmet! Someone’s in trouble if he gets spaced!
Meanwhile, on the bridge, a confident Trent is running out of targets for the Kodiak’s cannons. Between the Chadee snub fighters and his efforts, they’ve eliminated almost all of the Jairian fighters! He turns his attention to the Jairian breacher ship, attached like a lamprey to the side of the Kodiak. With the right angle, maybe he can blow it right off the hull…
In the breacher, the copilot is alarmed at the fact that all the boarding parties seem to be disappearing on him. But the pilot is even more alarmed to see one of the Kodiak’s cannons swing towards them.
At the last moment, both the Jairian pilot and Gerald realize what’s about to happen, but their cries go unheeded as Trent mashes the fire button! What’s the big deal?! Find out next page!
Zik tosses the Jairian helmet down the hall on top of what’s left of his three attackers. After lowering the gravity again, he continues escorting Travis to the infirmary to get his broken leg fixed up.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, a frustrated Trent tells Gerald that one of the cannons isn’t responding. Gerald checks the cams and discovers that a Jairian is on the hull of the ship! The Jairian has removed an access cover and is smashing the rotation mechanisms inside!
Gerald calls up to Tanaka, who is on the roof blasting away with his sidearm. Once he sees the Jairian saboteur, Tanaka promises to take care of the problem…
