Our hero Defender Zik descends into the nearby canyon with his friends, investigating a mysterious sensor shadow on rogue planet Hypnos. As they hike, Amelia notices that the regolith (space dirt) under their feet moves strangely as they kick it up. Zik reminds her that the planet they’re on has lower gravity than she’s used to; this is only the second world she’s visited!
Striking up the conversation, Mizhakwan mentions that she likes to keep her personal space suit’s gravity just a little less than Earth normal, to put a little spring in her step. Amelia loves the idea.
The team then notices that there are an awful lot of crystals growing along the floor of the canyon. They stop to inspect the delicate structures before noticing more of them further into the canyon.
As the crew of the Temerity coasts over the savage landscape of planet Hypnos, Francisco notices a strange lack of readings nearby, like a shadow on his monitor. Zik decides that’s as good a place to start a close-up investigation as any, and spots a small valley to land in.
After landing, the crew gets ready to head outside. Francisco declines to join the away team, because he wants to follow up on his investigation of the debris field following the planet as it hurtles between the stars. He’s noticed a strong similarity between the debris and parts of the planet that are at higher elevations, and wants to confirm his suspicions.
A foursome comprising Mizhakwan, Trent, Amelia and Zik descends the ramp and steps onto the surface of the mysterious world. Amelia and Zik are struck by a landscape bearing the scars of some mighty cataclysm. Intrigued by Francisco’s line of reasoning, Zik suggests setting out for a spot where two types of terrain seem to intersect.
However, Mizhakwan is getting some strong feelings about the planet, and the shadows on the scans that brought the crew here to begin with. Zik goes along with the suggestion, because they can always check out the geology on the way back, right?
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?!
