Welcome to the third and final part of Forging The Defender, the second Defender Zik episode! We’ve been learning about how humble asteroid miner Zik came to be known as Defender Zik on his home planet of Zoz. In this part, we will learn how he got the last part of his nickname: Zik the Gallant Defender of Zoz!

It all starts with Amelia asking if Zik’s fame has extended to a lot of attention from the ladies of Zoz.  He admits that it has, although he’s single right now. Could Amelia have a motive beyond curiosity for wanting to know that?

Zik wraps up the story of the attack of the space commies! Amelia has decided to make herself comfortable, pulling her chair right up to Zik’s and using your favorite space hero as a couch. He doesn’t seem to mind too much.

Meanwhile, over on the Kodiak, James has brought Trent Quickdraw onto the bridge to show him some of the features of Trent’s new battle armor. The visor has a bunch of cameras on it, one of which will allow Trent to see through walls! There’s a limited range, and he can’t see too much detail, but he can see enough… Enough to see that Zik and Amelia are a little closer than he’s comfortable with! While Jason may be jealous of the cool view settings in Trent’s armor, Trent is preoccupied with what he sees on board Zik’s ship!

So ends part two of Forging The Defender! There’s one more part to go, where Zik describes where the “Gallant” part of his name comes from. Tune in next week for that!

Welcome to Beta Lalande 4, home of Baker Mine!

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!

Welcome to Part 2 of Forging The Defender! For those of you just joining us, we’re on the way back from the Zernabian prison planet with some refugees of Queen Elcyra’s despotic reign. One of the refugees, Amelia, is flying with your favorite space hero Zik, and is getting him to tell stories from his past!

In this part, we will learn how Zik became known as a defender of justice on his home planet Zoz! What are Jairians? Stay tuned to find out!

Captain James Anchor is on his way back to the bridge of the Kodiak with a fresh coffee. On his way, he stops by the medical bay to check up on Vera. Fiona has stabilized the sleeping Vera, and is confident that her lung cancer can be cured. James also asks for a status update on the blood tests that Fiona has done on all three of the Zernabian passengers. Sure enough, the divergence of the Zozians from the rest of the human species over the last thousand years has resulted in some new pathogens and viruses for which the Zozians have no immunity.  Fiona is working on it, though, and it won’t be long before she can create a vaccine!

Next, James Anchor stops by the hangar bay, where an off-duty Jason is teaching Trent more about how to use firearms. This time he’s holding it safely! Not with his finger on the trigger like before! Although, in Trent’s defense, he had never held a gun before and there wasn’t time during the riot to teach him properly. But that’s being remedied by Jason now! Jason is just as impressed at Trent’s innate shooting accuracy as Zik was.

Meanwhile, Emma is busy sifting through the battle data from their encounter with Queen Elcyra. She seems to be onto something unusual, but what could it be?

So ends Part 1 of Forging The Defender! We’ll dive straight into part 2 next week! See you then!

Defender Zik wraps up his first story about how he became so well known on his home planet of Zoz! With all the preparations complete, he launches his escape pod and leaves the asteroid behind. It’s all in the hands of fate, now!

He lands the pod in the middle of Zoz’s largest ocean, the Mirabilic, close to where the asteroid will be passing by.  Sure enough, as he emerges from the escape hatch, the asteroid streaks by overhead, exploding with a giant sonic boom!

Amelia is pretty impressed with the tale. No wonder Zik became so famous! Few people have ever saved an entire planet before. Zik tells her that this wasn’t the first time he made headlines on Zoz. What will be the next tale?

Everyone’s favorite space hero is under the gun! The spinning asteroid is starting to close in on Zoz, and the asteroid hasn’t changed course enough!

In a list ditch effort to save his home world, Zik reroutes all remaining power to his mining ship’s engines and sets them on a controlled overload. He’s hoping the power will ramp up to critical levels right before it reaches the atmosphere. If all goes according to plan, the ship will explode and hopefully break off enough of the asteroid that the remainder will burn up in the atmosphere. It’s a risky move, but it’s all he has left!

As the planet looms closer and closer, Zik launches the escape pod with himself and Ramesh. He’s fone all he can – let’s hope it’s enough!

Zik has to use his grappling hook to make it the rest of the way to Ramesh’s crashed ship, but he finally gets there! He discovers that his friend is alive, but unconscious. Tying Ramesh to his back, Zik prepares for the trip back. But before he leaves, he sets the ship to fire its engines once per revolution of the asteroid so as to push it in a uniform direction, as well as to slow it’s rate of spin. That accomplished, Zik starts to haul himself back to his own ship with Ramesh in tow. Upon his return, he stows his friend in the bunk, which Zik explains doubles as an escape pod for the mining ship.

Hey Zik pals! Do you use Webtoons to read comics? Well, Zik is now on Webtoons as well!  I’m reformatting my back catalog of pages and uploading them as soon as they’re ready, so it’s a good opportunity to rediscover Episode 1: Prison Planet. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you know when a new page is up!

As Zik and Amelia finish listening to Metallica, they get back into Zik’s story about the deadly spinning asteroid and it’s direct trajectory towards his home planet Zoz.

Zik’s strategy to spin his ship to match the rotation of the asteroid and land at the pole worked! He was able to land safely, anchor his mining ship, and fire up the powerful engines to begin pushing the asteroid on a new trajectory to hopefully nudge it away from Zoz.

In the meantime, though, his friend Ramesh is in serious trouble after that crash landing! Zik is unable to get into contact with Ramesh, meaning that he’s incapacitated somehow.  Quickly donning his breathing and grappling gear, Zik prepares to save Ramesh!

Just in case his mining ship gets dislodged from the asteroid, Zik anchors himself to the hull. He carefully makes his way across the surface of the asteroid.  It’s spinning so quickly that the stars appear to be whizzing through the heavens! Indeed, the closer he gets to the equator, the faster the rotation is, and eventually there isn’t even any gravel or stones left on the ground.

By the time Zik is near Ramesh’s ship, the force of the spin pulling him away from the asteroid is greater that it’s limited gravity, and up and down have reversed themselves! Zik is now fighting to stay attached to the asteroid, hoping that his grappling gear is strong enough to hold him!

Your favorite space hero Zik pauses in his narrative of the tale of the spinning asteroid because this part of the story reminds him of a song. He’s twisting, turning through space trying to land on an asteroid, and the lyrics to an Old Earth song by Metallica fit quite nicely! He sets the ship on autopilot and loads up the tune so that Amelia can hear it.

For those curious, here’s the song:

Meanwhile, on the Kodiak, James Anchor is on the bridge watching Amelia’s flying lessons with amusement. She certainly seems to be having fun out there! Gerald, currently at the helm, agrees.

Tactical officer Emma has been busy analyzing the recent battle with Queen Elcyra in the hopes of discovering all she can about Zernabian technology. She gives Captain Anchor an update, and he asks her to focus on the torpedoes for now. It’s very odd that guided torpedoes could miss the only target in the area, and James wants to know why.

But first, he needs coffee! Incidentally, coffee is a great beverage to enjoy awesome space adventure comics with! Grab a cup with me! Mmmmm, that’s good stuff.