Posts Tagged ‘asteroids’

The Firebird

Posted by Victor on .

Now that it’s a little calmer, Zik reiterates his admiration for Amelia’s flying, because she really saved their bacon!  He even gives her the name Amelia Firebird to commemorate her great deed!  Amelia thanks him, and timidly asks about how Zik can so readily charge forward when there’s danger, especially when it involves falling rocks! The trauma of the factory explosion caused Amelia to freeze up when the meteorite nearly crushed Trent.  Zik explains that he faced the trauma of his mother’s death in the avalanche head-on by learning to do the very thing that killed her: rock climbing.  In fact, it was during those rock-climbing lessons that Zik met Dakaasin, who was in the same class!

Just then, Trent and Francisco enter the cockpit, wondering if they’re out of danger from the meteorite storm.  Zik assures them that the danger is past, thanks to Amelia, and asks how everything is going elsewhere on the ship.  Trent explains that there were some messes made as things fell down, and he may have learned some new Zozian swear words from Sten in the process!  Laughing, Zik asks them to get ready to shoot their way through the asteroid cloud orbiting planet Hypnos, because it’s time to head home!

But first things first.  Zik sends a priority message to James Anchor, because unlike the last time when it was merely Clonoids, Zik has found aliens first! Time to settle the 50 Z-buck bet!

Xenocide Survivor

Posted by Victor on .

The alien crystal continues its story, revealing how the explosion of the gas giant tore the crust off this moon.  Most of the crystal’s home was incinerated by the immense cataclysm, which completely destroyed the gas giant.  The moon itself then flew right out of the solar system, and headed out of the galaxy as it cooled. The crystal was able to conceal itself from discovery by the aliens that tried to kill it.

Appalled, Defender Zik realizes that he’s hearing a story of attempted xenocide! As everyone continues to help move the crystal into the cargo hold of the Temerity, the crystal explains that it went into hibernation for tens of thousands of years until the moon was pulled back into the galactic rim by gravity.

Suddenly, Amelia interrupts to warn everyone that the leading edge of the meteorite storm is here! An early meteorite is about to hit nearby– take cover!!

Evacuation Operation

Posted by Victor on .

A discussion has begun with the alien crystal on planet Hypnos! Defender Zik begins to interact with the crystal, who is picking up English very quickly.  It already understands that meteorites are common, which is why it took up residence in the cave, and it offers to have the crew of the Temerity join it in there to stay safe from the impending strike.

Zik says that they can’t afford to get stuck in the cave if there’s a direct hit (not to mention that the ship would never fit in there). When Zik explains that they live on another planet far away, the alien crystal already seems familiar with the concept! A shocked Francisco realizes the huge implications that there is yet another species of aliens out there – humans are not alone in this galaxy!

The crystal is adamant that it no longer wishes to be all alone in the cave, and it awkwardly asks to come with them.  Zik agrees, and the Temerity lands to pick up its newest passenger!

Shattered World

Posted by Victor on .

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?!

Splashdown

Posted by Victor on .

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?

Ramesh Rescue

Posted by Victor on .

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!

Death Spiral

Posted by Victor on .

Zik continues the story of the giant spinning asteroid! As he and Ramesh arrive, they see that it’s rotating very quickly, making the asteroid much more difficult to land on. Ramesh tries to match the spin speed with his ship, but even hurtling around it at top speed isn’t enough, and he crashes in front of Zik’s eyes!

Your favorite space hero tries a different tactic; he will try to land at the pole, where the speed of rotation is so great! By rotating his ship, he hopes to achieve a gentle touchdown on a very difficult target. Will he make it? Stay tuned!

Distress Call

Posted by Victor on .

It’s story time! Zik starts telling Amelia the tale of how he saved the entire planet of Zoz. The story begins with a distress call from some scientists who had been studying a recent gravitational anomaly in the Zozian solar system. They noticed during their observations that a large asteroid was heading straight for Zoz!

Zik and his friend Ramesh happen to be fairly close to the asteroid in question, so they anchor the ore they were mining and set off to investigate. But when they arrive, they notice something highly unusual: the asteroid is spinning extremely rapidly! What will our hero do?

DEFENDER ZIK LORE BREAK!

The gravitational anomaly that caused this spinning asteroid has never been explained, although it is theorized that it may have been linked with another unexplained event that occurred not long after, and which had another dire connection to Zik: the death of his mother. More on that later. But this asteroid is a real mystery. The odds that it would have randomly been sent straight at Zoz with such velocity from so far away were calculated to be incredibly tiny, even disregarding the unexplained nature of the anomaly. There are many who saw some kind of sinister cosmic intelligence behind this event…

Plotting A Course

Posted by Victor on .

Ever the cagey combatant, James Anchor wants to stay hidden for as long as possible. Without knowing the capabilities of your opponents, it’s always safest to assume that they can vaporize you with a glance. That isn’t far from the truth, since Zozians spent the better part of the last millennium asleep on a colony ship! A course is laid in, and off they go!

Here’s a fun thing about Jupiter’s asteroids: what I depicted in today’s comic is something that actually exists in our solar system!