Defender Zik remembers just in time that he’s exposed himself to the other sniper! As Trent Quickdraw lays down a barrage of suppressing fire, he dives back under cover.

Morren takes advantage of the situation to launch another batch of grenades, laughing at his opponent’s error. But being distracted by his prey, Morren fails to notice that Tanaka and Sten have managed to sneak up on him, and are now on the rim of the crater right on top of him!  Keeping under cover so the other Jairian sniper doesn’t see him, Tanaka leans out to get a clear shot on his prey, but the boulders under his feet shift! This cliff face is dangerously unstable!

But that gives the ever-resourceful Sten an idea: If they can’t get a clean shot on Morren without exposing themselves, why not just drop the boulder on his head? Even in this lower gravity, the great rock must have enough mass to crush their foe! Tanaka gleefully agrees with the plan, and the two get ready to create an avalanche.

Defender Zik rushes over to the edge of the crevasse that Mizhakwan disappeared into and tries to establish radio contact with her.  A weak, unintelligible signal comes back, but they can hear her voice!

As relieved Amelia asks how they’ll get her out, Trent interrupts with another problem he’s found.  The crystals that are all around them are growing and moving closer! What’s more, they seem to get more energetic every time they speak!

A sudden realization dawns on Zik, and he gets everyone to stay silent for a moment. After switching his own broadcast settings to use a burst transmission, he explains how to do it to the others. This mode will compress what they say to each other into a tiny data packet so that they keep their emissions to a minimum.

It seems to work; the crystals react only mildly to Zik’s explanation. Everyone’s favorite space hero then begins to explain his cunning plan…

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?