It’s been almost a week since the massive space battle between the Kodiak and the Jairian fleet. All the humans aboard the Kodiak are in quarantine, to make sure the thousand-year immunity gap between the Zernabians and the general population on Zoz doesn’t start a plague. The Kodiak itself is undergoing an evaluation by the insurance company, and it doesn’t look good. However, James Anchor and Zik are already presenting plans for a planetary defense force for their home world to investors.

The Zozians themselves are astounded that they have managed to make first contact with other humans after so long, but there’s a great sense of foreboding at how badly it went. Some have criticized Defender Zik for his handling of the situation, prompting him to release all his video recordings of the events of the past few weeks. Vera has done her best to relay what she knows of galactic history to the people of Zoz, but since she was imprisoned as a little girl, she doesn’t know a whole lot.

While the humans deal with all this, Tanaka and his Chadee clan are on some much-deserved shore leave. There is no danger of them carrying any of the Zernabian diseases, so they have been released from quarantine and are looking for some fun. But before they can start, they have to find a place large enough to house a rowdy clan of Chadee, something not every pub is able to handle. Fortunately, after some searching, they have found the Sendlinger Hill Pub in Port Rothbard, a German Oktoberfest themed bar. The bartender assures Tanaka they can handle his clan, and he opens the door to invite them in when…

KABOOM!

Trent Quickdraw has lived up to his name! As he fires on the Jairian breacher ship attached to the Kodiak, there’s a huge explosion! Defender Zik and Morren, in the galley right next to the breacher, are blown off their feet!

Worse still, that breacher was the only thing plugging the hole in the Kodiak’s hull that it made when it attached itself! Zik and Morren are quickly blown into space, and both of them forget their battle in a desperate scramble to fix their face masks.

Inside, at the doorway of the galley, Amelia grabs on for dear life as the air swoops out of the giant hole in the hull!

Teams of Jairian raiders are moving through the Kodiak, seeking to take it over! One pair, moving forward, stumbles into the hangar where they find a huge column containing the machinery for the forward howitzer. They decide that in order to protect their comrades outside the ship, they should disable the huge cannon by smashing it until it stops firing!

They never suspect that Seamus and Jason have fixed blades to their tonfas, and are sneaking up behind them…

Nearby, one level down, another pair of the attacking space commies have found a barracks. They decide to see who they might catch asleep and unaware, and enter. But it’s a barracks for the Chadee crewmembers, some of whom are inside, gearing up to repel the invaders! Their blood lust aroused, the Chadee dispatch the unlucky Jairians in seconds…

Tanaka leaps from the bridge tower of the Kodiak and glides silently towards his prey.  The unsuspecting Jairian is so busy sabotaging the cannon that he has no idea his fate is at hand!

SLICE!

Captain James Anchor gives the order to repel the Jairian boarders! He asks Riichi, Emma and Jason to arm themselves with tonfas and to follow him into the maintenance shafts. They will split up and defend their ship from the invaders.

Trent is astonished that they’re arming themselves with mere sticks. He offers to loan them his guns, but James Anchor informs him that on spaceships, no one fights with guns.  There are too many important things all around you that can be damaged in a firefight! If you miss, or if the bullet passes through its target, you can easily damage something in a way that can kill you.

Before leaving the bridge, Captain Anchor makes one last preparation and announces it to the crew: The Christmas Tree is lit! The Jairians are understandably confused at that. But no matter, they’re right under the bridge tower! An eager Jairian grabs the ladder to begin the bridge assault – only to electrocute himself!

It turns out that the “Christmas Tree” is actually the ladder to the bridge, and it has been electrified! The Jairians quickly adapt to their new circumstances. If you can’t take over the command center of a ship, take over engineering! From there, you can override any propulsion commands, as well as disable the life support for the bridge crew! The lead Jairian instructs his team: some will head aft to engineering, some will head forward to disable the second howitzer. One of them, a “screwup,” is told to stay behind and guard the intersection, something he’s not happy about!

Following Rachelle’s battle plan, the Jairian fighters crowd the space between the breacher and the Kodiak.  They take heavy losses, but they’re able to shield the breacher from the big guns! A frustrated Trent is seeing his cannons go inexplicably offline one by one.

Despite that, Trent manages to damage the incoming breacher! One of the drives gets blown to bits. But it’s not enough; it still has three drives! James Anchor informs the crew: prepare for impact!

James Anchor gets a damage report from his crew! The damage is as bad as it looks, but at least they didn’t lose anyone to death or space! Between reports from Chief Engineer Seamus and Tactical Officer Emma, the captain gets up to speed.

Then Jason announces that the bow howitzer is ready. He hasn’t wasted any time cycling up the weapon and locking it on to its Jairian target! Captain Anchor orders him to fire! The second breacher bites the dust!

Tanaka opens fire on the Jairian fighters, killing two in the opening seconds of the battle!  When his full battle rage is unleashed, bad guys beware!

Meanwhile, on the Kodiak, Weapons Officer Jason is training Trent on how to use the Kodiak’s guns by assigning him one to get the hang of how the system works.

When that’s done, Jason announces to the Captain that the howitzers are ready to fire.  James Anchor gives the order, and the howitzer incinerates one of the Jairian breacher ships in a single shot!

Thinking fast, Zik turns and fires his shotgun, hitting the adult of the two Jairians chasing him! The kid stops in his tracks, afraid that he’ll be next, but Zik just stares him down. He drops the shotgun and turns to fight the fire, hoping that the kid has gotten the message: you’re too young to die, so leave off!

Meanwhile, the Jairian is dying a messy death. He asks the kid to avenge him before praising the Jairian revolution. Then he bleeds out messily, and young Ryan turns his head in disgust. War ain’t pretty, lad!

While Zik hammers away with his shotgun, Arata sees the damage the rocket has done on his security monitors. As it turns out, the main elevator for the mine was damaged! It fell all the way to the bottom, bouncing out of its shaft and crushing the legs of one of the miners at the bottom!

Zik hurries over to get a look at what’s going on. He sees right away that the miners are going to need help to free the poor man. He grabs a fire extinguisher and charges out of a side door, heading for the burning elevator building!

But Morren has spotted Zik and sends three of the Jairians after him! One gets stopped cold by the digger drones, but two more make it past! Worse, one of them is the kid, and Zik certainly doesn’t want to hurt him! What will he do?!