Weakened by the barrage of grenades and the trembling of the avalanche at the crater’s rim, a giant chunk of the crater’s central peak is splitting away – and the unlucky Lia is sitting right on top of it! As the slabs of rock peel away, she tumbles down with it, screaming.
Defender Zik leaps into action! With his EVR jets at max power, he dives forward into the falling rubble. Reaching out, he plucks Lia from a rocky doom and swoops her away from danger! The Gallant Defender of Zoz saves the day!
Tanaka and Sten have started a much bigger avalanche than anticipated! A huge stream of rocks courses down the cliff, onto Morren’s head, and spills over into the crater basin below. The two of them have to engage their jets to avoid falling into the stream of stones themselves!
Elsewhere on the rim, the lone remaining Jairian sniper takes one looks and NOPES the heck out of there! It’s good to know when to retreat and fight another day!
On the central peak of the crater, as the ground continues to tremble, Defender Zik turns to the terrified Lia to see if she’s ok. Suddenly, large cracks appear in the peak!
In his eagerness to reunite with his daughter, Gordon Mises gets ahead of the rest of the crew of the Temerity. Defender Zik urges caution, because this scenario seems too much like an….
AMBUSH!
From hiding, Morren fires at the person who looks most like how he remembers Zik from their last encounter. But that person is the unfortunate Gordon, whose arm is blown clear off from Morren’s shot!
Gordon falls out of the sky, and while Zik scrambles to catch him, everyone scatters. Bullets are zipping in from all around the crater, and there’s a mad dash for cover while Sten, Tanaka and Trent Quickdraw give covering fire.
They reach the crater floor after some near-misses, and Zik calls out to the Temerity for support – Amelia, come back!
With a blinding flash, the singularity is established in the infernal machine! As Defender Zik, Tanaka and Misha look on in horror, Dr. Wagner celebrates his achievement. Shoving Zik aside, Wagner sprints for the black hole, encouraging the others to jump in and experience the entire future of the universe in one leap of faith!
Wagner disappears into the singularity, and Zik begins to float towards it! Can he escape?!
Now that everyone’s safely on the ground, Defender Zik inquires as to why the skycar was on fire. The driver isn’t sure, she just had an inertia warning, everything spun around, and the engine caught fire. Before Zik can investigate further, however, something causes all of them to fall off their feet! There’s a loud humming sound and everyone’s thrown to the ground!
As they recover, an eerie and enigmatic ROAR comes from the jungle beyond the beach. Defender Zik intuits that something strange is afoot on this tropical island!
The crew hurries to get the last of the sentient crystal on board the Temerity, as the meteorite storm begins! Trent Quickdraw has moved farther from the ship to get to the last shards, which lie outside of the repulsor field the ship is generating as a protective umbrella.
At the last moment, Amelia shouts a warning over the radio – another meteorite is striking nearby! Sten sees that Trent is right below the strike and calls out a warning. But is he too late?!
No! The lower gravity of Hypnos causes the falling debris to tumble more slowly than it would in Earth gravity, so Zik has just enough time to zoom over with his jetpack and push a surprised Trent out of harm’s way! They slam into the cliff wall just in time!
Having determined that nothing seems to be moving, our intrepid explorers keep walking toward a cave nearby. There, they find that the walls are absolutely covered with the strange crystals. What’s making them grow?
Before they proceed into the cave, Zik decides to check in with the Temerity to inform them of their progress. For some reason, Francisco isn’t responding to their calls. While Mizhakwan investigates a crevasse in the cave, puzzled Zik decides to check if their communications link is working, and calls on Zoot to help him troubleshoot the problem.
But just as Zoot activates the interactive hologram, there’s a blinding flash from the crystals that surround them! Zoot’s hologram frazzles out, and Mizhakwan slips! She falls straight into the crevasse!
The light fades somewhat, and Amelia and Zik dash to the edge of the hole. Mizhakwan has fallen out of sight!
There’s been a mighty explosion just outside the Sendlinger Hill Pub! The whole front wall has been blown in, and poor Tanaka has been knocked nearly senseless to the ground!
As the building groans, from outside in the smoke, a figure appears. Is it someone come to help look for survivors? Yes, but not to render aid! The stranger grabs Tanaka gruffly and shoves a pistol against his head. He wants Tanaka to know the horror of what has happened before he pulls the trigger.
The Jairians have taken a gruesome revenge on the Kodiak Chadee clan! While they all waited in the shuttle outside for Tanaka to talk to the pub owner, the Jairians snuck up, planted explosives, and blew them all sky high! The brutal massacre was in revenge for the huge toll the Jairians suffered during the recent battle with the Kodiak.
Outside, someone calls to the stranger to warn him of the unstable building, foolishly shouting his name. Johan flees, laughing at Tanaka’s imminent demise. Just before the building collapses on him, Tanaka repeats Johan’s name, committing it to memory forever…
And there you have it! The end of Episode 3! Will Tanaka survive? What will happen next? Find out soon, when we begin Episode 4: THE HYPNOS HIATUS!
Defender Zik is charging into action! The gravity of the hallway rotates sideways suddenly, allowing Zik to swing and making the Jairians fall!
One tumbles back down the hallway he came from, while the other two fall onto walls. As one struggles to regain his footing, Zik’s swing ends in a boot to the head for the other!
Now confronting the last Jairian, Zik steals the thug’s helmet and uses it like a club!
The Clonoid super-soldier is shocked as a large rail-gun round bursts through his heart! His thick skin may be able to withstand sidearm rounds, but this is significantly bigger! The Clonoid falls, the giant chunk of rubble he was hoisting crushing his head. Zik is taken aback, unable to comprehend what has happened until, through the smoke, he glimpses the familiar sight of the shuttle and two fighters from the Kodiak inbound! James Anchor has arrived just in time!
