Defender Zik calls for his crew to cease fire, recognizing Morren’s voice. He asks how in the world Morren could have survived their last encounter, which ended with Morren getting spaced with a broken visor! As it turns out, Jairian trooper uniforms have redundant visors for just such an emergency.
Morren sets out the situation for the Temerity team: he intends to kill them all! But to make it interesting, he’s placed the ZEMM flight crew at the top of the crater’s central peak, and he challenges Zik to try and make it to the top. He promises to free the hostages if Zik makes it.
An understandably skeptical Tanaka objects, saying that they can’t trust Morren to keep his word. But Morren doesn’t care, he holds all the cards! The hostages can just be eliminated right away. Zik hastily agrees to play Morren’s game, if only to buy the hostages more time.
Meanwhile, on distant moon Gamma Apodis 3B, the Jairian raiding party is busy transferring all the medkits from the ZEMM transport to their Hammerhead cruiser. There are only a few cases left, so Flynn, the Jairian commander on this raid, orders the rest of his comrades to prepare the explosives to destroy the transport.
From the Hammerhead cockpit comes an urgent alert: The Temerity is inbound! Flynn orders everyone to redouble their efforts, because they need every last case! He then taunts Morren Mallor, who is holding his firearm to the head of one of the ZEMM pilots, with the approach of his old foe Zik. Morren vows to kill Zik the next time he meets him, so Flynn seizes the opportunity to rid himself of the burden of his company. He gives Morren the chance to fulfill his vow by leaving him behind! But just to even the odds a bit, he offers to leave two Jairian thugs and the hostages for good measure.
Getting in Morren’s face, Flynn tells him to kill Zik or never return. It’s on!
The gorillaurs force Defender Zik and Tanaka to the mysterious house, which sits in a patch of the jungle which is withered and dead looking. Waiting for them on the porch is an unexpected figure from Zoz history – Dr. Neil Wagner!
DEFENDER ZIK LORE BREAK!
A Brief History Of Dr. Neil Wagner
Dr. Wagner was born on Earth, in the United States, and traces his ancestry to Germany. He became involved in the secret Project Zoz, and his primary duty was to collect the DNA information and build the biological printer that would be needed to seed Earth life on the new Zozian home-world.
Before the launch of the Project Zoz colony ship, his deep genetic research brought many truths to his attention. He learned how to slow his own ageing process down dramatically, something he’s continued to improve over the centuries. Realizing that sharing this discovery could lead to chaos among the population of Earth, he hid it, not even informing the other members of Project Zoz.
During the trip to Zoz, the plan was for almost everyone to be in cryogenic stasis, and to have rotating caretakers spend five years awake each, ensuring that the ship systems did not become compromised on the centuries-long journey. Dr. Wagner, who was also integral to the design of the stasis system, offered to take the first shift, since that’s when most of the potential problems were anticipated to arise. He also ensured that his name was last in the rotation.
In this way, Wagner ensured that he could stay awake for the entire journey. There were no serious on-board problems for him to deal with, so he dedicated all his time to refining his anti-ageing process, continually extending his possible lifespan. He was after every scientists dream: unlimited time to unlock the mysteries of the universe!
He turned his attention to the genetic data he had collected for all the Earth life, making what he considered to be improvements. Some of the more delicate plants were made hardier. Mosquitos were refined to no longer desire human blood. Orcas would lose their cruelty. And then his highest achievement: the Chadee! Chimpanzees acquired a human level of intelligence, with various other improvements to allow speech and increased fine motor skills in their hands.
When it came time to look at his anti-ageing technology again, he began to scrutinize his own DNA in great detail, improving everything he could. One DNA segment puzzled him, as it seemed injected, and he reasoned it must have come from a virus. He then looked for the same sequence in the other sleeping humans, and he found it in very nearly everyone. So he fixed the problem in everyone he found it in (including several of Zik’s ancestors), without ever waking anyone up.
At the end of the trip, the other people scheduled to take a five-year supervisory shift were puzzled that they weren’t awoken. Individually, they approached Dr. Wagner, and he told them that he had re-jigged the duty roster so that fewer people would have to suffer what amounted to a five-year loss of life doing a boring and unnecessary job. Most reacted with skepticism, but turned their attention to the urgent and difficult task of terraforming their new home.
Then, as Zoz became populated with life, the Chadee were discovered. When Wagner’s upgrades were exposed, the rest of the Zozians were furious with him. During a private interrogation with the leaders of the project, Wagner boldly admitted to having meddled with the genes of everyone who had the genetic anomaly he’d fixed. The elders were stunned, shunned him forever, and agreed among themselves not to tell the Zozians about it until they were ready, because there was already great unease about the difficulty of settling Zoz at the time.
The secret of that genetic tinkering is still only known to a handful of elders, and debate continues among them whether to release the information publicly.
An astonished Zik asks how he could still be alive, since nearly two hundred years have passed since he was last heard from, and Wagner reveals that he has solved the problem of aging! Or rather, that he thought he had. Meanwhile, Wagner has questions of his own, specifically: what are Zik and Tanaka doing sneaking around on his island?
Zik explains their situation, which Wagner was aware of, and apologizes for trespassing, since he was unaware anyone lived here. Then Wagner decides to invite Defender Zik and Tanaka to witness the genesis of Wagner’s plan, which will kill everyone on Zoz, them included! An incredulous Zik follows him into the house…
A mighty brawl erupts in the jungle, as the gorillaurs attack Defender Zik and his Chadee pal Tanaka! As the huge male takes a swipe at Zik, a female sneaks up on Tanaka, who is drawing his pistol. She grabs Tanaka from behind in a half-Nelson, forcing him to drop the gun!
Zik and the huge male square off, but it goes about as badly for Zik as you might expect. With his suit integrity beginning to decline, Zik also whips out his pistol and aims at the male. However, the female has Tanaka in a death grip! One false move, and Tanaka gets a dirt nap!
Surrendering his gun, Zik pleads for his good friend’s life. They’re captives of these enormous, mysterious creatures!
