Everyone scrambles for cover as an incoming meteorite interrupts their rescue operation! Hiding under the Temerity, the shocked away team watches as a meteorite impacts the cliff wall next to them.

Sten asks Francisco about his 45 minute estimate for the arrival of the meteorites, since it’s only been about 20 minutes since they got outside.  It seems that everyone misinterpreted Francisco’s math; he meant that every minute they stay increases the chances that they’ll be hit during that minute! By this point, they have a 25% chance of getting hit right now!

Zik rallies his friends and gets them to really hustle to get the last of the crystal onboard the Temerity. They start tossing the crystal from one to another, which proves to be a completely new experience for the crystal! Despite the danger, they’ve shared the concept of fun, and let it experience flight (albeit briefly) for the first time.

Amelia, in the cockpit keeping the ship primed to skedaddle, sees another meteorite hit the next valley over on her sensor display.  She urges everyone to really hurry, because they could get pulverized at any moment!

Defender Zik and the crew of the Temerity have a short window of time to help the living crystal of Planet Hypnos escape the impending meteorite storm! The crew hustles outside, with the exception of Amelia, who remains in the cockpit to keep the ship ready to fly out of danger.

Outside, Dakaasin puzzles over how to cram all that mass of crystal into the hold. It doesn’t look like it will fit until the crystal offers to make itself denser, thereby cramming itself into a smaller volume.

It explains that it is a singular being, and its consciousness splits and merges as it fragments and recombines itself.  When Zik organizes the crew into a human chain to relay the crystals into the ship, the crystal is confused by the term “human chain.” Zik explains that humans can’t split and combine the way the crystal can, but that they often work as a team to accomplish a common goal. Once again, the crystal brings up a mysterious other alien life form it has encountered, which was like humans in that each individual had its own consciousness.

While they work, Zik asks the crystal about these other aliens, wondering whether it was they who stranded the crystal on the rogue planet.  As it turns out, Zik is partially correct.  The aliens are the cause of the stranding of the crystals, but that Hypnos was actually once a moon orbiting a distant gas giant.  However, in a stunning act of attempted xenocide, the aliens detonated the gas giant!