The newly headless Mikibot is helped back into the safety of the rill the team has taken shelter in.  Defender Zik congratulates the deadly accuracy of Trent’s sharpshooting as he regroups with his team. It’s time to form a proper plan of attack!

The plan Zik comes up with takes advantage of the new blind spot left by the absence of the sniper Trent eliminated.  Tanaka and Sten are sent back out of the crater, to circle around behind one of the other two shooters.  Zik and Dakaasin will fly as fast as they can to the base of the peak while Trent covers them with suppressing fire. Once at the top, Zik will distract the Jairians while Dak frees the hostages.

An embarrassed Mikigaazo apologizes for jumping in before everyone is ready. After millennia on his own, this crystalline alien isn’t used to working as part of a team! Defender Zik assures him that his action was brave, but hasty. They need to coordinate to fight this enemy! Miki promises to help Mizhakwan to stabilize Gordon’s condition.

Zik, Dak and Trent ready themselves for the dash to the peak! Three.. Two… One…

Defender Zik slides down from the rim of the crater to check on Gordon’s condition and formulate a plan.  Mizhakwan has applied a tourniquet to Gordon’s missing arm, but she insists that they need to get him to a proper infirmary as soon as possible. But they still can’t call the Temerity back because of the comms jamming!

To help get a strategy going, Zik asks Zoot to display a tactical map. Zoot creates a hologram showing the approximate location of the snipers and their firing arcs overlayed on the crater terrain.  The hostages are on the central peak of the crater, covered by all three Jairian snipers, whereas the Temerity team is in a hollow to one side.

Zik reasons that the best way to get to the hostages is to try to take out the nearest sniper first, so that they can approach the peak safely. He assigns that task to Trent Quickdraw who begins looking for his target immediately. Then, as Zik and Dak discuss what to do next, Mikigaazo sees an opportunity to pitch in!  His crystalline body inside the Miki-bot is immune to bullets, so he offers to fly up and rescue the hostages himself! Zik tries to stop him, but it’s too late!

Hey Defenders! I know the hologram in panel 2 is a bit tough to read, so here it is a bit larger.  It’ll look better when it gets printed in the third Defender Zik book, which will be made available after the next exciting episode! That’s right, book three will have four episodes in it!

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…