Captain James Anchor is on his way back to the bridge of the Kodiak with a fresh coffee. On his way, he stops by the medical bay to check up on Vera. Fiona has stabilized the sleeping Vera, and is confident that her lung cancer can be cured. James also asks for a status update on the blood tests that Fiona has done on all three of the Zernabian passengers. Sure enough, the divergence of the Zozians from the rest of the human species over the last thousand years has resulted in some new pathogens and viruses for which the Zozians have no immunity.  Fiona is working on it, though, and it won’t be long before she can create a vaccine!

Next, James Anchor stops by the hangar bay, where an off-duty Jason is teaching Trent more about how to use firearms. This time he’s holding it safely! Not with his finger on the trigger like before! Although, in Trent’s defense, he had never held a gun before and there wasn’t time during the riot to teach him properly. But that’s being remedied by Jason now! Jason is just as impressed at Trent’s innate shooting accuracy as Zik was.

Meanwhile, Emma is busy sifting through the battle data from their encounter with Queen Elcyra. She seems to be onto something unusual, but what could it be?

So ends Part 1 of Forging The Defender! We’ll dive straight into part 2 next week! See you then!

Zik is helping Amelia learn how to fly! He instructs her on how to ease out of the barrel roll she was just doing. She’s certainly having the time of her life!

The two ships are heading back towards Zoz, and Amelia wants to know how long it will take to get to her new home. Zik tells her that it’s pretty far, so it’ll take a couple of days to traverse all those light years. Plus, they’re not heading straight to Zoz – they need to make a stop somewhere else first.

Changing the subject, Amelia asks a personal question. She’s noticed that the other Zozians treat Zik as if he’s really famous, and she wants to know if she’s imagining it. As it turns out, Zik is quite famous back home! He begins the story of the time he saved the entire planet…

Zik starts his ship and gives Seamus access to monitor the systems to keep an eye on the damaged engines. Meanwhile, Amelia has a million questions about the ship and how it works! Zik promises to teach her to fly when they get back home to Zoz. Speaking of heading home, it’s time to start that journey! The small fleet of ships takes off, heading for orbit, while the Zernabian prison factory burns in the distance. They have to travel carefully, trimming the use of the main engines once the ship gets high enough to go the rest of the way on the auxiliary maneuvering thrusters. They approach the Kodiak, which is drifting in orbit waiting for them, surrounded by the wreckage of some more Zernabian patrol ships! It seems the pilot, Gerald, has been busy!

A shocked Amelia charges towards the factory, not believing that almost everyone she knows has just perished. Coughing, Zik emerges from the gloom and consoles her as well as he can. The reality is that the firebombs inside the factory that preceded the demolition would have immolated anyone inside. No one could survive that… or could they?

Several light years away, Queen Elcyra is racing to the prison planet to see to the prisoner uprising personally! She gets a status report, and it seems that the massive Clonoid soldier has tipped the balance in the fighting firmly onto her side; there are only fifty-six prisoners left alive! This pleases her, but she wants to know specifically about Zik. Will he still pose a threat to her?

Zik finds out he’s dreaming his encounter with Sensei Raven and Sensei Adam. Well, while he’s here, he’s going to pick their brains about how to defeat the giant Clonoid! His teachers tell him not to be intimidated by the sheer size and strength of the Clonoid. It has the same basic structure as any other human, and therefore the same basic weak points that can be exploited. And Raven reminds Zik of something that he can do that the Clonoid won’t: amp up his attacks with awesome move names! Zik leaves the Dojo, waking back up in reality to find Amelia and Trent racing towards him!

In case you didn’t see the blog on the previous page, Adam and Raven are real people that have helped me immensely in my journey to tell this story. Adam’s guidance with anatomy and Raven’s unwavering focus and audacity with his own comic have both been instructive to me as I take my artistic journey to become a better visual storyteller. Please take some time to check out their comics at Raven’s Dojo and Locus Comics! Both their creations are NSFW, but hey, we’re grown-ups. If you’re not a grown-up, maybe wait until you are before checking them out.

Zik wakes up, and wait, he’s back on Zoz?! He’s in the dojo of his two senseis, Raven Perez and Adam Black! Zik is understandably confused; after all, he was just grappling with a giant Clonoid soldier on a Zernabian prison planet! Where are Amelia and Trent? Adam explains: Zik is dreaming right now! He’s not on Zoz at all.

So who are these two? Well, in real life, Raven and Adam are two of my comic bros, and they’re two of the best pals I’ve never actually met face to face. Raven does Raven’s Dojo, and Adam Black has a whole bunch of comics, the current one being Tears Of The Dragon! You should definitely check them out. These are the guys that have been helping me improve my art skills, so if you’ve noticed an increase in quality as the comic progresses, these are the guys to thank for that!

Oops! That’s kind of an obvious thing, but I’m personally often surprised that people don’t remember this more often. Vera takes advantage of the fact that she’s alone with Zik for the moment to ask him about what life is like on Zoz. It’s probably better than this crappy prison, but you never know!

Time to clear the air! And it looks like Zik has heard all this before…

Back on the prison planet, Zik seems to have found solution to his heat-sink problem, so let’s hope these copper pipes will do the trick!

This is the first page I drew 100% digitally. I’m still getting used to the new work-flow so please bear with me as I get my techniques down! The art will continue to improve from here on out as I get used to working with a tablet instead of pencils and pens.