Later that night, Defender Zik is up late doing homework. The CEO of Zik Enterprises can’t just disappear, after all; there are all kinds of projects that need your favorite space hero’s attention. Just as he’s wrapping things up for the night, the door chime sounds.

It’s an upset Amelia that Zik turns to find at his door.  Inviting her in, he asks her what’s bothering her. It turns out she’s having more nightmares about the explosion at the prison factory. Zik can relate to dreams of falling rubble, and sympathizes with her plight. Amelia asks if it’s okay that she sleeps in Zik’s room. Gallantly offering her the bed, Zik gets settled in to sleep on the floor.

Amelia asks if Zik will be all right sleeping on the floor, but Zik laughs it off by saying that his muscles provide extra cushioning. She then asks about his nightmares, and Zik explains that he had similar dreams of falling rocks crushing him after his mother died in the avalanche. Probing him further, Amelia asks what his mother was like. Zik relates some fun anecdotes about how patient his mom was with two precocious boys.

But just as Zik turns back to Amelia to tell her she would have loved his mother, he discovers that the exhausted girl has drifted off to sleep already!  Zik gets Zoot to turn out the lights, and they go to sleep, ready for new adventures at Planet Hypnos tomorrow!

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!