Teams of Jairian raiders are moving through the Kodiak, seeking to take it over! One pair, moving forward, stumbles into the hangar where they find a huge column containing the machinery for the forward howitzer. They decide that in order to protect their comrades outside the ship, they should disable the huge cannon by smashing it until it stops firing!

They never suspect that Seamus and Jason have fixed blades to their tonfas, and are sneaking up behind them…

Nearby, one level down, another pair of the attacking space commies have found a barracks. They decide to see who they might catch asleep and unaware, and enter. But it’s a barracks for the Chadee crewmembers, some of whom are inside, gearing up to repel the invaders! Their blood lust aroused, the Chadee dispatch the unlucky Jairians in seconds…

Tanaka leaps from the bridge tower of the Kodiak and glides silently towards his prey.  The unsuspecting Jairian is so busy sabotaging the cannon that he has no idea his fate is at hand!

SLICE!

Zik tosses the Jairian helmet down the hall on top of what’s left of his three attackers.  After lowering the gravity again, he continues escorting Travis to the infirmary to get his broken leg fixed up.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, a frustrated Trent tells Gerald that one of the cannons isn’t responding.  Gerald checks the cams and discovers that a Jairian is on the hull of the ship!  The Jairian has removed an access cover and is smashing the rotation mechanisms inside!

Gerald calls up to Tanaka, who is on the roof blasting away with his sidearm.  Once he sees the Jairian saboteur, Tanaka promises to take care of the problem…

Queen Elcyra’s ship is damaged! As the air rushes out of the new hole Zik punched into her hull, more torpedoes keep launching. One torpedo approaches, but is badly aimed and thus escapes the barrage of point defense fire coming from the Kodiak. Or was it really aimed just right?

As the torpedo passes close to the Kodiak, it bursts open, revealing a clonoid drone! The clonoid, carrying a mysterious cylinder in his hand, drifts down through space to the hull of the Kodiak. It releases the cylinder, which bursts open and encases the clonoid in a film which glues it to the hull! The now dead clonoid has become a tracking device!

The Clonoid super-soldier is shocked as a large rail-gun round bursts through his heart! His thick skin may be able to withstand sidearm rounds, but this is significantly bigger! The Clonoid falls, the giant chunk of rubble he was hoisting crushing his head. Zik is taken aback, unable to comprehend what has happened until, through the smoke, he glimpses the familiar sight of the shuttle and two fighters from the Kodiak inbound! James Anchor has arrived just in time!

The Clonoid has waited until Zik was close, and it grabs him in its giant arms! Zik realizes his mistake too late as the Clonoid squeezes him in a crushing bear hug! Something snaps, and the Clonoid tosses Zik aside. Our hero can’t breathe! The chest plate has been crushed and it’s preventing Zik from being able to fill his lungs! Luckily, Zoot is always monitoring things, and ejects the body armor before Zik is suffocated. In the meanwhile, the Clonoid has grabbed a giant chunk of rubble. It heaves the huge boulder over its head and prepares to crush Zik with it! Is this the end??

Zik has an apology to make to Amelia; he never intended for this riot to happen! All he wanted to do was negotiate for her release from prison, not cause a riot that ended in the factory explosion and the mass murder of a couple hundred people! Zik and Amelia look deeply into each others eyes… when suddenly a rock smashes into Zik’s head! The Clonoid Super Soldier has chucked a chunk of rubble at Zik, crushing his helmet! Zik tells Amelia to get herself and Trent to safety, and readies himself to finish this battle once and for all!

The giant Clonoid soldier takes the bait! While the great mass of muscle leaps up to the catwalk, Zik launches his grappling hook into the ceiling and swings out behind him! He uses his momentum to land with all the force he can muster right onto the spine of the Clonoid! While the two combatants recover from the blow, Amelia and Trent spring into action! What are they up to?

In this still from the film Inception, notice how the actors are holding their pistols. This is good trigger discipline!

Important note for you kids out there! See how Trent is holding his guns? See how his index fingers are resting on the triggers? NEVER DO THAT! I drew it like that because Trent has never held guns before and doesn’t know about trigger discipline. Basically, in order to avoid accidentally pulling the trigger, you should never even put your finger in the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot! It’s incredibly important to treat firearms with extreme caution.

If you’re interested in knowing more about using guns, please make sure you contact a qualified instructor and are well supervised before picking one up for the first time. And do a lot of reading and learning! I don’t want any of you guys getting hurt.

All that said, I love target shooting, and I used to do biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting). It’s a great sport, but again, you need proper training before even touching a firearm!

Also: You might notice a few new buttons on the page. I’ve connected Zik to topwebcomics.com, and if you’re so inclined, you can click the buttons and vote for Zik once per day per computer. I’d really appreciate your help whenever you have a moment! The more votes we get, the more people will see the comic, and the better this whole experience becomes for all of us! This is the link to use for voting. Thanks in advance!!

Meanwhile, back on the prison planet, the giant Clonoid soldier is still going on its rampage, unaware that Zik has recovered. Zik brings the beast up-to-date with a crate. Wham! Do I have your attention now? From up on the catwalk, Zik taunts his opponent, hoping to lure him into direct combat. Hopefully it’ll go a bit better this time!

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!