Like a wraith from deep space, Queen Elcyra has arrived just as Defender Zik and the Zozian war party are about to leave. She opens communications with James Anchor, assuming that since the Kodiak 2 is the largest ship in the fleet, he must be in charge. Admiral Anchor is less than happy to see her, and promptly calls her a witch. She taunts him by pretending to be impressed by the new, larger Kodiak capital ship.
But now down to business, Elcyra demands that the Zozians are her slaves and the fleet should prepare to be boarded. James retorts that no Zozian would ever bow to her.
This reply seems to be exactly what Queen Elcyra anticipated, and she launches into her Plan B with glee. She gives the order to her Clonoids to wipe out all remaining humans on the prison planet, Zozian and Zernabian alike, and to level the factories. Now that the trap is sprung, she no longer needs her bait!
With one final taunt at the aghast and furious Zozians, she launches her real attack…

Defender Zik calls for his crew to cease fire, recognizing Morren’s voice.  He asks how in the world Morren could have survived their last encounter, which ended with Morren getting spaced with a broken visor! As it turns out, Jairian trooper uniforms have redundant visors for just such an emergency.

Morren sets out the situation for the Temerity team: he intends to kill them all! But to make it interesting, he’s placed the ZEMM flight crew at the top of the crater’s central peak, and he challenges Zik to try and make it to the top. He promises to free the hostages if Zik makes it.

An understandably skeptical Tanaka objects, saying that they can’t trust Morren to keep his word. But Morren doesn’t care, he holds all the cards! The hostages can just be eliminated right away. Zik hastily agrees to play Morren’s game, if only to buy the hostages more time.

Don’t try to back someone from Zoz into a corner! Especially not Zik!

It’s hard to read in the web version, but the words on the targeting computer read “Railguns Armed.” In the print version it should be easier to read. Yes, I plan on publishing Zik’s adventures in a book eventually.. in fact, they’re now available in the menu above!