The Lasers set about preparing for the coming night in the arctic ice canyon of Colbar. Splice leaves Judge Hammett and his entourage in the escape pod after setting up a temporary heater in it. He navigates the steep descent with the aid of a grapple gun, reaching the crashed Ugly Duckling. Doing some quick fixes to an airlock, he enters and finds Stark standing on the bridge, looking down on an unconscious Dimitri. The pilot starts to come around from his punch to the jaw, and the three Lasers agree to try and gain access to the shuttle bay. 

Using some breaching explosive charges and their knowledge of physics and engineering, the crew uses a controlled explosion to get the ship down the side of the cliff without damaging it or starting a lethal avalanche. As a result of the detonation, however, they alert a horde of "scrabblers" - small vicious predators - to their location. Dimitri runs to protect the escape pod and its occupants while Stark and Splice cover each other against the tide of ravenous furballs. The Lasers suffer cuts and bites but hold their own, eliminating the scrabblers with careful disruptor fire and stomping boots. 

Once the local faunae are destroyed, the crew moves their human cargo from the pod to the relocated Duckling. Splice is able to do enough repairs to provide life support in the bridge, and the group survives the freezing night. The ashen stars effect on global comms fades as the new dawn comes, and the sleeping Lasers are awakened by a call in response to their distress signal. 

The person on the other end of the communication said he was a transporter based out of the main planetary outpost and that he had a cargo hauler craft which could come rescue the crew. The trip would take some hours, he claimed, and he asked for coordinates to meet the Lasers at. Before they gave this information, Splice intervened and suggested that perhaps this mystery caller wasn't interested in saving them but rather targeting the Judge. Deciding that they should find their own means out of the canyon, they began to dig out some room around the shuttle bay so they could use it. 

As they were digging, the cargo hauler arrived over another ridge, some hours ahead of the time the caller had claimed it would take. Suspecting a possible attack, Splice went to repair the Duckling's laser cannons while Stark tried to stall the new arrivals with communications chatter. Splice used his cybe neural rewiring ability to take on the skills and personality of a shaky, suspicious durugh, allowing him to fix the weapons console. Stark noticed a countdown timer set up by the same virus which had caused their ship to crash, one which would detonate several missiles in the armory. He and the altered Splice were able to stop this booby trap.

Stark then offered to walk out to meet the cargo hauler and its passenger(s), hoping to lure out any attackers. Dimitri set up a sniper's nest on the ridgeline and watched for signs of an ambush. Splice manned a battle console to fire the laser cannons if necessary. While Stark crossed the flat snowy ground between the ship and the mountain where the hauler had landed, a disruptor bolt shout of of the blue and nearly hit him. Dimitri was able to locate the enemy sniper (a balla female) using a holographic cloak to conceal her position. He fired two shots, killing her before she could escape or take another shot. 

The cargo hauler appeared suddenly, flying in low over the ground to make a strafing run on Stark. The panicked Splice/durugh fired off the laser cannons reflexively, nearly killing Stark when the blast went off course and blew a crater in the dirt. Stark was knocked unconscious, but Dimitri was able to take out the driver of the cargo hauler, causing the vehicle to crash at some safe distance from the Lasers. 

Taking the KO'd Stark back to the medical bay, Dimitri noted the jittery behavior of Splice and turned to his robot companion Sparks instead. Sparks helped get Stark stable and on the road to recovery, and Dimitri made plans to finally use the shuttle to get out of the arctic canyon.