Starriors (1984 series) #2

Pursuing the Protector renegades into the Forbidden Wasteland, Slaughter Steelgrave confronts the secretly sympathetic Sawtooth, threatening to erase his consciousness for questioning the chase. Meanwhile, Speedtrap reports that the Protectors are climbing the Glass Mountain. Slaughter summons the blind demolisher Deadeye and his deaf-mute scout Cricket to track them down.

The Protectors take shelter inside a volatile volcano, where Thinktank proposes a Mind-Merge with Crank — entering his memory circuits to extract the location of Man's Battlestation. Despite the danger, Thinktank insists Man must be found and awakened. As the merge begins, Hotshot, Cut-Up, Nipper, Geo, Runabout, Tinker, and Motormouth stand watch. Deadeye, guided by Cricket through a fissure in the volcano wall, interrupts the merge with a demolisher blast. Crank collapses unconscious with Thinktank's consciousness still trapped inside him. Hotshot blasts an escape route through the crater wall and the Protectors flee, leaving Crank behind.

Outside, the group splits: Runabout infiltrates the Destructor camp in disguise to spy, while the others regroup. Sawtooth secretly uses the Transfer Ring to revive the barely conscious Crank in the prison tent, learning from him that Man truly exists and sleeps beneath the Battlestation. Sawtooth realizes Slaughter knows this too — and that is what drives his madness. He relays this to Gouge as a warning, but Slaughter overhears and orders Crank brought before the assembled Destructors for mind-wipe and destruction.

Hotshot leads a two-pronged rescue mission into the Destructor camp at night. Nipper and Geo head for the red tent holding the Transfer Ring, while Runabout, Tinker, Cut-Up, and Motormouth move to free Crank. Nipper accidentally topples a pile of equipment, creating a diversion. Inside the red tent, Hotshot finds the Transfer Ring box empty — Sawtooth had already taken it. Motormouth, exposed as a spy, escapes and leads Gouge toward the other Protectors. Cut-Up, Runabout, and Tinker are captured in chains.

Hotshot fires his lasers to collapse a rock pinnacle on the Destructor guards, freeing the prisoners. Nipper uses a demolisher rocket to burst the volcano's magma blister, sending a lava flow and mutant fire-spiders sweeping through the Destructor camp. In the chaos, Hotshot blasts the Transfer Ring from Slaughter's grasp. All the Protectors escape. Sawtooth refuses to flee with them, declaring he has learned the truth and must fulfill his own role among the Destructors.

Back at the Protector camp, the Transfer Ring is used to separate Thinktank's consciousness from Crank, restoring both. The Mind-Merge yielded the Battlestation's location: beyond the volcanic range. Hotshot assigns Runabout — the fastest among them and an all-terrain transporter — to scout the route. Despite claiming to be programmed for cowardice, Runabout eagerly accepts. Meanwhile, in the Destructor camp, Sawtooth is seized and sentenced to destruction for his perceived betrayal, screaming as Slaughter's forces tear him apart.