the main issue I have with Nik is that he didn't present a IC reason or even an arrival section to his post. He just when strait into the attack portion of his post. Personally, unless there is evidence his character was on the planet or have IC knowledge of it before, then his OOC motive is higher than his IC motive. What to me means its metagaming is that just from how he is posting, that he was just rushing to figure out any character that could attack.
He was thinking OOCly that is what makes it metagaming. Instead of thinking about his character, where is character is, what his charter is doing and expressing that, he posted what amounts to an attack only post, without an arrival, adding that later to em is half-baked. Because it started OOCly now if it was an RP OOC reason, which is the kind of reason I think you are talking about Jeebus I'd understand, as in, does this advance the plot, does this action advance the character if it fails this way? Those kind of OOC reasons help develop IC.
However, to me, now matter how much IC there is to back it up the OOC reason to help an OOC friend is unforgivable and does count as metagaming and Nik should not walk away unpunished for such disrespect to Roleplaying as a whole. The fact there there is circumstantial at best IC reasons just makes it worse.
Nik Metagamed, because he tried to help an OOC friend. Period.