Just as Zik dives into the ocean, Todd sees something on the underwater scanner that terrifies him: the sharks! He tries to warn Zik, but he’s too late!
Zik is already diving down to Haven’s lab quickly with the help of one of the dolphins. When he gets there, he finds the main airlock entrance is unobstructed and easy to get through, but the door to Haven’s lab is jammed shut!
He hauls on the stuck door with all his considerable might and finally gets it open. A grateful Haven thanks your favorite space hero and introduces herself.
But they still have to escape the damaged lab, and those sharks are still out there!
Zik, his brother Todd, and Ramesh follow the panicked dolphins in their boat. On the way, Ramesh comments that Zik’s father seems to have aged since Ramesh visited last. Zik explains that it’s because his father has been suffering since the loss of Zik’s mother in a mountain climbing incident.
Soon they approach an island, the one next to Haven’s lab. Todd notices signs that part of the island seems to be freshly missing. They check the underwater scanner, and sure enough, they see the rubble from the island and the lab underneath. Todd points out that there’s someone trapped inside!
That’s all your favorite space hero needs to hear to spring into action! Zik instructs Todd to call for help, and asks Ramesh to find the underwater breathing unit stowed below-deck. He strips down and dives in, unaware of the danger that lurks in the cloudy water!
DEFENDER ZIK LORE BREAK!
Zik’s mother Zorah died several months before the Jairian attack on Baker Mine. She was mountain climbing, a sport she was passionate about and taught to Zik. She was with several of of her climbing friends, scaling a large rounded cliff known as the Walrus Belly. There was no indication that the unusual formation was unstable, but there was a huge collapse of the face they were climbing on, and all three climbers disappeared in the rubble. What was left was a huge hole, as if there had been an enormous cavern underneath.
Shortly before the collapse, a meteorite was seen streaking through the sky and was captured on several skycar dashcams. This was unusual as it had not been detected before and dealt with before impacting the planet. Researchers backtracked its trajectory and amazingly, it arced way up over the solar system and would have been very near the same gravitational anomaly as from the spinning asteroid that Zik had just saved the planet from.
Haven is stranded in her underwater lab after the avalanche! Her communications are knocked out and she can’t last forever locked in her lab. She has the bright idea to ask the dolphins for help, and gets them to race off to the nearest inhabited island for help. They swim to Talia Island, where Zik lives with his father and brother.
Ramesh happens to be visiting, helping Zik with his plans for the newly formed Zik Enterprises. Everyone is out on the beach chatting, when Ramesh sees the dolphins leaping about out in the bay. The dolphins chatter and squeak wildly as they try to get their attention. Finally, the humans clue in that something is up, and Zik, his brother Todd, and Ramesh pile into their boat and race off after the dolphins!
Zik has to use his grappling hook to make it the rest of the way to Ramesh’s crashed ship, but he finally gets there! He discovers that his friend is alive, but unconscious. Tying Ramesh to his back, Zik prepares for the trip back. But before he leaves, he sets the ship to fire its engines once per revolution of the asteroid so as to push it in a uniform direction, as well as to slow it’s rate of spin. That accomplished, Zik starts to haul himself back to his own ship with Ramesh in tow. Upon his return, he stows his friend in the bunk, which Zik explains doubles as an escape pod for the mining ship.
Hey Zik pals! Do you use Webtoons to read comics? Well, Zik is now on Webtoons as well! I’m reformatting my back catalog of pages and uploading them as soon as they’re ready, so it’s a good opportunity to rediscover Episode 1: Prison Planet. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you know when a new page is up!
It’s story time! Zik starts telling Amelia the tale of how he saved the entire planet of Zoz. The story begins with a distress call from some scientists who had been studying a recent gravitational anomaly in the Zozian solar system. They noticed during their observations that a large asteroid was heading straight for Zoz!
Zik and his friend Ramesh happen to be fairly close to the asteroid in question, so they anchor the ore they were mining and set off to investigate. But when they arrive, they notice something highly unusual: the asteroid is spinning extremely rapidly! What will our hero do?
DEFENDER ZIK LORE BREAK!
The gravitational anomaly that caused this spinning asteroid has never been explained, although it is theorized that it may have been linked with another unexplained event that occurred not long after, and which had another dire connection to Zik: the death of his mother. More on that later. But this asteroid is a real mystery. The odds that it would have randomly been sent straight at Zoz with such velocity from so far away were calculated to be incredibly tiny, even disregarding the unexplained nature of the anomaly. There are many who saw some kind of sinister cosmic intelligence behind this event…
