With the rescue balloon inflated, Zik and Haven begin a rapid rise to the surface of the water. The shark starts to follow, but Haven finally manages to activate the shark repeller!

On the surface, Zik spits out his breathing unit to tell Ramesh and Todd to help them out of the water quickly! There’s no holding back a great white shark, so they need to get into the boat pronto!

Once safe, they drive the boat to the dock on the island, and Zik helps Haven out of the boat. Todd’s call for help managed to attract some attention, and a transport ship from the University of Port Rothbard, Haven’s research sponsor, arrives to help. A journalist from Zoz Broadcast News arrives as well, drone camera rolling!

Haven tells the whole story of her discovery, the avalanche, and how Zik rescued her to the reporter. And then she says the fateful words that will cement Zik’s legacy for all time! Zik will forevermore be known as Zik the Gallant Defender of Zoz!

Later that evening, once all the excitement is over, Zik and Haven go for a romantic walk on the beach on Talia Island. The couple has strong feelings for each other, and they begin a relationship with a kiss at sunset.

Always the man of action, your favorite space hero Zik charges at the shark! His hope is to get close to it before it expects him and inflate the balloon in its mouth. His ploy works, and the mighty shark chomps the inflating rescue balloon with such force that it bursts. A mass of bubbles to sprays out, confusing and disorienting the great white. Zik seizes the opportunity to escape, grabbing Haven and inflating her rescue balloon!

Back in space, Amelia notices something wrong with what Zik has just told her. Haven’s comment belies the fact that she hadn’t heard of the “famous” Zik! But Zik explains that Haven gets so absorbed with her work underwater that she barely notices that the rest of the universe exists. She was only barely aware that Zik had saved her life once before during the incident with the asteroid!

Zik continues his story. The underwater lab is starting to buckle under the weight of all the rocks that have fallen on it. Haven wants to leave using the submersible she usually uses to get to the lab, but Zik informs her that the bay doors are blocked by debris! There isn’t time to clear it all away before the lab collapses!

A frustrated Haven begins stripping off her clothes in preparation to swim to the surface. She gathers some necessities: a waterproof bag filled with her all-important research data, some emergency balloons designed to allow someone to be lifted rapidly to the surface, and a device that emits EM waves designed to repel sharks. Zik is a little surprised to hear about the sharks!

Outside the lab, Haven starts to play with the EM shark repeller, but she can’t remember how to activate it. Zik notices that it’s too late to get it going; a shark has arrived, and it’s noticed them! Uh oh!

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!

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!

After Haven’s incredible discovery of how to communicate with dolphins, she learns that they’re usually thinking about food and fun! She plays the dolphins and humpbacks near her underwater lab some Beethoven music, as a way of introducing them to human entertainment. Haven and the dolphins get so absorbed in their newfound ability to interact that they don’t notice that all the music and commotion has attracted a couple of curious great white sharks! Once the sharks arrive, the dolphins panic, knocking over Haven’s communications antenna! Worse, a humpback whale gets crowded into the cliff of a nearby island, causing an underwater avalanche! The rubble falls onto the living quarters module of the lab, crushing it! Haven is in mortal danger!

Amelia is curious about the type of girl Zik likes to date, so Zik starts telling his next tale! The last lady he dated was Haven LeClaire, a marine biologist.  She had an underwater lab near Zik’s island home on Zoz, where she was researching dolphin and whale communications. On the day they met, Haven had just made a breakthrough: she had learned how to communicate with dolphins! She was also close to discovering how to communicate with humpback whales, and there was a lot of activity around her lab. The ocean was crowded!

Zik wraps up his story about chasing off the Jairian thugs who tried to steal Baker Mine! After rescuing the miner stuck under the elevator, Zik runs back out to help fight off the remaining Jairians.

After the Jairians leave, one of the mercenaries, a man named Clint Donovan, steps out and reveals that he had been helping defeat the them! Clint had recognized Zik from the news after the asteroid incident and decided he wasn’t going to kill the man who had saved an entire planet.

Zik goes over some of the major changes that Zoz went through after the Jairian uprising. People everywhere started carrying weapons to protect themselves. Zik became known as Defender Zik in the media, and he became the new head of Delta Mines! He built a stronger security station and renamed Baker Mine to the Frank Cooper Memorial Mine, in honor of poor Frank who was murdered by the Jairians in cold blood. Zik Enterprises went on to become a pivotal company in the progress of the Zozian civilization!

Zik and his friends stop what they’re doing to absorb the shocking news! A radical group of socialists has stolen the colony ship that was used to bring humans to Zoz! These Jairians, taking their inspiration from Hugo Jaire, have declared a socialist revolution!

As your favorite space hero absorbs this shocking moment in history, the colony ship arrives in orbit around the planet he’s on! The radicals launch a cargo hauler from the colony ship, headed straight for the mining facility they’re at.

Our friends head outside to the landing pad to see what these scoundrels want.  Zik reflects that in hindsight, it would have been wise had they all been armed, but only Frank is carrying! Uh oh!