TOM reclined in his chair as the Absolution continued to rocket through hyperspace.
"Hey SARA, how much time's left on the trip?" he asked, noticing that the film he'd started playing upon reaching FTL was starting to wrap up.
"I'd say about two hours or so," SARA responded.
"Two more hours? Geez, looks like this gonna be a double feature, what should put on?"
"Hm..." the AI paused briefly to think before continuing, "How about we put on Aki-"
She was immediately interrupted as the Absolution violently exited hyperspace without warning, sending TOM flying out of his chair and onto the hard metallic floor with a loud thud. Before he could even get up, there was a massive electrical surge and the whole ship went dark.
"SARA, you alright? What just happened?" TOM said, getting back on his feet.
"I'm not sure, but it seems we've been hit by some sort of EMP. The two of us are protected from that, but the ship isn't, you'll have to restart the main generator manually," SARA said, flickering back to life on the main control panel.
"The elevator must be out then, I guess I'll have to use a jet pack to get do-" TOM was knocked on his knees by a strong collision. "What was that, did something just hit us?"
"Not sure, I can't access sensors until you get the power back on."
"Well this is just fantastic, well I guess I'm off then, bring the elevator down to me as soon as you can, we need to get back into hyperspace."
TOM moved towards the elevator shaft, grabbing a jet pack that had been placed beside it for emergencies along with a blaster.
"Is the rifle really necessary?" SARA mocked playfully.
"Hey, after that blob thing, I'm not taking any chances." TOM said, activating the power on his weapon.
"I guess it's best to be prepared,"
With that, TOM activated his jet pack, and flew down the empty elevator shaft, taking care not to crash into anything as he was still getting used to this new, much taller form. He descended down for a solid minute before finally reaching the level leading to the generator. As he flew down the now pitch black halls of the great vessel, he couldn't help but feel nervous. While the night vision on his optics helped to illuminate what was in front of him, there was still a vast oppressive darkness sprawled out before him, could never be quite sure what lurked in those shadows, and the hint of static brought on by the night vision certainly didn't help keep him calm. The blaster in his hand provided some reassurance of course, but he still feared that there might be another intruder.
He turned a corner, and floated into the generator room, the massive coils of the generator itself still glowing faintly from the energy that had been flowing through them before the EMP. He landed in front of the generator controls and flicked a single large switch twice, causing the generator to hum and spark back to life in an instant.
"There, that ought to do it," he said to himself, relived that the lights were powering back up.
He left the generator room and turned back into the hallway, happy that he didn't have to fire his weapon after all.
He was suddenly stopped by SARA's voice coming in over the ship's speakers, "TOM, get back up here right away, we have a bit of a situation."
"A situation? What kind of situ-" TOM stopped immediately as a large metallic monster crashed through the ceiling a ways down the hall from him and landed onto the deck. The mechanical creature was built like a massive spider, with each leg resembling a sharpened steel girder. The lights of the hallway reflected off of it's gunmetal gray carapace like fire shimmering against a lake as it turned to face TOM, it's four red optics locking onto him with murderous intent.
"You have got to be kidding me," he said, readying his blaster as the creature charged towards him, letting out a metallic roar as each of it's legs stabbed violently into the deck.
TOM fired a concentrated beam of energy at the spider, but it merely fizzled out into sparks on the monster's metal hide without leaving any damage. He tried to fire a charged shot at the beast, but that only succeeded in knocking it back momentarily before it charged forward with even greater speed. The demon slashed at TOM with one of it's large legs, knocking him to the ground. The creature wasted no time in pinning the android to the ground, forcing TOM to quickly raise his blaster against the spider's body to hold back the advance of it's dagger like mandibles. As he struggled to keep the demon at bay, he heard the distinct sound of the elevator reaching his floor and opening it's doors. Without a moment's hesitation, TOM activated his jet pack and sent himself rocketing out of the spider's grasp and directly into the elevator. He crashed into the wall and rose to his feet as quickly as he could, slamming the button to the bridge as quickly as he could as his monstrous opponent scrambled to enter the chamber with him.
As the doors shut and the elevator began it's ascent, SARA's voice sounded over the speakers again, "It appears we've been boarded."
"Yeah, I noticed that," TOM said with his signature sarcasm as he removed his now fuel depleted jet pack.
"I ran a scan, and it seems we did collide with something, a small boarding craft with the ability to rip ships out of hyperspace and emit EMP blasts."
"And it just so happens that this boarding craft had a giant robot murder spider on board."
"Well I consulted the ship's records, and it turns out this pod is a nasty bit of military hardware designed to cripple enemy supply routes. It must have drifted off course from a war zone and ended up out here. It detects any ship passing through hyperspace, stop it, shut it down, and then rams forward to send in that spider and make sure that nothing sentient survives."
"Nothing sentient? Guess that's why it hates me so much."
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you haven't gotten rid of it, it's still following you through the ship."
"I figured something like that'd happen, I guess I've gotta beat this thing."
"Were any of your weapons effective?"
"Not at all, but I think I know something that will be."
"I guess it's worth a shot, but please TOM, promise me you'll be careful."
TOM chuckled, "I'm not in any rush to lose this new body like I did the last one, I'll be fine."
He went back to the elevator panel and pressed the button for the hangar bay, and after another minute or so of travel, the elevator stopped and he reached his destination, knowing that his adversary would be waiting for him in the darkness.
"Hey, could you stop hiding and actually fight, I've got things to do!" TOM shouted as he stepped forward, trying to draw the demon out.
Suddenly, the mechanical spider burst forth from a wall at the far end of the bay, and once again charged TOM, emitting another cybernetic shriek. TOM ran forward, firing a few beams from his blaster at the monster as he did so. With the end of the bay insight, TOM knew that he was almost there as the spider continued to barrel down on him. When he finally reached the hangar controls, he looked back to see his opponent once again preparing to strike with one of it's massive sharp legs.
"Not this time," he said as he slammed down of the hangar control panel, causing the doors to rush open, sending all of the air flooding out of the room.
The spider was sent flying as TOM quickly grabbed onto the hangar control to keep himself from sharing the robotic demon's fate. Just when it reached the mouth of the hangar however, the mechanical horror got it's bearings again and reached out with it's front legs, digging into the hull to keep itself on board. Without delay, the creature slowly started to move upwards in an attempt to reenter the ship. TOM looked to his blaster, and knew what he had to do. He smashed the energy coils on top of the weapon against the deck as forcefully as he could and then began to charge a high powered shot. Blasters like the one's on the Absolution had an old design flaw, if the coils were damaged, they couldn't siphon energy properly, and any small power build up would continue exponentially until the weapon exploded. He released his now brightly glowing rifle and watched as it hit the spider once before detonating in a blinding explosion, loosening the terrible machine's grip and finally sending it tumbling into deep space.
Once he saw that the creature was fully banished from the ship, he quickly hit the controls once more, and the bay doors shut, ending the torrent of air, that had proven to be his salvation. He rose to his feet and walked back to the elevator, looking back at the mess he'd made before boarding it and ascending to the bridge.
Once back on the bridge, he spoke, "About that movie, how about we pick something a bit more... relaxing."
"I was just thinking the same thing, and I've got just the film in mind," SARA flashed her selection on the screen as TOM sat back down in his chair.
"That looks good to me, get it started and let's go."
"Of course." SARA said as TOM hit the necessary buttons on his chair, and the absolution shot forward into the comforting glow of hyperspace.