Disclaimer: I don't own Toonami.
A/N: Lockdown may have been a slight disappointment in that it didn't have as much action as Toonami's previous "Total Immersion Event", The Intruder, but it did have a lot going for it. Particularly, the atmosphere. It started off with the title being spelled out in a heap of garbage, and throughout the rest of the movie that theme of waste and wreckage was prevalent in the setting, the trashing of the DOKs, and the Absolution's impending destruction. The music, colors, and other visual aspects helped, too. Perhaps if it had been longer, shown as a full-length movie later on Toonami, and had featured TOM doing more than walking around fixing things, they would have been able to do much, much more with all of Toonami's TIE's.
LOCKDOWN
Episode 1: Here There Be Monsters
Rusted, shredded scrap metal, piled high in a heavy-duty scrap carrier, lay uselessly underneath a layer of dust and dim overhead lights. Some of the garbage still glowed with heat or disposable power packs, and amber lighting swished over its jagged unevenness like scanners as the heap glided down a cargo passage. Reaching its destination, the scrap carrier's doors sprung open, dumping its metallic payload into a pit and sending up a cloud of dust.
The Clyde that was doing the pulling was clamped inside a set of bars at the front of the scrap carrier. It's next stop: freight elevator. Firing up its intigrav power cell, Clyde hauled the big barge inside and came eye-to-face with the Toonami host and captain of the Absolution.
"Oh, hey. Sorry," TOM said, stepping into the corner to make room for Clyde. He'd wanted to take a ride on the more spacious and powerful freight elevator for once, but rarely had a chance to because it was always occupied by the scrap carrier. Clyde's collection assignment had been a good opportunity to enjoy it, but now the fun was over. The two robots shared an awkward moment as they watched the floor counter blaze through digits.
Moments later, TOM stepped onto the Absolution's bridge beneath soft but strong lighting sconces and the curved framework that was wrapped around the shell-shaped bubble window over his head. "So I just rode twenty floors on the freight elevator with a garbage Clyde," he said to his AI companion, taking a seat.
"Well cheer up," Sara replied indicatively. "Here's something your going to love."
"Oh, yeah?" TOM was intrigued.
"I'm picking up a signal I don't recognize. It's beyond my capabilities." Her tone itself suggested how unusual that was. "Or so old that the encryption code isn't in my memory banks."
"Log it. We'll take a crack at it later. Anything else in the area?"
"Scanning ... There's a lot of interference, and something's giving off a huge energy signature."
"How far away is it?" TOM asked, getting up and pacing over to the window to see if there was anything within range of sight yet. All he saw so far was that this area had an abundance of rust-colored nebulas.
"We're close," Sara told him. "The interference makes it hard for the signal to broadcast very far. I can't translate it, but I think it may be a distress signal."
TOM walked back over to stand before Sara's holographic avatar. "Maybe somebody broke down," he suggested. "But why aren't they using a normal shipping code?"
"Don't know," she said mysteriously. "Head to the observation deck."
"Alright. Fire up the DOKs."
"The DOKs? I hardly think there's any danger."
"Oh, no," TOM said defiantly over his shoulder as he turned to leave. "I went out last time, remember? Better safe than sorry."
"Understood."
Back in the normal single-occupant elevator pod, TOM rocketed up toward and even higher level on the ship. The observation deck, encased in a polarized window and backed by more sleek framework, arced out of the ship like a hump on a camel. Inside, on the deck floor itself, a shell rose out of the center of the platform and split in half to expose the projector. TOM walked around it to the wafer-shaped control console. "Show me what ya got," he said, activating the projector. Through the window before him, he could see more of the cosmos than anywhere else on the ship, save for standing outside, but right now his only focus was the information Sara was providing.
The image was jittery, due to the disruptive signals she had mentioned already, but clear enough to make out details. They were entering a field of giant-sized debris. Pieces of ships, satellites, probes, stations, and anything else that was big and made of metal was broken and floating here like an industrial asteroid cluster. But the focus of the glitch-ridden video feed was the centerpiece of this galactic dumb, a space-faring vehicle larger than TOM had ever seen before. It was long, straight, and sharp, with pointy spires protruding in a fan-shaped row on one side.
The information on the screen left TOM bewildered. The numbers indicated that the evil-looking ship was actually ten times larger than the Absolution itself! He gazed at it without believing, realizing it must be not a ship, but a facility of some sort. But what kind? It's design seemed inspired in equal parts by a wicked bayonet and a dangerous sea creature.
"Wow ... What is that?" he asked in what may have been fearful wonder. Even he didn't know what the undercurrent in his own voice was at that moment.
"No idea," Sara told him for the second time that day. "There's too much interference. We'll have to get closer for any solid readings."
"Not sure if I like that idea. Look at those ships, they look derelict. Can we get closer to the one broadcasting the distress signal?"
"Hold on." Sara's visual scanners darted to and fro until it zoomed in on the ship in question. "There." It was a small star cruiser that looked like a saucer with a winged pilot compartment on its front edge, sandwiched width-wise between tube-shaped engine nacelles.
TOM could tell just by looking at it that it was one of the oldest models he'd ever seen. "That guy may not even still be in there!" he exclaimed. "Tell ya what, take us into a slow coast into the field. Get the shields up and keep scanning. We're sending the DOKs to that ship."
"You're just looking for an excuse to play with your new toys," Sara remarked. She'd figured him out already.
"Got me there," TOM confirmed. "Prep the boys for launch."
Down in the Absolution's spacious cargo bay stood an army of motionless, cylindrical robots in eight groups of one hundred by one hundred. Upon activation, their bucket-heads rotated like turrets to expose a trio of lenses. The rest of their bodies unfolded like Transformers, producing arms and an array of thrusters.
In a smooth, orderly fashion, their thrusters popped to life and they lifted off the cargo bay floor one by one, headed for the exit. The massive doors parted, allowing the legion of DOKs out into space. Among the swarm was a Clyde; Sara would need it if she wanted to have any eyes on the scene.
Up in the screens room, the Absolution's AI had some news. "TOM, I've got something," she said while the Toonami host looked over the visuals she was displaying. She put up a representation of the nasty-looking ship surrounded by the not-quite-as-large junk in the vicinity that surrounded it. "Look at the trajectory of all these craft. All of this debris is slowly moving towards that giant ship."
"What's the deal with that thing?" TOM wondered aloud, becoming more baffled by the minute. "I thought this system was deserted. Why would all this be way out here, unless ..."
Suddenly, realization struck him like a bullet to the brain, and he understood what was happening. Or at least he partly understood. He spun toward Sara's avatar, shouting, "Sara, full reverse! I'll meet you on the bridge!" Then he took off down the walkway.
"Why?" she asked curiously even as she initiated the command.
"Just do it!"
TOM made it to the bridge in a dead run. But just as he reached it, the entire spacecraft shuddered, throwing him off his feet. Momentum carried his face into the corner of the chair, knocking him backward and onto the floor. Groaning, he pushed himself up. "Man ... what the heck is going on?"
Systems that had remained long dormant within the massive, frightening ship were now coming alive and reaching out towards the Absolution. They found it and latched on resolutely. The Absolution's backward retreat was suddenly halted as its engines were dried of power. They flickered and died.
Sara felt sections of her ship going offline. She didn't even have to think about what the cause of it was (the big scary ship, obviously), but stopping it was another matter. Suddenly, she sensed a jamming signal disguised within the tractor beam coming her way. She reacted to it with faster-than-lightning speed before it could shut her down.
"TOM, the engines are offline," Sara spoke over the alarms. "That thing has us caught in a tractor beam and is pulling us in. It's blocking all high-frequency broadcasts."
Settled into his chair, TOM was still recovering from the surprise and pain. "Ah, man ..." he groaned. "What about any outgoing signals?"
"We still have broadcasting capabilities, but the frequency is modular. I can adjust faster than that thing can block it. But it takes an unbelievable amount of processing power, so I can't do anything else."
"So no distress signal, huh?" He sighed. "And the DOKs, what's the status on them?"
"You designed them to interface on my band frequencies only. So we can't reach them."
Outside, what was once an impressive army of reconnaissance droids was now another mass of useless debris. The DOKs were drifting about helplessly, bumping into one another like billiard balls.
"Man, what is it with our luck? How long before we get sucked in by this thing?"
"A long time," Sara replied while calculations scrolled by on either side of her big blue head. "Roughly, one hundred-seventy-eight years, seventeen days, ten hours, and twelve minutes."
"Roughly, huh?"
"Roughly."
"Ahh, so I guess that means these ships have been trapped here for a hundred years, too," he realized.
"Very high probability. It wouldn't be a problem for us if we didn't need power. But we'll go down. Soon."
"Maybe not," TOM responded, a thought beginning to take shape in his head. "I've got an idea. Crazy, but it just might work. What if someone else logged onto our systems and controlled the DOKs remotely?"
"Interesting," Sara said with genuine interest. "Perhaps ... If I position more power to the receivers ... Yes, it may work. But why aren't the DOKs being affected by that thing as well?"
"Who knows? Who cares?" He dismissed the question with a semblance of a shrug. "We know they can move. Let's not waste any more time."
"Okay, but here's the big question: who within range could possibly operate the DOKs?" Sara asked. "If we can neither contact anyone for help, or even send a signal to be traced to our location, who is going to pilot them?"
"It'll take some fixing, but think I have a candidate ... Someone with at least enough power on his ship to send a distress signal." Stepping back up to the curve of the reinforced glass shell that enclosed the bridge, TOM set his sights on the tiny cruiser, still broadcasting its distress call, which had drawn them to his place to begin with.