Disclaimer: I don't own Toonami.


THE INTRUDER

Episode 2: Haste Leads to Waste


The Absolution's interior echoed fore to aft with alarm klaxons. TOM was able to ignore them all inside his elevator pod as it shot smoothly toward the lower levels of the ship. On the ride down, he kept himself entertained with a Kiefer B-9 plasma pistol, which he'd snatched before heading down to investigate. Tossing it up in the air, he caught the twirling weapon and struck a Double-O-Seven pose. "Any readings?" he asked.

"Uh ... no," Sara replied, slightly distracted by his antics. Most people just stood there listening to the music.

"What, then?"

"Please be careful," she urged him as he swung his gun-hand back and forth in swift movements. "We have no idea what this thing is."

"Eh, you worry too much," TOM said as he jumped into the air, spun two-hundred-seventy degrees, and landed in what he believed was a dynamic-looking crouch.

The elevator pod reached its stop, and the first thing to cross its threshold was the barrel of TOM's Kiefer. He moved cautiously at first, then took a few running strides down the hallway and jumped into the air, flipping his entire body forward and landing on his feet again. Reaching the end of the pristine, well-lit hallway, he came to one of the Absolution's many circular doors. There was a red emergency light fixed in the center, and it was flashing furiously like all the rest throughout the ship.

"Okay ... open it up."

The two halves of the portal split open in opposite directions. Without hesitation, TOM walked through. The chamber he stepped into was a storage space that was one level down from the starboard cargo bay. It wasn't quite as spacious, but was convenient for light storage. The first thing TOM picked up on was the shadowy dimness that pervaded the room.

"Those lights are off?" he wondered aloud.

"They shouldn't be," Sara replied, just as confused.

"Hit the emergency lights."

Sara activated the storage room's auxiliary lighting, casting an eerie red glow over everything. TOM hustled in quietly, the laser sight on his weapon sweeping back and forth across the empty floor. He emerged from behind a corner, bringing the plasma pistol up in a two-handed grip. There was nothing there, but he ducked back out of sight anyway, mostly for fun. When he leaned out a second later and peered about the red-limned chamber, there was still nothing. Normally, the sound of the engines would be vibrating through this place, but they'd been on standby all day, and would remain so until the situation was resolved.

"Be vewy, vewy quiet," he said without bothering to disguise his voice for the impression. "I'm hunting awiens."

"Tom, be serious."

Twirling the pistol in the air again, he caught it and touched the glowing coils that ran along its barrel to make sure it was still hot with power. They produced a crackling sound, and he found the gesture every bit as cool as slipping on a pair of shades.

Rounding the corner, he crept into the storage room, keeping a wary eye on everything his laser-sight darted across. He kept his back to the row of windows that allowed some starlight in, but it was still a little dim. The light within the radiation symbol on his protruding abdomen bobbed up and down ridiculously as he stalked along the wall.

"If this were a movie," he said, starting to get bored without finding anything. "This is the part where the alien would start killing people off."

"We are only two people on this ship, Tom. Now quit joking around."

"Whose joking? I'm hunting an extraterrestrial object in my own spaceship with a plasma pistol, this is so cool! And you could count the Clydes."

"You're safe anyway," Sara said, relenting for a moment to his whimsical train of thought. "The comic relief usually doesn't die."

"Funny."

"Do you see anything down there?"

"No, not yet."

Scattered throughout the place both individually and in stacks were pressure-sealed crates. Behind a small cluster of them, the darkness barely concealed a strange slithering motion. TOM, too preoccupied with looking like a slick action movie character, didn't see it.

Not much more than a year ago, he'd been instrumental in the rescue of a construction colony, and had emerged from the ordeal without any serious loss to his metallic hide. So whatever was hiding on his ship didn't inspire a great deal of concern in him.

"Sara," he said impatiently. "Are you getting anything yet?"

"No," she answered. "Still no readings at ... wait."

"What?"

"I'm detecting a little movement down there. Some crates were just nudged a few inches, but I can't detect what did it. There's definitely something in there with you, though."

"Okay, so what is it?" TOM asked, growing anxious as he swept his Kiefer back the way he'd come, then forward again. "And where is ...?" He trailed off as his gaze settled on the shadows directly across from him, and made out a bizarre mass of syrupy red that was undulating back in its dark hiding place. He definitely wasn't alone. Back to the first question, he thought. "What is—?"

Suddenly, the thing launched out of the darkness straight for TOM. He barely had time for a cry of terror, let alone for firing off a shot, before it smashed violently into him. The blow was so quick and savage that he was knocked off his feet in the same instant that the reinforced window behind him smashed apart to make way for his flying body. The attack had taken place in less than a second.

"Tom!" Sara cried out. She was too little and too late to do anything but feel the link between them cut off. His reactor had shut down and his signal was lost to her. And while she was confined to the Absolution, his immobile shell was hurtling away from the ship into endless blackness.

"Tom ...? Tom ...!" She received no answer, and her words echoed into nothing.