Disclaimer: I don't own Toonami, and the information Sara provides was taken from a Toonami-related website. I don't recall the address or who typed it up to begin with. There also may be one or two references to films that I don't own either. Basically, I don't own anything at all ... this is not helping my self-esteem.


THE INTRUDER

Episode 4: Do Or Die


TOM reflected nervously on his previous encounter with the Intruder as the elevator pod once again dived through the Absolution. It occurred to him that this scene unfolding was a bit too familiar: him in an elevator, with a gun, hunting an alien on the lowermost levels of his ship. It hadn't gone so well the first time. Luckily, he had a few advantages for round two, like a better weapon. He extended his arm and turned his wrist back and forth, examining either side of the Kiefer A-1 rifle he was holding. It had three settings, all of them more powerful than the Kiefer B-9 pistol he'd lost earlier. And in addition to the improved artillery, he also had a jetpack for speed and maneuverability. Plus the lights would be on, and he knew what to expect from his previous experience. Incidentally, he also knew what the Intruder was capable of, which made him feel like his preparations were the equivalent of adding an ace to an already bad hand. But there was no turning back now. If he did nothing, the whole ship would soon be gone.

"Nearly there," Sara informed him.

The convex elevator door slid open. TOM glided out on his jetpack with the rifle across his chest, ready to take on anything (but cautiously this time). He waited for Sara to open the heavy security door, readying himself and letting a sense of resolve settle into him. The large, heavy portal disengaged and pushed up, and he once again entered the danger zone.

"Have you got anything?" he asked, not referring to Sara's sensors this time.

"Yes," she responded.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense," TOM said as he swerved around a corner. "I'm getting enough of that down here."

"It won't help much, but to give us a general idea of our situation. I found reports suggesting a multitude of universal 'urban' legends regarding the same thing we seem to be dealing with. In UC 194," she began, "a galactic way station in Alpha Quadrant was destroyed by an unknown entity. It's described as a 'gelatinous, ever-expanding life-form that eats metal and is impervious to energy weapons of any kind.'"

TOM glanced down at his A-1. "Now you tell me."

"That was decades ago, Tom. We have much more advanced weaponry now, so I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"I'm counting on it. Any more horror stories to set the mood?"

"Let's see ... a deep space mining vessel, 'Cygna 5', was destroyed, and eighty-five percent of the crew was picked up days later. Then an Earth scientific research probe was lost after reporting contact with a 'large amoebae-like being' floating in deep space, and ten solar years after that, in UC 220, a combat vessel, 'Horizon' was sent to patrol the entity's last-known location, but was never heard from again ..." She paused for a second. "Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"Wrong way."

"Oh ... Right." TOM brought his jetpack to a halt, spun around in midair, and continued in the opposite direction.

He hardly noticed when something moved in the shadows behind him.

TOM needed to focus, Sara decided, so she put their communication on standby. As she did, TOM couldn't help thinking about the Intruder's immunity to her scanners. He knew which section of the ship it was in, but if it had moved, and was going to attack him from another direction, he would never see it coming. And as he considered this, another thought occurred to him: if the Intruder were immune to the most advanced scanning technology on the market, then how much help would a mass-produced weapon really be?

Without warning, the thing behind him left its hiding place in the intersecting hallway and flew at him. TOM, barely sensing the ambush, landed. But he had no time to pivot before the thing struck him in the back of the head. Turning around, he swiftly brought his weapon to bear on a shuddering, terrified Clyde.

He sighed partly in exasperation and partly in relief. "You know what? Come with me." He gestured and lifted off the floor again, Clyde following. He was past the cargo section where he'd first encountered the Intruder, so he angled downward, taking a service conduit to reach the starboard engine nacelle. In no time, he was back in a normal network of hallways. Clyde constantly glanced in every direction for danger. A minute of tense silence later, TOM alighted on the floor just before a bend in the current hallway. Down at the end of this passage was where Sara had theorized the Intruder would be. Not wanting to take any chances, he whispered to Clyde, "Go check it out." Clyde hesitated for a second, then turned and tried to wander away in the opposite direction. "Hey!" TOM snapped, pointing. "Go check it out!"

With its command response parameters overrunning its self-preservation directives, Clyde floated obediently off to investigate. TOM watched it go, and then nearly jumped out of his hard, synthetic skin when an explosive flash lit up the corridor, signifying the end of Clyde. Apparently, his quarry was not down the hallway, but right around the corner.

He shook his head, sighing inwardly. If you want something done right ... Making sure his rifle was prepped, he steeled his nerves and shot power into his jetpack, darting around the corner and landing directly in front of his adversary.

There it was ... The Intruder.

"Oh, man. This thing's gotten a lot bigger."

It looked like thick red Jell-O being poured down a shaft, squeezing against the floor, the ceiling, and both walls. The illumination from every single light fixture was smothered as the thing oozed over them, an indication that it was completely opaque. Although the thing was clearly a liquid life-form (TOM had never heard of such a thing), it seemed to have no trouble maintaining a semblance of a shape. Otherwise it would have been a puddle on the floor and he'd be ankle-deep in red goo.

Okay, enough scientific speculation, he thought to himself, I have janitor duty.

Taking his first aim at the bizarre enemy, he fired the Kiefer A-1's cutting laser, slicing a line through it. The gash sealed up before he'd even finished firing. He hadn't done one iota of damage. And on top of that, he had made himself a threat to the mucus. With inexorable intent, the Intruder oozed out of its current position and began sliding toward TOM. The small automaton took off immediately, like a fly reacting to a flyswatter. He zoomed back the way he'd come and landed about ten meters away.

The Intruder wasn't moving very fast, so TOM figured he had some time. Pumping the A-1 to activate its second setting, he directed the barrel down the length of the corridor and unleashed a bright, sizzling, electron beam. The focused beam struck the Intruder dead center, arms of discharged energy whipping over its surface. But the giant mutant blob didn't even slow down. On the contrary, it began crawling toward him even faster. TOM felt his resolve turning to dread, realizing he was nearly out of luck.

An instant later, he was hurtling through the Absolution's engine nacelle network as fast as the jetpack could carry his tiny body. He flew dangerously around corners, once bumping his head and ricocheting into the floor.

"Tom, be careful!" Sara warned.

"Not an option right now!" he shot back, seeing the massive red goo looming up behind him.

Somehow during the chase, he had managed to lose his way again in the ship's bowels. With the metal-consuming thing right on his heels, there was no time to find it, so he headed toward what felt like the center of this section of the ship ... even though that meant doubling back to where he and the Intruder had begun their pursuit. But he was in luck: the hallway ended in shorn metal and opened up into a cavern that hadn't been their before the Intruder had dissolved three or four whole levels. He had been standing at the edge of this pit ten minutes ago, not wanting to go in; now he was at the bottom, still not wanting to be stuck down here.

Tilting backward, he swept up away from the damaged floor plating and shot up past deck after deck, reaching the rim of the hole in seconds. There he alighted and stared back down into the darkness. The red ooze was gushing from the passage he'd just exited, and was now pooling in the middle of the obliterated area. With so much space to observe it, TOM now had an appreciation for its sheer volume. The thing was gigantic. And if the strongest weapon on board only made it aggressive, then there was truly nothing he could do against it. The Absolution would be gone in less than an hour.

The Intruder somehow sensed where he was from three stories below and launched a large glob of a tendril at him. TOM jumped back with a shout, watching as the arm punched through the deck plating he'd been standing on, dissolving it instantly. Then it began worming its way toward him, the rest of its mass quickly following.

Retreating full throttle again, TOM spotted the passage leading to the elevator shaft. "Sara! Send the elevator pod up to my level and seal that door!" he shouted, ducking under the heavy security door as it was closing. But just before it locked into place, the Intruder's gooey red fingers flowed underneath it, and the entire hatch was quickly absorbed.

"I can't seal that door," Sara reported.

TOM set down in front of the empty elevator shaft as he watched the overflowing red blob surge toward him at his dead-end. "I don't think I can stop this thing," he said in a low, hopeless tone, partly to Sara and partly to himself. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try! He pumped the slide on his Kiefer one last time, arming its third and final setting, the most powerful of the three. If this didn't work, the Kiefer Corporation may as well shut down production.

Then there was hope: the elevator pod reached its destination and opened up behind him to accept passengers.

Here goes ... TOM thought, ready to take his one final shot at the monster before he even thought about fleeing. He held the trigger down, letting the machine work up the necessary energy. Its power coils glowed, and the radiance spread through the length of the weapon until, after what felt like an eternity with the Intruder bearing down on him, the rifle's energy built up into a screaming ball of power at the end of barrel. Smile, you son of a—

The gun's massive kickback launched him into the air, sending him flying upwards and backwards to crash into the corner of the elevator pod. The Kiefer was knocked out of his grip, clattering onto the threshold. TOM hit the floor face-down, and was barely able to push himself up. He was too shocked and dizzy to see what was transpiring in the passage ahead.

Down the corridor streaked a high-yield photon grenade on a straight, unstoppable path toward the Intruder, glowing and scintillating like a softball-sized star. It lit the place up like nothing else could, and upon impact with the Intruder, an even more powerful burst of light followed. The devastating eruption shook the Absolution's entire starboard side from its core and outward. A moment later, all was quiet.

The shuddering of the ship had helped TOM get some of his senses back into place after they'd been knocked loose. He glanced up, but was still too dazed to interpret much. He looked back down at the floor and rubbed his giant round head.

In the passage before him, there was nothing left but a wall of smoke.

Suddenly, the smoke was sucked into the body of an angry red blob that was now surging through the damaged corridor faster than ever.

TOM staggered to his feet, not yet aware of what was about to go down. Then the sludge filled his vision, and he didn't even have time to think about moving the elevator. It flooded in like a wall of pure menace, swirling around TOM's short body and filling half the pod. "No, no wait ... NO, NOOOO!"

He screamed in horror and desperation, but the Intruder rose above his head, swamping him and absorbing him into its mass. He could feel his skin dissolving into nothing inside of it, and he knew the rest of him would immediately follow. In one last attempt to grab onto something, anything at all no matter how hopeless his survival seemed, he forced his hand up out of the slime. Freed for a moment from the Intruder's molecular breakdown, it was already scourged and pockmarked like the rest of his body had been a split second ago. As everything within the Intruder dissipated and became lost, the hand ceased moving. Then, with nothing left to hold it up, it sank quietly back into the ooze.

The Intruder collected itself and vacated the pod, sliming back into the corridor to continue its consumption of the ship that TOM had failed to save.

"Tom?" Sara didn't get a response. She was not entirely sure of what had just happened, but if anything was certain, this was not like the earlier incident when he had been jettisoned into space, unconscious. She had a much more ominous feeling this time around: it was not merely his signal that had been lost.

"Tom!"

She would never receive an answer. Deep within the darkened, ravaged bowels of the doomed Absolution, everything that the Toonami host had once been no longer existed ... TOM was dead.