Disclaimer: Toonami is copyright Cartoon Network.

LOCKDOWN

Episode 4: A Fistful of DOKs

"There, that should do it," TOM said, placing the removable control panel back into its console. He'd spent the last ten minutes tinkering with it while Clyde hovered around him like a helpful firefly. "Here goes." Miming the gesture of cracking his knuckles, he hit a switch, making the reactor awkwardly stutter to life. The bay filled with indication lights from the reactor's housing and several light fixtures that arced across the ceiling. Energy slowly crept its way into the Talon ST's, which had so far been hanging uselessly on either side of the ship. But they would remain useless until that tractor beam was shut down.

Job done, TOM turned back to Clyde. "Sara, we're back online. It's a little sketchy, but it works. Where am I off to next?"

"You're off to the machine room. We fried the conduits in there."

"Got it." He started off, Clyde following. "How are the DOKs doing out there?"

"Group 'A' is closest to shutting down the tractor beam. They're near the generator, but the entrance is heavily guarded."

"I kinda wish I could help," he said, casually tossing his cutting/soldering tool up and down. Reaching the machine room, he opened up the garage door-sized access hatch, revealing a row of terminals, fried electronics, and a wave of smoke that had been waiting to jump out into the corridor. He knelt and got to work soldering wires and rebooting the machines. "Any progress on the cruiser's signal?"

"Not much. I've narrowed the time frame down to two thousand years ago. It has elements common of codes from back then."

TOM whistled. "That is old."

"I'll translate it soon," she promised.

It appeared, however, that "soon" would be able to come after shutting down the tractor beam. The DOKs were nearly finished cutting through that second security door. Leaving the blade-filled bay behind, she moved her Clyde inside the access tunnel. It had some trouble seeing through the smoke and dust, but once it was close enough, Sara could finally see the huge gap where the security door had just been. The DOKs were already moving in. Clyde followed them and watched.

The team filed into the generator room and spread out evenly in either direction. There were no lights in here and still too much grit floating in the zero-gravity to see through, so they scanned their environment using infrared sensors. Bit by bit, they mapped out the dimensions of the room and its contents, which included nothing more than some consoles and wall-mounted pipes. Lastly, they located the entrance to the generator itself. But there was something else there ... a massive signature hunkering directly in front of that entrance.

As the DOK observed, the huge form rose from the floor to eclipse the entire doorway. Its single optic receptor came to life with a red light that pierced through the airborne grit, and at least six dangerous-looking limbs reached out to spread themselves apart.

Then a bolt from an unusually powerful electro-cannon flashed through the murky space and struck the DOK dead-center of its face, blowing its head apart. Next, a high-caliber machine gun tore loose, sweeping around in an arc that quickly and efficiently took out all the other DOKs in the room. A moment later, the gigantic ship's artificial gravity came online, allowing the fallen robots' bullet-riddled corpses to crash to the floor.

While Clyde hid behind a console, Sara sent an alert to the star cruiser, instructing him to have all DOKs double-time it to the generator and engage the adversary. They responded immediately.

Clyde floated a few inches to the left, in view of whatever had just eliminated six DOKs in under five seconds, so Sara could get a look at it. In response to the artificial gravity, which was probably activated as a security measure, all the dust and grit in the room were now settling to the floor, slowly and ominously unveiling the deadly machine.

The first discernable detail was its two large weapons, an eight-barreled machine gun and a boxy cannon that fired an electro-beam. They were held aloft like shoulders and were mounted on opposite poles of a massive, ball-shaped chassis. Below them were two sets of arms, both equipped with long, sweeping blades. And as the last of the dust fell away like a curtain, Sara saw four more arching blades slung underneath it. The machine had an anti-gravity power cell like the Clydes, so those blades were free to slice-and-dice without touching the floor.

Well, this ought to be challenging, Sara thought to herself while bitterly cursing her expectations from earlier. Then reinforcements swept in and a battle erupted.

"Man, this stuff is complicated," TOM said, more to himself than to Sara, from his once-again crouched position in the machine room. A spark of angry feedback made the pen-sized tool he was using fly out of his hand. "Dyah! ... I don't think I was built for this," he complained.

Sara glanced at the Clyde's video feed of DOKs being sliced into pieces and said cheekily, "Would you rather be out on that ship with the DOKs?"

TOM rose to his feet. "I'd prefer a stand-up fight to all this hangin' around. First thing I thought back on the observation deck was, 'hey, it'd be smarter to let the DOKs handle it, it's way safer in here.' But now it's just driving me nuts!"

"I think I know how you feel."

"Tell me about it. I'm Action Man, not Bob the Builder."

"You're a real tough guy," she said with mock-admiration, but also some genuine affection.

"Glad you noticed."

Sara decided it was high time to give him some updates. "Well listen, I've got news. The mystery guest has located the tractor beam chamber."

"What's the sit rep?"

"There is a very large security robot guarding the tractor beam. It's lost functionality over the years, but it still has enough firepower to take on any of the DOKs. And it shows no sign of running low on anything, let alone ammo."

"Get'em together in one spot and find them some better weapons," TOM said, glad to have a hand in dealing with some heavy-duty action. It was more like a strategy game than a first-person shooter, but at least he was involved now.

"I could have Clyde unlock some more storerooms to see what we can find. There may be some weapon caches we haven't discovered yet, powerful enough to give the DOKs an advantage."

"Wurd," TOM said flatly. "But the key is to get them all together. Unless they go after it at the same time, they don't stand a chance." He scooped up his tool.

"Agreed."

A few final fizzing noises accompanied TOM's handiwork. "Okay, that's the last of the conduits," he said, finishing up. "I'm heading up to the bridge. If you can spare some room in your brain, run some diagnostics."

"I'll tell the mystery guest it's time to form a single team."

"See you upstairs."