Endgame - 2

Episode 2: Commence Destruction


The Absolution was still. Whatever motion the huge ship retained was due to the recent impact and the momentum left from its no longer functioning engines as it slowed to a halt in the middle of deep space. Surrounded by red flashes and alarms, TOM pushed himself up in the dark bridge. Any time the Absolution's control center got this dark or noisy, it was bad news, and now it was suffering both symptoms at the same time. He looked at the outboard camera feed to see the great empty spot that the ship's reactor had occupied less than a minute ago. The sight of scorched and twisted metal made his stomach sink.

"Oh, man … What the heck hit us, Sara?"

"It looks like a guided photon mine," she responded promptly, displaying a freeze-frame of the video. "It came out of that same point in space where I thought I'd seen a glitch in the radar. As we can now determine, it was no glitch."

"No kidding. It just came out of nowhere you say?"

"It did. Only now …" —an outboard camera zoomed in on the location they were discussing— "… something's there."

TOM cocked his head at the image. On the holographic screen was the culprit ship which had apparently just dropped its cloaking. It was sleek and tough-looking, but not a fighter. This thing had bulk, likely meant to house weapons and probably extra power cells as well, but most of that extra volume was armor. It's engines were massive, suggesting along with its other features and modifications that this ship was owned by someone with money and resources. Someone who, to put it bluntly, would always get where they wanted to go and get there with whatever they wanted. And while TOM continued studying it, it began to move.

"Are we getting any transmissions from it?" he asked quickly.

"None. It seems to have a very specific purpose, and probably isn't going to share any information that isn't another attack." Sara shifted the holographic screens to show him a feed from the other Clyde 50. On it, they saw the ship swooping over the Absolution like a sea predator while firing a few payloads from its underside. Clyde panned to keep the payloads in frame. Upon contact with the hull, they spilled outward into squirming bunches, revealing themselves to be scouring machines of some kind. They looked like maggots with huge mouths and ant-like mobile appendages.

"What are they doing?" TOM wondered. "Can that Clyde get any closer?"

Sara urged the obedient Clyde to get a closer look at the machines' activity.

"Oh, no … They're eating their way through the ship's hull!"

"Wrong," Sara deadpanned. "They're already inside."

It was just as she said: the swarm of machines Clyde was focused on was pouring in through a breach they'd torn in the hull plating. Before they were all in, however, one of the last few spun with a motion like a leech in water, spotted the Clyde, and lunged at it. The Absolution's crewhad a detailed view of its gaping intake valve, swirling with a complex arrangement of nasty-looking blades and grinders, before the image fizzed, broke up, and went black.

"Looks like it's gonna be another one of those days. Jeez, this is getting serious."

"It already is serious, Tom."

"Guess this kinda solves the mystery of those stray distress signals, huh?"

"It seems that way."

"Tell me you've already called the cops."

"I alerted the Galactic Police Patrol a long time ago. But the nearest outpost is a great distance away. Any response unit they send won't get here soon enough to make a difference."

"Well, at least they know. I guess this means we're gonna have to hang tight and let this guy take what he wants while hoping he doesn't kill us." Despair gave way to curiosity. He scratched his chin again in deep thought. "But what does he want? Sara, how about the things that ship just deployed? Can you tell where they're going?"

"One swarm is making a path to the auxiliary power station. The other one is headed aft, but … it appears to have stopped somewhere in the middle of the ship. Near the compartment in which your second unit was activated, but not in it. It looks as if the first swarm is aiming to shut down our power, but I'm not sure what the second one is up to."

"That ship fired three of those things. Where's the third?"

"Dormant. It's just waiting there on the outside of the ship, probably in reserve."

"If only we still had the DOKs, they could probably handle them. Instead all we have are …" he turned to see one of the Clyde 52's wearing a scared emoticon face and jerked his thumb at it, "… these guys." He sighed. "We're like a body with a one-man immune system. Shame we get sick more often than anyone else."

"I sent your Companion Clyde to the armory while we've been standing around talking. It should be here soon with a weapon."

A clanging, grinding sound suddenly reverberated through the Absolution's framework. "Now what is it?" TOM demanded.

"Movement from outside," informed Sara. "The enemy ship has attached itself to the dorsal section of the Absolution."

"What's it—?"

"Preparing to fire!"

TOM was knocked to the floor from a blast that shattered the entire canopy over his head, exposing the bridge to the clear, frigid emptiness of outer space. A few stray bits of debris rained down on the Toonami host as he shook his head and struggled to recover from the shock.

"Tom! Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I think I'm okay." He pushed himself up and looked through the gaping hole above him. Standing on the rim of the bridge's ceiling was the assailant. The incredibly large, dangerous-looking assailant, who glared down at him with eyes that smoldered with more evil intent than the Toonami host had ever seen in real life or in any of the villains from the shows and movies he typically watched. And that was saying something.

The intruder's body was a massive golem-like thing, similar in form to a cartoon wrestler's exaggerated proportions: broad shoulders, barrel chest, and limbs like heavy construction equipment, albeit with bulges and edges that mechanically corresponded to an organic muscle structure. Sitting atop all this was a head that, like the ship outside, resembled some predatory sea creature that would hide in the sand at the ocean's bottom. It was flat and angular, with large, burning amphibious eyes, and its outer edges sprouted a net of segmented metal tentacles. Some of these tentacles were wrapped around its arms and torso, others were loose and wavering about like feelers.

The huge intruder stepped casually off the edge of the canopy rim and descended into the bridge. TOM feared for a second that he was about to be crushed under a pair of giant metal boots and staggered back a few steps. The giant's landing caused an enormous reverberation that made TOM's feet part an inch or two from the deck. While recovering his balance, he inadvertently noticed that the intruder was unarmed but for a softly-glowing cube clutched in his left hand. He could tell by sight that it was some pretty advanced tech, but not what it was for. He also noticed, with greater impact, that the intruder was twice his height.

What the hell do I do now? he wondered desperately. Stand here and wait for him to plunk me?

If he had been made of flesh, his knees probably would have been shaking. Sure he'd been in dangerous situations before and had faced down some serious baddies, but this … this was almost more intense than he could handle. Not only was he physically in the same room with a powerful and extremely dangerous killer (and there was no doubt as to whether or not this guy partook in the execution business), but this was all happening on his own ship, in the familiar surroundings of the Absolution. This time he was without resources, without a plan, and since the intruder was between himself and the exit, no escape route. Sara was right: danger in real life was infinitely more threatening than anything the cyberverse could dish out. Be he a hero or a television host, he was at this moment reduced to the equivalent of a normal man facing a dangerous criminal in his living room. This was real mortal fear. And they still didn't know why he was here on a broadcast ship of all places. He suspected they were about to find out, though.

Unconsciously making a conciliatory gesture with his hands, he began, "Look, we don't know who you—"

"Orcelot Rex." The pirate spoke like low thunder, putting no effort into the menace in his voice as he casually scanned the bridge.

"O-okay. Well, we don't have anything to do with you, so just take what you want and …" Orcelot Rex's eyes swiveled to Sara's face, which remained on the holographic screens over the hub. If it were possible, TOM's insides got a few degrees colder. "Except h—" What would have become a protest was cut short as the pirate easily backhanded him across the helmet and sent him to the deck once more, this time with his visor cracked and his head spinning. Before the smaller robot could rise, Orcelot Rex casually planted a huge metal boot on his back and strode over him as if he were a caterpillar on the sidewalk. Despite some audible straining and the possibility of a few cracks, TOM's torso held together, but barely. He certainly wasn't in any shape to get up right away.

Sara stayed quiet, not wanting to divulge anything that the space pirate could use as leverage. She knew it was wiser to remain painfully silent and trust TOM to handle the situation as well as he could, but so far it was killing her. She forcefully compartmentalized her emotions.

Stopping before the computer hub, Orcelot observed the holographic manifestation of his quarry. "A Sara AI … capable of supreme rationing ability. Advanced robot mind nonplug ultra … And mine for the taking."

"Sara, vacate that server!" TOM shouted as soon as he had the cognitive ability to speak again.

She didn't need to be told twice. Her profile vanished. All screens and control lights on the hub followed suit, sending the bridge into darkness. In the deadly silence that followed, Orcelot Rex slowly turned to glare over his shoulder across the suddenly shadowy room at TOM. His glowering red eyes shone in the dark.

"If I had a weapon on me," the pirate said nonchalantly, "I would blast you for that."

"She would've done it anyway," TOM shot back, struggling to sound confident, reasonable, and nonthreatening all at the same time. He wasn't sure he pulled it off. "Sara knows how to defend herself."

The leering eyes of the space pirate narrowed with a black, ugly mirth. "Not from me."

A massive fist was raised and driven straight down into the computer hub, sending showers of sparks in all directions that temporarily dispelled the shadows. Sara would be unable to return to that server. Orcelot turned and strode back across the deck, stomping TOM into it once more. He'd apparently done it for nothing beyond satisfaction, because a second later he fired a heavy-duty jetpack that pushed him back up outside the Absolution. TOM could do little more at the moment than consider himself lucky; the guy could have torn him in half if he'd wanted to.

Taking into account the pain that his built-in nerve sensors were sending to his brain, he struggled to work out what to do next. Most of Sara's systems were located in the communications bay, which was protected behind another curved shield of one-way glass at the nose of the ship. That's where she would have retreated in hopes of bringing online anything she could use to combat Orcelot Rex and help TOM. And if Rex was as resourceful and savvy as he'd so far demonstrated, that would be his next destination as well.

Meaning that's also where I gotta go. For whatever good I might do.

But while he was occupied with peeling himself off the floor, movement in the corner of his damaged visor made him rethink how the next few minutes would unfold. That dormant payload of the same maggot-like scourge machines that had eaten their way through the Absolution's hull were now pouring over the edges of the still-fresh aperture that the canopy had once occupied. With cold, insect-like intent, they made their way down the bulkheads and toward the middle of the bridge where TOM was unsteadily rising to his feet.