by Greg Cox
This isn’t good.
Geir’s life passed before his eyes. He remembered fishing and hunting with his folks, back before Judgment Day. His father teaching him how to fly and—more importantly—how to land. Breaking out of that Skynet prison camp years ago. Hanging out with Doc and Sitka and the rest of the Resistance. Scoping out the Skynet Express. Ducking enemy fire as the Terminators chased them across the snow. Making love to Molly in their cabin in the hills....
Thirty-five years, he thought. Fifteen after Judgment Day. He had lasted a whole lot longer than most of the world. Not a bad score.
The trees rushed up to meet him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Molly finished rigging the explosives. Blocks of C-4, mined from her own backpack, were placed and wired all around the cramped service vestibule. She wasn’t the demolitions ace Tammi was, but she knew how to blow things up. Once triggered, the plastic explosives would tear the train apart from the inside out, scattering the precious uranium all over the Alaskan countryside. It would be lost to Skynet forever.
Works for me.
She connected the last wire and took a second to inspect her handiwork. Everything appeared in order. She tucked the detonator into her pocket. Turning to check on Sitka, she found the girl staring mournfully at Doc Rathbone’s body.
“Don’t look at it,” Molly advised her. “Don’t think about it now.”
Sitka wiped a tear from her eye. A backpack full of yellowcake rested on her shoulders.
“Should have paid more attention to his stories.”
“You listened to them. You know you did.”
Taking Sitka’s hand, she guided the girl away from the body toward the breach in the outer wall. Molly didn’t hear any snowmachines nearby. Now might be their only chance to get away.
She crept up to the gap, and raised a finger to her lips.
“Fast but quiet, you got that?”
Sitka nodded.
Before they could sneak out of the car, however, a harsh white light flooded the chamber from above. The light invaded the railcar through the cleft in the ceiling. The roar of powerful engines rattled the wreckage. Molly recognized the distinctive thrum of an HK’s turbofans.
Fuck! It’s back!
She tried not to think about what this meant for Geir. Chances were, the Hunter-Killer was responding to a distress signal from the train or the Aerostats. It had probably just given up on the fighter plane. That had to be it.
Sitka wasn’t so sure.
“Geir?”
“He’s fine,” Molly insisted. She forced herself to focus on their own predicament instead. How the hell were they supposed to get away, with that Hunter-Killer hovering right over their heads? She doubted that it would blast the uranium stores, for fear of destroying the valuable ore, but she and Sitka would be sitting ducks the moment they stepped outside the train.
They were trapped... again.
Molly fingered the detonator in her pocket. If she had to, she’d set off the charges with both of them inside.
If we have to die, we’ll go out with a bang.
Her biggest regret was that Sitka would never live to see a world free of the machines.
“This it?” the girl asked. She looked back at the C-4 rigged all around the railcar. She knew what their options were. “Game over?”
“Maybe,” Molly admitted.
They needed a miracle.
The A-10 Thunderbolt, with boxy, ungainly contours that had gained it the affectionate nickname “Warthog,” controlled like a dream. The single-seat jet fighter zoomed above the sprawling Alaskan wilderness. In the cockpit, Alexei Ivanov was impressed by the aircraft’s abilities.
There was something to be said, he mused, for soaring high above the Earth instead of being stuck in a smelly underwater tube hundreds of feet beneath the sea. Despite the urgency of his mission, he savored the privacy of the cockpit. After spending so much of his adult life crammed aboard boats with more than a hundred other sweaty bodies, it was good to be flying solo at last. Who could have suspected that—late in life—he would discover that he was a pilot at heart?
The A-10 had departed Canada the moment he got Losenko’s signal. The jet’s colorful decor attested to the defiant spirit of the Resistance. Painted flames and lightning-bolts adorned its wings and fins. A porcine snout and tusks embellished its nose. Stenciled silver Terminators, lined up along the plane’s side, recorded its kill count. Ivanov hoped to rack up a few more kills before the night was over. His trigger finger was itchy.
To hell with the Americans, he thought. Just give me a chance to trash some more machines.
He had been destroying Terminators for fifteen years now. It never seemed to be enough.
Pushing the Warthog to nearly 400 kilometers per hour, he reached the battlefield in less than forty-five minutes. His eyes quickly took in the scene. The shattered bridge. The derailed train at the bottom of the gorge. Dead bodies strewn across the snowy hills and riverbank. A Hunter-Killer hovering above the carnage, searching for fresh targets. From the look of things, the Resistance cell had already been slaughtered.
He caught brief glimpses of motion as unmanned snowmachines chased the survivors through the surrounding woodlands. He wondered if Dmitri’s new friend, the Eskimo woman, was still alive. Ivanov had never dealt with Kookesh directly, but he knew Losenko thought highly of her. Admiring the destruction of the bridge, and the crumpled Terminator train lying in ruins, he could see why.
Not bad... for an American. Then again, she was a native of this land, so she likely held a few grudges of her own.
He didn’t wait for the HK to come after him. Swooping down from the sky, he fired the Warthog’s formidable Avenger anti-tank cannon. The aircraft was literally built around the Gatling-style rotary cannon, making it a flying gun. A burst of depleted uranium slugs strafed the enemy aircraft, scoring its armored carapace. For the moment, Ivanov avoided hitting any vital systems. He didn’t want to bring down the massive HK on top of any survivors who might be sheltering in the wreckage below.
A wry smile lifted his lips. He snorted derisively at his own restraint.
Since when did he worry about Yankee casualties?
The HK didn’t take his assault lying down. Abandoning its search for Earthbound saboteurs, the Terminator shot skyward on its impellers. It fired back with its plasma cannons, narrowly missing the swiftly moving fighter. A small flock of Aerostats joined the dogfight, trailing after the HK like baby birds. Ivanov paid them little heed. The unarmed surveillance drones were hardly worth killing.
The HK was another story....
He pulled back on his stick. The Warthog climbed to get out of range of the machine’s weapons, then circled back to confront the enemy. Besides its central gun, the A-10 was also armed with two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. He locked the HK in his sights and unleashed the first one. The missile rocketed toward its target.
Just like firing a torpedo, he thought.
Maybe this would be a short battle after all.
Such hopes were dashed when the HK blasted the oncoming missile with its plasma cannon. The Sidewinder exploded in midair, halfway between the two aircraft, too far away to do any damage.
Ivanov cursed under his breath. The shock wave jolted his plane. He dodged flying debris. Acrid black smoke obscured his view of the aurora overhead.
One missile... wasted!
Aerostats swarmed the Warthog, getting in his way. They threw themselves against his windscreen, bouncing harmlessly off the bulletproof plexiglass. He blew them apart with his gun, expending precious ammo. He scowled at the loss. The A-10 carried nearly 1200 rounds of ammo, but at seventy rounds a second that went pretty fast. At this rate, his gun would be empty in no time.
All the more reason to finish things quickly.
He closed on the Hunter-Killer, firing his remaining missile.
Eat this, you bloodthirsty machine.
The Sidewinder zoomed toward the HK, but
was intercepted by a suicidal Aerostat instead. Ivanov seethed in frustration. The explosion went off only a few meters away from him, sending the Warthog into a spin. The out-of-control jet dove toward the bottom of the canyon. The rugged landscape whirled vertiginously before his eyes. A field of corpses waited for him to join them.
“No!” he blurted. Straining against killer g-forces, he pulled out of the spin only seconds before he would have crashed into the wreckage below. He gasped, but his relief was short-lived. Catching him by surprise, the demolished train opened fire on him as well. Gunports opened up along the top of the piled railcars. Ground fire slammed into the underside of the Warthog, perforating its thick armor plating. Ivanov was suddenly very grateful for the titanium “bathtub” protecting the cockpit area. The plane shuddered around him.
He fired back at the train with his own cannon. The barrage tore into the exposed gunports.
Meanwhile, the HK circled menacingly above the canyon. Ivanov wondered briefly what it was waiting for, then realized it didn’t want to risk blowing apart the train full of uranium. It intended to resume their duel when and if the Warthog climbed back up to meet it. It could afford to be patient.
It wasn’t running low on ammo.
A warning light on his instrument panel flashed, informing him that he was losing fuel.
“Hell!”
He glared angrily at the gauge. The Warthog’s fuel lines and tanks were supposed to reseal themselves if hit, but apparently the back-up systems had malfunctioned. That was the trouble with twenty-year-old warplanes and equipment. Nothing worked quite the way it used to.
Shoddy American craftsmanship!
Ivanov conducted a quick inventory. He had no more missiles, only a few more rounds of ammunition, and he was leaking fuel by the bucketload. The HK was still waiting for him. Retreat was the only sensible option. If he was lucky—and managed to evade his pursuer—he might make it back to Canada alive.
I’ve done my part, he reasoned. The Alaskans would have to fend for themselves. If any of them are still alive.
Before departing, he swooped over the battlefield one last time, just so he could give Losenko an accurate report. His eyes widened at the sight of two small humans darting out from one of the wrecked railcars. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a pair of women, one slightly smaller than the other.
Just like his long-lost wife and daughter.
Yelena. Nadia. An ancient scab tore off his heart, leaving it bleeding afresh. The women below were nothing to him. Americans, no less. But they were still mortal, still flesh-and-blood.
Like his own family.
He could not leave them to the HK’s tender mercies.
Climbing upward, he spied the Hunter-Killer circling above him, ready to pick up where they had left off. His eyes narrowed. A long-simmering anger boiled over. A muscle twitched beneath his cheek. Let this greedy vulture kill those women?
Not on his life.
He aimed the Warthog’s snout directly at the HK’s impellers. He unleashed the last of his ammo to keep its own guns at bay. Opening up the throttle, he zoomed toward the unsuspecting HK at top speed, turning the forty-ton aircraft into one enormous missile. White knuckles held the control stick steady. Yelena and Nadia had been waiting for him for fifteen years. It was past time he joined them.
For the Motherland!
Without hesitation, the kamikaze fighter collided with the Hunter-Killer at 400 kilometers an hour. Alexei Ivanov’s world ended for the second time, in a storm of fire and thunder.
He had no regrets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Gunfire sounded above their heads. Explosions lit up the sky. Staring up in shock through the sundered ceiling of the storage car, Molly caught a glimpse of a Resistance warplane taking on the surprised Hunter-Killer. The noisy aerial combat was the answer to her prayers.
She knew at once who to thank for this unexpected stroke of luck
Losenko, you old sea dog! She punched the air with her fist. I should have known I could count on you!
She wasn’t about to let this gift horse go to waste.
“Out!” she hollered at Sitka. “Now!”
The women rushed out of the railcar, leaving Doc Rathbone’s lifeless body behind, along with several kilos of primed plastic explosive. They scrambled down the piled wooden trestles, which were now riddled with bullet holes. Averting their eyes from the grisly remains of their comrades, they sprinted alongside the river toward the woods. Snowmobile tracks crisscrossed the bloody snow. The icy spray of water pelted their faces. Molly gripped her pistol in one hand, the detonator remote in the other. She looked about anxiously for the snowmachines, but there were none in sight. She counted her blessings.
Maybe our luck is changing....
Sitka kept pace beside her. She nodded at the detonator.
“Forget something?”
“Not for a moment.” Molly glanced back at the plundered train. It was maybe sixty yards behind her. Far enough, she decided. She spotted a fractured concrete pier thrown clear by the train crash and explosions. It was lying sideways at the edge of the river, only a few yards to their right. They weren’t going to find any better shelter.
“Cover your ears!”
Sitka recklessly turned to take in the fireworks, but Molly grabbed her and tossed her behind the uprooted pier instead. “Duck your head, you loon. Unless you want those freckles blown off your skull.”
She clicked the detonator button.
The C-4 charges went off in unison. A tremendous explosion shook the valley, ripping out the train’s guts. More of the cliff gave way. Rockslides crashed down on the Skynet Express, hammering it to a pulp. A cloud of smoke and dust, liberally mixed with yellowcake, billowed up into the sky. Uranium scattered like snowflakes in a blizzard. They’d be digging radioactive powder out of the soil for years to come, but, after Judgment Day, what was a little more fall-out?
The important thing was: Skynet would have to do without.
We did it, Molly thought. Despite everything, we did it.
“Bye, Doc,” Sitka whispered. The blast had surely vaporized the old man’s body. “Never forget you.”
They lifted their heads cautiously. Ears ringing, Molly surveyed the aftermath of the blast. Mangled machinery and charred body parts were strewn all over the terrain. It was like Judgment Day all over again. She spied one of the train’s bullet-shaped heads lying smoking on the other side of the river. Its demonic red eyes flickered briefly, then went out for good. The Skynet Express was well and truly dead at last.
About time.
A second explosion, coming from further up the canyon, startled her. The ground quaked as something heavy crashed to earth a few miles away, beyond the demolished train and bridge. A churning pillar of smoke rose on the horizon. Molly searched the sky, realizing that she had lost track of the aerial dogfight that had saved their butts before. She wondered who had gone down in flames. The fighter? The HK?
Both?
Sitka stared at the smoke, too.
“Think the pilot made it?”
“Who knows?” Molly said. “We need to get out of here if we’re ever going to find out.”
They weren’t out of the woods yet. Or into the woods, to be more exact. Taking Sitka by the hand, she turned away from the dismembered train and started thinking about the fastest way back to camp. They had a long, scary hike ahead of them.
Wish I knew where those fucking Snowminators were.
The ear-pounding roar of a two-stroke engine provided an answer faster than she would have liked. A snow-machine barreled out of the woods in front of them, spraying a roostertail of white powder behind it. Fresh blood glistened on its front skis. A second machine appeared on the other side of the river. Another engine growled in the hills around them. The damn machines were closing in on them. Evil red optical sensors fixed the women in their sights. The muzzles of their mini-guns flashed.
“Down!”
Molly
and Sitka dived behind the other side of the concrete pier. A furious barrage of bullets chipped away at the sideways foundation. Molly heard the snowmachine roaring toward them. She remembered what had happened to Tom Jensen. The crumbling concrete block wasn’t going to shield them for long.
She looked around frantically, trying to find some way out. The spray from the rushing river sprinkled her face again. Molly’s gaze seized on the frothing white water and rapids.
It’s our only chance.
Thrusting her pistol into her belt, she yanked the heavy pack off Sitka’s shoulders. It was only going to weigh her down.
“Hey!” the girl protested. “What’s that for?”
There was no time to explain. The Snowminators would be on them in a second.
“Shut up and follow me!”
Keeping low, she dived into the freezing river. Bullets whizzed over her head, but she could barely hear them over the crash of the rapids. The current gripped her and sent her hurtling downstream at a breakneck pace, far from the deadly machines. Tossed about like flotsam and jetsam, she fought to keep her head above the water. Churning white froth invaded her mouth and nostrils. She kicked and sputtered, swallowing a mouthful of ice water, then spitting it out again. The sudden, frigid immersion shocked her to her marrow. Her heart skipped a beat.
She tumbled over the deep rapids.
There was another loud splash behind her.
“Molly!”
Twisting her head, she caught a glimpse of Sitka bobbing in the water not far away.
“Where are you?”
Molly reached out for the teen, but the relentless current tore them apart. The river carried them away.
Molly tried to remember if Sitka knew how to swim.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gasping for breath, they dragged themselves to shore, many miles downstream from the battle at the bridge. Molly guessed that they’d been in the water for maybe ten minutes, tops, but it felt like hours had passed since they’d thrown themselves into the freezing current. Her entire body felt black and blue from bouncing over the rapids. She shivered from head to foot. Her legs were wobbly.
