T2 - 03 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Times of Trouble

by Russell Blackford

  The pain was still receding, though the sensitive parts of her skin now felt hot and raw, and her mouth and throat were unpleasantly dry. As yet, the coldness of the air and the soil underfoot had not began to penetrate. It seemed as if the disruption of space and time had heated her through—as though she'd baked herself for hours in a sauna. Indeed, the ground looked scorched at the points where she and the six Terminators had materialized. All the same, she needed to act quickly. The Terminators might be invulnerable to cold, but she was only human.

  Cecilia knew the layout of the estancia intimately.

  She quickly understood what she was seeing, even though everything was in ruins. They had arrived about five hundred yards east of their target, the casco, which had been reduced to rubble by missiles or artillery fire. That was good accuracy. Danny only guaranteed a one-mile radius, so it could have been a lot worse. The earth around the casco's protective trench works had been churned up like mud that a gigantic horse had galloped through. None of the secondary buildings had been left totally undamaged, and most of the bungalows and workshops had been destroyed as thoroughly as the casco.

  This far from the buildings, the air was quiet. A steady breeze blew across the land, but there were no sounds of gunfire or machines. Obviously, the defense had failed and the battle was all over. The Rising Army of Liberation was in control. She could see uniformed soldiers milling about, some working on vehicles, others patrolling the wreckage. Some had stopped what they were doing, and were pointing her way. There was the sound of distant shouting, then a gunshot, fired in the air. From what she'd heard of the atmospheric effects when Sarah Connor and the others had arrived on the mountainside in Colorado via space-time displacement, it was no wonder they'd been seen straightaway. They could expect company at any moment.

  Two choppers and a squat, tan-colored Abrams class tank sat together a distance from the casco and the bunkers. A row of tents had been set up nearby. She began to realize just how cold she was—only seconds had passed, but the feeling of heat through her body had worn off. The breeze began to chill her skin, raising gooseflesh on her torso and limbs. Her feet began to feel like blocks of ice. Her breath misted the air, and she knew her teeth were about to chatter. How could she fight like this?

  Four soldiers packed into a Humvee, and three others ran to crew one of the helicopters. Yet another group headed for the massive, squat army tank. From here, she could not tell what kind of weapons the chopper had, or what kind of gun was mounted on the Humvee's roof—possibly a .50 caliber machine gun or a chain-fed mini-gun.. .or something even more formidable. Any of the weapons that the Resistance normally used on its precious Humvees was capable of massacring seven naked, unarmed human beings with no difficulty at all, especially on open ground with nowhere to take cover. The surprise would be when the Rising Army realized what it was up against...fighters that were not human.

  As seconds went by, neither the chopper nor the Humvee started up. The tank's crew of four got inside, but the tank didn't move. It seemed as though something was giving her a reprieve. Other soldiers crowded around the Humvee, gesticulating wildly, as if offering curses or advice. No words traveled to her on the cold air, so she could only guess that the local space-time disruption had affected the engines' ignition mechanisms.

  At the same time she wondered how to get some warmth. They were too far from the estancia's buildings or their protective trenches to find anyone who could give her clothing.

  The nearest Terminator, a T-799, turned to her. "You are cold?"

  "Freezing," Cecilia said. "l need boots and clothes quickly." She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.

  "That Humvee is a threat." The Terminator nodded at the vehicle, which still had not started.

  "Yes, Rising Army. If it come this way, some of you will have to stop it. Try not to kill anyone. That's an order, understand? Minimum fatalities. That applies to all of you."

  "Affirmative." The T-799 seemed to have elected itself as spokesman, based solely on happening to be the closest to Cecilia. "I will help you."

  "What?"

  The Terminator stepped close to Cecilia, and wrapped its powerful arms around her shoulders, side-on. It was a cybernetic organism—not human—but it was designed to operate under almost any conditions, imitating the look, feel, even the smell, of a human being. Despite the ambient temperature, the T-799's skin was warm, as warm as human skin on a mild day. A second Terminator approached her in the same way, pressing close to provide the warmth of its body. It was a T-800, larger than the T-799, and seemingly stronger—though that was an illusion, since they used identical power cells. She could feel herself thawing with the heat generated by both of the killing machines, momentarily grateful for their cunning, almost human, design.

  What she understood, but found it difficult to internalize, really believe, was that these beings were intelligent. They were intelligent enough to pass as human—which included showing initiative. The combined heat of the two Terminators was keeping her going, though the air and the soil were still bitterly cold.

  At the same time, another two Terminators took positions in front of her to shield her from attack. The Humvee finally began to move, the soldiers who'd gathered round it drawing aside. As it approached, the remaining pair of Terminators—again, one of the T-800s and one of the T-799s—ran directly at it. The Humvee opened fire on the Terminators, their skin shredding under the impact of mini-gun rounds, hundreds of 7.62mm. bullets per minute. From inside the Humvee, an amplified voice called out in Spanish for them to surrender, but stopped almost immediately. The vehicle's occupants must have realized what they faced: though the Terminators had slowed down, as if swimming upstream in a rapid river, they did not stop. Skin, flesh and blood tore away from them, and one must have suffered some damage to its hydraulics, since its head tilted at an odd angle, leaning almost on its shoulder. But still they kept going.

  The combined speed of the Terminators, sprinting as quickly as human athletes, and the Humvee had closed the gap, and the driver now tried to swerve aside. Wheels skidded on the dry ground, raising a cloud of dust; the driver steered into the skid, regaining control, and crashed into the T-799, which bounced to one side and disappeared from Cecilia's view. The T-800 managed to fling itself onto the roof of the vehicle, crawling on hands and knees. It lunged forward and upward, seizing control of the gun and wrenching it from its mounting, as the Humvee braked to a stop.

  The T-799 must have gotten a hold of some part of the Humvee's structure, because it now appeared on the roof, along with its "partner," crawling forward and reaching over the front to smash the windshield with one blow of its fist. That situation was under control, but Cecilia saw there were more problems.

  "Run now," she said to the other Terminators, struggling to break free of the two that were keeping her alive with their body heat. Only a quarter of a mile away, the helicopter was finally taking to the air. It was armed, by the look of it, with rockets in its wing pods. At the same time, the Abrams tank began to move, and the 125mm. barrel of its main gun swiveled in their direction. Cold or not, she had to take cover—and only one point of cover was available: the enemy Humvee.

  As the Terminators let her go, she ran for it. Surely the Rising Army wouldn't fire on their own people. Or would they? The Terminators ran with her, showing again that they were tactically astute—perhaps too astute, she thought. Was it safe to leave machines like this in the world, such powerful and capable mechanical assassins? The Humvee slid to a stop, raising dust. The sudden deceleration hurled the gunner from its rear. He landed hard in the dirt and didn't move. The Terminators quickly overcame the others in the vehicle.

  But in the distance, there was a muzzle flash from the tank's gun, and a high explosive shell whistled across the sky.

  EIGHT

  NEW YORK CITY SEPTEMBER 5, 2029

  General Connor broke radio contact with California, and pushed his chair back from the trestle table to stretch his legs.
"All our wishes go with Cecilia," he said, looking from one face to another. "We'll count on her to do the job."

  "She'll do it," Gabriela said.

  No one spoke for some time. John sensed how they all felt, the solemnity of the moment. Not only had they sent one of their closest comrades—Gabriela's daughter—on a dangerous mission, they'd also crossed a line, using Terminators as ground troops. It wasn't like there was no turning back—there were always choices, always options—but it took courage to act as they had, trying to draw lines in a dangerous world, where there were no absolutes, where any decision might be the wrong one, where nothing was clear or simple. Going on, taking stands, reaching compromises, doing it day in, day out—that was tough. That was what Big John...General Connor...had been doing all these years, and it took a brave, strong man.

  "She's going to need more resources," Sarah said.

  Eyes turned to her, and she went ahead: "If the whole of South America is falling into chaos, you'll have to find backup for her. She can't restore order to a whole continent, even with half a dozen Terminators to do the fighting for her."

  The General chewed his lip for a moment. "No," he said slowly. "No, she can't. But she knows what's needed for now. If she can establish a foothold for us, then work out what backup she needs, we'll give her whatever we can. Our resources are thin right now—"

  "I know, John. What you all went through in Colorado was terrible."

  "Still, we'll make do. We'll back her up with anything within reason. We have a window of time before we're finished with the Terminators. I think that's settled now."

  "Yes, it is," Sarah said.

  'That could make all the difference." He folded his arms across his chest. "Which brings us to the second problem of the day."

  "The war machines?" John said.

  "Exactly." The General leant forward to check through the pile of topographic maps. The one on top was upside-down from John's angle; it showed the Eastern U.S. from Maine in the lower left corner. Isaac and the others across the table had a better view. For them, the map was right way up, looking north from Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland. By the light of the lamp, John could see three widely spaced points on the map, which someone had inked with red circles. Isaac passed the General a wooden pointer, and he used it to tap at the circles. "Those are all danger spots, which Isaac has identified for us. We can go through all these maps, and we'll find circles like this

  on most of them. Isaac and his people have been collating them for me."

  "That's where you've found war machines?" John said. "It's where Skynet left H-Ks behind, and Terminators and the rest?"

  "Each red circle represents a place where we've encountered war machines since Skynet was destroyed," Isaac said. "We've been sending out exploration teams, trying to find out just where the trouble is."

  "Okay, sure. It's the same in Europe. That's part of what we were organizing the last few weeks."

  "Right. Well, we haven't found every machine left over.. .those circles are just what we know about. The more we explore, the more we'll find. Even what we know about adds up to a goddamn headache—"

  "The question is, what do we do about it?" the General said, cutting in on them. "We'll have to deploy whatever forces we have."

  "I think it's agreed," Isaac said. "That's not dividing the troops. Everyone wants to hit back, you know?"

  "All right." General Connor held his chin in one hand, thinking it over, then tapped the table's edge with the back of his fist, speaking slowly. "All of those machines are holding down territory that we can't use. From what we've seen, they'll attack if we go near them, but none have gotten together to attack our strongholds. Of course, we don't know what orders they have. Something might trigger a change of behavior. Still, we want to withdraw from positions this far north—get all our people down to Central and South America where it's warmer. And that suggests an argument that we could leave the machines alone. Just let them rot, concentrate on any we find further south."

  "No one really believes that," Gabriela said.

  "No, but it's an argument. If anyone wants to make that case, I'll hear them out. It has some attractions. Once again, we don't have the resources for more and more new battles."

  "Come, come, John, we have no choice."

  "Is that right? If everyone agrees with you, we'll move on to the question of how?"

  "You can't leave any of the machines," Sarah said, leaning forward and eyeing the General, her grownup son, across the corner of the table. "It has to end here, once and for all." She searched the faces of the three seated opposite her: Isaac, Grimes, and Mohan-raj. "Leave nothing that can be reverse-engineered and added to in the future. That's your only hope."

  If anyone had even thought of a different tack, that put an end to it. "All right," General Connor said. "The only question is: How do we do it with the forces that we have? With what we've got left, this will be a huge task."

  "Nobody's going to argue if we use the Terminators," Grimes said. "As long as the same conditions apply. You agreed they'd be gone within a year."

  "Agreed. You have my thanks for that."

  "We've got an understanding."

  "Okay. Well, we won't shirk from this for a moment, but we'll have to plan it thoroughly.. .and revise those plans as we find out more." The General gestured at the map, looking to Isaac for support. "All the maps underneath here are North America, right?"

  "U.S.A. and Canada," Isaac said. "Most of them have circles drawn in. Sometimes it's just a Terminator that's already been destroyed. We don't have much detail farther south. As for South America..." He shrugged despairingly.

  "I know, we're getting nothing useful out of there...no good information. That will change when

  we deal with the warlords. Right now, I have similar work being done for me in Europe. We'll track down every one of those metal buzzards and get rid of them. Now, where do we start? The worst problem seems to be right here." The General used his pointer to tap a mark on the map which looked about three hundred miles away, south and west, past whatever was left of Washington D.C.—somewhere in Virginia. "Take us through it, Isaac."

  The big bald man nodded. "I guess you've already got the gist of it, John. We lost an entire exploration team. As far as we know, not one man or woman in the team survived. That's twenty-nine dead."

  "A tragedy."

  "It is that.. .all that and more. They were competent, able-bodied people. That team was meant to be strong enough to beat off anything it encountered—no use in sending it out otherwise."

  "I know, but that's the problem. If we send out a weak team, it will be annihilated if it finds one or two endos. If we send out a team that's strong, it can defend itself...but we lose so much if the team's destroyed. The machines don't take prisoners."

  "Even if someone survived the battle that took place, they couldn't get through the nights out there without good shelter and the right equipment. They're all gone for sure."

  "Okay. Exactly what hit them? The report I had was two aerial H-Ks."

  "Correct. They radioed in, just for a few seconds, saying they were under attack. They said they'd been hit with smart missiles. That's all we got. Either everyone was killed in a matter of minutes or their radio equipment was totally destroyed. Not that it makes much difference now. As I said, no one could have survived out there."

  "There's no suggestion that anything else was backing up the H-Ks?"

  Isaac shook his head. "No mention of that. I mean, we don't know where they're based. There might be other machines that we don't know about. But nothing was said about other machines involved in the attack."

  "All right."

  "Others could have appeared, of course, after we lost radio contact."

  "Sure, but we've got no reason to suspect it?"

  "No, we haven't."

  The General pushed his chair back, finished with the maps, and ready to make decisions. "As far as we know, it's just two H-Ks, possibly still armed wi
th missiles. Then again, maybe not. We don't know how many they had."

  In his six weeks in this world, John had learned a great deal about how the Resistance had survived its years of war with Skynet, gradually fighting back and getting the upper hand. One key to it had been constant attacks on the war computer's factories and supply lines. Like the Resistance, Skynet had not been able to keep its forces fully armed. He could see what General Connor was getting at. Any missiles the H-Ks had used might well have been irreplaceable. The H-Ks probably weren't being re-armed after each attack they made.

  "That's about the size of it," Isaac said. "We don't know one way or the other, but we can't make assumptions. All I know is that there were two of them, armed with missiles, as well as the usual laser cannons. That's a force we can't take on lightly. Damn it, those people we lost were precious to us...they were some of the best fighters we had left, up and down the East Coast."

  "I know, and you don't want to throw away more lives."

  "Not for no purpose." Isaac looked pained. "You know what aerial H-Ks can do, John. You've fought them often enough yourself."

  "Yes, I have," General Connor said thoughtfully. "And I saw how our choppers went against them in Colorado. It wasn't a pretty sight. I also have some idea of how to fight them."

  "Well, maybe."

  "Listen, we have to go out there. I'm sure you're right, no one survived. But we don't know that. Even if we assume it's true, I want us to find the bodies, do the decent thing, get some closure—"

  "Yeah, fine," Grimes said mockingly. "That would all be great if we weren't just throwing more people away. Just how are we going to do all this?"

  "What assets do you have? Vehicles, aircraft, fighters?"

  "Not much more than what you've seen," Isaac said. "Whatever we could spare went as our contribution to the attack on Skynet, when we moved on Colorado. Not much of it came back. And nothing came back from that exploration team. The cupboard's almost bare here. We've got enough able fighters to try to hold our own territory. Not much more. You saw our vehicles on the way in. As for aircraft—what aircraft?"