by Greg Cox
All for a bunch of oil we didn’t even get.
Sometimes she wondered if humanity even stood a chance.
“Let the dogs rest. We’ll get a move on later. Before sundown.”
She just hoped the huskies were up to it.
***
Hours later:
The human insurgents were long gone by the time the moon rose over the ice-clotted pass. A forest fire still raged to the south, although Skynet had cut off the flow of oil, and it would remain that way until the damaged stretch of pipeline could be repaired. The sabotage was a temporary inconvenience, but not an insurmountable one. Skynet had control of most of the planet’s energy reserves, from Saudi Arabia to Siberia. The disruption to the Alaskan pipeline would not seriously impact its operations.
A young male lynx padded across the heaped debris, fleeing the blaze behind it. The wild cat’s large paws acted like snowshoes as it made its way to safer hunting grounds. Its stealthy passage made scarcely a sound.
A sudden crack broke the nocturnal stillness. The slippery rubble shifted beneath the lynx’s paws. Yowling, it bounded away in alarm.
The big cat abandoned the pass without a backward glance, so that only the moon was watching as a tremor shook the glazed surface of the mound. Loose ice and snow streamed down the side of the pile, near the northern end of the pass. A scraping noise came from beneath the shifting mass.
A robotic fist smashed through the topmost slab. Servomotors whirred as a second fist punched upward into the moonlight. Articulated steel fingers dug into the side of the heap. Optical sensors, peering up through the cracked ice, dimly glimpsed the moonlight. An illuminated heads-up flashed in the upper right-hand corner of the visual display:
IMPERATIVE: RESTORE FULL MOBILITY.
Slowly, methodically, a T-600 dragged itself up into the cold night air. Snow and ice sloughed off of its battered endoskeleton. Only a few tattered shreds of fabric hung to its limbs and battle chassis. The left half of a charred and melted rubber face masked its cranial case. Unlike real flesh, the imitation skin was immune to frostbite. Antifreeze trickled like blood from its left shoulder joint. Cool chartreuse fluid dripped onto the pristine white snow.
MOBILITY RESTORED. COMMENCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT.
It had taken the Terminator precisely 8.735 hours to dig its way out from beneath the avalanche. Rising to its full height, it paused to conduct an internal diagnostic, noting minor damage to various non-essential systems. But the T-600 judged itself to be operating at 96.408 percent efficiency. Its central processing unit, power cells, and programming remained intact.
Its primary directive was unchanged.
TERMINATE HUMAN RESISTANCE FORCES.
Network links confirmed that the other T-600s were no longer functioning. The Terminator greeted this information without emotion. It did not mourn its comrades, nor crave revenge. The destruction of the other machines was relevant only as far as it affected the T-600’s strategic options and probabilities of success.
A rapid inventory of its arsenal revealed that its left-hand chain gun had been torn away by the avalanche; the Terminator calculated the odds of retrieving it, and decided that the effort would be counter-productive. An assault rifle was still strapped beneath its right arm, but the weapon had been mangled beyond repair. The T-600 undid the strap, shedding the useless firearm. Although unarmed, the machine was confident that it could carry out its mission without backup. Humans were fragile and easily terminated.
Metal fingers pinched off the leaky valve in its shoulder. The T-600 kicked off the twisted remnants of its wire snowshoes. Optical sensors scanned the terrain north of the pass. Digital readouts flashed along the periphery of its visual display. Two distinct sets of bootprints revealed that at least two humans had survived the avalanche; the relative size and contours of the tracks indicated an adult male and adult female. Infrared trackers detected the cooling remains of a small campfire, as well as the fecal droppings of multiple canines.
Analysis of the evidence indicated that the humans and their animals had departed sometime within the last several hours. Human behavior patterns suggested that the survivors would return to their base after their defeat at the pipeline. The T-600 recognized an opportunity to track the Resistance to its camp—and terminate them once and for all.
It set out walking. A light snow had begun to fall, but its sensors easily discerned the impressions of the dog sled beneath the smooth virgin snow. The humans had a significant head start, but this did not concern the machine; it did not need to catch up with its targets until they reached their ultimate destination. A built-in transceiver beamed its intentions back to Skynet, which instantly acknowledged and approved the actions.
CONFIRMATION: PROCEED AS DIRECTED.
A digital readout in the lower left-hand corner of its heads-up display reported that the temperature was negative 11.022 degrees Celsius and falling. Sunrise was 10.589 hours away. The location of the Resistance base was unknown, but the Terminator was prepared to hike through the wilderness for as long as necessary. Its internal power pack guaranteed sufficient energy for the trek. Unlike the poorly designed humans, it would not tire. It had no need to eat, drink, or sleep. Hypothermia posed no danger to its systems. Its imposing steel frame did not shiver. Hinged metal jaws did not chatter.
The Terminator marched into the night. Heavy legs, sunk knee-deep into the snowy drifts, plowed through the packed whiteness. The perfect clarity of its programming propelled it forward.
LOCATE HUMAN BASE.
TERMINATE ALL HUMANS.
CHAPTER FIVE
2003
Murmansk, home to the Northern Fleet, had once been the largest city north of the Arctic Circle and a thriving military seaport. A warm North Atlantic current kept its harbor ice-free all year round. Losenko recalled bustling docks crammed with towering metal cranes and rows upon rows of covered boat barns, the latter intended to shield the fleet from aerial surveillance. Armed sentries and barbed wire had guarded the wharves, barracks, warehouses, and shipyards. Tugboats had escorted returning vessels back to port, beneath the icy brilliance of a cobalt-blue sky.
The sparsely wooded bluffs overlooking the channel had once been a welcome sight, promising fresh air and solid ground after long weeks under the sea. The salt air had been filled with the sounds of gulls and blaring horns.
But all that was a memory now.
Desolation.
That was what the captain beheld from the bridge atop the Gorshkov’s gigantic black fin. The submarine cruised toward shore along the Kola Fjord. White water lapped over the exposed bow and missile deck, while fully two-thirds of K-115 remained submerged beneath the waves. Ordinarily, maneuvering on the surface was fraught with hazards; it was all too easy for another ship to overlook the low-riding sub and plough right into it. Today, however, there were no other vessels with which to contend. They had the narrow channel all to themselves.
The view from his vantage point confirmed what Losenko had previously glimpsed through the periscope. An enormous crater, at least a thousand feet in diameter, had replaced the naval base. The ground was blackened and scorched. No trace of life remained—not a single weed or blade of grass. Every building had been razed to its foundations. The piers and boat barns were gone.
Though there was no surface traffic, sonar readings had detected the remnants of shattered ships and submarines scattered across the floor of the harbor. They would have to take care to avoid colliding with one of the sunken hulks. Their ruptured hulls now served as underwater tombstones.
We sail above a watery cemetery, Losenko realized. He shuddered beneath a heavy wool pea coat. A fur cap shielded his head from the cold north wind. The midnight sun hung low in the sky. How many crews and captains went down with their ships?
Losenko was dismayed by the devastation, but not surprised. He had seen photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Modern nuclear missiles were many times more powerful than the primitive atomic bombs the Americans
had dropped on Japan sixty years ago.
Murmansk, he recalled, had once been home to over 300,000 people.
“Bozhe moi,” Trotsky whispered beside him. The deputy commander was serving as deck officer for this watch. His face was ashen. White knuckles gripped the railing. “There is nothing left, Captain. Nothing at all.”
Losenko placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, like a father consoling a grieving son. Chances were, he was the closest thing to a father any one of his men had left. They were all orphans now.
He and Trotsky were alone atop the vessel. Losenko had restricted access to the sail, giving Ivanov the conn until he could survey the situation with his own eyes. Still, he knew he could not spare his men this appalling vista for long. By now, word of the base’s utter destruction was surely spreading among the officers, and from there to the enlisted men. Such secrets were impossible to keep hidden.
“There are no docks,” Trotsky observed. Concentrating on practical concerns appeared to help him maintain his composure. Yet he averted his eyes from the nightmarish tableau. “What now, skipper?”
Losenko peered through binoculars. In the distance, miles beyond ground zero, he spied the skeletal ruins of a few surviving buildings. Pitted steel frameworks had been stripped clean of their facades. Mountains of charred debris littered the barren landscape. Nothing stirred except clouds of ash and grit blown about by the wind. He looked in vain for lights or campfires.
There weren’t even any vultures.
The captain lowered his binoculars.
“We sail on.” There was nothing left for them here but kilometers and kilometers of radioactive rubble. By his estimation, it would be a decade before the irradiated soil could be considered safe to live on—at least by peacetime standards. Murmansk was another Chernobyl. “There are fishing villages south of here, near Ponoy. They would not be considered military targets. Perhaps we can make port there.”
To be safe, he knew, they would need to put at least 200 miles between themselves and ground zero. Maybe 300.
“Yes, sir!” Trotsky seized onto the captain’s proposal as if it was a life preserver. He turned his back on Murmansk. “We’ll need to reverse propulsion at once.”
Before he could phone the new course down to the conn, however, one of the forward hatches clanged open. A midshipman in a blue jumpsuit clambered onto the deck. He gazed out in horror at the wreckage of Murmansk. A heart-rending cry tore itself from his lungs.
“No! NOOO!”
Losenko swore out loud. He hadn’t authorized this. It took him a moment to identify the reckless sailor as Nikolai Yudin, a new recruit who had been stationed in the engineering section.
“You there!” the captain bellowed from the bridge. “Get back below immediately, before I have you locked up for the rest of your miserable life!”
Yudin didn’t even look up at him. He was too busy gawking at the nearly unrecognizable ruins of their home base. He tugged on his hair so hard that Losenko half-expected the distraught seaman to rip out his scalp.
“Marina!” he called out hoarsely to the shore. “Holy God... MARINA!”
Who was Marina? Losenko wondered. His wife? His girlfriend? His daughter? The captain tried to remember if Yudin had a family. There were more than a 150 men aboard K-115. Shaking the thought away, he wheeled around toward Trotsky.
“Get a security team up here... now!”
Trotsky barked instructions into a mike, but Yudin’s crewmates were way ahead of him. Five more men scrambled out onto the deck to retrieve their shipmate. Choppy waves made it a risky endeavor, and none had taken the time to don lifejackets. The newcomers quickly lost track of the task at hand, as they were stunned by the sight of the murdered shore.
“You men, return to your posts,” Losenko bellowed, and three of the men glanced his way. Remembering their purpose, they moved toward Yudin, who fled to the very edge of the deck. He balanced precariously at the brink.
“Stay back!” he shouted hysterically. “Don’t touch me!”
His fellow seamen backed away warily, not wanting to provoke him into doing something rash. One held out his hands.
“Please, Nikolai!” the man said, the sound carried on the brisk, cold wind. “Come away from the edge. Let us talk to you. Let us help you!”
Up on the sail, Trotsky drew his sidearm. He nodded at the hysterical sailor below.
“Shall I intervene, sir?”
The captain shook his head. He doubted that Yudin cared for his own safety right now, and he did not appear to be armed. The man’s best hope lay in the open hands of his brothers-at-sea. He cursed himself for not anticipating such an incident. All his men had passed rigorous psychological testing before being allowed to serve on a ballistic missile submarine, but no amount of screening could predict how any one of them might react to the end of the world. What they were facing now was enough to drive the strongest man to despair... or madness.
An alarm sounded loudly across the deck.
A three-man security team, led by Master Chief Komarov, charged through the open hatch. Unlike the first group of would-be rescuers, they were fully equipped with lifejackets, nightsticks, and firearms. They had been warned what to expect, but even so they paused at the sight of what had become of Murmansk. Their chief was the first to regain his composure.
“Down on the deck!” Komarov ordered gruffly. “Hands where I can see them!”
“Leave me alone!” Yudin shrieked back at them. Crazed blue eyes darted back and forth between his comrades and the blasted wasteland ashore. When he spoke again, his voice was pleading. “It’s gone... they’re all gone!”
Losenko felt the situation slipping out of control. He knew in his heart where this was going.
“Yudin!” he barked at the top of his lungs. “This is your captain. You are not alone. We can all get through this together!”
This time he got the young midshipman’s attention. Yudin stared up from a dozen meters away. Their eyes met across the distance. The boy’s forlorn expression broke Losenko’s heart.
“I’m sorry, Captain!” he cried out. “But don’t you see? It’s too late. It’s too late for all of us!” He tore his gaze away from Losenko, turning his back on the other men. “I’m coming, Marina! I’m coming!”
No! Losenko thought, as if he might control the boy’s actions by sheer force of will. Don’t do it!
“Wait!” Komarov called. The crewmen surged forward... a moment too late.
Yudin flung himself from the deck, plummeting down into the frothing waters below. He hit the harbor with a splash. Frantic sailors rushed to the brink, risking their own safety.
“Nikolai!”
“Man overboard!” Trotsky shouted into a mike. A blaring klaxon sounded.
Losenko leaned out over the rail of the bridge, searching the waters below. At first, he feared that Yudin had been sucked under and drowned, but then he spotted young Nikolai bobbing to the surface several meters away from the sub. Without looking back, the sailor struck out for the shore, kicking and paddling with manic intensity.
Did he actually hope to find his long-lost Marina? Or had he simply been driven mad by grief?
His fellow officers spotted him as well. Another midshipman kicked off his shoes. He looked primed to dive in after Yudin. Others scurried back into the sub, perhaps to retrieve emergency rafts. Losenko was impressed by the men’s obvious determination to rescue their comrade.
Alas, he could not allow it.
“Stay where you are!” he shouted down at the men. “Do not leave this boat!”
Startled expressions greeted his orders.
“But... Captain....” Trotsky protested. “We have to get him back!”
“Belay that,” Losenko declared. Retrieving a man from the sea was a difficult and risky operation at the best of times, let alone when the man was suicidally determined not to be rescued. He had no intention of losing another man.
More objections came from the deck below.
>
“Please, Captain!” the shoeless midshipman begged. Other pleas joined the chorus. “We can still save him. Just give us a chance!”
Losenko turned to Trotsky. He held out his hand.
“Give me your sidearm.”
“What?” The deck officer blinked in surprise.
Losenko did not routinely carry a weapon aboard his own ship. “Give me the gun, damn you!”
Trotsky flinched. Losenko snatched the pistol from the deputy commander’s grip. Raising the binoculars to his eyes, he took aim at the swimming figure of Yudin. Waves batted the sailor back and forth, and the sailor’s soggy coveralls weighed him down, slowing his progress toward the shore. He hadn’t gotten too far yet.
“Captain!” Trotsky blurted out in alarm. “He’s just a boy!”
You think I don’t know that! Losenko thought. But nothing waited for Yudin ashore except a lingering death by radiation poisoning. And I’ll be damned if I send another man into that poisonous hellhole looking for him.
Yudin’s head and shoulders bobbed into sight.
Losenko pulled the trigger.
The sharp report of the pistol was the loudest thing any of the submariners had heard in weeks. The recoil jolted Losenko’s arm. The acrid smell of gunpowder polluted his nostrils. Through the binoculars, he saw Yudin disappear beneath the waves. A crimson froth spread across the water.
The captain’s stomach turned. He resisted the temptation to hurl the smoking pistol into the harbor. Instead he thrust it back into Trotsky’s hand.
“Silence those damn alarms.”
“Y-yes, sir,” the shaken officer stammered. He phoned down to the control room. The blaring klaxons went still. Dumbfounded crewmen milled about on the deck below. They looked confused and angry. Most of them were still reacting to what had just occurred. Losenko knew he had to tell them what to think before they turned against him for good.
He grabbed the mike.
“This is the captain,” he informed the entire crew. “Ensign Yudin attempted to desert this ship in a time of war. He has paid for this crime with his life. Let this be a lesson to you all.”
