November 8, 2021…
Humanity's war with Skynet is in it's eleventh year. The first 10 years bore little fruit and even less hope for the scrappy survivors of Judgment Day, the day the computers turned against their creators by launching a worldwide nuclear apocalypse.
But this year has been different. First, a change in leadership. Then, a change in strategy. Now, a change in fortunes.
And all of it came about with the arrival of one man. He taught them to fight the machines. He restored hope. He brought humanity back from the brink.
His name, of course, is John Connor.
To be sure, Connor had been working with a built-in advantage. His knowledge of, and experience working with and against the machines was invaluable and exactly what the resistance needed to turn this war around.
John's largest obstacle was finding the motivation to fulfill his prophetic role as humankind's savior. In fact, he had often questioned his own ability to lead, let alone be a "Messiah" to the rag-tag human survivors.
Until he was literally thrown into the middle of the battle. It was quite by accident, of course, as John haphazardly jumped into the time machine in pusuit of Cameron, his female cyber-protector.
Then it became a matter of instincts—John fighting for his life; the others following his abilities as a natural leader, a trait John was unaware he possessed. But the vital factor, the one that finally allowed John to accept the role he was born for, was the love of a woman.
Allison Young.
That she was a dead ringer for Cameron was definitely no coincidence. John feared for her future in this respect and it had actually been a point of contention between them, especially since he was unable to disclose why he felt her life was in danger.
But his love for her was as certain as he had been of anything in his life. Including the war that he now found himself in the middle of.
The war fortunes for greater Los Angeles, a no-man's land of see-saw battles for 10 years, also changed dramatically in favor of humanity when Susan Nishimira assumed command of all military forces in July, 2021. The first strategy she implemented was using decoded Skynet transmissions in a series of surprise attacks against their machine aggressors.
This enabled the Third Corps to carve out a perimeter measuring approximately 50 by 20 kilometers completely devoid of Skynet presence, something they had been unable to do in the entire war. Based around the Serrano Point Nuclear Power Plant, the human enclave included, among others, Torrance, Long Beach, Anaheim, Fullerton, Downey, East LA, and parts of El Monte and Hollywood.
That it most mostly a devastated nuclear wasteland was a moot point. Los Angeles had been hit by at least five hydrogen bombs on Judgment Day. However, Skynet was gone. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
Nishimira's next target was Inglewood and Los Angeles International Airport, a major Skynet base. To take it though, she knew an old ally would be needed: air superiority.
For years, Hunter-Killers, the dreaded twin engined aerial monstrosities Skynet used to terrorize and hunt humans, had been operating with virtual impugnity by the thousands from LAX. Nishimira was intent on changing this.
Her first breakthrough came years ago, before she had even joined the Los Angeles resistance cell. Then with a small unit in San Diego, she had discovered an abandoned underground warehouse full of UAVs—unmanned aerial vehicles—Reapers, Sentinels, Predators, Global Hawks and the like, by the thousands, the types the U.S. Military and their allies had been using successfully for years to win air superiority over distant battlefields from a remote distance. Apparently, the U.S. had been stockpiling them here in case of an emergency.
The problems for re-introducing them to fight against Skynet were numerous. First off, even though they were unmanned, trained personnel still had to pilot them remotely. Second, a command center was needed to coordinate their use. Then there was the matter of fuel and ammunition.
But when Connor named her the successor to the fallen General Hoth, all those problems disappeared. For nearly four months, a portion of her command had dedicated itself to training thousands of individuals—military or otherwise—for an aerial offensive against Skynet.
There was also some concern about the UAVs "loyalties." After all, they were computer controlled. But John's ubiquitous tech team—one he had been quietly assembling out of former computer hackers and programmers—put an end to that discussion. New programs were written from scratch to control and communicate with the machines, codes that Skynet would not be able to interfere with or change.
Meanwhile, supplies had been flooding into Serrano Point as well from the usual sources. Rotating sorties from Australia were several attack submarines—The USS Jimmy Carter included—which had survived Judgment Day and its aftermath. Nuclear powered, with virtually limitless range, fast and heavily armed, they were targets Syknet had no real answer for. They were also able to ferry the UAVs from San Diego without much difficulty.
Overland provisions from distant resistance cells like Houston and Vancouver obviously took much longer, but human resourcefulness and stubborness prevailed more often than not. By early November, Nishimira had the personnel and the material to get the job done.
The early morning was unusually clear in Southern California, devoid of the usual mixture of fog, smog and residual fallout. In the command bunker at Serrano, Admiral Nishimira settled in with her staff. The atmosphere was one of hopeful optimism.
"Unlimited visibility, sir," a radar operator named Simmons announced in response to Nishimira's unasked question.
"Excellent," Nishimira responded. She nodded at a man to her left. African-American with a fully shaved head, the brass eagle on his collar indicated his rank. The name above his left pocket read "Taylor."
"CAGs, give me a sitrep," Colonel Franklin Taylor snapped into his headset. Taylor was Nishimira's executive officer, serving as her direct liason to the UAV operators.
In sequential order, each CAG (commander, air group) replied to their superior. The 10 of them had been waiting for the launch signal. Indeed, all section leaders and wing commanders were primed. Taylor gave his boss an affirmative nod.
"Launch phase one," Nishimira ordered.
Within seconds, approximately 250 of the small unarmed UAVs—WASPs, made for quick reconaissance sweeps—were launched from Serrano. Moving relatively slow—only 90 kilometers per hour—it would take 10 to 15 minutes for them to reach the altitude and proximity to LAX to fulfill their primary function: bait.
Launching at the same time, were thousands of their larger, heavily armed cousins—the Predators, Reapers, Hawks and Eagles. They would hover on stand-by, simultaneously, at very low levels, to avoid Skynet radar. Their mission was to surprise and overwhelm the HKs.
Four HKs served as Skynet's standard southern sentry detail at LAX. They detected the WASPs almost immediately. Fearless and efficient, they sent the signal for reinforcements and closed to intercept simultaneously. The bait had been taken.
The HKs' gatling guns ripped through the defenseless WASPs like tissue paper, annihilating 25 of them in one pass. As planned, the remaining little drones broke formation, taking the bigger machines off in the four directions of the compass. Like barracuda feeding on sardines, the HKs were completely engrossed with the task at hand.
So, when the next wave of Nishimira's attack—a flight of 20 heavily armed Predators—hit them, the HKs were caught completely off guard. This drew in Skynet's reinforcements—about 50 strong. This, in turn, initiated the Admiral's third wave—100 Reapers. And this escalation continued until Skynet had some 1,000 HKs in the air.
But even with this awesome number—every single aircraft they controlled in southern California—they were still woefully outnumbered by the resistance, at least five-to-one at the battle's height. Basically, the task of all the smaller drones—even the Reapers and Predators—was to keep the enemy busy, chasing and endlessly circling. They could fire off the occasional round, of course, but their mission was one of sacrifice. And many were lost, to be sure.
But while they did this, the monstrous Global Hawks and Grey Eagles—UAVs as large as interceptors from the Cold War—rained destruction from above, picking off HKs like fish in a barrel. These were controlled by the few experts that Nishimira had recruited, professionals that had done so in the Middle East Wars that preceded Judgment Day.
It was a slaughter. No HK escaped the engagement, while the resistance lost approximately 1,500 drones. The losses were heavy, but it was worth the prize: air superiority in southern California and a new base at LAX.
If anyone bothered to take note, the engagement became the greatest air battle in recorded history, dwarfing previous engagements like the Battles of Britain, Kursk and the Philippine Sea by a large margin. The fact that the only humans involved were using joysticks and video monitors many kilometers away from the battle was the primary reason. The dexterity, awareness and reaction time needed to perform the air combat maneuvers in a three-dimensional environment with tens of thousands of air vehicles involved moving at 200 to 300 knot speeds was simply not possible for manned aircraft.
"What's the count?" Nishimira barked into her headset.
"One thousand, ninety-three," Simmons responded.
Skynet losses were heavier than expected. Much heavier. Nishimira exchanged a knowing glance with Taylor.
"Begin phase two," Nishimira added, without hesistation.
Phase two was the seizure of LAX and all of the equipment and facilities therein. A flight of 50 Blackhawks, each heavily laiden with soldiers and weapons, had been awaiting the signal for the better part of an hour. Any remaining Skynet denizens would have to be dealt with.
The troops were well armed—RPGs, mini-guns, .50 caliber machine guns, grenade launchers and sniper rifles—anything that could throw a large, fast moving projectile at their heavily armored opponents.
The airspace was clear, for the moment anyway, but LAX was still heavily defended. There were an unknown number of terminators, tanks and other automated weapons platforms endlessly patrolling the base, but of immediate concern were the dozen or so anti-aircraft batteries positioned around LAX. Combining 20 millimeter Vulcan guns and Sparrow missiles, the batteries were very accurate and very lethal.
Again using the WASPs for bait and, actually, reconaissance sweeps, the small drones kept the batteries busy while their larger cousins picked them off from a safe distance, one-by-one. And as they did this, the Reapers and Predators scoured LAX for the other ground targets.
As the leader of the 106th Regiment, the elite troopers assigned with the task of overtaking the base, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Ortega was given regular updates on the situation. Given that the first AA guns were eliminated on the airport's southern approaches, Ortega had his point of entry.
No more than five meters off the ground, 40 of the helos knifed neatley through the smoke and haze of the old airport, finally landing in near unison on the northernmost of the twin southern runways, or rather what was left of them. At one time, one of the busiest runways in the world, the decade of non-use left them strewn with potholes and overgrown with weeds and grass.
Within seconds, some 300 soldiers disembarked and began the mad dash for the terminal, or at least what the terminal had become. The intervening ground was covered with debris—downed HKs, long-ruined aircraft, burned and mangled vehicles, and shattered buildings, possibly former hangars or service facilities for the arcraft. The remaining blackhawks hovered in reserve after laying down a smokescreen to help obscure the advancing infantry from Skynet defenders.
"Give me regular reports," Ortega barked into his headset with a thick Mexican accent as he ran along with his soldiers. The scene in front of him, although somewhat obscurred by smoke was as foreign a sight as he had seen at an airport.
The terminal was there, all right, but instead of a receiving and departing point at any given moment for thousands of humans—complete with jumbo jets, baggage carts, a control tower, hangars, gates, restaurants, gift shops and, of course, people—there was a ghastly white, window-less building stretching hundreds of meters to the left and right. Various antennae and radar dishes, presumably for communications, jutted out from the structure at regular intervals. And the Theme Building—a signature structure at LAX, vaguely resembling a a flying saucer that had landed on its four legs—was nowhere to be seen either.
The troops were fast approaching a 5-meter high fence, topped with concertina wire and broken every 50 meters by towers, bristling with guns of varying callibre. The guns began erupting with fire as the force grew closer, while ogres, terminators and other machines assumed defensive positions behind the barrier.
Ortega heard the squad leaders chime in as they approached the formidable guard towers. He expected something like this. Ordering his NCOs to take temporary cover, he requested support fire from the ubiquitous Hawks and Eagles.
"Roger, 106 actual, standy-by for inbound," a voice said into Ortega's ear piece.
Ortega nodded and reflexively looked up, only to see the tail end of a missile's mercurial flight into the tower directly in front of him. A massive expolsion followed and all that remained of the obelisk was a smoldering pile of twisted metal.
Ortega smiled in satisfaction at the sight. "Air power is a beautiful thing," he commented to no one in particular. He then signaled for his troops to move through the breach, although most had already begun to anyway.
As the humans gushed through the hole in the barrier, the T-600s finally began shooting back, as if it was only now that they reasoned any danger in the situation. It mattered not, as Raptors and Predators added to the overwhleming firepower. Given that falling back was not generally part of Skynet programming or, for that matter, experience, a great quantity of scrap metal was produced in just a few minutes of battle.
Another obstacle gone, Ortega and his men pressed on, only to be confronted by a pair of monstrous tanks as they emerged out of the smoke, one on either side of the advance. Before he could even react, five troopers to Ortega's left were shredded by the great machines' gatling guns. Fortunately, the experienced infantry knew to stagger their approach, so the following wave hit the twin terrors with a fusilade of grenades. The almost absurd response may have been a release of years of pent-up frustration, but Ortega gave his men and women an appreciative nod nonetheless.
At long last, the terminal was reached, although the architecture was so alien, the troopers had difficulty finding an entrance point.
"There's no godamn doors!" a Sargeant Waters exclaimed angrily.
"Make one," Ortega ordered flatley.
Silently but purposely emerging from the rear ranks of the advance, a tall, lanky, bespectacled soldier ran up to Waters, who then wordlessly nodded at the edifice beyond. The soldier nodded in-turn and sauntered up to the building, while the rest retreated behind some smoldering debris nearby.
After placing his backpack down, he quickly extracted a quantity of plastic explosives and arranged them in the shape of a door on the wall. Satisfied with his grouping, he placed the lead end of a wire into the explosive and joined his comrades some 10 meters away.
"Fire in the hole!" he yelled, before joining the others, taking cover behind the debris.
The explosion was short-lived, but loud and powerful. The soldiers, Ortega and Waters were showered with the remnants of the wall. The plastique produced a large, roughly circular hole in the edifice.
"Recon—proceed inside!" Ortega barked. "Slowly!"he added belatedly."Mortensen! Get those tech specialists up here!"
"You, you and you!" Waters quickly singled to three of his squad to form a recon team.
As they waited for the specialists to arrive, the battle continued around them. Terminators, sentinels and ogres were responding to the breach punched into the wall.
"Secure the perimeter!" Ortega ordered. The remaining infantry immediately dispersed and formed a protective phalanx around the newly formed entrance to the building.
Meanwhile, the three probed inside. If the outside of the terminal appeared strange to the human invaders, then the inside was something they were entirely unprepared for.
"Give me regular reports," Ortega's voice calmly intoned into their earpieces. "Describe what you see."
The leader of the recon unit—Sargeant Stevens—squinted her eyes to take in what she was seeing. Not meant for human inspection, the lead members cautiously illuminated their surroundings with flashlights.
"There's circuitry everywhere," Stevens said, "extending as far as I can see. It's very cramped—we can barely fit through single file…."
The hair on Ortega's neck stood up as Stevens continued with her description. He implicitly sensed danger, but could no sooner voice his concerns when her voice was cut off by an overload of some sort. Turning to the hole in the wall, he looked on in horror as bolts of electricity arced out and around the hole. It seemed Skynet wasn't done protecting itself.
Stevens tumbled out of the hole, screaming and writhing in pain.
"Medic!" Waters yelled as he moved to try to help his wounded trooper.
With almost impecable timing, the tech team reported to Ortega.
"What happened, sir?" Lieutenant DiBiasi asked, as the group assembled around the fallen Stevens.
"Recon team went in," Ortega responded dryly. "Skynet responded with some sort of electrical attack."
"We should take out the power supply," DiBiasi countered. "Kwan, hand me that infrared scope."
A petite, female asian soldier, who adorned a backpack that appeared to be bigger than she was, handed her superior a strange looking device, vaguely resembling a cross between an arc welder's helmet and a gas mask. DiBiasi quickly donned the scope over his head and inspected the building's edifice. It showed multiple heat signatures, some created by fire, some by lighting, still others by electrical activity.
"Wow!" DiBiasi exclaimed. "I mean power supplies! There's dozens of 'em."
"Okay," Ortega replied, clearly frustrated. "So what does that mean?"
"Sir, I can't be sure which of these are primary or secondary," DiBiasi answered. "Do we want anything intact?"
Ortega sighed. He remembered his orders: destroy the enemy and take the facility, but save as much of the structure as possible. God only knows what Nishimira was looking for, Ortega thought.Then he remembered all who were sacrificed to get this far.
"The hell with it," Ortega barked. "Destroy whatever you have to. I don't want to lose any more people."
DiBiasi nodded. He then wordlessly signaled to each member of his squad. They proceeded to place charges in such a manner that they blew a make-shift tunnel through the labyrinth of circuitry to an area that was more accomodating to humanoid movements and fucntionality.
There were still more machines in this space awaiting the human invaders, almost like white blood cells battling a microbe infection. Another fierce battle ensued, but Ortega anticipated this. There were simply too many heavily armed humans, so the issue was never in doubt.
Of course, there was a reason Skynet was protecting this inner sanctum. The area appeared to be a factory or production facility of some sort. There were T-600s, sentires and all sorts of unidentifiable robots and machinery scattered about in various stages of construction. As he entered it in the battle's aftermath, Ortega gasped at the scene. The mother load.
"This is what the boss wanted us to save," Ortega reasoned, nodding approvingly at his own decision. "Phone it in."
While the techs inspected, downloaded, hacked and diagnosed the surviving myriad of cybernetics, robots, microchips, hard drives, ROM banks and databases, Connor, Nishimira and their respective teams made their way in.
Outside of general directives, John had no desire to mircomanage military matters, but he did ask Nishimira to keep the council advised on major operations and discoveries. He specifically wanted knowledge of any encounters with enemy manufacturing or research and development centers. This certainly qualified.
Nishimira knew time was of the essence. A discovery this large certainly invited a swift response from Skynet. So when she alerted Connor of the find and stressed the alacrity of their departure, John was not only prevented from informing fellow council members Ellison and Gonzalez, but the only other soul he could quickly invite was his father, Kyle.
Inwardly, he grimaced. Allison would not be happy that he went without her. But he also knew that the Resistance Today, the newspaper the two of them had created and that she currently oversaw as editor-in-chief, was near deadline. That work was more important, John reasoned. She would be angry, but she would also understand.
More importantly, however, John could not take the chance that the Cameron model infiltrator—at whatever level of development—was there in any shape or form. It seemed awfully early to him—Cameron had said she arrived from the year 2027—but the risk was too great. Obviously, Allison would be in terrible danger, but more directly, John was not ready to explain their all-too-clear connection.
When they arrived, the techicians were deep into their dissection of Skynet's innards. Some of the analysis thus far was surprising, some was expected. Still, the newcomers were awestruck by the volume of Skynet's operations.
For one thing, the investigation revealed the enemy's heretofore unknown order of battle. The cyborgs were divided into six classes.
The 100-series included the awkward first generation terminators originally created by the U.S. Army as anti-personnel replacements for human infantrymen. They were essentially mini-tanks, about the size of a motorcycle, with all-terrian treads for wheels and a roughly humanoid body, including a head and cameras for scanning and sensing and gatling guns for arms. Also in this series were service-bots for repair, maintenance and upgrades.
The 200-series were well-respected and feared by humans. Small and agile, this series all looked like varying sizes of centipedes, meant to burrow into the cramped spaces that became human encampments. Once in, the suicidal machines would explode, killing as many humans as possible. Fortunately for the resistance, this series wasn't as widely used by the enemy anymore.
The 300-series represented Skynet's aerial contingent. The HKs had several sizes as well and were probably the greatest menace to humanity.
The 400-series were the beheamoth orge and centaurs—tanks that ruled the surface with firepower and intimidation. The 500-series were a virtually unknown lot. As far as the technicians could determine, the 500s were meant to deal with the human presence at sea, but no samples were evident at the LAX facility.
The 600-series were the relatively new, humanoid version of cyborgs. Only seen in the last two years, most of the human leadership was unaware of their primary mission—infiltration. John Connor was the lone exception in this respect.
To John's relief, there was no sign of Cameron. In fact, there was no sign of any real advance in infiltration design—skin, blood, hair, personality—anything that John associated with "Uncle Bob" or Cameron.
The cryptographers were having a field day too. Rapidly filtering through lines of code and software most would dismiss as garbage or as undeciferable hieroglyphics, the hackers acquired more knowledge of Skynet programming and designs in one hour than in the previous 10 years of battle. Lieutenant Commander Norman Zimmer, Nishimira's chief code-breaker, had an ear-to-ear grin as he eagerly typed away at the interface.
"How's it look Zimmer?" John asked him, hopefully.
"Sir, there's an incredible amount of data in these banks," Zimmer replied excitedly. "We're downloading as much as we can, but it will take weeks, if not months, to fully analyze."
John nodded appreciatively. "I would imagine so, commander," he said. "Keep up the good work."
"Yes, sir," Zimmer snapped.
"And Zimmer," John added, leaning in close to whisper, "any sign of that special technology I asked you about earlier?"
Zimmer stopped typing and looked at John with a furrowed forehead, clearly confused.
John glanced over either shoulder to make certain no one was eavesdropping. He leaned in even closer. "You know—the TDE."
Recognition immediately disclosed itself in Zimmer's face as he adjusted his spectacles. TDE. Of course The time displacement equipment.
"I've seen no metion, sir," Zimmer said, quietly. "But there's an awful lot of information here. We'll keep an eye out for it."
"Not we," John warned, locking eyes with Zimmer. "You. This is highly sensitive data. I'm entrusting you with this task. The very survival of humanity depends on this technology. You find something, you advise me and only me, immediately. Understood?"
His spine tingling, Zimmer swallowed hard. "Yes, sir," was his meek response.
"Good work, commander," John added, a little more loudly, patting Zimmer on the shoulder. He then turned and walked purposely away.
Furrowing his forhead, Zimmer turned and watched his enigmatic leader depart. He wondered why Connor was so imperious and secretive about about such an obscure and far-fetched piece of technology. Shrugging and engrossing himself in his tasks once again, he quickly decided that Connor's actions and decisions had been impeccable thus far.
Kyle had been lingering in the vicinity, poking his head in and around various pieces of machinery. He did the best he could to hide his lack of interest, but John picked up on it immediately.
"This really isn't your cup of tea, is it Kyle?" John asked.
"I guess not, John," Kyle replied. "I suppose I'm not really interested in studying the enemy, just destroying them."
John nodded in understanding. "Let's see what's going on over there," he said.
They found Nishimira and the balance of the invading force huddled on what appeared to be a balcony of some sort. It was overlooking a much larger, but dimly lit area that expanded an unseen distance beyond. Far in the distance was a faint red glow, possibly a fire. Directly below, some of Ortega's team were jury-rigging a lighting array to reveal the hidden treasure.
"What's going on?" John asked Nishimira.
"Mr. President," Nishimira said, nodding in regonition and guiding John to the edge. "Apparently, Skynet facilities are missing some human amenities like door handles, chairs and even lighting We took some of the searchlights off the captured ogres and centaurs to correct the last of those."
"Alright, light it up!" Ortega yelled at his team below.
On cue, the array illuminated a vast construction facility, including cranes, forklifts, hydraulic presses, raw materials like titanium, coltan and steel, and, most importantly of all, hundreds, if not thousands of HKs in varying degrees of construction and repair. The red glow in the background turned out to be a blast furnace.
The motherload, indeed.
The group collectively gasped at the spectacle. A fat cigar, which Ortega had been puffing on since the battle ended, silently dropped from his mouth as he voiced some unintelligible Mexican curse.
John and Nishimra exchanged wide-eyed glances. This was much larger than anything they expected. And a Skynet response equal to the magnitude of the discovery should be forthcoming.