After three weeks nearly, I've finally got chapter four up. I had a bit of a writers block and some work troubles, so apologies for the delay. I hope the new chapter is worth it. A very big thanks once again to Flatlander for you input and for beta-reading. Enjoy!


Once the transmission had been cut off John leapt out of the Stryker and hurtled down the tunnel and through the blast doors, into the complex. Cameron followed closely, taking a moment to seal the blast doors shut behind her. John ran between the freestanding buildings within the cavernous interior of the mountain and into the command centre, which was being staffed by over a score of soldiers and supervised by Captain Perry and James Ellison.

"Perry, the guys you left at Fort Carson – the handful of men you left there, they've got incoming." Perry ordered one of his men to change to Burke's radio channel and heard the rapid fire stutter of assault rifles, mixed in with frantic shouting and the roar of machine gun fire in the background.

"Burke, this is Perry. What's your status?"

"We're fucked, is our status. We're trapped in the Sergeants' mess and surrounded by T-1s. I've got two dead and two wounded. We're running out of ammo, not that it matters; our crappy rifles don't even dent the things! We need extraction ASAP."

"Did you manage to salvage anything from the base?" Perry asked.

"Who cares about salvage?" John snapped. "They're getting killed out there. We're going to get them."

"Don't ever presume to give me orders, kid." For a long moment John and Perry stared each other down. The piercing, ice cold gaze John gave to Perry was enough to chill him to the core. When he looked at John he saw the blank, thousand yard stare that only came to those who'd seen far too much in war; men who'd been taken prisoner and tortured for years in Vietnam, or men who'd served in the Balkans, peacekeeping, and had seen entire villages razed to the ground, their people raped and murdered, while they were helpless to intervene, and come back with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Those were the same kind of eyes boring into Perry from John's face.

"Davenport, assemble Alpha and Bravo squads from first platoon. I want them armed and ready to go in three minutes." Davenport called for the men Perry had listed to assemble at the blast doors while John and Cameron turned and marched towards the armoury, Davenport and Perry close behind. Inside the armoury, John and Cameron each took some webbing and an M-32 and started to load grenades when Perry came up behind them.

"What do you think you're doing with my ammo?"

"We're going," John replied as he picked up a bandolier of 40mm grenades.

"I don't think so," Perry smirked. "You've got no clue about T-1s, do you?"

"DARPA/CRS model T-1 unmanned antipersonnel combat vehicle; equipped with infrared and motion tracking sensor package; armed with M-61 auto cannons, standard magazine holds five thousand rounds." Perry stared, dumbfounded, as Cameron recited the basic facts of the T-1 model from her files. Davenport couldn't help grinning at his superior's gormless expression as Cameron put him in his place.

"Okay, so you know a little about T-1s -"

"And you know crap about Skynet," John countered. "You show up here with your tanks and your guns and your buzz cuts, and just assume you're in charge, without having a clue what it is we're really fighting! You can blow away as many T-1s as you like, it won't make a difference in the long run."

"Fine," he conceded, "you can come; maybe we can use you as bait or something. But you're not using those grenade launchers." John conceded that to Perry, arguing further would only mean delaying the help that Burke and his men desperately needed. The pair of them took their familiar Steyr AUG assault rifles that they'd used the day before, although John only took two magazines, saving the ammunition pouches for a half dozen spare 40mm grenades.

"He's a bit tetchy, sorry," Davenport sheepishly apologised for his commander as he loaded his own M-32 grenade launcher. "He's used to calling the shots, doesn't like the idea that someone else knows more than he does." John waved his apology away; it wasn't Davenport's fault that Perry was a complete dick. John knew that he'd have to prove himself to all of these soldiers before they'd accept him as their commander; he just hoped the captain's ego wouldn't get them all killed first.


"Stryker Two, come in." Perry's voice crackled into the earpiece of Davenport's radio, loud enough for John to hear clearly from his seat next to the 2nd lieutenant. Davenport didn't answer, his eyes were closed and his head lolled to one side, dead to the world. "Davenport, wake up!" Perry snapped. John wondered just how the man could fall asleep like that; the journey had been smooth so far and they'd not encountered any resistance from Skynet patrols or even so much as a pothole in the road, so Davenport had simply drifted away. John envied the man; unless Cameron was with him, John never had a moment's peaceful sleep. If they hadn't have slept in each others' arms last night, he realised, he'd have fallen victim to the obscene horrors of metal and chrome that his unconscious mind would undoubtedly conjure up to torture him. How the man to his left could sleep so easily after billions had been wiped from existence, John would never know.

He gently elbowed Davenport in the ribs, rousing him from his slumber. In a second, the lieutenant was wide awake.

"Perry's on the line," John pointed to his radio.

"Stryker Two to Stryker One, what's the situation?"

"Have a nice nap, Davenport?" Perry growled. "We're approaching Carson, ETA one minute."

John checked his rifle and equipment once more, making sure the weapon was loaded and all his grenades were in place, as everyone else but Cameron was doing – she didn't need to, with her flawless memory. She watched curiously as the others checked their weapons repeatedly and wondered if humans had some kind of memory impairment. She'd seen soldiers both in the future and in the present constantly checking their weapons. She would have to question John on the subject later; he always made time to explain these things to her.

Nobody inside the rear of the Strykers could see anything outside, but John could tell they'd run into resistance when the remote controlled M-19 on top of his vehicle fired a burst, followed by the booming of grenade explosions.

"What's going on?" John asked as he moved towards the front of the Stryker. He saw out the driver's viewing port four T-1s around a ruined building to their left, three of them firing into the structure, while the fourth had been peeled open by the M-19.

The private in the front seat shouted out excitedly as he fired another burst into the T-1 formation, again blasting one of the unmanned vehicles into scrap. "Hell, they're not so tough!"

The two remaining T-1s turned and fired at their vehicle as Perry's Stryker joined in the fire exchange. The UGV's rounds bounced harmlessly off the Strykers' hulls, while the grenade launchers tore Skynet's minions apart. John couldn't believe it would be that easy; after they'd had such a hard time against the Triple 8s the day before, he doubted any fight against the machines would go smoothly.

"Okay people, the T-1s are down." Perry once again began barking orders over the radio. "Alpha Squad, advance two hundred metres ahead to the Sergeants' mess, that's where our boys are holed up. Bravo Squad, check out the motor pool and armoury for anything we can salvage. Strykers One and Two will stay on station to support the recovery operation."

"Perry, wait," John replied on his own radio, "there's more of them out there. We should move the Strykers forward and -"

"Shut up, Connor; if there were any more, they'd be here. Both squads move out."

"He's going to get everyone killed," John muttered so softly that only Cameron could hear it. She simply looked at him and nodded in agreement. She didn't care if they all died as long as John survived, but she knew that he did care. So very different from the Future John who'd sent her back, she thought.

Bravo Squad, which included John, Cameron, and Davenport, split into two fire teams and searched the base for surviving equipment to take back to Cheyenne Mountain. John, Cameron, Davenport, and two other soldiers approached the armoury, marching through the destroyed base. From the ruined faces of buildings, impact craters lining the ground, and masses of bullet holes and shattered bodies, John realised the troops in the base must have put up one hell of a fight. Someone had gotten lucky and taken out a few T-1s here and there, but the number of human bodies laid bloodied and strewn on the ground far outnumbered that of Skynet's drones. John saw a pair of burnt out tanks outside an equally decimated building that looked like it had once been a storage hangar. The smell of burning fuel mixed with singed metal and cooked flesh made John's stomach rise up and threaten to spill over the floor. He looked at the tanks to take his mind off the stench, but what he saw didn't help in the slightest. The tanks had not just been burnt out; they'd been gutted, torn open with explosive force and incinerated from the inside.

"Perry, how's Alpha Squad coming with Burke's men?" John kept looking around, scanning for more drones. Something wasn't right, he couldn't explain it, but he seriously doubted that the unmanned units were all gone.

"Burke's got three wounded that need treatment before they can move. Have you found anything of value yet?"

"No," John answered. "We're not at the armoury yet. Perry, get Burke's men back to the Strykers and fall back. We should get out of here, now."

As if to confirm his suspicions, the private at the front of John's fire team turned a corner around the building opposite the armoury and was torn to shreds by dozens of rounds that ripped through his body, the man didn't even get a chance to scream before he was enfiladed. Cameron pulled John – right behind the now dead soldier – behind her and into a doorway as a T-1 rolled around the corner to search for more victims. Davenport and the other soldier, Private Sharpe, dived through a shattered window a spilt second before the T-1 opened fire once again; its rounds missing its targets by mere centimetres.

"Crap," Sharpe shouted out as he peeked out of the window. "There's more of them!" Three more T-1s emerged from where the first one had come, spread out in a semicircle and fired into the building, a wall of 7.62mm rounds hammered into the wall at chest level, piercing through the brick wall and shredding the interior of the room. Computer terminals and desks exploded as hundreds of rounds tore the room and its contents to pieces, forcing the four occupants to hug the ground for fear of getting hit – even Cameron, though her concern was covering John's body with her own to keep him safe.

"Captain," Davenport pressed for the captain on his radio. "We're pinned down in the admin block, opposite the armoury; we could do with some armour right about now."

"Roger that Davenport, Stryker Two is en route. Alpha Squad's under fire as well."

Cameron didn't bother waiting for armoured support; she peeked over the windowsill and fired a grenade into the nearest T-1, damaging but not disabling it. John fired his own M203 at another T-1 a second later, followed by a long burst from his rifle. He was still terrified and again felt the urge to duck down and hide or run away, but after the fight against the Triple 8s the day before, he'd seen what he was capable of, and remembered Cameron telling him that fear was a natural reaction. Cameron; she was what had kept him going during that fight, and he managed somehow to draw strength from her presence. He did his best to ignore the fear that was trying to encompass him, pushing it deep down. He loaded another grenade and fired again.

Davenport and Sharpe followed their example but found little opportunity to fire their grenade launchers as the T-1s responded with a devastating rain of fire into the building, the sheer weight of fire tore through the walls and gouged massive holes into the building, forcing everyone inside to stay prone on the ground. Some of the rounds went straight through the wall behind John and severed electrical cables and gas heating pipes; the sparks showered over the room and started several fires, which quickly started to spread, fuelled by the gas spewing out from the heating pipes in the wall.

Davenport was shouting something to John, but he couldn't hear anything between the roar of the T-1s' guns and the harsh ringing of the fire alarm that had now activated, adding its noise to the din. They were trapped between the T-1s and their unrelenting cannon bursts, and the fire that had spread in the room, making the temperature unbearably hot, billowing out smoke and starting to reduce visibility. John was again unsure of what to do; the room's only exit led to a door outside and would expose them to the T-1s if they tried to escape. They couldn't stay in the building for much longer either, the fire was spreading and they'd all be burned alive if they stayed where they were. It took a second for John to realise the T-1s bombardment had stopped. They couldn't all be out of ammunition, he knew. He looked to Cameron for answers.

"The fire confused their thermal imaging sensors, they can't see us," she explained. John took what felt like the biggest risk of his life and stood up, exposing himself to the T-1s field of fire, but ready to drop down in an instant. Cameron stood between John and what was left of the wall between them and the T-1s, trying to keep him out of their line of fire. He was making her job of protecting him extremely difficult; she'd rather he stayed in Cheyenne Mountain while Perry ran the rescue operation, but knew that John needed to prove himself to the others and take command when Perry would inevitably fail. They saw two of the eight foot tall machines a hundred feet away, guns swivelling and tracking for targets. Cameron pushed John behind her and stuck her head out of one of the huge holes the machines' weapons had made in the wall – big enough for a man to step through. She took note of all four T-1s' positions and then went back inside, kneeling down beside Davenport and Sharpe, who simply stared at the girl who'd just risked getting her head blown off by sticking it out of the window. The T-1s fired off random short bursts into the building, unable to distinguish the humans' heat signatures from the fire in the room, but their rate of fire had declined sharply with no clear targets to lock on to.

Davenport and Sharpe stared at Cameron, dumbstruck, as she snatched their grenade launchers from their hands. John slotted another grenade into his M203. "Stay here," she told him as she stepped through the hole and outside.

"Cameron!" John couldn't believe what she was doing; yes, the 7.62mm rounds were no real threat to her, but he couldn't bear the thought of what damage the T-1s cannons would do to her organic components and her perfect features, knowing she'd feel the pain of every single round that struck her. Not to mention the fact that if she were hit it would reveal what she was to everyone else. With Judgement Day still ringing in their ears and with Perry still in charge, Cameron wouldn't stand a chance; they'd have her destroyed on the spot.

The T-1s sensed her movement as she distanced herself from the flames and brought their guns around to bear on her. Cameron was much quicker to respond than either a human or any other machine, and rapidly fired off her M-32s one handed into the machines as she marched forward, before they could open up on her; first at the pair in front of her, and then she swung her arms out to the side and shot the ones at her left and right without even looking; three grenades into the 'head' of each machine, shattering their sensory packages and their CPUs.

"They're dead, we're safe." Cameron turned back to the others still inside the room. John barely resisted the urge to kiss her and slap some sense into her at the same time. He checked her for injuries and couldn't begin to describe his relief - and amazement - that she'd not been shot.

"What the hell?" Davenport said as he marched outside, coughing to get all the smoke out of his lungs. He'd watched as she'd wasted the four T-1s like they were nothing, she'd not even aimed at them as she'd fired. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but how the hell did you do that?" He had no idea who these two were, but they clearly weren't just a couple of kids, like Perry thought. They obviously knew what they were doing, but they freaked him the hell out.

"How about we go help the others, eh? We can explain later." John said as he took one of the M-32s from Cameron and loaded his spare grenades into the weapon, passing Davenport his AUG in exchange.

"Sure, tell you what; since you guys seem to know what you're doing, you lead and we'll follow."

"Okay," John replied, hefting the grenade launcher. "Where's the armoury from here? We'll need something bigger than these."


Once Perry gave the order for Stryker Two to roll out and support John and Davenport's squad, his own Stryker rolled forward to cover Alpha, who'd also been attacked and pinned down among the living quarters by T-1s that had seemingly emerged from nowhere, both sides exchanging murderous amounts of fire at each other. He'd never known the unmanned tanks to employ that kind of strategy before; in Afghanistan he'd seen the T-1s rush forward into heavily fortified Taliban strongholds in a full frontal assault, little or no flanking manoeuvres were used unless human controllers took charge. In fact, the T-1s used very few tactics at all; they weren't what Perry would call truly intelligent. They were semiautonomous, they could prioritise and engage numerous targets, navigate their way across a battlefield, and were programmed to fall back and send an automated support request to base if they were damaged in any way. What Perry was sure they absolutely could not do was to independently conduct an ambush, yet that was exactly what they were doing.

Stryker Two rolled forward to support Bravo Squad, but before it made a hundred yards it came face to face with a behemoth UGV. Almost twice the size of the T-1s, and with much larger tracks, it sported a sand coloured, heavily armoured hide and a pair of Hughes M230 30mm chain guns similar to those under the noses of AH-64 Apache helicopters. The T-2- the anti-armour big brother to the T-1, opened up on the Stryker with both its chain guns. The Stryker's armour fell apart like wet tissue paper under the weight of the massive antitank rounds and exploded, the once mighty vehicle was reduced to a burning pile of scrap metal. Neither crewman inside the cabin had managed to escape.

"Screw this," Perry ordered the driver to reverse and get as far away from the T-2 as possible. Perry sighed with relief as his Stryker rolled away and the tank killer didn't follow them, apparently intent on another target. "Davenport, you're on your own for now, Stryker two's just bought it. Watch out for T-2s, there's at least one on the base."

Stryker One circled around the living quarters to come in at an angle that would hopefully avoid engaging the T-2 and stopped opposite an abandoned fuel tanker on the side of the road. When he arrived he saw Alpha Squad pinned down inside a building next to the sergeants' mess by seven T-1s and another T-2, and unable to reach Burke's position. His men were armed with either M-32s or M4s with under barrel grenade launchers, and had the firepower to hold their own against T-1s, but there were so many of them and that T-2 tipped the scales heavily against them. Perry aimed the Stryker's M-19 at the larger drone and fired off a long burst while it was occupied with putting antitank rounds into Alpha Squads' positions. A dozen 40mm grenades hammered the massive tank killing vehicle and battered the chassis, as well as damaging the treads and rendering it immobile. One of the guns had been blown clean off, while the other one still turned and tracked the Stryker. The gun was either damaged, jammed, or the ammunition belt had been detached from the force of the grenade impacts, the massive cannon still aimed squarely at Perry's vehicle but stayed silent. The T-2 had managed to fire a short burst at Perry's vehicle in return; the large calibre rounds had missed the main body of the vehicle, its aim had likely been thrown off as the grenade salvo had hit, but one of the rounds had skimmed the top of the vehicle and connected with the remote launcher on top of the Stryker, tearing the weapon in half and rendering it useless.

With the T-2 out of the battle, Alpha squad's momentum increased and they started firing into the T-1s with renewed vigour as they advanced, taking out two more of the machines and spreading out to make it harder for the other UGVs to kill them all.

"Use the damaged drones as cover," Perry ordered the squad leader. "Their IFF systems will stop the others from firing on your position."

"No, don't," John replied on his radio as he approached from the armoury. Perry ignored John- he didn't need advice from a brat- and urged his men further forward. Half of Alpha Squad took cover behind the disabled T-2 and fired onto the other unmanned units. The remaining T-1s returned fire a hundred fold, rounds pinging off the armoured hide of the damaged unit and striking one of the men in the neck, almost severing his head. He dropped like a stone, blood spurting from his throat as he gurgled in agony in his last moments of life.

"I thought you said they wouldn't fire!" One of the men shouted as he fired off half his rifle magazine into the face of the offending T-1, to little effect. The first T-2 that had obliterated Stryker Two appeared and entered the battle, opening up on its disabled counterpart. Its 30mm rounds tore into the damaged T-2 and Alpha Squad, several of the men simply exploded as the massive rounds hit them, leaving nothing but red puddles and bits of scattered meat on the ground.

"Fuck this!" One soldier turned to run and was gunned down by more 30mm fire.

"Captain, we need support!"

Perry saw the T-2 turn towards him and sprinted out the back of the Stryker a split second before the heavy rounds penetrated the vehicle. The driver wasn't so lucky and fell to the ground as a round tore through the front of the personnel carrier and into his back. Perry was splattered with gore as blood and bits of various organs sprayed over him, painting his dark brown skin and green DPM uniform with a bright shade of crimson. Perry ran clear of the Stryker as the T-2 continued to hammer it with its cannons. As Perry cleared the vehicle, John and Cameron appeared, both armed to the teeth with the contents of the armoury. Perry was about to say something when John ignored him and marched past. Cameron simply shoved the captain out of the way, not even bothering to look at him.

John took in the battle in front of him; the destroyed Stryker, the damaged and deactivated T-1s mixed in with the mangled remains of most of Alpha Squad, and Sergeant Burke's position still inside the sergeants' mess and still pinned down by the unmanned drones. Perry had gotten them killed; that was clear to John, and he'd deal with it later, if and when they survived this ordeal. The last thing he noticed was the fuel tanker between them and the fighting. He fired off a grenade from his newly acquired M-32 at the rear of the vehicle, remembering how the fire back in the admin block had hidden them from the T-1s thermal imaging sensors. The grenade penetrated the thin metal of the tanker and ignited the fuel inside, setting the whole thing ablaze in a spectacular explosion.

Rather than stay away from T-1s and the inferno raging around the remains of the tanker, John and Cameron ran towards it and lay on the ground in front of the burning truck. Perry stayed where he was and watched them advance, fully expecting the T-1s to cut the pair down any second. Several of them, including the T-2, had weapons trained in their direction but weren't firing, confused by the heat from the explosion. John knelt and shouldered a Javelin rocket launcher and took a second to remember Davenport's brief instructions on how to use the thing, his hands shaking as he aimed and fired at the T-2. He thanked the powers that be that the Army made their weapons idiot proof and so easy to use. The rocket exploded from the tube in a deafening roar, making John wish he had ear defenders as his eardrums threatened to burst from the noise. The missile struck the machine in the 'chest' and shattered the armour around the impact, taking a chunk of its lower head off in the explosion; the force of the blast rocked the drone and threw its guns off target. At the same time, Davenport and Sharpe appeared and fired their own rockets into a pair of T-1s, scoring direct hits and knocking them out of the fight.

The T-2 might not have been able to see them; their heat signatures obscured by the flaming tanker behind them and its sensors damaged by John's Javelin shot, rendering it all but blind, but it knew it was under threat from their general direction and sprayed rounds towards the tanker. A storm of 30mm struck the tanker and caused further explosions, forcing John to hug the ground tightly. Cameron lay prone on the floor next to John – 30mm rounds would shred her hyper-alloyed frame just as easily as they would a human – and fired off a grenade at each of its cannons, severing the massive weapons from its body. It still searched for targets, the stubs that used to be auto cannons turning towards John and the remains of Alpha Squad, respectively. Unarmed and heavily damaged, but not dead yet, the T-2 rolled forward, seemingly intent on running over the soldiers as a last resort attack.

"These things just don't die," John sighed, exasperated as he and Cameron fired more grenades into the towering machine, pieces of it breaking off as each grenade hit. Its thick armour held up much better than its smaller counterparts, and even after John and Cameron had nearly emptied their M-32s into it, it was still rolling towards the remnants of Alpha squad, who were too preoccupied with the T-1s to do anything about the lumbering giant rolling towards them. John fired his last grenade into its head, blasting apart what left of its sensors and its CPU. It stopped rolling forward and remained still.

"Is it dead now?" John asked as he started to reload his grenade launcher.

"Yes, it's dead," Cameron answered without emotion, not bothering to correct him that they were never actually alive. She'd learned a while ago that humans tended to anthropomorphise machines; perhaps that was what led them down this path to their near extinction. It also raised the question of whether or not she was truly alive. She filed the question away to consider later and concentrated on reloading her own weapon. The way she spoke without any feeling still amazed John that she could be so warm to him one moment, and then put all feelings aside in an instant during a fight. What he didn't realise was that Cameron had noticed the exact same trait in him starting to appear.

With fire coming from John and Cameron, Burke's squad, Alpha Squad, and Davenport and Sharpe's rocket launchers, the remaining T-1s fell quickly under numerous hits, and before long all the UGVs had been eliminated. Out of nine members of Alpha Squad, three had survived the battle, and they hurried into the sergeants' mess to aid Burke and his men. John dropped his grenade launcher and marched towards Perry, who was busy giving orders to Davenport.

"Ah, Connor, I want you to-" John punched Perry in the face with every ounce of strength he had, fuelled further by the adrenaline coursing through his veins from the battle. Perry reeled back from the punch but stayed on his feet. He spat blood on the floor from his cut lip and pulled back his fist to take a swing at John, furious that this kid would dare hit him. Perry had at least thirty pounds on John and was likely much stronger, but all the lessons John had learned from sparring with Cameron kicked in and John moved out of the path of Perry's fist. Cameron approached as Perry tried again to hit John, ready to snap his neck if he so much as bruised her charge, but stopped as John easily dodged the blow then brought his knee up into Perry's balls, doubling the man over in pain.

"I fucking told you this would happen!" John screamed at Perry. Not caring that both Davenport and Sharpe were staring, as well as Burke and his men, who'd just emerged from their position in the ruined barracks.

"What?" Perry shouted back. "This is war kid, people die."

"You wasted almost an entire squad against that T-2!"

"How was I to know they'd ignore their IFF codes like that? They should have held fire."

"I told you before," John snarled. "Skynet controls them now. They don't give a crap about IFF or anything like that. If Skynet has to sacrifice one of its own to kill half a dozen of yours then it will. It doesn't care about its own machines, they can be replaced. Skynet's probably got factories already making more of them right now."

"I still don't get how you could know that, Connor. To be honest I think you're just full of shit."

"Actually, sir," Davenport stepped forward. "These two seem to know their stuff. They might be a bit crazy, especially her," he motioned to Cameron, remembering her taking out the four T-1s single handed. "But they knew what they were doing. I don't know how they hell Connor came up with that fuel truck stunt, but it worked. We'd probably all be dead right now if not for them."

"Davenport," Perry sneered, you're all of ten minutes older than these two."

"I don't get your point, sir."

"The point is that neither of you or they have spent fifteen years in the Army. Davenport, this is your first year after training; and you two have done what, JROTC at best?"

"Most commissioned officers reach the rank of Major within fifteen years, you must be deficient," Cameron flatly commented, earning a few chuckles from the other soldiers.

"Shut your traps!" Perry shouted at his men, he was losing his temper with these two; worse than that, he was losing face –and credibility- in front of his men. These two were making a mockery of him. "Why the hell should I listen to some college kid and his oddball girlfriend?"

"Because without us you'd still be driving circles around Colorado," John replied with even less emotion than Cameron. John and Perry stared each other down for a long moment while the others watched intently at the power struggle before them. Perry wanting to stay in command; John not wanting to, but seeing Perry's utter failure and knowing nobody else could rise up to the task.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Perry took a step towards John, completely losing his cool now. Cameron didn't need to run an analysis to see he was angry; she saw the veins in his temples popping out, indicating increased blood pressure and stress; his fists clenching, even his body language, which Cameron had learned to read a little over the years. Every sign indicated he was intent on a fight, and John was his target. Cameron barged past John towards Perry and grabbed the burly captain by the throat, pinning him against the wall and choking him.

"He is John Connor, leader of the resistance. And you are starting to irritate me." John could see the fear in Perry's eyes as Cameron held Perry and stared at him with her dead shark eyes and blank expression. He also saw the barely concealed amusement in the others at their commanding officer being overpowered by a girl who looked like she weighed no more than a hundred and five pounds. Davenport was trying his best to suppress a fit of laughter as Perry, one of the biggest hard asses in the division and two time Army boxing champion, was taken down a notch by a teenager. John motioned for Cameron to let Perry go. She released his throat and pushed him against the wall, allowing a look of pure disgust to appear on her face for a second before returning to its normal blankness.

"You still want to command, Perry?" John said. "Stay here and be in charge until your heart's content. I'm taking over at Cheyenne, since you obviously don't have a clue."

"Davenport," John turned to the 2nd Lieutenant. "We saw a few more Strykers in the motor pool on the way here, see if they're okay to use, and bring them over here if they are so we can get home." Davenport gave a two fingered salute and took Sharpe and the three survivors of Alpha Squad to check out the vehicles. Burke and his two uninjured men treated the three wounded soldiers on the ground while waiting for Davenport to get back with the vehicles.

They'd found three more Strykers to replace the two they'd lost; two field ambulance models and an NBC variant, which John knew would come in handy when searching for survivors in the radioactive ruins of nearby cities. They'd found and listed a whole heap of supplies; weapons, ammunition, fuel, food and medical supplies, and more vehicles – mainly Humvees- but there was too much to take in one trip, and John's first priority was the wounded. John would send a larger force – a well armed force- later on to secure the supplies at the base and establish a supply line from Fort Carson to Cheyenne. They loaded everyone up into the three Strykers and headed back to the mountain. Everyone inside the vehicles was elated to have made it out alive, but also mourning for their lost comrades. Twenty two men had taken part in the rescue mission; eight had survived, plus the six survivors from Burke's squad. Despite rescuing most of Burke's men, and responsibility for most of their losses placed solely on Perry, John still felt like a total failure.


Back inside Cheyenne Mountain the surviving soldiers all headed for the mess hall, apart from the wounded who were taken to the infirmary to be treated by Charlie and the company medics. John left Derek in charge for the night while he and Cameron retreated to their quarters, away from everyone else. When they were alone John started shaking like a leaf. The adrenaline had seeped from him once again and the shock of the battle was wearing in, leaving him a nervous wreck. He felt ashamed of himself for not being able to do more to save the rest of them. The blame lay with Perry; there was no doubt about that. But he couldn't help but think that if he'd asserted himself more, managed to take command from the beginning, that their deaths might have been avoided. Once again he felt like he did when the T-1000 and Cromartie had killed so many to get to him, that he was responsible for their deaths.

He was on the verge of tears, wanted so desperately to just open up and let it all out, but he couldn't. He knew he'd have to push it all down, suppress it so it wouldn't affect him on the battlefield. Perry was right about one thing; people died in war, especially this one. Millions, perhaps even a billion or two more would die over the coming years. He'd be able to do very little to help them. Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, would die under his command. He knew he'd have to harden himself, make himself numb to the death and suffering that had and was happening all around them, and would continue to happen for years to come. He'd have to bury it all as deep as he could, until he felt no more than the machines he would wage war on. That part of his destiny was by far the worst, the part he'd feared the most.

"You're upset," Cameron sat next to him and wrapped her arm around him, a mixture of craving physical contact – which she still couldn't explain fully- and a desire to comfort John.

"I can't do this, Cam. How do I know I won't just get people killed, like Perry did?"

"People die in combat, it's inevitable." Cameron didn't realise that she'd just mirrored Perry's earlier words, and John turned away in disgust. It was a fact of war, Cameron knew, and she knew that John would have to accept it. Though part of her wanted him to be able to accept losses, since they would inevitably happen in their thousands, if not more, over the years; she also didn't want John to become numb to it. Even Cameron had learned to value human life; she'd felt sad when Sarah Connor had died, even if only because it had upset John, she'd still felt it.

"That doesn't help, Cam," John snapped as the tears finally started to flow. It wasn't Cameron's fault, he knew. She was just trying to help. She just wasn't very good at pep talks. He could see her struggling to come up with the right thing to say, for her, it was a big effort. Though he was glad she still tried, even if she didn't do a very good job of it.

"So I'm just supposed to accept it? Ignore it? I guess that's what I do in the future, right? Bottle it all up; push it down until I can't feel it anymore, until I don't care. I don't want to be that guy, Cam. I don't want to not care."

"You could write a note," Cameron offered, reaching into her bag and taking out the leather bound notebook John had bought as a present. That was what John had told her to do when someone died; write a note for them. John took the notebook and paused for a moment, not knowing what to write, if he should at all. He opened it up to a fresh page, ignoring whatever she had written – respecting her privacy, even if she had no understanding of the concept. He took her pen in one hand and wrote two words before handing it back to her. I'm sorry.

Cameron saw what he'd written and took a moment to replay several memories from her past/future, of her and Future John. The John Connor from 2027 had been so cold and seemed so callous when he'd sent thousands to their deaths, unlike John now, who had started to cry. He'd never seemed to feel either joy or sorrow, not a single emotion she'd been able to recognise. Future John Connor was a machine in every definition, simply one of organic construction. She wanted John to become the leader he could be, but not to become as cold as his future self. Now she had started to develop emotions she saw the world differently to how she had done before, felt much more freedom than she'd been afforded in the past/future, and had no desire for either herself or John to return to that black and white state.

She had something akin to an epiphany at that moment. Remembering her and John discussing her unknown second mission two nights before, she now realised what her other mission was. Future John had sent her back not just to protect him; but to change him, to prevent him from becoming the cold, unfeeling automaton that he was in 2027, to spare his younger self the same fate. It was a mission she'd gladly undertake.

Instead of saying any of this to him she pulled him closer and kissed him. Pressing her body against his and pulling him down onto the bed. John allowed himself to be pulled down, and closed his eyes as he kissed her back, running his hands through her hair and up her back as the kiss became more intense.

"I know what you're doing," he said. She looked at him in confusion. "You're trying to distract me, take my mind off Fort Carson."

"I'm sorry," Cameron felt slightly hurt that John dismissed her as trying to seduce him, as a simple distraction technique, as something a mere machine might do.

"Don't be," he replied, "I appreciate it." He smiled and kissed her again, more passionately this time, and pulled her closer, allowing her to take him away from the already heavy burden of his newly acquired leadership and into their own little piece of heaven.


A/N: Hope you all enjoyed it, next chapter could be a while as well, as I'm going on holiday next saturday for a week and probably wont have time to write and post another one. Please do review and let me know what you think.