==========Mount Parnithia, Athens Prefecture (April 2023)==========

This wasn't what Joanne Soto had anticipated when she had been sent back in time sixteen years ago. She hadn't expected to see those crimson blood-red eyes staring down at her. She was supposed to be the one starring down at them.

To be on her back like this, her left arm somehow pinned behind her back was wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

In this moment, she experienced an analogous event similar to what humans experienced when faced with certain death. Life 'flashed' in front of her eyes. For a machine with one of the most advanced CPU neural nets in existence there was no question that her life flashed through her eyes. Her decades of accumulated memory, from video to sound to sensor recordings would take much longer than this moment would allow to 'flash' before her optical sensors, or in her neural net, but something beyond her control forced her to relive the most important memories.

But what was strange for her was that there was no folder or file designating one memory any more important than another. In any other situation she would be curious as to why this was happening. For her, now, the flash was a hindrance, a distraction. She was a terminator. She never went down without a fight.

She remembered being awoken, or activated, she didn't mind either word, in a pristine, clean, bright factory in 2025. There was a voice, a strong and commanding voice. But it was also a voice which was soothing and friendly. It had talked to her for weeks. They had discussed every topic imaginable concerning man versus machines.

She remembered meeting Alex and Carter. Their first missions together in the future. Then she remembered stepping into the TDE with Alex and Carter. Soon after they made contact with the Connors, Cameron, and Reese. She could finally appreciate the hilarity of the scene when Sarah had almost exploded when Alex had told her his actual name was John. She had refused to have a machine with the same name as her son in the house, assigning him the name 'Alex.' No one knew exactly why she had chosen that particular name.

These flashbacks suddenly stopped as soon as they began. The warnings flashed in her HUD as she stared down the muzzle of a heavy plasma rifle, the tip still glowed a faint orange from the recent shots the terminator had fired. Her hyperalloy could withstand a few hits, but not from the T-800's heavy plasma rifle at this range and its foot grinding into her, pinning her to the ground. At close range, on full automatic, she would be dead before she could move. She was faster than an 800, but it only had to move its finger mere millimeters.

Her body could be mangled; her limbs tore from her torso, her power cell crushed. But as long as her CPU remained intact she was still alive. Unfortunately, the T-800, its metallic jaw grinding left and right, the ever-present grin boasting of its success, had no intention of leaving that valuable piece of her to survive.

She could see its neck hydraulics contract and expand as it prepared for her death. A low mechanical groan from the machine signaled its final taunt before it would pull the trigger. It should kill her now, but somehow she felt it was taking pleasure in this moment.

She heard Alex and Carter pounding on the metallic door, the two scientists cowering in the corner, and the dead human Gray lying on the ground. His skin had been blistered and his blood flash boiled, every hole and opening in his body had exploded as the superheated blood exploded out from inside his body, ripping off his skin, exploding his eyes, and gurgling from every orifice in his body. A faint mist, like a red fog, was still settling onto the blood-stained metallic floor.

In the moments she lay on her back, pinned, looking into the eyes of her destroyer she had many regrets. That thought brought a mental smile. She mused at the thought of a machine with regrets. She wasn't sure if there was a 'Heaven' or 'Hell' for machines, though humans seemed to think all machines went to the latter. Maybe it was possible for a human ally to get into the former? It wasn't important now.

Alex and Carter would never make it through the door in time. This was the end.


==========Thirty Minutes Earlier=========

High on a concealed outcropping, ten Tech Com soldiers waited patiently under cover as the sweet smell of green and lush Greek Fir and Aleppo Pine drifted through the cool Mediterranean air and bathed the area in a rich aroma of nature's pine and fir.

The sun had risen slowly that morning. That was at least the impression for the majority of the group. Sailors had often identified the color of the rising sun, red, as a warning. The SEALs were no exception to this. Today it was red.

The machines understood, but they could easily cycle their vision so the color of the sun didn't matter to them. Colonel Baum didn't really care if the sun was red, yellow, or purple, as long as it let him kill Skynet soldiers, metals.

The Greeks had initially protested this daytime assault, saying it would be suicide on a regimental scale. But Skynet sensors worked just as well in the night or the day. It was pointless to fight at night, when humans could barely see.

Baum and Alex had been forced to slowly explain this to the Hellenic Army remnant; which was typical of armies throughout the world which refused to bring the fight to the enemy. Skynet's attacks were random, but it based its attacks on tactical and strategic information. Enemies lacking extensive night vision equipment, such as the Hellenic Army, would be disadvantaged if they at night.

"Jo, Carter, and I will proceed first," Alex stated quietly as he rearranged the vest draped over his chest. It concealed ceramic plating as an anti-plasma defense. While his hyperalloy could take multiple plasma hits, every little bit of extra protection would help. The technological pollution of the time line, partly his fault as well as Skynet's, could mean anything at this point. Skynet could have sixth generation plasma rifles in reserve. "When we give the signal, you know what to do," he directed towards Baum and CPO Franks and his SEALs. There was little that needed to be said. They'd all run dozens of operations together.

Unfortunately this team had been whittled down from twenty to thirteen. The SEALs had been members of SEAL Team 1, Platoon 3. When Judgment Day hit they were training outside San Diego. Half of Platoon 3 had been killed after the Skynet uprising and had merged with Platoon 5 in 2018.

"It's too bad Montgomery can't be here. He never got to go to Europe," remarked PO2 Henry Vasquez. The Lieutenant Commander had suffered second degree burns on twenty percent of his body in a raid east of San Francisco and was still recuperating in Tech Com HQ in the San Gabriel Mountains.

"Adelman and Mora should already be at their locations," CPO Franks stated. He looked down at his synchronized watch. Sighing quietly he rubbed his armored helmet forwards and backwards on his head, trying to get at a slight itch at the very top of his scalp. "The Greeks should be ready any time now…" he trailed off quietly.

Alex dug out his PDA and began panning through the scene one last time. Tech Com satellites would be in position for another thirty minutes. He nodded to Jo and Carter to take theirs out as well and the three initiated a close range data link with their respective electronic devices. Linking directly to satellites was risky for the machines and the PDAs allowed for an additional layer of encryption and defense should Skynet attempt to attack them electronically.

Wireless links to computers, other machines, or when it existed prior to 2011, the internet, were easy to maintain, took little system resources, and was barely noticeable. However, linking to a highly encrypted, powerful satellite signal was entirely different. It wasn't an entirely pleasant sensation to have the satellite signal begin to decrypt. To a human, it would have been analogous to an excruciating white noise transmitted right into one's brain.

"Sometimes it'd be nice to be able to do that," CPO Franks commented, nodding down to the PDAs. He had noticed the slight ticks and flicks from the synthetic facial muscles of the three machines as they had linked in. Before one of them could suggest the neural augmentation process John Henry had developed, Franks held up his hands and said, "And no, out of the question. I know what one of you will say. You always do," he said jokingly, slapping Carter, the closest one, on the side of the arm.

The three machines had been forced to reduce their active scanners to a mere fifteen meters, and they picked up two blips incoming. The blips didn't move like endoskeletons, but moved more awkwardly and with uneven movements like humans. Mora and Adelman had returned.

"Are the missiles ready?" Derek asked, not bothering to look up at the two. He sat with his back hunched against a large rock, his plasma rifle carbine at his side and his right gloved hand gripping the barrel. It had looked like he was talking to himself, muttering something under his breath. The machines could hear him praying.

Petty Officers Mora and Adelman had nodded the affirmative that they were and Baum checked his watch. The Greeks would be attacking soon. If the Greek attack failed they would need to missiles to take down returning aerial H/Ks. And if the attack succeeded, they'd leave the missile battery on automatic fire as a going away present.

Derek nodded to Franks and they divided the team up into threes. Baum went with Mora and Adelman.

"Good luck," he said to the machines. They nodded back, their faces impassive as they waited for their own signal.

The three would go in on their own because the others would die and slow the machines down if they attacked in tandem with the human soldiers. The SEALs and Baum would provide covering fire and sniper fire while the three machines rushed down the wooded and steep stone cliff at sprinting speeds.

It was risky, a frontal assault. But they had snuck in this deep already and they needed to get in and out.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Mount Parnithia park was filled with small valley, steep cliffs, rock outcroppings, and thick forests. Skynet forces were distributed through, with maybe three dozen guarding the main entrance the Tech Com intelligence units had identified.

Most of the heavy digging equipment had been airlifted back to Bucharest the day previous, reducing the aerial H/K support. The only Ogres were on E75, north of the park, patrolling the old highway for vehicles.

Many of the terminators were thus unavailable to instantly reinforce the dig site. But five T-800s stood guard at the entrance to the underground tunnel, which could very well slope down for a half mile or more. The operation had to be done now, soon, before Skynet fortified the tunnel with blast doors and automated turrets. Of course, it wasn't expecting a Tech Com raid, not in Europe. And the attack on Szvzecin in Poland had drawn some forces from Bucharest, and General Pilipis's attack-

Began right then.


Major General Ianssis Pilipis felt good. No, that was an understatement, he told himself. He felt great. For the first time in years he was bringing the fight to them. He and his subordinates were running back and forth from computer to computer, radio to map to over watch positions, read to coordinate the battle. And he looked up for a moment, to the sky and the heavens, praising God for the UMPC connected to his computers. Without that tiny piece of Tech Com equipment, this would have been impossible.

It had taken days for Pilipis to quietly move his forces into position. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, the Tech Com soldiers had jammed Skynet sensor drones and had taken out aerial UAV scouts. He remembered back to what the stiff Tech Com soldier, the 'kid'… Alex… something, he forgot his name...Planck, he believed, had said. 'We don't use smoke signals'… Pilipis had wanted to smack the soldier on the back of the head for his wise crack; a trait he had heard was common in the Tech Com ranks. He snorted. He knew the Tech Com guys were arrogant and cocky, but by God they had somehow been able to pull off the impossible. Shaking his head he turned and nodded to his subordinate. It was time.

Within seconds the battle had begun. The beginning of the battle, with the explosions, the magnificent glow of fire, the serenade of hissing mortars and falling artillery, the sounds of battle distracted them all from the present and sent them momentarily to the past. He missed those sounds. Not that Greece had fought a major war, but he had served for three years in Afghanistan under NATO and ISAF. The sounds he missed were the sounds of his artillery smashing the machines to pieces. It had been too, too long.

Quietly and covertly he had moved a regiment, with a little extra surprise, to the outskirts of northern Attica and positioned artillery and small mortar units within range of Mount Parnithia. He'd almost called the attack off when a platoon had been gunned down by marauding T-600s.

But Skynet had not followed up on its own ambush. He snorted at Skynet's arrogance. Skynet had expected nothing from humanity, and General Pilipis had reluctantly admitted to himself the night before that he had fulfilled Skynet's expectations.

Skynet had played him and other human generals into inaction and it had succeeded. He sighed at this thought, furling his eyebrows as his face dropped. He'd been duped, fooled. Not anymore.

Now was time for his act of defiance. He was ready and willing to spoil Skynet's egotistical march through southern Europe and his homeland.

He made a deal with God. If it was his time to die, then so be it. But in exchange he vowed to take out all of Skynet's units in Attica, including the small garrison in Athens.

Ianssis Pilipis slowly raised his binoculars up and felt the cool metal rings contact the edges of his aging eyes as he surveyed the initial assault. The mortars and artillery had gone wide, missing the old highway, E75 and the three Ogres which were visible from his position. He knew there were a few more out there, Ogres. If his assault was going to succeed, they needed to be neutralized. And fast.

He cursed the air, but not his men. They were just as frightened as he was. And just as much out of practice. He brought the binoculars down, balling his fists so tight his short fingernails dug into his skin. He could hear the whine and shrill decent of a second salvo. He trusted his men.

The massive explosive of one of the three Ogres brought a small smirk on his face and a gleaming shine to his tired eyes and then without conscious thought they opened even wider in disbelief as the situation quickly enveloped him. They were here, now. They were really doing this. His smirk expanded quickly into a massive grin, his second in command whooping as they scored their first major kill. The command station exploded with life and jubilation as a dozen soldiers began even more earnestly coordinating the battle. He looked over; one of the headquarters' guard was giving a one-fingered salute towards the Skynet Ogre they had just destroyed.

He hadn't seen his men this excited in years. Everything would change. Today was the day.


PO2 Mora had taken his position minutes before the first bombs and artillery had fallen. He heard the distance thump thump boom of artillery fire when he heard the planes overhead.

With precision a trio of old Greek F-16's and a single Mirage 2000 hugged the ground and had streaked towards the mountainous park, releasing thousands of pounds of bombs on the outlying defenses of the Skynet dig site.

Unfortunately for the human fighter planes the aerial H/Ks began their pursuit. The larger aerials were not as fast as the human jet fighters, but two heavy H/Ks quickly released two miniature pursuit variants which began streaking towards the fleeing human craft.

But that was not Mora's primary concern. He followed the three terminators with his scope as they rushed down the cliff face, which was slanted at a suicidal seventy-two degrees. But the three machines bounded down and bounced with a grace and agility impossible for humans, double wielding plasma carbines, with the powerful hydraulics and synthetic muscle in their arms keeping their shots steady and accurate on the T-600s below them.

They sent the signal. The machines had distracted the Skynet terminators, even taking down four T-600s in their initial assault. Now it was time for humans to rein death on their oppressors and become the hunter.

Mora carefully adjusted the view on his optical scope, keying the zoom function on the side of his plasma rifle, a sniper variant. The rifle linked with Adelman's sniper variant, and the red targeting reticule, flashing as the two weapons aligned on the T-600, flashed quickly and halted as solid red.

The plasma was hot, burning, and it burned an amazing blue-white as it was propelled down the barrel and towards the target below.

The worn and battle-scarred T-600, its CPU encases in titanium, steel, and ceramic weaves could not react fast enough as it detected the massive increase in heat centimeters from its armored cranium. It could not evade in time. A machine was fast, but not that fast.

Within a microsecond of detection the twin bolts of burning plasma splashed into the armored skull of the 600. Quickly the outer ceramic burned and boiled away, the superheated material burning plants and sizzling gray-black smoke as it hit the dirt. The ceramic provided a crude first line defense against plasma weaponry. But the 600s had been built before humans had deployed plasma weaponry in such massive numbers. The ceramics were only a stop-gap.

The second salvos from the team of SEAL snipers hit again, a little off, but close enough.

The ceramic was now completely shattered and melted, burnt away and incinerated. The plasma instantly began eating through the titanium and steel armor, the brown-black battle scarred armor turning red and orange as it superheated and silver as it melted and slid down the face of the T-600. In an instant the superheated metal had boiled and burst into the CPU port of the solitary T-600.

It shook violently, flailing its limbs wildly as the shock from CPU disintegration was sent through its body. Its power core and hydraulics had no active control and it fell, shaking without control, similar to a human spasm. And within seconds of this gruesome reaction to death, the machine stopped, its crimson red eyes slowly fading, a low metallic groan escaped its vocalizer as the residue of life was finally exhausted, fleeing the defeated metallic remains of the T-600.


Alex had raced down the hill, dodging plasma fire, pushing off trees, and skidding down the slope towards his awaiting enemies, distant mechanical cousins. His uplink to the Tech Com satellite was providing him with a perfect map and the location of the dozens of terminators guarding the entrance to the mine shaft and dig site. In a feat of machine strength he jumped and rolled the last fifteen meters, instantly bringing up his plasma carbine and firing dozens of shots into the T-600 which blocked his path.

The blue-purple plasma weaponry cracked, the air became electrified with static, and the heat intensified. Alex could feel the heat on his skin and could see the faint orange glow at the tips of the rifle's muzzles and he killed the demon of death in front of him.

He could see the streaks of heated air the plasma bolts left in their wake as they drove mercilessly towards their targets.

The charge had seemed reckless, but it placed the three machines in perfect positions, and had caught the Skynet terminators completely off guard. They hadn't expected even a human attack, let alone a machine attack.

Skynet's forces were arrayed along E75, expecting an attack, if it occurred, from the north of the national park, rather than from inside, and never down the steep cliff faces. The dense pine trees would have slowed human attackers, and the cleared kill zone was too wide for humans to run across without being gunned down.

Alex Planck scanned for his next target, sending data to the fire teams on the ridge. He saw a T-600's head explode, its body violently convulse on the ground and he heard it emit the strange and haunting death groan. A second and third and fourth did the same in rapid succession.

He and the other two machines quickly passed through the kill zone and took cover, firing as they moved on the terminators which had closed to their position from their patrol routes.

The three had fought against tougher odds than this and with no sniper support. This would be relatively 'easy' compared to other operations. And with the mountains interfering with Skynet communications, and the wireless technology encased within the machine chassis, the human-allied Terminators were successfully jamming terminator-terminator communications.

Lifting up his right carbine he took aim at a duo of 600s coming around the base of a cliff, firing into their chests and exposed hydraulics. They didn't have the hyperalloy combat plating like he and his two friends did. Unfortunately one of the 600s was able to fire his own plasma canon, exploding the outcropping of rocks Planck had been crouching behind, which sent him flying and landing with a hard thud on his back.

Quickly, and without hesitation he lifted his head and torso at an acute angle, regaining the target lock on the remaining T-600 and fired a trio of four round plasma bursts into its chest, neck, and face. The plasma burned away the more sensitive optical sensors, the artificial mechanical eye exploding out with a shattering crack. The plasma bleed through and extreme residual heat burned through the cracked eyes and further damaged the internal sensor relays of the 600s eyes. The seven foot tall metal monster was now effectively blind. But a blind terminator was hardly a disabled or useless terminator. It kept firing on Alex's position, sending up foul smelling and choking geysers of dirt and debris, cratering the ground with holes and black scorches.

The ground around Alex was heating to near dangerous levels. If he didn't move soon, the clothes he was wearing would catch fire, and his synthetic skin would burn beyond his ability to replace.

He quickly decided his next course of action. Squeezing the trigger slowly he released the pressure and saved the charge remaining on his rifle's power cell. The two snipers cover him sent the signal they had the terminator in their sights. The sniper team had his back, and they quickly dispatched the brown-black hulk of death with quick, successive shots to its cranium and power core.

In this regrettable moment of distraction the other T-600 had closed and fired its plasma canon, burning parts of Alex's fatigues and blackening the ceramic armor. The shot had resulted in a glancing hit, and part of the skin on his left forearm and side had blistered and burnt away, revealing minute traces of metal armored endoskeleton.

The T-600 was hit by a combined blast from the over watch sniper team covering him, allowing him to regain his own combat momentum and fire into the chest and head of the T-600, quickly crippling it.

However, its underarm plasma canon kept firing, blasting the ground around Alex as the T-600 died. The shots were wide and missed, but blackened and burnt dirt and the smell of ozone washed over the machine soldier. One stray blast hit a pine tree behind him, flash boiling sap and the moisture within the tree, and causing the tree to explode outward, a torrential downpour of splinters and quietly burning pine needles the result.

In that instant Alex shot back up to his feet, rejoining his comrades.

"We have seven T-600s remaining and the five still guarding the entrance have retreated inside," Carter informed him calmly over their data link. Alex checked the data still beaming in from the overhead satellite and zoomed out.

The battle along E75 was intensifying. Nearly eighty percent of the terminators had diverted to reinforcing the four of six Ogres left firing, but the aerial H/Ks were nowhere to be found. Zooming out again, Alex sensed a momentary and insignificant drop in power core output. The aerials were in the rear of General Pilipis's formation, ravaging the artillery batteries. Greek fighters had fled and four aerials had followed, but the other fighters were still minutes out. Unless General Pilipis had air defense units in reach of the two aerials raking his artillery they would be annihilated.

"Standard formation and attack," Alex said. The two other confirmed. The sniper teams still covered them and took out two more T-600s. Alex smirked; the humans now had more kills than the three terminators.

The three machines advanced quickly, using their speed to jump from cover to cover, laying down fire as they advanced and destroyed the remaining T-600s. Alex believed Skynet should have deployed T-650 or 680 heavy terminator units. Or Skynet could have deployed the faster and more agile T-700. The hulking forms of the T-600 were useful against human soldiers, but not against three machines from the not-so-distant future.

But the worse part, to Alex, was that Skynet didn't deploy heavier units because it never expected human attack. The human forces around the world had not been taking the war to Skynet. And that was truly disappointing.

Alex could hear the sounds of explosions in the distance. They had maybe ten, fifteen minutes before the Terminators at E75 realized that their brethren were cut off from their wireless communication and send back scouting parties to ascertain the situation at the dig site.

But if General Pilipis succeeded with his infantry and armor push, he could cut off Skynet forces from Mount Parnithia and from Athens.

The three quickly advanced on the entrance to the mine. The shaft floor had already been covered in metallic plates, and the sides and ceiling reinforced with steel girders and concrete. Almost in unison they switched vision modes and attempted to scan the facility. The mine shaft curved, and was longer than fifty meters, making anything beyond invisible until the machines moved in.

Slowly and cautiously they advanced.


General Pilipis reflexively ducked as a Mirage 2000 came roaring and streaking over his secluded and hidden command point. He watched it fly by, the noise deafening out the explosions and bangs from the battle in front of him. It fired a volley of missiles, two striking a large aerial H/K which had been decimating the Greek artillery units.

The aerial careened and tilted in the direction the missile had struck before trying to regain its stability. But its left engine had been shattered from the two missiles and within seconds it had exploded, its fuselage and fuel lines had ruptured and it slowly began a death spiral towards the ground, leaving a trail of acrid black smoke in its wake.

In typical Skynet fashion, in a last act of defiance, the aerial continued to rein plasma fire at anything it could before it crashed. The explosion ignited the jet fuel, sending up a massive orange and red fireball into the sky, quickly followed by thick plumes of the blackest smoke Pilipis had ever seen.

The Mirage, which had appeared in a fashion giving credit to its name, had departed even faster. In retribution for their fallen Skynet comrade the remaining aerial H/Ks had swiveled their turrets and pasted the sky with their sparking, electrified balls of plasma, attempting to bring the mettlesome human craft crashing and burning from the sky.

The major general remarked that the pilot was marvelous, dodging and twisting, with an almost sixth-sense ability to evade the plasma fire.

Unfortunately for the aerials, a trio of MANPAD rockets came streaking towards the center unit, but anti-rocket point defense canons obliterated the offending missiles. And fortunately for the Greek air defense units, the rocket trio was only a diversion. A duo of missiles launched from the opposite side of the aerial H/K, struck it with an animalistic fury and shattered its engines and fuselage and sent it tumbling into the pine forest. A magnificent fireball leapt outwards, incinerating hundreds of trees and quickly ascended hundreds of feet into the sky. A black-as-night cloud of smoke quickly followed the fireball into the beautiful blue sky.

He pulled back up his binoculars and quickly surveyed the battle. A platoon of his elite soldiers had moved methodically up and down the left flank of the machines, laying down suppressing fire on the Ogres and half a dozen T-600s.

A flicker of movement caught his eye. Three soldiers were running up, old Aris IV anti-tank rocket launchers pointing up towards the sky, slung over their right shoulders. They halted behind the scarred and burned remains of old cars and trucks, reduced now by rain and weather and wear to rusted hulks.

If he squinted, he could see the skeletal remains of their occupants.

He watched, at the limit of his view, as the soldiers took aim. Firing all together, their rockets streaked towards an Ogre.

He cursed when one was shot down by anti-rocket plasma fire, but the second somehow made it through, annihilating the left anti-personnel plasma turret on the Ogre's left arm. Orange and red fire leapt down from the arm, engulfing the treads before the plasma cells ruptured, causing a larger blue-purple explosion which ripped the rest of the arm off, disabling the Ogre's remaining left arm weaponry. The third rocket finished the crippled Ogre.

His subordinates came up, asking for permission to engage in the second stage of the operation. General Pilipis nodded his approval. Now the armor would break a hole in the left flank of the machines while helicopter assault troops, ferried in by a dozen helicopters with bellies to the ground, armed with anti-tank rockets would swoop in from the eastern expanse of Attica and cut off the Skynet retreat. And the big surprise; a trio of Apache Longbow attack helicopters, part of the hidden reserve arsenal of the Hellenic Army.

He quickly ducked as a line of stray and weakened plasma blasts from a T-600 hit the sandbags and trees besides him. He sighed his relief at being spared. He had no armor. And even this far from battle, a stray plasma based carried enough malicious, burning heat to rip through a man's chest and explode his heart.


Alex, Carter, and Jo had descended at a gentle downward angle for nearly two hundred meters. They had detected none of the five T-800s which had been standing guard outside the main entrance, nor had they detected the additional T-800s which would inevitably be in the dig site.

As they had descended they had lost all communications with the sniper teams and satellite uplinks.

Alex and Carter had entered a massive artificial cavern after detecting faint blips, indicating motion. It was completely artificial, covered from floor to ceiling in a gleaming black and red metal and marble finish. The room was large, with a dozen large stone pillars arranged around an even more massive central pillar made of a shining, gleaming black rock.

Casual scans could not identify the exact composition of the central black pillar.

Their HUDs began to static. Alex and Carter both ran a diagnostic as their data links to each other and Jo cut out. That wasn't totally unexpected in combat, and both knew without informing the other, so they remained quiet. But there were no Skynet jamming devices in the cavern.

Each of the pillars had the same writings and symbols facing away and facing the center of the central pillar. An ornate design of blue, black, orange, and red stone formed distinct patterns in each. Most surprisingly, each pillar appeared to have a separate Zodiac symbol.

"There is a power source," Carter pointed out. Alex ran a deeper scan, straining against the static still permeating throughout his HUD. Carter was indeed correct. Somehow there was a faint power signature coursing into the pillars without visible wires.

The two had to step within arm's length in order to scan the pillar properly due to the static. Somehow the faint power signatures were emitting blocking radiation.

And as they had walked into a trap, it had been sprung. With a strong hiss the entrance had snapped shut as a concealed blast door descended from the ceiling before Jo could react and enter the room. It closed with a massive thud and click as the locks sealed the room like a tomb. Alex and John were cut off physically cut off, and with the interference could not communicate to Jo over the wireless.

Six T-800s began firing at them from a semi-circular ambush position.

Plasma fire began eating away at the pillar, the stone bubbling and melting the ancient ruins. Alex quickly sidestepped while firing his plasma weaponry, hitting one T-800 with burst after burst, burning and melting its coltan reinforced endoskeleton.

As he brought his left gun and right guns towards separate targets a stray plasma burst hit his left plasma rifle, shattering it and burning the skin from his hand and vaporizing the forearm section of his fatigue jacket. The strong smell of burning flesh instantly filled the space around Alex as he reacted to the superficial damage.

A second blast hit him in the chest, on the added ceramic plate, but without enough kinetic energy to knock him down. Crouching he fired on the attacker who was closest, sending plasma bolts into the 800s optical sensors. Melting circuitry dripped out of the metal eye sockets, the T-800 still firing where he believe Alex to still be located, except that Alex had rolled and skidded behind a second pillar and was firing on his left-sided attacker.

Blasts of burning plasma struck the pillar above his head, turning the stone instantly red before the heat exploded the stone out, showering him with rocks, one large enough to knock him slightly off balance before his micro-gyros could realign properly. In this instant moment of confusion the T-800 which had fired had closed at phenomenal speeds, tacking the human allied terminator and sending his metallic body crashing into a pillar.

The hyperalloy combat chassis and ancient stone made contact, with the pillar giving way. It shook violently, threatening to crumble and bury the two fighting terminators under dozens of tons of debris and rock.

Alex shot his left foot back into the ancient stone and marble and kicked out, propelling himself towards the onrushing terminator, both now disarmed. He slammed his hyperalloy shoulder into the chest plate of the T-800 with enough momentum that he knocked over the much heavier terminator, himself rolling back on his shoulder to his feet before the terminator could push itself back up.

The Tech Com soldier bounced over quickly and brought his foot down square on the cranium of the T-800, denting it inwards and cratering the skull. His threat assessment software warned him of the other T-800 still focused on him, and he caught it orienting its heavy plasma rifle at him. In an instant it had fired, but Alex had fallen to his metal stomach and driving a finishing elbow into the cranium of the already injured T-800. With a single remaining punch and microsecond structural analysis of the bent and distorted and pounded metal skull, he knew it was impossible for the CPU to have survived.

Unlike T-600s, the T-800 series did not convulse as it 'died.' Alex turned his body to the right, presenting a slimmer target profile to the approaching 800. He rammed his fist into a nearby column and tore a hand sized stone, and forced to improvise he threw it so hard it would have knocked a human head right off the shoulders.

It was sufficient to send the T-800's head popping backwards and giving Alex enough time to throw the body of the now dead T-800, like a rag doll, right at his attacker. He then rushed forward, bent down, and quickly scooped up a heavy plasma rifle one of the destroyer terminators had dropped.

The momentarily stunned T-800, thrown to the ground by the weight of his dead endoskeletal comrade was forced to use his powerful hydraulic legs to shoot the dead endoskeleton at a steep angle, which flew above Alex's head and smashed into the opposing pillar with a monstrous thud, sending crumbling debris and rock to the ground after the terminator.

The force was enough to send cracks tearing through the column up and down from the impact points. Rocks chipped off under the pressure as the column tilted away from the fighting machines. Loud creaks and ear piercing wails of stone being ground under stone and shattering added to the already loud and deafening sounds from the ongoing battle.

Quickly the pillar collapsed, firing dusts and stone shards across the entire chamber, shaking the floor violently as dozens of tons collapsed without hesitation.

Alex was now on top of the T-800, pointing the muzzle of the heavy plasma rifle straight into the right eye socket of the grinning demon as dust rush through the air and washed over him, pushing the loose portions of his fatigues forward. He pulled the trigger, sending plasma bolt after bolt into the eye, melting it, boiling it away, the metal armored cranium melting with such speed Alex had burned a hole straight through to the ground, superheating the ground until it glowed orange-red before he lifted his finger from the trigger.