A/N: It took longer than I hoped, but here's chapter 7. I hope you enjoy it. for anyone who doesn't already know; FOX have ordered two more scripts written for TSCC Season 2 (episodes 14 and 15) While this is great news, we want MORE. We need to show FOX that there are a lot of people out there who want to see the full 'back nine' episodes, and a third season, at least. Everyone who reads this please write to FOX and show your support for TSCC!
June 22nd 2011
John stretched his arms and legs as he left the briefing room after a long discussion with Perry, Ellison, and Davenport over the state of their supplies, and headed for the small storage room Cameron had set up as an impromptu workshop. He was ashamed to admit he'd nearly fallen asleep during the briefing, it had been so dull. He'd come to learn over the two months since Judgement Day that being the leader of the human resistance wasn't all gunfights and thrilling heroics.
They had plenty of ammunition from Fort Carson, so much in fact that most of it had to be cached on the ruined base because they simply didn't have the room at Cheyenne Mountain – which had never been intended to house combat troops. Food was aplenty for now; there were enough tinned, dried, and frozen supplies in the base to feed a whole division. Ironically, they'd had too much in the way of food, and most of the fresh and frozen foods they couldn't fit in Cheyenne Mountain's walk in freezers had been left to spoil. Much of the non perishable foods and field rations that couldn't fit into Cheyenne had been cached in Fort Carson along with the ammunition, and John had established a squad to guard it and maintain the supply line. He'd also established a permanent rapid reaction force of twenty men and the two Bradley M3s to respond to any threat to either Cheyenne Mountain or Fort Carson, which could be ready to deploy in under five minutes.
Fuel was a bigger concern; while they had plenty of it at Fort Carson as well as food and ammunition, what they on the abandoned base was all there was for now. Sending the fuel trucks to resupply proved dangerous, as the tankers were unarmed and needed escorts everywhere they went. Usually the tanks and other vehicles would simply refuel at Fort Carson before heading out on patrols - a safer, although less efficient and more time consuming alternative. John had decided to start sending out scavenging parties to hunt the surrounding areas for intact supplies, as well as to start rationing meals to make what they had last longer.
Logistics really wasn't his strongest suite, John realised, and he decided he'd have to appoint a quartermaster to take stock of their supplies. Meanwhile, he had over half a dozen mission reports from various recon patrols to go over; a large, fairly disorganised looking stack of papers tucked under his arm.
John opened the door to Cameron's 'workshop' and walked past the vast rows of shelving until he saw her, sat at a table with her back turned to him, tinkering with something. As quietly as he could he crept up behind her - despite knowing she could probably hear him anyway - until he was inches from her. He slowly wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek as she melted into him and stopped working on whatever it was she was doing.
"Hey, what're you up to?" John asked, recognising the spare Terminator parts on the table.
"Adapting the T-Triple 8 power cells to power the base when the generators run out of fuel," she budged off her seat to make room for him and sat down on his lap. John winced at first until she shifted her weight slightly to make it more comfortable for him. Weighing just over two hundred pounds meant she didn't exactly crush him, but she had to be careful about spreading her weight out evenly, as they'd found out on several occasions during their 'alone time.'
"Did you do that in the future, too?"
"No, but it seemed like something I should do now. Without power you won't be able to talk to other resistance units." John took a good look at her work and her schematic drawings, not understanding any of it.
"Forget 'Tin Miss'," John said, "I think 'Genius' is a better nickname for you."
"I have many nicknames," Cameron replied, leaning back into John.
"Like what?" John enquired.
"Lieutenant Davenport called me 'Macguyver' after I created the first batch of thermite rounds. Most of the soldiers call me 'Freak.'"
"Just ignore them," John took her hand in his, "though I can see the 'Macguyver' thing; you are pretty inventive, Cam." He pushed the pile of mission reports on the table and leaned back, sliding his hands over Cameron's and lacing their fingers together.
"Are those the mission reports?" Cameron asked him, making conversation.
"Yeah, I haven't gone over them yet because I had to have that logistics meeting with, and I haven't found anywhere quiet to read them. I swear Cam, I didn't realise being a general meant so much homework; it's like high school all over again." Cameron smiled, remembering how bad at homework John was back then, and how she used to do it all for him. She'd refuse now if he asked; now it was something he needed to do for himself.
"You could use your office," Cameron suggested helpfully; not that she wanted him to go. She still took every opportunity to be alone with him, even if they were just working.
"I've got an office?" John asked, incredulous. "Why am I just finding this out now?" He'd been 'General Connor' for just over two months; eight weeks of leading the soldiers of Cheyenne Mountain and organising resistance across the world, and he swore nobody had told him about any office. He was fine where he was for now, he'd go hunting for his elusive office later. Really, he just wanted to spend some time with Cameron while he worked, even though they'd probably not get much work done if they were alone together.
John noticed something on the table that definitely wasn't anything to do with her work. "Where'd you get that?" John pointed at a broken, grimy looking Rubik's cube. Several of the coloured pieces were either broken or missing, and there were cracks running down one side.
"One of the soldiers found it." Cameron answered as she took the cube in question and tried to twist and turn it. "It's problematic," she said as she narrowed her eyes at the toy.
"Yeah, it looks pretty beaten up," John replied, looking closer. Several of the coloured squares had fallen off completely, and Cameron couldn't twist several parts without breaking them, which it looked to John like she already had. It struck John as odd that a super intelligent AI, even a sentient one like Cameron, could have trouble with a Rubik's cube. "Have you ever done one of those before, Cam?"
"No. I've never seen one before."
"Well, you're doing better than I ever did. I always gave up after a few minutes. How long have you been playing with it?"
"Eighteen hours and fifty four minutes, over three days," she replied, taking the cube off the desk and playing with it once more. She'd probably deigned her sleep mode in favour of playing with the Rubik's cube; John knew she'd obsess over the cube until she solved it, which he judged would be impossible, looking at the state of it. She had tendencies to play and fiddle with things like that; he remembered back at their house in Colorado Springs she'd developed a preference for puzzles or games that involved putting things together or taking them apart. Simple, childish games that John had grown out of years ago, but Cameron found fascinating.
Cameron stared at it with burning intensity as she tried to twist the top layer left to find it stuck halfway through its rotation. John watched silently with interest as she twisted it the other way, and it became stuck again. She tried turning centre column downwards, hoping to loosen the top layer at the same time, but put too much strength into the move and frowned as the cube shattered, squares flew all over the table and floor. She stared at the pieces scattered on the table with an expression John read as confused and very upset. Anyone else would find it strange that emotionally, she was like a child at times; but John knew she was still developing and tried to help encourage her growth in any way he could.
"Don't worry Cam; I once threw one of those things against a wall and smashed it because I couldn't do it." Cameron pouted, clearly frustrated at not being able to solve the cube. "Besides, I can think of something even more fun than that. I locked the door on the way in." He winked at her as he lightly stroked her thigh with his fingers and kissed his way up her neck. It took a moment for her to get the hint, but Cameron got up off John, turned around and sat on the edge of the table, pulling John closer and into a deep, passionate kiss. John decided the mission reports could wait.
Twenty minutes later Cameron left the room to put the spare Terminator parts back in their quarters, while John picked up the broken pieces of the Rubik's cube and put them into a small bag for safekeeping and quickly glanced over the reports to get the gist of them. Before John could find Cameron again, he ran into Perry.
"Connor, Major Baum's just brought his patrol back. He said they found something big."
"Okay, tell Derek we'll debrief in a few minutes, and get Davenport, Grant, and Ellison here as well."
Perry nodded, not bothering to verbally reply. The infantry captain had come to accept John's leadership and followed his orders to the letter, but still made no secret of his opinions of John - or Cameron, for that matter. Perry seemed to have very little patience with Cameron, especially; probably due to the fact that she'd humiliated him in Fort Carson by pinning him against a wall and making him seem weak in front of his men. Since then he'd snapped at her whenever she'd had to ask him for anything. The man had anger issues to rival Derek's, John thought. He hated Cameron now; John dreaded to think what Perry would do when he found out what Cameron really was.
Perry wasn't the only one who looked strangely at Cameron. John had heard all the rumours flying around about him and her; they'd speculated about everything from the nature of their relationship to how and why they knew exactly how to fight Skynet. He particularly liked the one that he and Cameron were actually CIA or some other shady government agency that likely had a hand in Skynet's creation. Others were convinced that Cameron and Derek were father and daughter; a rumour that pissed off Derek to no end, and made John chuckle for that reason alone.
John allowed the rumours to fly around; it gave something to take the men's minds off the daily worries of Skynet and fighting the machines. He supposed that in the years to come, some of those rumours would add to his 'legendary' status as a 'hero' and 'saviour'- something he loathed but knew would be necessary to keep morale high during the worst years of the war, when all would seem lost.
He walked back to his quarters and saw Cameron sat stock still on the bed, staring at the wall and looking deep in contemplation.
"Derek's back," John said as he put the pieces of Rubik's cube into a drawer.
"He spat at me," Cameron replied. John sighed as he sat down next to her. Would Derek ever accept her? He wondered.
"What did you say to him?"
"I said 'hello Derek, I hope your patrol went well', then he spat in my face."
"Did you do anything back?" John asked her.
"No, he didn't attack me."
John shook his head and closed his eyes. "You're disappointed with me?" Cameron asked, turning to him.
"Not you. Derek; I was hoping he'd come around eventually. I don't get why he hates you so much." John still hadn't found out why Derek hated Cameron so passionately; he doubted it was just because she was a Terminator. He guessed she'd probably done something horrible to him in the future, but with her memory wiped by his future self, she had no recollection and Derek simply refused to talk about it. John just wished Derek could at least see that Cameron now was a world away from the machine his future self had sent back to him four years ago.
"I don't care what Derek thinks," Cameron said simply. Anyone else's opinion of her was irrelevant; as long as they didn't threaten John or come between the pair of them, what they did, said, or thought was of no concern to her.
"Do you care what anyone thinks of you?" John asked.
"Just you."
"That's it?" Cameron nodded. "What about what you think?"
"I don't understand," Cameron cocked her head in confusion.
"Well, don't take this the wrong way Cam, but whenever you're upset you tend to start with 'I'm just a machine;' like you don't matter because you're made of metal instead of bone. I don't want you even thinking like that anymore, okay?"
"Okay." She didn't quite understand his meaning; she was a machine, even if she had emotions it didn't change what she was. But she'd do it for him. She didn't get it, but if it was important to John, then it was important to her too.
"Good." John hated the crap Cameron had to put up with and sincerely hoped she really didn't care what Derek said to her. He pulled her closer and decided just to lay with her for a moment, closing his eyes and simply taking a moment just to relax together.
In the briefing room, John sat down at the head of the large oak table that dominated the room. Cameron to his right, Derek sat at John's left, as far from Cameron as he could get. Perry, Davenport, Grant, and Ellison sat around the table, waiting for he briefing to start. All the highest ranking members of the resistance were present; a good Job there's no Terminator here right now, John mused, and then chided himself for tempting fate like that.
"You said 'a few minutes' half an hour ago," Perry said impatiently.
"I'm so sorry," John replied with more than a hint of sarcasm. "I completely forgot it's almost lunchtime. I'll try my best not to keep you long; I know how cranky you get when you're hungry." The captain frowned at the chuckles around the table; Connor had a talent for embarrassing him like that.
Lieutenant Grant started the debriefing off. While Derek had been scouting Aurora, Grant had had three separate squads from 2nd Platoon out searching other likely sites for Skynet activity and had found several small factories that had started churning out T-1s, T-2s, and UCAVs, plus reports of similar finds from smaller resistance units dotted around the state.
"We found an airfield; Buckley Air Force Base, just outside Aurora," Derek started. "Skynet UCAVs; looked like sixty plus, at least. The whole base is automated now, and T-1 patrols around the perimeter stretch out for about three miles." Derek had drawn on a sheet of paper the layout of the base and went over in detail all the defences they'd spotted, and the best angles of attack.
"What about Aurora itself," John asked, "any survivors?"
"No, everyone's fucked," Derek answered. "The city's intact but everyone's dead."
"Chemical weapons; probably mustard or nerve gas," Cameron replied as Derek simply glared at her, annoyed at the cold, clinical way she spoke. "Skynet would capture rather than destroy the airfields; it's easier than building new ones." John guessed as well that Skynet wouldn't have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out every city on Earth anyway, and chemical weapons were probably its second wave of attack; wiping out the human populace while keeping their infrastructure intact for Skynet to use.
"Some day I want to know how you know all this," Perry frowned. John ignored him; sometimes he was tempted to tell them everything, but doubted they were ready to hear it. Maybe they'll never be ready, he thought.
A plan was already forming in John's mind; the base had to be destroyed, obviously. Taking out Skynet's aircraft would make fighting the T1-s and 2s on the ground a lot easier, and they'd be able to resume daylight operations without constant fear of air attack. John laid out his plan to the group in front of him: he'd lead an attack on the airfield while Grant and Derek would lead similar missions on factories to serve as a distraction. They'd attack first; their assaults would no doubt be met with air support from Buckley AFB, which would be shot down by Stinger teams lying in ambush between the various raids and the airfield, leaving fewer aircraft to defend the base from John's force.
Perry supported the idea but balked when John refused to use armoured support against the airbase.
"What's the damn point of having the tanks if we're not going to use them, Connor?"
"I won't use them. Armour against air support? We won't stand a chance." Perry conceded the point to John. "Derek and Grant can take the tanks, we'll stick with the Humvees; keep light, fast and mobile." Although Cameron agreed with him, she'd feel much better if John stayed back from the battle; observing inside a Bradley or Stryker, a mile away from the fighting, or better yet, directing the mission from inside Cheyenne Mountain. But she knew he was adamant about leading this mission himself.
It had gone past protecting him; she'd created various scenarios in her head and knew if John died she'd likely become catatonic and freeze on the spot, replaying memories of her and John over and over until her power cells depleted or she was destroyed. There would be nothing for her if John died; everything she'd become through him would die as well, and she'd be nothing. She could never convince him to stay, so the next best course of action available was to accompany him and keep him out of harm's way as much as possible.
"Derek and Grant; take two squads each and split the tanks and Bradleys between you. I'll take half of 1st Platoon. We'll leave just after last light. Perry, hold the fort while we're gone." With that, John called the briefing to an end and started to make his own preparations for the mission. He'd leave Ellison in charge and Perry would remain on the base to lead the rapid reaction force in case they were needed. He ignored Perry's irate glare at being left behind yet again."
The Terminator watched as the human convoy approached the airfield. It knew they were planning to attack the facility and destroy as many of Skynet's aircraft as possible in order to keep Skynet from having total air supremacy. It even knew that if they were successful, Skynet's position in the state of Colorado would be severely compromised, placing the humans here on an almost equal footing with Skynet, whose units would be more vulnerable without air support. It knew all of this, and yet it didn't care.
What else it knew, was that there was a significant probability that John Connor was inside one of the four armoured Humvees approaching the perimeter. The T-888 knew the significance of the airfield, knew Skynet's dominance in the region would be crippled if the airfield were destroyed or even captured, yet it was willing to sacrifice as many machines as possible to destroy John Connor; the one human Skynet truly feared. It would allow the humans to enter and lay waste to the airfield. It would do whatever it took to Terminate John Connor.
John Connor, like Skynet, was thorough and meticulous. He would ensure every single aerial unit was destroyed before he would return home. In doing so, the T-888 predicted John Connor's actions and created its own plan accordingly. It would hide itself where its target would certainly come, and wait until John Connor had all but won the battle, when he would let his guard down. That would be the moment when John Connor would be terminated.
John lay silent on the ground, staring intently at the airfield through the night sight on his AUG. Cameron lay next to him, not needing any such night vision equipment with her advanced eyesight, but still going through the motions to blend in with the others. John suppressed a grin at the trouble he'd had in Aurora trying to avoid Cameron. They'd arrived at the city well ahead of schedule and John had led a quick reconnaissance mission to see if they could find any supplies to tag for a salvage team to retrieve later. The reason he'd wanted to avoid Cameron was because of an idea he'd had while driving through the seemingly deserted city, avoiding the hundreds of bloated, putrid corpses that lined the streets; the unfortunate victims of Skynet's chemical attacks.
John had gone off alone with Davenport, marching down the city centre and into a toy store, remembering what had happened with Cameron in her workshop earlier. He'd not found what he'd been looking for but instead took a pair of paintbrushes, half a dozen small tins of brightly coloured paints, and a tube of glue. Davenport had questioned what they were doing there, but John had simply told the lieutenant to trust him. Davenport had given him an odd look but said nothing more, knowing there was always some kind of method to his commander's madness that others couldn't always see.
Now as he lay still, controlling his breathing, he listened in on his radio for signs that Derek's and Lieutenant Grant's platoons were in position. He was surprised they'd met such little resistance on the way to the base; two of the sixteen men taking part in this mission were equipped with Barrett M82 .50 calibre sniper rifles, and had picked off the T-1s patrolling around the base with ease; armour piercing rounds penetrating through their 'heads' and through to the relatively primitive CPUs.
He gently squeezed Cameron's arm to get her attention and smiled when she turned to face him. She returned his smile, but with less enthusiasm than he'd hoped for. She wasn't happy about him wandering off without her, more so that he wouldn't tell her what he'd been up to. Even though she made no obvious signs that she was upset, John knew her well enough to pick it up. She'd understand later, he knew. He'd tell her what he was up to, but not yet.
Through the night sight he saw rows of UCAVs lined up on at one end of the runway, and he guessed even more sheltered inside the hangars. John saw that Derek's estimate of sixty aircraft was way off; there looked like a hundred at least, of all varieties. John counted over fifty X-47 Pegasus aircraft, plus a small squadron of unmanned Aurora hypersonic bombers, and dozens of X-52 Hunter Killer UCAVs, referred to by Derek as 'Mini HKs.' They stood out among the other aircraft; easily defined by the vectored thrust engines sticking out from their wingtips and crude, almost insect-like appearance. The HK's and Aurora's were top priority, as well as the runway, John decided. HK's needed no runway to take off and were the biggest immediate threat to them; as well as the Auroras that were probably carrying chemical weapons in their bomb bays.
According to Cameron, they were the ancestors to the dreaded HK patrol aircraft that ruled the skies in the future and hunted down any humans stupid or unlucky enough to be caught out in the open. John guessed that at least some of the unmanned aircraft were loaded with bombs full of nerve or mustard gas to use on whatever few human populations remained. If they took out the airfield now, he realised, not only would they cripple Skynet's air power in Colorado, but they could potentially save thousands of lives.
"John, its Ellison." The former special agent's voice rang clear through his radio earpiece as he maintained communications between all the units taking part in the operation. "First and Second Platoon are in position and standing by, as are the Stinger teams you requested. Jessica Morgan reports her unit in Denver is standing by to attack Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport."
John couldn't help but grin slightly as Cameron, who'd heard the entire transmission, narrowed her eyes at the mere mention of Jessica Morgan, who was currently leading a similar operation to John's airfield attack, on a small airport north of Denver. He was flattered at Cameron's seething jealousy, and knew that if the blonde woman ever so much as looked at John wrong again, Cameron wouldn't hesitate to rip her head off. The former Denver cop turned fighter, although resourceful and efficient, had annoyed John to the extent he wasn't sure he'd even try to stop Cameron if she did.
"James, tell all units to commence attack and Stinger teams to stand by. We'll light it up here when the Mini HKs take off." Ellison didn't reply, and John didn't wait for him to. John counted off in his head. One minute went past, then another. He tried to picture Derek's tanks and Bradleys rolling around and blasting the factories six ways from Sunday, joined in by rocket and mortar fire coming from their fire support squads, and coming up against T-1s and T-2s that were hopefully outmatched by the speed and ferocity of their attacks.
Four minutes went by until the first Mini HKs took off, flying in groups of four towards the various battles raging miles away.
"James, tell the Stinger teams they've got incoming; ETA five minutes." John turned his attention back to the airfield in front of him and switched his radio frequency to speak to the two squads with him now and told his mortar team to aim for the runway; everyone else would begin their attack as the first mortar rounds struck the runway.
In the silent night air, the hollow whoosh as the mortars left their tubes was easily audible, and followed a few seconds later by a massive explosion as the first round fell wide of the runway and instead smashed into an Aurora bomber.
John leapt to his feet and ran towards the perimeter fence; beaten to it by one of the Humvees that drove straight through the wire, the mounted .50 calibre machine gun barked loudly as the gunner fired a storm of lead into a row of Mini HKs. Cameron beside him, John ran forward past the shattered fence and into the base itself, then hit the floor as T-1s emerged from storage hangars to engage the human attackers. Both John and Cameron readied their M203s and each put a grenade into the UGVs before they could fire a single round.
John looked around for a moment and saw the two other fire teams had advanced into the base as well, followed up by a second and third Humvee; the gunners fired relentlessly at approaching T-1 drones as they rushed to defend the airfield. John wasn't taking any chances of another Fort Carson incident happening again; every other man was equipped with an M-32, and those who weren't had either M4s with under slung grenade launchers or M240 machine guns, with enough ammunition to fight a small war. Every single soldier taking part also had a 66mm LAW disposable rocket launcher as well. Over half of which were fired off at UCAVs and T-1s in the first ten seconds of the attack; streaking across the airfield and smashing into their various targets with devastating effect. Speed and aggression were the basic principles of this attack.
"Alpha Team, take out the UCAVs and hangars," John shouted through his radio to be heard over the roar of .50 calibre gunfire from the nearby Humvee as it sped past to engage more T-1 drones. "Bravo Team, destroy the control tower and fuel depot; Charlie Team, you're on fire support. Engage and destroy the T-1s." John ran forward ahead of Cameron, who easily caught up but was somewhat annoyed at John rushing ahead, stopping her from protecting him, if even for a split second. Far from feeling any fear now, like in the two previous battles he'd fought, he felt a rush of adrenaline surge into him. He wasn't scared, he was excited, buzzed. All that time spent cooped up in the mountain had left him relishing a fight like this.
Both John and Cameron joined Alpha Team as they pushed forwards towards the runway. Already, UCAVs were taxiing for takeoff at the far end of the runway, as HK aircraft took off vertically and were shot down by the fire support team's Stinger missile before they could turn to engage John's ground forces. The mortar rounds fell onto rows of unmanned aircraft parked on the left hand side of the runway, opposite the hangars. A series of massive explosions off to the right caught John's attention as two of Bravo Team's LAW rockets erupted from their tubes and streaked into the airfield's fuel depot, igniting the jet fuel inside the massive tanks and causing an inferno so intense John could feel the heat from several hundred metres away.
More T-1s rolled out of the hangars as John approached, he dropped to one knee and fired off several bursts of automatic fire at the drone as it powered up its miniguns. John's fired was joined by Cameron's, and together their concentrated fire tore through its armour and shredded the critical systems inside, rendering it harmless.
"'Macguyver's' about right," John grinned at Cameron. "These thermite rounds really do the trick." Cameron beamed with pride for an instant but said nothing. Instead she tackled John to the ground as more T-1s emerged and opened fire, their opening salvo cut through the air where John had been a split second ago. Before either of them could even think about returning fire the pair of UGVs, a rapid series of grenade shots struck the offending machines and simply blew their armoured torsos apart.
"Who's, your, daddy!" Davenport screamed as he emptied his M32 into John's would be killers, clearly having the time of his life.
"Connor, enemy UCAV preparing to take off, we don't have a clear shot," the voice of the fire support team leader sounded on John's radio. John had been too distracted by the T-1s trying to kill him to notice the large shape of an Aurora bomber starting to accelerate down the runway. Both John and Cameron opened up with their rifles as the bomber hurtled towards them; thermite rounds gouging deep holes into the aircraft but not stopping it. They simultaneously triggered their grenade launchers; the 40mm explosive rounds struck the UCAV's nose and tore the landing gear from the fuselage, causing the Aurora to skid to a halt in the middle of the runway, less than fifty feet from them. Destroying that one Aurora left all other aircraft – except the HKs – useless and vulnerable, as the flaming wreck of the bomber blocked the runway and prevented any other UCAVs from taking off. But John wasn't yet satisfied.
As more rockets hurtled upwards from either Bravo or Charlie Team and obliterated the control tower, John, Cameron, and Alpha Team split up to destroy the aircraft inside the hangars, leaving those outside to Charlie Team and the mortars and rockets from the fire support team at the base perimeter. There were three large hangars that lined one side of the runway; each looked large enough to house a squadron of UCAVs at least. John ran towards the nearest one as Cameron turned back to fire on another group of T-1s that seemed to come from nowhere.
"John, wait!" Cameron called out, almost desperately. She couldn't protect him in the hangar and fight the UGVs at the same time. She was finding John's new attitude in battle annoying; yes John was being very brave and daring, and his actions now would inspire the troops later on, but he was also being reckless and taking unnecessary risks with his life. John either ignored or failed to hear her plea, she didn't know which. She ducked, dived, and rolled to avoid their sustained bursts of fire, then emptied her magazine into the head of one T-1 and took the other out with her grenade launcher.
She quickly reloaded as she ran towards the hangar John had entered, desperate to catch up with and protect him, but was pinned down by fire from the massive form of a T-2 approaching from the space between two hangars. Cameron kept low to the ground and fired her thermite rounds at the machine, which did little to pierce the thicker armour. Unable to move without being torn apart by a storm of 30mm cannon rounds, her salvation came from a pair of Javelin rockets launched by Delta Team, providing fire support. The two rockets ploughed into the top half of the drone, shattering its head and sensor systems. Without further delay, Cameron rushed after John.
John looked inside and saw four more Aurora bombers parked inside, being tended to by dozens of small, semi autonomous service drones that rolled back and forth with weapons and replacement parts for the bombers, ignoring John as they worked. The sheer size of the UCAVs, much larger than the other ones, was enough to tell John they needed to be destroyed. Cameron had told him the Aurora bombers had been key Skynet assets in the past of her timeline, and flew fast enough that no missile could ever shoot them down. John also knew they were probably used to drop the chemical weapons over the few remaining cities and towns left, sentencing it's victims to gruesome and torturous deaths.
He quickly shouldered his LAW, took aim at the furthest Aurora and fired, the rocket took less than half a second to impact the bomber and the concussion from the blast almost knocked John off his feet. He dropped the spent launcher and brought his rifle to bear in the same motion, firing a grenade from the under slung launcher into another bomber. He shifted his aim and hosed down another UCAV with 5.56mm thermite rounds until his rifle clicked empty, ignoring the further concussions of secondary explosions as either the fuel or weapons inside the first destroyed bomber ignited and caused spectacular secondary explosions that tore into the frames of the other planes and sent shrapnel flying in all directions. John smiled at his handiwork; none of those planes would ever fly again.
As he turned to leave the hangar, movement among the flames caught his eye. He spun around just in time to see the imposing shape of an all too familiar Terminator emerge from its hiding place inside the weapons bay of one of the lesser damaged Auroras. The eyes shone bright red through the false blue irises and blonde hair seemed to glow before the backdrop of flames behind it, as if it had just emerged from the very fires of hell to claim him. Its face was a grim, emotionless mask of death and pain. The face that haunted his nightmares far more than the various faces and shapes of the T-1000 ever had.
"Cromartie," John whispered, not quite believing what he saw in front of him. He'd never thought Cromartie would have found him here, the last he'd seen of his Triple 8 nemesis had been in LA when the murderous machine had killed Sarah. He'd never know that Cromartie had calculated that John would attack the airfield and had been lying in ambush for days. John fumbled with a fresh magazine, eager to scrap the Triple 8 that had slaughtered his mom, as Cromartie fired off a burst from his assault rifle. John fell to the ground and writhed in pain as the rounds hit his torso, he could hardly breathe and for a moment he saw stars. It took every ounce of strength John had to lift his head up to look at his attacker. He wished he hadn't have bothered; he looked up only to discover the last thing his eyes would ever see was Cromartie lining up his assault rifle to blow his head off.
Cameron burst through into the hangar before Cromartie could deliver the killing shot and fired a burst from her own rifle at the Triple 8; thermite tipped rounds bit deep into Cromartie's coltan armoured chassis as Cameron charged the larger Terminator. She punched and kicked wildly at him as she felt an anger build up inside her that she'd never before experienced and vented her white hot rage, battering Cromartie with everything she had as her eyes glowed a piercing bright blue. She was stronger, faster, smarter, and more agile than her adversary.
She launched a rapid fire volley of punches into Cromartie's face, striking with such force that the skin was flayed from the metal skull in several places. Cromartie managed to block her last punch and slammed his head into her face, forcing her head back as he sent a vicious kick to Cameron's midsection, forcing her to the ground. She rolled to the side in time to avoid Cromartie's heavy, booted foot stamping down on her face, and quickly jumped back up to her feet. Cromartie lunged at her and threw a fist towards Cameron's head. She easily dodged the blow, grabbed the Triple 8's arm and spun around, using Cromartie's inertia to throw him into the flaming wreck of the Aurora bombers.
Wasting no more time, she picked up her Steyr AUG and emptied the magazine into the spot where she had thrown Cromartie, followed up by grenade from the under slung M203. The inferno raging inside the hangar had become so intense that Cameron didn't know if she'd managed to hit Cromartie with any of her shots. The flames obscured both her vision and her motion tracking senses. She calculated an eighty nine percent chance that Cromartie had been destroyed. The fact the nothing came out of the flames to attack her or John seemed to confirm her calculations, and she decided the threat from Cromartie was gone; for now, at least.
Cameron dragged John further away from the spreading flames, to the mouth of the hangar entrance, and dropped to her knees to assess John's wounds; tearing open the coltan reinforced flak jacket as tears flowed freely from her eyes. She'd been livid before, both at Cromartie's attack on John, and for John's recklessness, but any feelings of anger were quickly replaced by fear as John lay bleeding on the ground. This was why she'd wanted him to stay back in Cheyenne Mountain, or at least not run off without her like he had. Most of the shots weren't too bad; the coltan in the jacket had worked wonders. The bullet impacts had knocked the wind out of him, and he'd have little more than bruised ribs from most of the hits. One round, however, had struck the jacket's zipper and penetrated right through his stomach.
Cromartie had gotten extremely lucky with his shot; the round had struck such a small weakness in the jacket and punched through John's stomach. Cameron didn't need to scan John to see he was in bad shape; he was losing a lot of blood and was barely conscious.
John at first hadn't felt the high velocity rounds hit him, but a few moments after he fell, the shock wore off and he felt like his stomach had been shredded and cried out in agony. Cameron couldn't bear to see him in pain and ripped a morphine injector from around John's neck, jabbed the needle into his thigh and watched as the powerful painkiller started to kick in within seconds, visibly relaxing him to the point where he no longer screamed out in pain.
"John?" Cameron whimpered. Fearing he was dead, she ran another scan and found his pulse was erratic, but still there. She struggled but barely managed to pull herself together; she knew that it would take time for a human shot in the stomach to bleed to death, but that cold logic had failed her in an instant when she saw her love gunned down. She needed to suppress her feelings and concentrate on saving John.
"Man down in hangar three, I need a medic." She spoke into her radio, her voice not betraying a single ounce of the fear she felt as she wrapped a field dressing around John's stomach. The exit wound was smaller than it could have been, no doubt helped by the flak jacket. Within seconds the field dressing was saturated with John's blood. She threw it away and grabbed another, wrapping it tightly around him. She couldn't suppress all her emotion, no matter how hard she tried; the same thought kept running through her head. Please don't die, I need you John. Please don't die!
"Hey Cam," John smiled at her as he forced his eyes to open, despite the overwhelming sense of fatigue that came over him; a result of both blood loss and the morphine surging through his veins. "Where's Cromartie?"
"Gone," she replied.
"Did you kick his ass?"
"No, that isn't a Triple 8's weak..." it took her moment to remember what that phrase really implied. "Yes, I kicked his ass." She smiled at him as she took one of his hands tightly in hers, not wanting to let go for fear she'd lose him. John said nothing but smiled up at her and used the last of his strength to gently squeeze her hands before he closed his eyes and let the morphine take him into sweet oblivion.
A/N: When I described the Mini HKs I was thinking of similar shape to the ones in T3, but less crappy and much larger, around twenty feet long. (Which would still be 'mini' compared to the future HKs) I thought the mini HKs from T3 were a very poor attempt at creating a predecessor for the formidable Skynet aircraft seen in the first two movies. What's the point of having a combat aircraft that can be shot down by a spoilt little girl with an AK47? Anyway, rant over.
Also, for anyone who was wondering; LAW stands for Light Antitank Weapon. More acronyms, I know. Sorry!
As always, please do review and give me your thoughts, Chapter 8 will be up within 2 weeks, I promise!
