Chapter Seven: Helpless Anguish

Sweat shone upon Allison's forehead as she trekked along amidst the group of seasoned soldiers toward their objective: her home in Palmdale. She felt no decrease in the anxiety that had slammed into her when she learned of the mission and the location of the objective. Connor had personally told her that she didn't have to go on the mission, and that he fully understood if she declined. But you don't say no to John Connor, it doesn't work that way, and she understood that entirely.

She had trouble keeping pace with the troops that escorted her. She found it odd, these men who seemed so heavily laden with ammunition, weapons, packs of food and water, and even a few rockets were able to move rather swiftly through the dismal ruins of the city. She wasn't accustomed to moving at such a pace, and the team had to pause, or slow it's pace on several occasions in order for her to keep up.

Despite her sweat, the midnight air was chilly to say the least. Silence pervaded over the surroundings, and only the sound of the wind running it's course through the confounding maze of fallen structures and obliterated vehicles echoed in her ears. Each time the force of that wind endeavored to move even the tiniest object Allison reacted with great haste; wary as any trooper, and frightened as much as any civilian.

The sights around her not only scared her, but they struck a chord upon her gentle heart. She had not been outside of Kansas bunker for several years. She had remained there, training and studying to be a proficient technician as capable of any other who had been performing their tasks for years in real world operations. It took years to make a good soldier, but it took even longer to make a good tech.

As a result she had isolated herself from the harsh reality of the world she lived in. Sure, she could see the effects of the war, and the ravaged wasteland from the safety of the pillboxes arrayed to defend Kansas bunker, but it hardly did justice to the destruction.

Now as she quietly treaded her way through a city that was once been home to 3,850,000 people she could see the skulls that literally lined the open ground. What was not covered by rubble and debris was instead littered with the bones of the dead. It was a horrid sight, something she had banished from her mind long ago, but now it resurfaced and filled her insides with dread, churning her stomach with an uncomfortable ache. She felt dizzy at times, but repressed that feeling. She soldiered on, because there was no other choice and she would not appear weak in front of these men.

Her mentor, Klaus, may have been a tech, but he was as much a soldier as any of the men in this squad. He had brazenly fought in many engagements against the machines, and earned himself enough of a reputation; not just for his skill as a technician, but also as a hard-ass Resistance fighter. Allison wanted to be like that, wanted others to look at her and know she was the kind of person that could not only take care of herself, but was capable of doing severe damage to the metal too.

But inside she didn't feel it was possible. She carried her rifle as she had learned, but it felt awkward in her miniature hands. It was cumbersome and ungainly. She couldn't imagine firing at something, at anything; even a machine, despite the way she detested them.

The night carried on, unabated by the actions of man and machine alike. The sliver of a lunar body in the sky cast an eerie grey glow across the landscape. Shadows danced, changing their form as the hours passed and dawn drew nearer. It would be important to seek shelter; the squad did not wish to travel in sunlight, as it would be an easy affair for the machines to locate them.

Reese silently signaled for his squad to seek a suitable location to squat for the day, and they looked with enthusiastic eyes at all that surrounded them. Nothing seemed to offer what they needed. It was important to find something that provided a defendable position, a place that had a commanding view of their surroundings and several viable escape routes. This was a difficult thing to find in the city. The bombs had torn down most of the tallest buildings, and the smaller ones offered only one or two exit points.

The search was stalled as gunfire erupted in the pre-dawn air. It was heavy, and clearly an exchange between two sides. Reese motioned for his point man, Jack, to proceed with immense caution. He wanted to know where it was coming from, and who was firing it.

The squad was led up along an escarpment along which they skirted old jersey barriers from the highway that had once run through the area. They utilized the concrete barriers as cover as the sound of the gunfire became more and more apparent.

At last they found a place where they could identify the participants in the fight. A cacophony of plasma fire burst into the sky and the squad huddled below their crumbling refuge. Reese peaked up over the top and saw down below what the source of the gunfire was. It was soldiers of the Resistance. At a quick glance they were moving fluidly, covering while they tactically broke off contact with a group of machines.

"Who are they?" Allison asked with keen interest, gazing down at the beleaguered soldiers.

"Contact patrol, we send them out to try and hit machines hard then get the hell out of town fast," Wisher explained.

The squad watched as the group of soldiers below quickly began to lose cohesion. Communication started to break down and their casualties were mounting. Reese explained that it was a platoon sized element, and is much larger than their own team. "It's all about packing heavy firepower so they can sustain a fight with the machines," he said to no one in particular. Of course the other soldiers knew that, but Allison found the information useful.

"It looks like they're losing," she noted aloud. More men and women were shot and their tactical withdraw began to turn into a complete rout. "Aren't we going to help?" she looked helplessly at Lieutenant Reese.

"No," he responded, shaking his head slowly as he viewed the carnage through his binoculars. "Nothing we can do, we've got orders."

Allison looked over at Ramsey to see his reaction of command to stand-fast. He simply stared down at the gruesome slaughter that began to unfold below. She saw as his cheek flexed-- he was gritting his teeth. No doubt he felt a great deal of anguish, they all must have; their brothers and sisters were dying down below and they were helpless to lend a hand.

Allison was shocked by their lack of apparent emotion. They just tucked it deep inside, where it would eat away at their soul until each one was consumed by hate; the hate that ate away at Logan every day. Nevertheless, she found their discipline admirable, as even she felt as thought they had to do something, and she was certainly no soldier.

Ramsey swallowed hard, the lump in his throat refusing to leave, however. His eyes stung at the sight of the dying troops. They seemed woefully ill-prepared for the onslaught that was advancing upon them; what was left of the soldier's anyways. He wondered how it got to be this bad. Was there platoon commander completely inept? Or had they stumbled upon a larger patrol then they originally expected when they started their ambush? It was anyone's guess, and he felt a pang of guilt for judging them; after all it didn't matter, in a few minutes they'd all be dead.

The last few well aimed shots from the Resistance were fired off a few moments afterward. Three soldiers remained, all of them wounded and out of the fight. The machines advanced upon them, and Lt. Reese's team watched as the metal dragged away the survivors kicking and screaming, perhaps to a fate worse than death.

"Poor bastards," Dallas muttered.

"I'll say one thing for sure, I'll never go out like that," Logan added, earning a raised eyebrow and curious glance from Allison.

"For sure, the work camps are no way to live. That's hell on Earth I hear," Dallas put in, shaking his head.

The team watched for a few minutes, ensuring the machines had finished their business in the local area. There had in fact been several other survivors, but they were too wounded to be of use to the machines, and so they were left to the rats.

"Aren't we going to go and help them?" Allison demanded just as the squad began to move out.

Reese turned to address her. His eyes, normally so cold, took on a softer expression momentarily. "We can't do anything for them, we can't take them with us and we can't spare our own medical supplies. We have no idea what we're headed into," he told her with remorse in his voice.

"Walking into a shit storm is where," Dallas interjected.

"Secure that shit, Dallas," Kirby reprimanded the hulking giant of a man.

"Roger that, Sergeant," Dallas retorted with a sarcastic salute.

The squad began to move again, and it was clear the decision had already been made. Those few survivors down below; those men and women, those human beings would be left to die. Their deaths would more than likely be horrible and slow. Allison wanted to stop the squad, she wanted to hand her weapon off and sprint down to provide any aide or comfort she could. Her heart called out to those people, especially when she began to hear their moans and cries. She steeled herself to walk away, there wasn't another option for her. Reese would never budge on the matter.

"Maybe we could put them out of their misery?" Kai suggested, their cries disturbing him greatly as well.

"No. Endos will hear the gunfire and come looking. Our mission is high priority, and we take no unnecessary risks. We have to be damn sure we don't get compromised," Reese ordered, his normal dispassionate demeanor returning once more. Despite the callous sound of his voice, Reese deeply regretted this choice, and hated himself for making it, but that was the burden of command and it was something he would have to force himself to accept.

The squad carried on, shouldering the burden of the physical weight from the packs they carred, but also the emotional and psychological weight of witnessing a platoon of Resistance soldiers being slaughtered, and doing nothing about it.

After several hours of travel the team made it's way outside the center of the Los Angeles basin, breaking free from the concentrated debris and rubble, and moving into the hilly countryside of the San Gabriel Mountain range.

Allison attempted, with all her might, to push that horrid memory from her mind. Was that what this war was about? Abandoning your comrades to a grisly demise? She couldn't believe what she had seen, nor could she cope with the sorrow she now felt. If this was the daily lives of these men and women that shouldered their rifles and headed out to fight the machines, then she didn't want to be a part of it. She wondered if Reese or any of the squad member's would act differently if it were her in that situation. Maybe Logan, but then he was just as rooted to the ground as the rest of the team after Reese's order.

Compassion was lost on these people, they were so hardened from years and years of war. Perhaps it was the dead who had it better. After all, they were the only ones to truly see the end of this war.

The squad picked their way over the mountain range, moving as carefully as before, but the imminent threat of being exposed slackened and as a result they moved more freely. This was far beyond normal machine patrols, but it was also behind enemy lines and a long way off from any supporting unit.

None of them had any idea when a human unit had ventured over the mountains, their world existed entirely within the Los Angeles basin. Apprehension and curiosity seized them all as they pictured what they'd come upon when they reached Plant 42. It was enough that it was an Air Force base for black projects before J-day, but now it was a main base of operations for Skynet. They had never seen a major Skynet base, only the small ones that dotted the Los Angeles landscape.

After searching out a suitable place to rest and wait for the approaching day to pass, the squad set up a small site in a shallow cave that was at the end of a wash. They used charred brush to cover the entrance; Reese set a two man watch that would rotate every two hours, and the rest of the team attempted to get whatever sleep they could before continuing on to the objective when the night came once more.

Allison wrapped herself tightly in her olive drab, threadbare jacket; nuzzling up to the rocky wall of the cavern they sheltered in. How could she sleep? How were they even safe? Miles away from any help, in the middle of nowhere, and with just a few rifles to defend themselves with.

Across from her, the soldier's not on watch had already drifted into an exhaustion induced coma. Amazing they could do such a thing, but then this must've been a fairly normal thing for them. The day's excitement still seemed to surge through her veins, and sleep would not come with ease. She struggled along the cavern's wall, tossing and turning in an attempt to find some semblance of comfort in the shady hole. All of this was to no avail, however, and she eventually gave up. She rose from her position and quietly made her way out to the cave entrance where the sentries were posted.

It was Kai and Logan, and they both sat as still as a pair boulders, neither of them bothering to speak to each other. Instead, they kept their eyes focused outward; searching for that ever-looming threat that stalked the wastes. Allison figured that the likelihood of being discovered here wasn't very high, but she still respected the fact that security was maintained, and that two veteran soldiers stood sentinel over the slumbering group of ragged troops inside.

She watched Logan closely, he seemed at ease, more so then she had ever seen him. This was his element, it's what he was: a soldier. He calmly slumped against the entrance way, and confidently studied the surroundings outside, noting every sound and assessing them for possible threats. His mind never leaping to foolhardy conclusions, just the patient, experienced assessment of an operator that had seen his fair share of war. She envied him then, envied that feeling of serenity he was experiencing while her heart fluttered faster than she thought possible. Grim thoughts and worry raced through her mind, coupled with images of the slaughter they had witnessed hours ago. These things she could not banish from her thoughts, and so she was stuck attempting to find sleep.

But watching him relaxed her, seeing the way he seemed to nonchalantly stand watch over them all. It was just another day, just another duty, and a look of boredom almost crossed his face, or a sense of yearning for some kind of action. It was that confidence, that absolute trust in his own abilities that calmed her, that allowed her to finally find sleep…