Title- Becoming John Connor
Chapter- 21/?
Author- Dekardkain
Date- 06/17/10
Rating- T
Category - Action/Character study JC/C
Archiving- Would be an honor, just ask.
Warnings- Violence/language
Disclaimers- I don't own this, no money, yadda yadda.
Summary: Facing one's fate is the measure of a man. Changing one's fate is the measure of a hero.
Author's Note: Intro monologue is in John's voice.
The meek shall inherit the Earth
Because the brave will have died securing it for them.
Chapter 21 - 'Code Red'
Connor Compound
Pueblo, Colorado
March 7th, 2011
0705 hrs
Though Derek Reese wasn't generally the type of man you caught stopping to enjoy the scenery, even the jaded soldier found his booted feet grinding to a halt halfway down the short staircase connecting the front porch and the driveway.
The sun was just now starting to bleed through the cobalt horizon, the sky a swirling mass of blues, yellows, and the most vivid shade of purple he'd seen outside Cameron's wardrobe fading into a muted red where it met the bluffs in the distance. It was unseasonably warm for early spring in Colorado, most of the ice which had encrusted the surrounding trees had already melted, icicles which had finally lost their struggle with gravity lay like shattered soldiers along the path leading him towards the barn.
In fact, the woodsy scent carried by the warm breeze rolling in from the plains was almost enough to overcome the three inches of decaying plant matter he was wading through now that the snow had finally melted away. He never would understand how so many dead leaves ended up in an area predominantly dotted by evergreens, scrub brush, and the occasional cactus.
There was a lot about the world Derek couldn't seem to understand anymore.
One of the few upsides to being a grunt was that it tended to make life pretty simple. Proceed from point A to point B, take that hill, hold that trench, make sure the noisy end of the gun is always pointed at the enemy. Like he'd said, pretty simple. And through the years, no matter how many things around him had changed, he had always known who his enemy was. It was Skynet. It was metal. But that had been before John pulled his little mind-fuck on him and all that went straight out the window.
Derek survived on always being sure, he just wasn't the kind of man who allowed himself the luxury of doubt. He'd learned that the same way his brother had, horrible experience and the man who had shaped them all - John Connor.
So when he'd met his General's younger self, it was little wonder the wishy-washy shades of gray bullshit had worn thin almost instantly. He'd never imagined a scenario where he wouldn't feel comfortable telling John, or his mythical mother for that matter, that he'd killed a man who could have spawned Skynet. He had seen Connor execute men with his own hand for far less.
Derek had tried to mold him into that man, to erase the doubts and ensure he was prepared for the reality that awaited him... he supposed he'd succeeded at least somewhat. What he hadn't anticipated, though, was that the process would work both ways. Yeah, John had hardened a bit, but Reese just wasn't sure anymore, and that bothered the hell out of him.
It had always been so easy to convince himself of his own superiority to the metal, at the worst killers, at the very best disposable tools. But at the end of the day, he was starting to see that this wasn't a difference, but something they had in common. What did Derek Reese have to offer this world but the same kind of death and destruction he had once accused only metal of being capable of?
If they had succeeded against the impossible and managed to stop Skynet, just what the hell would he have done? Probably drink myself into an early grave.
Where John had found strength in embracing his purpose in life, Derek found only an empty hole at the same realization. He was a killer, a destroyer, and he couldn't even blame 'programming' for it. It's just what he was good at.
Cameron had been designed with one purpose in mind - to kill John Connor, and yet she had managed to not only control herself, but had chosen to protect him, even to love him. Derek supposed he had realized that even in the beginning, and it was one of the reasons he had always hated the cyborg. From the moment he caught her dancing the first time he'd realized the truth, that even she was capable of doing something he couldn't, she could create something beautiful where before it hadn't existed.
He, the human, member of the race who had pioneered art, philosophy, and culture, could only unmake. Could only destroy. In that way, she was more human than he would ever be.
It was a shitty wake up call.
Letting slip a weary sigh as he rounded the side of the barn, Derek was more than a little shocked to find the target of his search not only awake but uncharacteristically active for this hour. Maybe his luck was looking up, at least this way he didn't have to navigate the minefield that was a Resistance barracks at daybreak.
If Cole noticed his arrival, which he wasn't naive enough to believe she hadn't, she didn't let on to the fact, eyes remaining closed, body fluidly drifting through motions so practiced they came as easily as breathing. Like everyone else around the compound, Darla was obviously slipping back into her war-time routine as the days ticked down to Armageddon, one of the few signs Derek took any comfort in these days.
Reese was one of the few people alive in this time who would even recognize the style, its very existence leaving a bitter taste in the back of his throat. Connor's Universal Defense system, a true wonder of science, martial arts, and the ruthless efficiency of metal.
In the latter stages of the war, when Skynet's production facilities were being knocked off in record time as their forces steamrolled the machines back towards the west coast, they'd found themselves in the unique position of fighting ever increasing numbers of brainwashed human slaves. Though it was a clear sign of the AI's increasing desperation and it's dwindling forces, at the time it had been a real problem for them.
Resistance soldiers weren't trained to fight humans, they were trained to fight metal, and there was never a need for hand-to-hand training against something that could snap your bones like twigs. But the Greys... they were the perfect infiltrators. They'd slither their way behind the lines in crowds of refugees, waiting like a ticking bomb for the opportunity to do real damage against their saviors.
The tattoo peaking out between Cole's low-slung sweatpants and her cutoff shirt was the legacy of those dark days, the infamous Double-H. Two hundred of the best Tech-Com had ever fielded were trained not only to kill their newest enemy, but to seek them out, to identify them before they had a chance to complete their mission. To terminate them.
They were ghosts, most of Command didn't even know they existed, and they answered to no one but Connor.
The Universal Defense system was a clear example not only of John's pragmatism, but of the reason why so many harbored the fear that their leader had become more machine than man. Grunts like Reese referred to it with a traditional sneer as, 'Tech-Judo', because they all knew where it had come from. Anyone who'd ever seen his buddy's throat ripped out by a T-800 knew.
In the darkest days of humanity's final victory, Connor had turned to the machines to learn how to kill his own kind. The first lesson his 'agents' absorbed was a full course in human anatomy, taught by one of the earliest reprogrammed T-800s. Skynet data being turned against human beings, training them to instinctively predict every possible defense to an attack, and how to get around it with minimal expenditure of time and energy.
Only twice in his career had Reese had the misfortune of seeing one of the General's elite at work, and at the time they'd been too happy to be left alive to worry about those who weren't. A hand-to-hand engagement against one was a mistake you regretted for the rest of your life - both seconds of it. Machine efficiency coupled with the ferocity only a human can bring to the fight...
It never lasted long and it was never pretty.
As uncomfortable as their abilities made him, he also wasn't naive enough to fail to see their necessity at the time, nor was he blind enough to doubt their loyalty to Connor. Hell, it was one of the reasons he'd pushed John towards Cole practically since her arrival, she could have protected him nearly as well as the machine without that worrying little 'snap and rip his head off' factor.
But John, being John, never could do anything the easy way. Just like his father.
Bringing his wandering attention back to the woman balancing perfectly atop the flattened log they used as a chopping block, a quick sequence of jabs, each punctuated by a sharp exhalation quickly flowed into a side-kick, leaving her left leg extended for a three count before pulling it back into her center of gravity without so much as a wobble, the plaster cast still covering her left arm from elbow to knuckles not slowing her in the slightest.
"What do ya want, Reese?"
Derek quirked a brow, the fact her eyes remained closed meaning he didn't have to suppress his smirk, "How did you know it was me?"
"You slouch when you walk," Darla rolled her left shoulder low, hips pivoting a second later as she tucked into a one-footed spin, "It causes you to drag your left foot every few steps."
"Really?" He sounded surprised.
"Yeah." Mid-spin, Cole's body came to an abrupt halt, her right foot whipping out with an audible crack right towards Derek's face. Before the older man had a chance to blink her foot was simply there, her bare toes wiggling tauntingly less than half an inch beneath his chin. He wondered idly if the scarlet nail polish was a message, or just so the blood wouldn't fuck up her pedicure. "But it was that shitty aftershave Sarah got you for Christmas that gave you away."
"Criticism noted and agreed with." Forcing himself to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat, Derek nodded. "I'll switch back to Old Spice."
"Good call." Only now opening her eyes while she retracted her foot and hopped down onto the grass, Darla retrieved her towel with a laugh. "Most guys would have pissed their pants. That's why I like you, Reese."
Derek snorted, "Bladder control?"
"Contempt for death."
He shrugged his uninjured shoulder, "Everybody dies eventually."
"That's what you think, LT." Darla wadded up the gym towel and ran it over the back of her neck, groaning a bit as the action stretched out her back. "I plan to live forever."
Derek sensed his window to strike finally slipping into place and couldn't keep a slightly shit-eating smirk from taking up residence on his face. Cole wasn't the only one who knew how to fuck with people's heads, "Well, they say the good die young. So I figure you've got two to three hundred years left in you."
Darla glanced up at him from under her bangs, jaw slowly grinding back and forth while she assessed him. "You don't wanna play this game, Reese."
"Why's that?"
"Because nobody wins." Flopping down onto the chopping block with an exaggerated eye-roll, Cole snagged her boots and began pulling them on. "Besides, you want something from me, so it's in your interest to keep me happy."
Eying the younger woman with his own appraising look, Derek was forced to remind himself why he hated intelligence types - nothing was ever the way it seemed and they always had the drop on you. "What makes you think I want something?"
Wrapping the laces of her boot around her ankles a few times, Darla pulled them tight a little more forcefully than necessary. She knew what this was about and wanted absolutely no part of it. Judgment Day was almost on them, events were picking up speed with every tick of the clock, and Derek Reese wanted to know if she was going to keep up the 'Corporal Cole' act or get back to her old bag of tricks. What he didn't seem to grasp was that the answer to that question wasn't up to her - it was up to Connor, and she hadn't had a chance to bring it up with him lately.
But if he wanted to whip it out and see whose was bigger, who was she to discourage a little grandstanding?
"If this was about the other day you would have cornered me in the barracks." Blowing her bangs out of her face, Cole fired off her best 'I'm humoring you but don't push it', look. "It would have been stupid, but you would have wanted the men to see you're not afraid of me."
Her smile was feral, "Like I said - stupid."
"But you decided to catch me one-on-one, which tells me two things." Darla shook her head, "That you've found John and he's on his way home, which is why you don't feel the need to reassert your authority."
Derek nodded side to side. He would have been impressed, but that would have required coming into this not understanding the woman's abilities already. That's how Cole operated, preying on the fact she was naturally underestimated. "And the second?"
"That whatever he's asked you to do for him has you scared shitless." She tossed two thumbs towards her chest, "Which leads us right back to why you want something from me."
"See, that's the part you misread, Corporal. I'm just the messenger." Using the woman's own trump card against her was the sweetest feeling Derek had allowed himself in a long time, "It's about what Connor wants from you."
The woman's shoulder squared almost unconsciously, chin tilting just a fraction of an inch to the left as she clucked her tongue. "Orders?"
"Put together a four man fire team." Derek pulled a folded up stack of printed airline receipts from his jacket pocket, handing them over along with a hundred thousand in cash. "Austin already booked you rooms in one of the airport hotels. John will meet you in Armenia in three days, he wants you to use the time and that money to arm yourselves."
Slipping the stack of bills into the waistband of her sweats as she stood, Cole was as focused as Derek could remember seeing her since her arrival. Apparently John's hunch had been right, the woman certainly more pliable when your words carried Connor's direct orders. "Mission?"
"Right up your alley Cole." Reese snorted slightly as he turned back for the house, "Its a termination."
Panama Beach,
Florida panhandle
March 7th, 2011
1345 hrs
The first thing Cameron noticed when entering their hotel room was the obvious, and curious, absence of her husband.
Chin quirking to the side a few inches, she conducted a thorough scan of the room, checking it against her memory files prior to departing to detect any discrepancies. Cameron identified sixty-seven, the most prominent being the note laying atop her pillow. She eyed it accusingly while setting the Styrofoam boxes containing their lunch on the table beside the bed. Well, John's lunch and her chocolate fix in the form of a brownie doused with hot fudge. Considering the romantic atmosphere of the occasion, as well as the effort John had displayed the night before, for a moment she actually imagined the note might contain some of the flowery prose her data-banks indicated human males often provided during standard courtship practices.
Cameron had clearly forgotten who she was married to.
The note was one word, hastily scribbled - 'Downstairs'.
The only thing 'downstairs' was the hotel restaurant, which seemed to indicate John had woken from his post-coitus nap more quickly than anticipated and had gone downstairs to eat. Cameron glanced down at the food she'd purchased with a frown, now regretting she hadn't left a note of her own to explain her absence. John might even be angry with her.
In her defense, considering his usual habits and the amount of physical energy he'd expended in the last twenty-four hours, Cameron had assumed he would be dead to the world until early afternoon. For a nineteen year old her John was in excellent physical condition, but sex with a cyborg who never sleeps or tires tended to strain even his stamina to the limit. She considered this 'conditioning' to be one of the many beneficial side-effects of their relationship. He'd lost eight pounds since they started having sex and shaved three minutes off of his six-mile time.
For her part, Cameron had grown far more attached to the experience than she had ever thought she would. At first she had considered it a valuable building block for their expanding relationship as well as a biological necessity for John's physical and psychological well-being. Not that she didn't gain physical pleasure from the act, admittedly her own version of it, but pleasure all the same.
Over time though, she found that the connection she achieved with John during sex far outweighed the physical aspects. When they were joined, it felt like they were one person, like she could wrap herself up inside him and stay there forever. She felt alive. Real.
John tended to bottle up his emotions, becoming closed-off and sullen rather than lashing out as he had when he was younger. For a machine not completely versed in human emotions under the best of circumstances, it was incredibly frustrating trying to ascertain the triggers for his behavior. Sometimes, it seemed like he was foiling her efforts to understand him on purpose.
The only time he really let his walls drop was when they were making love. There was no war, there was no pressure, there was no General. Just Cameron and John.
She preferred it that way.
Checking her appearance quickly in the vanity's mirror, Cameron brushed a clump of unruly hair back behind her ear before setting off in search of John. What her search netted was less than satisfactory.
He was indeed in the downstairs restaurant, the bar, to be precise.
John was slouching on his stool, idly turning the tumbler full of amber liquor in front of him this way and that, the flimsy sheet of sodden napkin paper the bartender had provided as a coaster shredding and tearing in the most interesting patterns when viewed through the melting ice.
His distracted and listless facade stood out in sharp relief to the 'leisure wear' he'd picked up when they arrived, a bright red Hawaiian shirt dotted with numerous similarly garish flowers was unbuttoned over one of his standard desert issue tanks, tucked into a loose-fitting pair of khaki cargo shorts. He looked like he was about to enjoy a day at the beach, or he would have, had it not been for the luggage lying packed and ready sitting to one side of his stool.
Apparently, the honeymoon was over.
"Derek called." John didn't bother looking up from his drink, jaw grinding away in time with his mind.
Cameron was still trying to get over the fact he'd heard her approach. Either she was slipping or John hadn't been as distracted as he appeared to be. Unsure of the cause for his sudden shift in emotion, she decided to stick with the obvious, "You left your phone in Colorado."
He snorted a bit in response, "He must have had Austin track the Lowjack, he called the room phone."
"Sorry." Cameron frowned. She knew she should have registered them under something more original than Baum, but frankly, hadn't considered that Derek would prove so resourceful.
Swallowing the rest of his drink in one long gulp, John shook his head. "He's sending Wilson and Austin down to pick up the truck and our gear."
"We're not driving home?"
"We're not going home," John glanced at his watch distractedly, "Not yet. We've still got business that needs handling."
This had not been the game plan, even Cameron was aware of that much, which lead to one inevitable question, "What's wrong?"
Slapping a wad of bills onto the bar, John wobbled slightly as he rose from his stool, "Mom's sick."
"What? I thought that Catherine Weaver's treatment meant that..."
"Not like that." John cut her off with a wave of his hand before snagging their luggage and setting off for the doors, "Charley's doing everything he can."
Apparently he thought that explanation was sufficient, flipping on a pair of sunglasses as they emerged from the darkness of the lobby into the bright Florida sun, the Dodge was already waiting for them at the valet kiosk. John slipped the man a fifty before tossing their bags into the bed and climbing into the passenger seat without a word.
Cameron felt her brow crease unconsciously, looking around a bit helplessly before climbing up into the cab herself. Did he blame her for Sarah's condition?
John pointed out the window idly, slouching back into his seat, "Airport."
The cyborg could feel her frown deepen. I am not a taxi cab. "We're flying back to see Sarah?"
Beside her, John shifted uncomfortably in his seat, staring out the window at passing billboards, "I'm the last person she needs to see right now."
"Like I said," The tone of his voice worried Cameron more than anything else, "This is business. With all the Skynet problems we've been dealing with, its easy to forget that we've had mercenaries gunning for us for the last two months. I'd rather get this out of the way on my terms than risk interference in our final prep for Judgment Day."
Not at all pleased that their vacation had been brought to such a sudden end, Cameron was still more than prepared to get to work, one of the benefits of being a cyborg. "The mission?"
"Cole will be meeting us in Armenia with a team," The faintest hint of a smile teased the corner of John's mouth, "I've got a fourteen hour plane ride to figure out the details."
As she'd expected, this had not been the plan. They'd been driving in silence for nearly ten minutes before Cameron felt comfortable enough to broach the subject, "You don't want to go home."
He looked irritated, but didn't respond, so she pressed forward, "Because of Sarah."
"I had the best intentions..." John's voice probably wouldn't have been audible to a human, he was likely talking to himself as he continued to stare out the window. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he changed the subject on a dime. "You have your note, right? We're gonna need it to get past security."
Perfectly aware of what he was doing, the slightly pleading look in her John's eyes had her deciding to overlook his deflection. "I have my note."
"Good." He nodded distractedly before turning back to the window, "Then everything's fine."
Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport
Florida panhandle
March 7th, 2011
1450 hrs
For all the shit he tended to give his uncle, Derek was as reliable as the sun when you gave him an order. Their tickets had been waiting for them at the counter, first class tickets at that, but considering their quickly throw-together cover, it made sense.
Sarkissian may be a retired KGB officer with mob connections to them, but to his community he was an international shipping magnate with a corporate headquarters in downtown Yerevan. Coons had already sent info to Cameron's PDA about open real estate in the area, which they'd be checking out as potential bases of operations once they arrived.
John would be posing as an American internet prodigy looking for low-cost property in Eastern Europe to house the hardware side of his operation. It would cover not only his young age, but would explain why he didn't know a damn thing about this kind of business transaction, which was where Cole would pick up the slack. Once Cameron coached her that is. For all her infiltration abilities, Darla had been three years old on Judgment Day, and didn't know the dow jones from Indiana Jones.
The pieces were already falling into place as they made their way through the line leading to the TSA checkpoint, lending John a much-needed feeling of control in his life. He couldn't do anything about Sarah, but he could at least do the job she'd trained him to. He could be the soldier she wanted him to be.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he barely registered the, not exactly unexpected, blaring of the metal detector as Cameron followed through behind him. Snagging their bags off the conveyor belt and slipping them over his shoulders, John turned around just in time to see Cameron proudly handing off her doctor's note, thoroughly detailing the long list of 'prosthesis' dotting her body.
The TSA agent standing in front of her wasn't paying much attention to the note though, eyes darting back and forth between the scrap of paper and his wife's chest. Cameron must have taken his indecision for doubt, because she added in a chipper, helpful voice, "I have a plate in my head."
At the man's quirked brow, she smiled sweetly and provided one of the options John had given her years before for just such an occasion. "Skiing accident."
"Uh... huh." Quickly passing the note back over to Cameron, the man motioned with his wand for them to move along, still far more focused on Cameron's skirt than his job.
John would have been angrier if that hadn't been exactly the reaction he was betting on seeing them through the security checks. Skynet really had created the perfect killer in Cameron, most men's minds just stopped functioning in her presence, making successful infiltration that much easier. Hell, even he'd fallen for it in the beginning, which still left his pride stinging a bit. Who the fuck sells tractors? Stupid, stupid John!
Something told him they would have had a much harder time getting Wilson on a flight. Of course it would have been hard to explain if he got a window seat and the plane tilted to one side.
Though he hadn't had a lot of time to interact with the T-800 since his arrival, John actually found himself missing the cyborg's company. He made a mental note to hook up with him during the flight and play a game of chess over Cameron's PDA.
"You're quiet." Cameron noted his silence like someone might comment on the rain.
John shrugged a bit while slipping into one of the chairs in front of their gate, "Just focused."
She considered him for a long moment, and though he tried to ignore it, her eyes seemed to leave a burning trail across his skin as it passed. It made him uncomfortable when she looked at him like that.
Obviously coming to some kind of conclusion, Cameron nodded slightly before facing forward again, her shoulder brushing up against his faintly sending a shiver straight to his groin. It also made him uncomfortable she could effect him so easily. "You're acting like him."
John covered the moment he needed to compose himself by coughing into his hand, trying for casual and coming off as slightly upset, "Who?"
"Future John." He'd known she was going to say that, so it surprised him the sting was still as potent as it was.
He couldn't help but sneer a bit, "I thought that's what everyone wanted?"
Cameron shook her head, shifting around so she was facing him again, "Not me."
"Listen." John let out a slow sigh, idly spinning his new wedding band around with his thumb, "I'm just feeling a little stupid right now, okay? I didn't want to be there, to have to deal with mom and the men, the mission, the bullshit. I was just so tired... You called me on it before we left Cameron, we were just pretending to be normal."
"But we're not." He nodded, "And I can't keep pretending that I can do it all. Be it all. I have to make choices."
Resting a hand on his shoulder, Cameron frowned, "Why aren't you going home?"
"Because John Connor can't go running back to base every time one of his soldiers is sick." It sounded weak even to John, but that didn't stop him from sticking with it. "Not when we have work to do."
"But she's your mother." Cameron pointed out bluntly.
John hadn't spent three years with Cameron without figuring out a few effective ways to derail her, his old standby would work just fine here: logic. "And if I was the man she wanted me to be, that wouldn't matter. You know she'd tell me to focus on the mission."
Cameron saw what he was doing, and though she was inclined to allow it for his emotional benefit, she wasn't going to let him entirely off the hook. "If you were that man, she would be dead."
"Yeah." John's shoulder slumped visibly as he scrubbed both hands slowly over his face, "She would be."
Flight 88 to Berlin
Somewhere Over the Atlantic
March 7th, 2011
2140 hrs
Rachel looked torn between the urge to get sick and embracing a full-blown panic attack, her knuckles white, fingers clawing into the padded armrest of her seat, eyes never drifting an inch away from the torrent of rain interspersed with lightning flashes outside her window. "Is... is it supposed to be shaking like that?"
Beside her, Cole was seriously regretting letting the other woman have the window seat. She didn't bother to open her eyes or shift from her reclining position, there were some benefits to the fact Judgment Day was right around the corner - namely, money was no longer an object, so they were traveling in style. Darla was still glowing from a few after-dinner cocktails and had been just drifting off to sleep when the jumpy Corporal beside her had interrupted her, "Relax Lorne. No plane has ever been brought down by turbulence."
Another bright flash illuminated Rachel's face, causing her to cringe slightly. "What about lightning strikes?"
Darla couldn't quite contain a smirk, "Now that happens all the time."
"Oh shit." If possible, Lorne paled further.
"It's not like Huey's the one flying." Cole snarked, "So we'll probably make it in one piece."
Flicking up the bill of his battered cowboy hat pointedly with his middle finger, Hendrix glowered at the back of the operative's head through the seat-back in front of him. "I heard that."
"Can't we all just play the quiet game for a few hours?" Rolling his eyes at the behavior of not only his superiors, but his elders, Private Carmack sighed from his position beside the LT. "Just sayin'... it's a long flight."
Rolling her head to the side so she could eye the Private, Cole frowned, "It's either this or listen to Lorne having a mental breakdown. Take your pick, Dooley."
"It's not a breakdown!" Rachel snapped, "We're just... really freakin' high. Are we supposed to be this high?"
Darla exhaled sharply through her nose, "You might have mentioned that you've never flown before."
"Didn't seem important at the time," Rachel mumbled distractedly.
"It was." Cole rubbed her temples, "I could have slipped some Xanax into your drink."
She seemed to consider that for a moment before smiling, "Or mine. Either way, it would have made this a lot more tolerable."
"Well," Lorne grumbled over her shoulder, "I'm sorry if my totally justifiable fear of plummeting twenty thousand feet into icy, shark-infested waters is bothering you."
"Hmmm." Carmack mused aloud, "Personally, I'd think you'd be more worried about the amount of fuel carried on a typical trans-Atlantic flight."
"One lightning strike to the wing," He grinned evilly, making an expansive gesture with both hands. "Poof."
Lorne gulped, "Poof?"
"Well," Dooley conceded, "More like a BOOM! Arghhhhh screeeeeetch SPLASH!"
"Not that you'd live long enough to hear it." Darla provided helpfully.
"Just so we're clear before we potentially explode." Lorne choked up further on the armrests, craning her head back towards the window, "I hate you all."
Having been content to stay silent until now, O'Brien chimed in from the other side of the aisle. "I've always wondered about the flotation devices."
"Flotation devices?" Rachel looked incredulous, "They crash these things into the ocean so often they have devices for it?"
Resistance soldiers had a high tolerance for crazy, evidenced by the way the scout sniper smoothly ignored Lorne's ranting and continued with her thought. "I mean, they put these things on the plane and expect no one to ever consider it."
Cole snorted, "You're making less sense than Lorne, Amanda."
"Think about it, Cole." To O'Brien, it seemed perfectly obvious, "They make the seats so they'll keep you afloat on the off chance you not only crash, but that you'll do it in water, and you'll survive long enough to actually need it. They prepare for that possibility even though the chances of that set of circumstances happening at the same time is practically astronomical."
Behind her, Huey quirked a brow, "Your point?"
"That they'd go to all that trouble to keep you alive during a one and a million water landing," Amanda grinned, "And yet they still won't put parachutes on the fucking plane."
Darla chuckled, willing to concede that much to the red-headed Private. "I think if you asked most people if they'd be willing to have a one bag limit if it meant having a parachute handy, they would choose the parachute every damn time."
"We are very high." Lorne confirmed quietly.
Huey looked at them all like they were insane, "Know who needs parachutes?"
"Quitters." He stated smugly.
"What the hell are you jawing about Hendrix?" Cole was practically in hysterics, "You've crashed like a dozen times. They used to say that if Huey was your first name, your last name must be 'Down'."
"Yeah," The pilot confirmed, leaning back into his seat with a cocky grin. "Crashed bein' the key word darlin'. If you ain't gonna enjoy the ride till it comes to a full and complete stop, don't buy the ticket."
Rachel finally glanced away from the window long enough to glare at the others, "Will you people stop saying 'crash'!"
Carmack looked around pleadingly, "So... about quiet time?"
"God." Cole continued massaging her temples, despite the fact it didn't seem to be helping. "This is why Operators work alone."
"Oh." Lorne actually looked interested in something beyond their potential demise for a moment, turning away from the window long enough to skewer the raven-haired beauty beside her with a condescending look. "So we're admitting that now, are we?"
Darla upped the Corporal's look with a pointed glare of her own, "Yeah. Seems someone saw fit to bring it to Connor's attention."
"That had to be awkward." She consoled while trying, and failing, to hide a smile. "Probably would have been less painful if you'd just told him yourself, huh?"
"I'd like to remind you that we are at twenty-five thousand feet," Cole shot her thumb towards O'Brien, "And we don't have parachutes."
Rachel seemed to consider that for a minute before smiling, "Nope. Still worth it."
For all her bluster and ability, both women knew that actually settling this wouldn't end well, which had kept them in détente for weeks. Here, without weapons, Darla could tear her to pieces. But despite the woman's bubbly personality and innocent looks, Lorne was a battle-hardened Resistance soldier.
Though not originally Tech-Com, she'd been involved in a series of campaigns in the Mid-west sector under Colonel Edgar 'The Fox' Wainwright. The Mid-western theater had always played third echelon to the fight for the coasts, way down the list for supplies and reinforcements. Wainwright's Wildcats, probably the single most successful insurgency operation in North America, managed to turn their weaknesses into strengths. They fought with improvised weapons and tactics, retreating through prepared ground and using traps and deceptions to dilute and eventually wear down the enemy through simple attrition.
Most Resistance soldiers came right at you, teeth clenched and fists swinging. Easy enough for a person with Cole's training to deal with. But Rachel would bide her time, would wait for her moment, would come at her sideways.
People like that were unknown quantities and if there was one thing an intelligence officer hated, it was a lack of operational intel. It was the unknown.
So, like all combatants faced with the prospect of mutually assured destruction, they settled for sniping at each other from the periphery and hoping that time would change circumstances enough to allow them to make a move from a position of strength.
Besides, in the short term, they'd need every good soldier they had to survive what was coming.
It was at that point that the flight attendant made her way back into the first class compartment, five hands immediately shooting up to greet her.
"Let me guess?" Shaking her head a bit, the woman forced a professional smile, "More drinks."
T.B.C
Author's Note: Yes, I know I'll probably get firebombed for posting this before the M-rated oneshot, but it just turned out that way. For those of you who haven't figured it out already, it will cover the gap from the pool scene in the last chapter to Cameron coming back to their room and finding John gone. As far as this story goes, we're ratcheting up to J-Day, so hold on tight folks.
Thank you as always to everyone who has taken the time to review, you really do make the effort worth it. Morded, richard, NordWest, gypsy069, TSCCandTwilightarehebest, Necro-wulf, klumsysmurf, Dragon Seraphin, xxshyangel29xx, XxDeathStarxX, Renderer, kaotic2, and Bigbew.