Cameron's Expedition
Chapter Thirty-Four – An Old Enemy
Disclaimer: Don't own TSCC
This story is set in The Future Cameron's Universe after Cameron's Revenge. It contains characters from my version of the TSCC universe starting with Cameron Grows Up.
TechCom Command…
Waiting in his alcove in the corridor to the commanding families bunkers, the Old Man felt something similar to anxiety. The General was ten minutes late departing for the Command Center. Cameron had been gone for three days now, so there was no reason for the General to have an unscheduled "delay" in the morning.
At 0612 the General emerged from the bunker and looked sheepishly in the T-600s direction.
"Slept late. My apologies."
"Cameron is not here to care for you. No apologies are required sir."
"You were getting worried, weren't you?"
The General smiled and patted the Old Man once lightly on his shoulder as they made their way down the corridor.
"I miss her and the girls too," John laughed. "By the way, I checked the casualty reports this morning. Their names weren't listed."
"Thank you, sir."
John studied the T-600's metal face. The machine had no physical way to convey emption with his face and spoke in a monotone. Still, he was certain the Terminator had somehow conveyed a sense of extreme relief in those few words.
"It's been a long two weeks," John muttered.
"Yes, sir."
"I've had one good nights sleep since they deployed and I didn't get much sleep, if you know what I mean," John grinned.
"When will the Commander be home for leave again?"
The words had no sooner left his voice generator than the Old Man wished he'd not generated them. A sorrowful expression came upon the General's face.
"I don't know. I wish I did."
Somewhere in the Northern Kingdom…
Two Grey's appeared, nervously looking about the remains of what had once been a small cottage. Both looked exhausted from a long, forced march. The shorter of the two waved his arms in disgust and sat down against the wall of the cottage taking advantage of the overhang from the roof to shelter him from the freezing misting rain failing. The taller one shook his head in frustration with his partner and continued scanning the area around the cottage.
Ruth smiled. The taller one would go first, then the lazy one. If he didn't put up a fight, she'd extract information from him. She scanned her files for predators once found in this part of California and based on her body mass, decided to take on the form of a juvenile female mountain lion.
In complete silence, Ruth made her way from her hiding spot, leaving her weapons and other equipment behind. The soft pads of her feet allowed her to move in total silence to within feet of the observant guard. With a lunge, Ruth struck the guard dead center between his shoulders, knocking him flat on the ground on his chest. A single swipe with her forepaw across his neck ended his life.
His face a picture of complete terror, Ruth looked first at the sitting Grey and then at the corpse of the dead sentry. With a lick of her lips, Ruth began to slowly approach the terrified Grey who remembered he was armed and grabbed for his assault rifle. Ruth lunged and batted it away, taking a step back from her prey.
"You shouldn't have done that," she told the terrified Grey.
Shaking uncontrollably, the Grey began to crawl along the wall of the cottage away from Ruth.
"Don't make me have to chase you, I'm not in the mood."
"Mountain lions can't talk. I know they can't."
"Then you know what I am. You would have had a better chance against a mountain lion."
"General Connor can't win," the Grey said through chattering teeth.
Ruth loped several quick steps and slammed her forepaw on the Grey's leg, bringing his flight to a halt.
"Tell me, why can't the General win?"
"Our Master has a new weapon."
"Tell me about it," Ruth growled, licking her lips as she sniffed the face of the Grey.
Quivering the Grey looked at Ruth's eyes and the exposed fangs of her slightly open mouth.
"You're going to kill me," he whimpered in terror.
"Yes. But if you tell me what I want to know, you won't feel anything. Drag this out, and you'll learn how it feels to be mauled by a mountain lion protecting her cubs."
"Tactical nukes. Artillery. That's all I know."
Ruth slashed the Grey's face off in one smooth, fluid motion with her paw. A quick back swipe ripped his throat out. A search of the two dead Grey's revealed nothing else worth reporting. Strolling with the easy grace of the animal whose from she had taken, Ruth returned to her hiding place. Morphing her fingers, she typed in a message on her compiece and sent it. The risk of it being intercepted and traced back to her location was far less than John's need to know of what she had learned.
Her uniform and equipment hidden, Ruth morphed again, turning into a California Condor. Facing the wind, she spread her wings, allowing the up draft to fill her feathers. Three hard flaps of her wings and Ruth was airborne. Using the wind to aid her climb, Ruth gained altitude, soaring higher and higher, circling the site of her kills.
Her infrared vision picked up signs of movement further inland, just to the north of her present location. Ruth adjusted her flight and began gliding towards her next hunting ground.
Somewhere Along Interstate 5…
Cameron sat in her command post, examining the latest reports sent to her. The lead element of a battered Skynet column would be in her kill zone in twenty minutes. Five hundred of her Terminators would make short work of the Skynet forces and vanish into the darkness.
One minute was the total time allotted for the ambush. Her entire force would withdraw and make their way south, passing by the next force of the Silver Brigade who was waiting patiently for Skynet to reach their assigned ambush zone.
Skynet had shown no indication he would deviate from his march southwards using Interstate 5 as the route for one of his main columns. His lone adjustment had been to separate his forces into smaller groups. A reasonable precaution Cameron thought, but foolish. Skynet spread the groups out too far apart to be able to provide support for each other, allowing Cameron's forces to hit and run with relative impunity.
Her current choice of ambush sites was simple, a bend in the road with a large outcropping above the inside of the turn. Explosives had been planted, allowing the outcropping to be brought down on the lead vehicles, blocking the road. Teller mines and IEDs would be set off followed by exactly 60 seconds of hellish fire from every weapon her Silvers could bring to bear. And then they would be gone.
With 8 minutes remaining till the lead vehicles entered the ambush zone, Cameron gave herself a full minute to think about her brief trip home to report to John. Her face remained emotionless as she reviewed the data of John running his fingers through her hair and over her newly regenerated ear. It bothered Cameron slightly that she'd needed the sex as much as she'd needed the intimacy with John.
Cameron desired sex with John but had always felt she did not "need it." Collecting data afterwards when John would touch her was different. It was reassuring and intimate, private and somehow different. Needing sex was human. A human need.
She was metal and had never wanted to be human, even if she could have been magically converted. Cameron yearned to be a better individual. It pleased her John and improved their relationship. It made her a better leader and increased her social interaction skills, making her a better infiltrator and better equipped to protect her John and the family. But human?
Her allotted time elapsed and Cameron filed away her thoughts for consideration at a future time. She noted the file and flagged it for discussion with her John, even predicting his initial comments. He would be delighted she had developed a "need" for sex and not just the intimacy afterwards. Cameron sighed at the thought. John could still be such a male juvenile at times.
Data flashed across her tablet, indicating the lead vehicle had entered the ambush zone. Cameron began arming all of the charges, waiting for the vehicle to pass beneath the outcropping. She noted in surprise the lead vehicle, one of Skynet's new, small tanks, was commanded by a Grey and not a T-800 or T-888.
The change noted a different tactic. The Grey would be more wary. Just as Camreon processed the thought, the lead vehicle ground to a halt. Two Bradley fighting vehicles followed. Their rear doors opened, discharging their infantry cargo.
Wasting no time, Cameron detonated all the charges in the same instant. The road vanished in a ball of reddish orange flame, punctuated with white explosions jumping towards the sky as Skynet's vehicles exploded. The outcropping flew high into the air, falling just short of the now destroyed lead vehicle.
Packing her tablet into her pack, Cameron abandoned her command post as her troops unleashed their full combined firepower. Climbing up on a small rise, she scanned the surrounding area. In the distance she spotted movement. Skynet had deployed a small infantry force on the flank to find and attack her troops.
Fortunately, they were too far back for this ambush, but it was a disturbing change. Skynet was adapting in ways he'd never done before. His adaptations were somewhat human, making him more dangerous.
North of Airbase S-14…
Boredom was never a good thing for soldiers before a battle. It dulled their senses, their edge. As a newly minted Captain, Dan was determined to lead his forces to victory. He had to.
Wilhelm had made it clear he trusted him to hold the position until ordered to withdraw. It was a test. Dan felt a need to make amends with his commanding officer. His relationship with Savannah had not ended in the cleanest fashion though Dan felt things would be fine between the redhead and him. Her parents, that remained to be seen.
He also knew the plan called for his outlying force to buy time. Time to determine where the airborne would be deployed, at Airbase S-14 or at the site of Colonel Reese's Army. The airborne could be the force that tipped the balance in either battle. The sad truth was TechCom simply still did not have enough personnel to fight long and protracted battles against a Skynet army that cared nothing at all about losses.
With the need to prevent boredom in mind, Dan decided to order two patrols that day. The men and metals had to keep a sharp edge.
Skynet's Mobile Lair…
"How long will the delay be?"
Nervously the Grey glanced at his T-888 counterpart.
"We've cleared the road already. The next element in the convoy has moved south beyond the ambush site."
"What were the losses?"
"80 percent casualties. Only a dozen recoverable vehicles."
"Did the flankers make contact?"
"No. They were positioned to far back from the lead vehicle."
"A simple adjustment," a voice said from the far side of the lair. A human turned around, his left arm missing. The left side of his face was horribly scarred. He limped as he made his way towards the two newest staff officers.
"Master, simply have the flankers moved further forward. They are T-800s, They can keep pace."
"Make it so," Skynet ordered.
Glancing again at the mysterious human, the nodded before bowing, eager to flee the lair alive.
Outside, the pair stopped to confer. "Is that who I think it is?"
"Yes, I have consulted my files. His face clearly has suffered significant damage and he has aged, but it is him."
"No wonder the master listens. He's one of the few humans who could pull that off."
"Terminators for that matter," the T-800 added.
"I can't believe it's him."
"It is."
"But John Connor killed him."
Somewhere in the Northern Kingdom…
Looking at the remains, the Grey felt nauseous. It was the seventh of his men that had been found. All of them mauled by a mountain lion. Fresh kills no less.
"Mountain lions are solitary," he stated, glaring at the T-800 in command of his unit. "This is not the work of a mountain lion."
"The signs are perfectly clear," the T-800 countered. "Do I need to provide you with exact forensic details of the depth and types of wounds?"
"No, you don't. But you need to listen to me for a change. A mountain lion did this, but it wasn't a mountain lion."
"That is illogical."
"Really? Even you should be able to determine what did this," the Grey officer said in disgust.
The T-800 stooped to examine the remains again. He stood up and looked directly at the Grey. "There is no doubt…"
His left eye vanished and the back of his head cracked open. The thunderous report of a .50 caliber sniper rifle sounded, catching up with its deadly round.
Startled, the human soldiers took cover while the Terminators scanned the area for the sniper. In rapid succession, two more machines had their chips destroyed. The last Terminator seemed to have found the source of the sniper fire and was raising its weapon when the .50 Terminator round destroyed its chip.
A mountain lion's roar sounded, chilling the surviving Greys to the marrow.
Nearly two minutes passed before the Grey officer stood up and glanced about in the darkness.
"It's okay. It's gone."
His sergeant, a hardened veteran of the First War Against Humanity looked his officer in the eye.
"How many do they have?"
"I don't know. But that idiot was stupid, even for a machine. He should have realized TechCom has T-1000s now."
Reviews are always appreciated. If you liked this story, you might want to consider my other TSCC stories:
Cameron Grows Up
The Future Cameron
Cameron's Revenge
Cameron versus the Queen
Cameron versus Derek (short story)
Cameron: Fights Past and Present - A Collection of Short Stories
Cameron's Treasures (short story)
Cameron and the Black Bird
Cameron and John's Wedding
Who's the Boss?
The Storm Before the Calm