Lieutenant Reese chewed on her ration bar mindlessly as what sounded like the end of days howled above her head. She and the Juggernauts had hunkered down in one of the many supply caches hidden around the City after successfully taking down a Covenant mortar emplacement. Now Lieutenant Red and his men, bolstered by an entire company of hard-boiled veterans, were gleefully rampaging through a major Covenant strongpoint. The Juggernauts had lost six soldiers in their previous engagement without replacements, though that was partially Reese's fault since she only took combat veterans, and this last engagement had cost them another seven. It was business as usual actually but Reese did not like being undermanned when all hell was breaking loose in the City.

Not even twenty-four hours after the General had broadcast, a horde of fresh, bloodthirsty Covenant troops, Intel said nearly forty percent were a mixture of Brutes and Elites, were storming down on the City. The bombardments had stopped and then the real fun had started. It had been a month since the successful raid and the Juggernauts had maybe gotten three hours of sleep a day. Even the Juggernauts, despite the stories circulating about them, couldn't operate on so little sleep. They desperately needed a well-deserved period of R&R but Command said their services were too desperately needed in this sector. It didn't make it any easier to loose soldiers she had come to know.

Bunti, hunched over because of the low ceiling of the bunker, squatted beside her. At least the man had lost his irrational fear of her.

"We've got new orders from Command, Lieutenant," he began, pausing to take a drink from his spherical canteen," They want us at these coordinates in one hour."

Reese looked at the coordinates Bunti was feeding her wrist-com and grunted. They were supposed to travel nearly two kilometers west and two level down. They would have to leave quickly if they were going to be there early in order to set up a killzone just in case.

"Thanks, B." she said, nodding as he hunched away," Moon, Vance, Kinh, Tren, we're moving out."

One hour later Reese was lying prone beneath the slab of collapsed portion of the ceiling overlooking a convergence of service tunnels. A fire team was stationed around her and the rest of her platoon were in ideal position to turn the large room into a charnel house of smoking flesh at the slightest provocation.

"We've captured a scout," Kinh's soft voice came over the comm.," He says he's with the Screaming Eagles and they're escorting General Perry. His authorization codes check out. "

"Stay in cover," Reese said, an impish grin spreading across her face," We'll surprise them."

"Roger."

Five minutes later and the General still hadn't showed up.

"How far behind were they?" Reese asked, just as a titanic explosion echoed through the confined space," Tren, form up on me! Kinh, follow behind, standard sniping pattern! Moon, Vance, stay here and get ready for a quick exit! Let's go!"

Reese was on the floor of the convergence before she finished speaking and Tren and his powered armor Heavies were there moments later. They moved out down the tunnel that Kinh indicated with a finger at a trot. Reese's mind was working quickly and analytically but her heart was beating icy tendrils of dread all over her body. Then they came to a huge gap in the tunnel that spilled into a water tunnel below them. On the other side Reese could see a squad of Covenant Brutes and a single Elite standing guard over a trio of bleeding men.

One of them was her father.

"Fire!" she roared just as Kinh shouted," Fire behind!"

There was little cover but the Juggernauts took advantage of what they could. Tren and his Heavies quickly wheeled around and switched positions with Kinh's snipers when they saw the Brutes and Elites had no interest in them. They returned a staggering amount of fire at their still hidden ambushers, probably cloaked Elites, but failed to notice that the General was being taken away.

Reese took a few steps back, ran, leapt, and barely made the four-meter gap. She fired as soon as her feet hit the ground and was about to go forward when a plasma bolt seemed to appear from nowhere and hit her directly in the sternum. Icy pain filled her abdomen and obscene laughter filled her ears but it was the look of horror and astonishment in her father's eyes that was her last vision as she fell backward through the rent in the floor.

Strange symbols, a language that she instinctively knew the meaning of, scrawled across her vision. It disoriented her, she wished it were in English, and suddenly it changed to English.

Moderate damage to abdominal armor.

Re-routing repair nanytes to affected area.

Repair estimate: Two minutes.

Mission-Identity Compromised.

Releasing encrypted memory files.

Compressing mission data.

Searching for SkyNet CommSat. signal.

None found.

OS switching to Free Mode.

Repairs complete.

System Status: Nominal.

For a confused moment she wondered at the things she was seeing. Were hallucinations all she had to look forward to in death? Skynet was dead and its CommSat.'s destroyed. Maybe she was dreaming.

Then the blank holes that were her memories before being found by Perry and Luna flooded with light. She knew who and what she was. She knew what her mission was and the knowledge would have overcome Sarah "Reese" Perry. The knowledge did not alter the visage of the prototype for the Terminator Omega-Series. Instead it merely took stock of the situation and began from there.

Servomotor output maximized.

Internal weaponry on-line.

Full power scan for SkyNet Tertiary Defensive Grid.

Error.

None Found.

Error.

Error.

Error.

The Prototype had not been imprinted with the code that would enable it to operate without SkyNet's guidance like those Terminators sent to the past of its alternate reality. Its A.I. functionality was severely impaired and the default Operating System crashed. The gestalt personality and intellect that had been Sarah Perry reinserted itself with the overwhelming will that her father had instilled in her almost from the beginning. She crawled her way up from electronic limbo and took a deep breath. She stopped in mid-breath with a sob as she realized she didn't need to breath. That it was just a part of her hard-code that made her emulate human biological mannerisms. Her life was a lie. She was a lie. Now she knew why were father had given her that look. He must have seen the silvery, metallic shell that was covered by her poly-mimetic skin. The liquid metal, new and improved in her series, could duplicate skin, blood and even musculature, but when seared down to the endoskeleton there could be no mistaking her innards for human.

Her father would never want to see her again.

And so she did what she had done rarely in her adult life.

She cried and cried bitterly for the knowledge that her tears were not actually tears but were created by nanytes. Huge, wrenching sobs shook her body, now no more than living mercury trapped in a vaguely feminine shape. She had even been able to have sex, though not lately, the incongruity of that thought almost made her laugh.

You'll never see your father again and he won't have the chance to decide for himself, Luna's voice from a memory of long ago came to her unbidden.

Reese had wanted to run away to travel the world and her father had forbid it. She had only been sixteen at the time but it had seemed terribly unfair. The elder Perry had told her that if she left he would never let her set foot in their home again and he would curse her until the day he died. Reese had screamed at him and told him she didn't care what he did. Later Luna had come to her and told her that her father hadn't meant it and that if she ran away the odds were it would be a long time before she ever did see him again, if she ever did. Luna had told Reese that her father had prostate cancer and that the doctors had given him two years four years before that time. No one seemed to know what was keeping him alive. When they had come here the UNSC had had technology that completely cured him and Reese had thought they would have forever.

I guess I'll have to make sure we do.

Reese stood, unconsciously reverting to her default appearance, and took stock of her surroundings. She had landed on a completely unnecessary stone outcropping maybe ten meters below the gap. The tunnel was cylindrical and the gap was just a hole in the curving wall above her. It was pitch-black in the tunnel but a mere thought illuminated it in a red-tinted version of night vision with data scrolling in the corner of her eye. Her camo around the waist was gone and her nanytes had absorbed the melted strips of metal for repairs. Reese had dropped her plasma carbine but she still had her DAF and several grenades. Reese grinned as knowledge continued to seep into her. She held up her hand, concentrated, and within seconds a built-in plasma gun in the 50-kilowatt range had replaced her forearm. With a wave the appendage was once again opposable.

Now the question was could she make the jump. Reese bent, flexed her knees slightly, and leapt. Her leap carried her up into the tunnel with astonishing speed and she hit her head on the ceiling with a solid thump. Before it would have made her eyes cross and her vision blur but now all that occurred was data describing that very minor damage had been done. Reese had felt the initial pain but a thought had dissipated it quickly. She truly was a revolution in Terminator technology. SkyNet would have been proud. Reese grabbed the edge of the hole as she was falling and pulled herself up. Her new strength would take some getting used to. Her servomotor output before had only been ten percent and she had been the strongest woman she knew.

Reese had a powerful built-in communications package and she used it quickly to tap into the Covenant Battle-Net. Within seconds she knew where they were taking her father and what time their evac would be. She also knew that he hadn't had the ForeRunner relic and they were pissed off to say the least. She only had twenty minutes to catch up to them.

She started running.

The Covenant SpecOps team, six Brutes and a high-ranking Elite, moved confidently out onto the landing zone they had staked out earlier.ྭ They had a screen of a dozen, down from their original twenty, cloaked Elites around their perimeter. Their LZ was even partially hidden by an overhang because they were still well below street level. There was almost no way anything could go wrong.

The moment they stepped foot on the hundred meter wide landing pad everything started to go wrong.

The transport sitting in the center exploded spectacularly. Each of the commando's sighted on the origin of the tiny rocket contrail and let loose a withering display of plasma fire. The commanding Elite began calling for the cloaked Elites to come in, pausing to cuff the prisoner for trying to escape his bonds yet again, and cursed in his native tongue as he received no answer. From out of nowhere three Covenant plasma grenades streaked and impact with deadly accuracy on the foreheads of three Brutes. Those three, knowing their fates, leapt off the edge of the landing field instead of possibly killing any of their comrades. The Elite roared his frustration and ducked as fire from one of the humans infernally effective sidearms cut two more Brutes down. Then, almost instantaneously really, a searing ball of orange-red plasma reduced the last Brute's head to stinking slag. It was then that the Elite realized the only reason he was still alive was his close proximity to the human. The Elite growled an oath and held the human to his chest by the throat. He held his plasma rifle in front of him and called for immediate evac and reinforcements.

A lone figure appeared out of the haze that was wafting over the battlefield. It was a human female, tall for her kind, but still dwarfed by the Elite. She was holding out her empty hands and slowly gesturing to her empty holsters. The Elite grinned and tightened his finger on the trigger only to be stopped by the words out of the woman's own mouth.

"Why don't we settle this in glorious personal combat?! " the female barked in his native tongue," I am the commander of the Juggernauts. I spit on your Prophets and your Gods. It will bring me honor to kill an Elite barehanded. Though I don't know how much honor I would get from a mud-sucker like you."

The Elite threw his plasma rifle and pistol to one side, the human to another, and drew his plasma sword.

"Now you die, human filth!" he roared, charging forward with a powerful lunging swing.

Then the human was there, a palm on his chest, and the other hand clenched around his too large wrist. She shouldn't have been able to exert any pressure on it but she was. The pain was unbearable and then he heard a sharp snap. He howled in agony as the plasma sword extinguished and he was hoisted into the air. His howls turned to fear as she edged him towards the open air. With one effortless toss he was gone.

So the battle went.

Reese watched the Elite fall and sighed in utter relief.

Her father was alive.

"Sarah?" came her father's voice hesitantly.

Reese turned, a grin blossoming on her face at her father's voice, and was stopped in mid-stride. Icy dread again clenched her heart, but she didn't have a heart, and she could tell her father knew it. General Perry, bloodied and bruised, held a plasma rifle on his own daughter with a dire look on his face. Gone was the distant, but loving and occasionally affectionate man who had raised her. Now he was Captain Perry and it was the Machine War. She could see it in his eyes. The madness of the Machine Wars had never really gone away. Tears rolled down her face and his face softened but she couldn't tell through the wall of tears. A cold feeling spread through Reese until she was numb inside and out. Reese walked back to the edge of the landing field.

"Go ahead," she said, trying not to sob," End it. As far as I know I'm the last Terminator. When I die, it'll really be over. I'm ready and I'm sorry. Two in the head. One won't finish me. Do it."

"Damnit, Reese!" her father roared right in her ear and she nearly leapt off the edge. Her father caught her though and whirled her back to safety before clutching her tightly and whispering," Don't be so stupid."