Once again, Xander found himself in a white room with Freya, who looked very tired and worn for once.
"Are you okay, Valar?" he asked her, "How can I help?"
"Frey is managing to alter fates in four dimensions and I barely in three, Alexander," she told him, clearly under stress from something he couldn't sense, "We know you're almost home, but Moloch is Skynet in many worlds, and we ask of you to help us in one more, to protect those of that world and cast Moloch/Skynet back into its tome."
"The Terminator is real somewhere? What do we need to do?"
"You'll land in the control room of a military complex. Destroy all that is electrical, and defend everyone there until the spell is successfully cast… then take John Connor and his… girlfriend with you, as they would fade into oblivion from time paradoxy."
"She'd have been his wife…and if she stays she'll be blamed for the damage."
"And executive officer as your people call it…"
"We'll do it, Valar…"
"Thank you Alexander, even gods are not infinite. You'll be there for no more than ten minutes, and I'll give you a moment to brief your brave Companions."
The Sliders landed in the Control Room of the facility, just as the switch was about to be activated. The young people had just made their way in as the vortex opened up and the trucks suddenly dropped into the adjacent open space and crashed through from an adjacent hallway.
Already keyed up over the attack at the beginning of this Slide, Ash, Pike, Beth and Brandi move forward to cover the 'wall flowers' while Joyce, Willow, Dawn and Maggie move to cover entries into the room and to neutralize cameras with zats and fire arms.
Kirk and Scott had taken out from their duffels illicitly-stashed phaser rifles. Firing carefully and with well-earned skill, they moved to eliminate the nearby mechanoids before they could activate.
Caught between thoughts, the USAF General Robert Brewster finished activating Skynet without consideration as Doyle began firing a zat into the secondary military equipment in the room. Xander moved down the hall where he'd glimpsed a large room full of killing machines.
"Rupert, now!" the muscled giant called over to the spell casters as the machine intelligence began to take over.
The cybertanks start to move, the soldiers and technicians shocked and worried as none of them would have activated the machines. Weapons began to come on line, tearing through the base personnel, even as Xander hurried down the hall, and with Kirk and Scoot in support, opened up with lightning and Force lightning, not good at either but desperate to prevent a massacre of humans.
The military personnel and the civilian technologists were too surprised at the vortex, the trucks and the attack to attempt resistance as Rupert, Deirdre and Tara begin the Moloch recapture spell into a book they have, as Doyle shifted away to follow Xander as he heard weapons fire break out.
Xander yelled 'Burn' and Doyle followed his magical lead, the spells blanketing the machines and causing minor internal fires to erupt in the wiring. Following up with zats as the phaser rifles exact a toll, even as the machines shredded the walls with heavy caliber fire, the magazine eruptions ended the nearby cybertanks from within.
"Mr. Scott! Get back t—Scotty!" Xander called out, wincing as he noticed slightly more serious wounds than his own four burns, "Kirk! Jim! Cover us!"
Xander fireman-carried the engineer back toward the control center as s determined-looking woman walking through the fire writhed and split as the phaser rifles tore into her arm and caused a munitions explosion. An Arnold Schwarzenegger CSM-101 leapt past with shotgun and a section of pipe.
"Kirk! Get back to the control room! Now!"
It tool them a full minute, Xander and Kirk limping from minor shrapnel in the legs to get Scotty back to the safety of the trucks.
Xander could feel the spell finishing as he entered the room, but also guessed the base had already been given orders to kill all humans, "Rupert! Is Moloch in the book!"
"Yes!" the Watcher called back, paging to make sure of it, "I think we got the bloody bugger before he could do more than 'e has."
"Good, cause we need to get out of here, pronto!" the large man assured him, "Where're the Connors!"
"Here, Xander," Doyle said, having just taken a moment to explain very sketchily why they'd intruded into the dimension, "How much time do we have?"
"A minute, maybe less, Dawn hit the timer just in front of the lead truck," Xander said, a general coming up to him, "You understand?"
"Not really, but I'm going with you if you're taking my daughters," the officer with slight ricochet wounds asserted, "So now what?"
"DO you have a nuclear self-destruct on this place?" Xander asked, and after a second the man nodded, "Then set it for just enough time to get your people clear. Hurry."
"You heard the man!" USAF General Robert Brewster ordered, having briefly seen his command taken over by a computer virus these people called a demon, "Get out while I set this thing! The terrorists were killed when the three of us stayed behind where we were trapped and took them with us! Got it!"
He received nods, though as he began the simple code process left open by Sky Net, he himself wasn't sure how much to believe. A scrunching and crashing as a burnt metal figure forced a pipe through the chest of another as they crashed through a wall made up his mind.
The vortex opened as the man completed his sequence and Xander destroyed the terminal to assure success, "Get in the truck, general, hurry."
Xander and Doyle turned, exchanged a few brief words, and shouted "Ice!" then "Lightning!" at the machine fighters, causing parts to separate and shatter. The leapt back into the vehicles and got going, noticing a lot of worried looks as they escaped to what they hoped would be a quieter world.
A/N: Short, I know, but I just couldn't quite make this work better, but I was too stubborn not to do this one. The next two are much better, though. Really.