Days of Sky Net

by keithallen

sequel to the 'day' series. John Junior and his crew have gone home. Now, John Connor faces the coming of sky net, and the rush to prepare for it. Knowing when J-day will arrive and having the time and knowledge to prepare for it, John is in a better position than humanity originally was. But then again so is Sky Net. Forget the 'genre', as always, I'll go all over the place.

24. Chapter 24

CH 24

4362 had not been receiving any further transmissions from Sky Net, so it continued to lead the mass of forces towards the mountain peninsula. Signs showed that humans were attempting to stall them by setting explosive traps and ruining roads. Already, 4362 had H/K's flying over the mountain and shooting plasma down onto it to crack rock open. No humans had been sighted in the area. They must all be inside. There was also the possibility that they may be hiding in the ships in the harbor, or in the buildings. 4362 had everything leveled by the H/K's and the ships there sunk.

By the time the H/K tanks got close enough to help reduce the mountain to blasted rock, it was clear that either the humans were hiding, or all inside were terminated. It was odd no bodies had been found so far, and there was not even the traps units had been finding along the way. Packing as many units onto the peninsula as possible, 4362 was not finding any humans at all. Humans had been very aggressive, the data wasn't making sense.

Then 4362 received a distress signal from the factory complex now hundreds of miles away. The factories were under a punishing attack by human forces, the defense forces left behind were destroyed. 4362 requested help from Sky Net but Sky Net was silent and didn't answer. It did the only thing it could do. It had all the forces not currently busy reducing the Rock to rubble, head for the factories in a vain attempt to save them, and sent a squad of terminators to go back to Barcelona to report it wasn't getting any transmissions from Sky Net.

.

John re-routed supplies and reinforcements from Southern Spain to the north coast of Spain and send a message to Marisa about the change. He also praised her for the great job she did, knocking out Sky Net Spain and three Sky Net factories. Since they might have to 'attack' the resupply point, he also sent 1000 TX's with M-1 tanks as well as the replacement Stugs and crews for all the tanks. In sealing off Spain from the rest of Europe, she was also to look hard for any survivors in the Pyrenees mountains.

The situation in Mexico was going well. General Jacobson was down to the Yucatan and the southern Mexican border. Besides being warmer, that area was also less radioactive. Food could be grown there that was healthy enough, so long as the people had nanites to clean up the weak radiation in the food. There were a few enclaves of humans who had drifted back to Mayan heritage after the world fell apart. John agreed with Jacobson that they should respect the Mayan nation and make treaties with them for mutual protection and trade. Sky Net was working it's way north from South America and were nearly up to Panama in their eradication of humans. That had to be stopped.

In his command post, John noted one of the TX Captains from Flores' supply regiment had come asking to see him.

Cameron cast John a look and glanced at the Sargent who announced the man.

"Send him in," John told him.

The Captain marched in and saluted. "General, I have a grievance I believe you should know about."

John returned his salute. "Very well, let's hear it, Captain."

Standing at attention, the Captain said, "Sir, I am the coordinator responsible for handling damaged terminators coming back from the front lines. Colonel Flores is not paying attention to the damaged and disabled terminators returning. She even suggested throwing away their chips, Sir!"

John could see, even for a terminator, he was upset. "Has she thrown any away?" John asked.

"Not to my knowledge, Sir. We do have a warehouse holding 2153 terminators needing repair and 7297 viable chips from Terminators who have lost their bodies," the Captain stated.

"Is there a problem with transportation?" John asked.

"Negative, Sir. The last train that left for the west coast, had three empty cars. Colonel Flores sent the train without informing us. We bring in terminators but we are not being allowed to move them on to repair facilities."

John told Cameron, "Get me Flores on the line, I want to talk to her." To the Captain, he said, "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. If the situation does not change within three days, I want you to report back to me."

"Than you, Sir!" the Captain said with a salute.

John returned the salute. The Captain turned and marched out.

From the communications console, Cameron said, "John, I have Colonel Flores on the line."

John walked over and keyed the mike. "Colonel Flores?"

"Yes General?" Jesse replied in a flat tone.

"Are you having a transportation problem?" John asked. "I was just informed terminators who have been damaged in battle are not making it to repair facilities. I suppose you have a good reason why not?"

"I was not aware of that problem, General."

Her tone told John that Jesse did not consider this a priority. "It is a problem, Colonel. If you cannot get them on their way to be repaired, perhaps I need to send someone who can help you do your job."

There was a pause, then, "I will ensure the busted up metal will be sent on their way," Jesse stated.

"You do that, I will be waiting to hear from repair facilities that they are receiving the damaged terminators, AND the mass of chips that must be collecting in your warehouse. Connor out." He put the mike down and stared at it briefly.

"She can't let it go, can she?" he asked no one.

Softly, Cameron said, "John, Jesse Flores doesn't like any terminators. That will never change."

John let out a huff and flopped an arm down. "So where do I put her? She can't lead a force, she doesn't work well with terminators, which are in just about every unit we have," he said in frustration. "Logistics is the only place where she has minimal contact with any terminators. If she keeps screwing this up, I'll be forced to stick her at a desk here, or dismissing her completely."

"Then you would have to," Cameron stated.

"Yeah, and possibly stick someone who can fight into a support role," he said with a snort.

"The Captain that was here requested to have a non-combatant role," Cameron said. "There are others, including freed terminators who do not want to fight and are filling in factory and support positions."

John barked out a sarcastic chuckle. "Replace Jesse with a TX? She'd probably blow up completely. I'd like to salvage her if at all possible," he said. He bit his lip and pondered aloud, "Maybe have that Captain have his own separate section to ensure terminators get to where they are going. Take him out from under her command to deal with the transportation department directly." Shaking his head, he added, "Maybe Flores will straighten up."

Cameron cast him a tiny smile. "Perhaps she will," she said, not believing it.

.

The moment General Bedell got the information that the supply landing site in Spain had been changed, he passed the word to his admiral to collect their ships together to form another landing assault. The Lexington now had 50 ground attack planes and 20 H/K's. Due to the smaller size of the prop planes, they could pack a few more in the ship. The ammunition stores on board all his ships were full, and the ammo factory in Galveston and Corpus Christi were cranking out the missile shells and torpedoes. Admiral Dave had 130 mini subs, and the Lexington fleet had 3 destroyers, 4 cruisers and a pair of LST's. The freighter fleet now based in Charleston SC was up to 12 ships. With the scheduled freighters, Bedell was sending his fleet to ensure the freighters got there and all the supplies and reinforcements arrived. The Seawolf and the Onyx were also accompanying the fleet, then heading to Iceland with the fleet to see what was there now. If Sky Net didn't have many forces there, or none, they were going to set up a radio station and a base.

From Marisa's reports, John expected her to be at the rendezvous beach in Spain in 14 days. The fleet was to meet them.

.

Lower Mexico was not hit with bombs, but used to have terminators going around killing everyone the saw. The Mayans on the Yucatan and in Guatemala agreed with a mutual defense pact and trade with Connor's forces, seeing how the wiped out the metal in the area. They did not have much in the way of defense and were struggling until General Jacobson showed up. Right away, General Jacobson got 150 Mayan scouts who knew Guatemala to help get his forces south as fast as possible. Besides the coastal highway, these men knew of inland roads to get them south in an alternate route.

Besides getting his army south, General Jacobson trained Mayan troops and supplied them with projectile weapons and the initial officers for their forces. He also had a team set up radar stations and send prospective Mayan pilots up to Texas to learn how to fly their ground attack planes. Naval assistance would come directly from Texas. When the Mayan pilots went north, they took truckloads of fruit with them. Fruit was in very scarce supply up north.

The new Mayan President hailed General Jacobson, and the resistance leader, John Connor as friends of the new Mayan republic. Due to this, John and Cameron scheduled a trip to meet with the Mayan President.

John had to admit, for the moment things were going fairly well, and he would not mind a few days in a warmer climate. There was also the possibility of seeing Cameron walking around in skimpy clothing. Yes, he would like that.

.

In Spain, Marisa leveled the Sky Net factories. Tina who'd managed to make it back up onto land before Marisa fled Gibraltar, was in charge of collecting disabled Sky Net terminators and anything that could be salvaged from the factory wreckage. Working fast, she collected Sky Net carriers to pile the terminators on and formed buckets to fill with every intact CPU chip she could find. Once Tina's troops and vehicles were loaded down with all they could carry, what had to be left behind was liberally dusted with all the thermite they had, then set on fire.

Leaving the burning piles of scrap, Marisa followed the scout force north. Going north, she found the temperature dropping and they were getting into snow. So far, it was only up to a foot deep, enough to leave tracks, but not enough to hider movement. Like before, they ran into small bands of terminators, some with an H/K tank, but no serious threats. Making the mountains to the north by the sea, Marisa formed her forces into a semi-circle around the supply beaches and moved in, leaving a defense picket to guard against a Sky Net attack. Missile and projectile ammunition was getting low. She made the order that unless it was vital, only plasma weaponry was to be used.

Like the coastal area Marisa had first landed at in Spain, only a few terminators were here, searching for humans. She did get a surprise upon finding the town with intact docks. Up on a hillside, there was a cave that oversaw the ocean. She went up to make that her command post. Since Tina was her Support commander, Tina salvaged a table and got a few men and TX's to made this cave into a command center.

Marisa had lights brought in and directed the placement of tables, maps and chairs. Standing near the back she almost jumped in surprise when a voice behind her called, "Chequita!"

Turning, she saw a smiling, dirty faced man sticking his head out of the hole she had been sure was empty. Extending her hand she said in Spanish, "We are friends, let me help you out."

The man was tall and thin. She helped him crawl out and called, "We have survivors! We need food, water and nanite milk."

The man struggled out and beamed her a smile. "You were speaking English, you Amerikan?"

"We are," Marisa agreed. "We are fighting Sky Net and looking for survivors."

"Such lovely Muchachas, too!" the man beamed. "You can beat the metal monsters?"

"To a pulp," Marisa agreed. "Are there more of you hiding in these caves?"

"Si, the entire town. These silver man looking machines came and were killing everyone! We shot them but it did no good. While we men fought, we also got everyone possible up into this cave," he explained. "Many did not make it. We survive by a stream inside, and forage for food when no metal is around. But now that you're here, we can help get rid of those things!"

"We will be grateful for the assistance," Marisa assured him. "I have supplies coming for you and your people. It is safe to come out for the moment, but if we tell you, hurry back in. Sky Net is still active in Spain."

The man beamed a big smile at Tina, "Oh! so lovely!" he said and looked outside to see Stugs and people moving around. "You have an army!"

Tina returned his smile. "We do. We are happy to see you made it."

"I am so happy to see you!" the man beamed. He lifted her hand and kissed it. "Thank you for finding us."

"Sir, do you know if there are more caves that may have people in them?" Marisa asked.

The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, "There are caves all through these mountains. I am sure others managed to hide away as well."

"That is good news. As soon as we can, we will go looking for them," Marisa promised.

.

At 65 degrees, Panama was no longer the sweltering jungle it once was, but still warm enough for some mosquitoes. Many of the trees and plants that acclimated to the previous high temperatures died off, leaving brown landscape. Captain Price led his Stug squad along, knowing Sky Net troops had been reported down here. He kept his four machines about a half mile apart, near highway 1 but not on the road if it could be helped. It wasn't until he neared the Canal zone that they met anything but small groups of people fleeing north in the woods.

There were only 3 bridges across the Panama Canal. The Atlantic bridge on the Atlantic side, highway 1 into Panama city, and the main Pan-American Highway on the Pacific side. Nearing these, Captain Price stopped his Stugs on the hills overlooking the area. Sky Net had construction, or rather destruction equipment near the water. The docks near the Highway 1 bridge were filled with sparks as terminators were cutting apart all sizes of ships to load into trucks to be hauled away to the south.

"Scavengers," Captain Price grumbled.

"I don't see any H/K's, we could run down there and take out that bridge," one of his Stug commanders suggested.

"If the General wants to go south, we're going to need those bridges," Price reminded him.

"He better have a good plan," another Stug commander replied.

.

Tina, who now officially commanded of the remains of the British forces got a visit from Captain Parker, who had been in charge of the Gibraltar defenses before Marisa came and pulled them all out. The older man with white hair and mustache came into Tina's office near the docks and snapped to attention. With a salute, he said, "Major, we have a problem that needs to be addressed."

Tina returned his salute and asked, "What is it?"

"I discovered several of our troops are fraternizing, we even have a nurse that is pregnant!" he stated.

"Really?" she asked brightly.

"Indeed! This must be dealt with. We cannot have our combat soldiers on the line becoming pregnant and ... fooling around," he stated.

"That is correct," Tina agreed. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Have the pregnant woman and her man come up to Colonel Marisa's HQ, a well as the couples you know of. Once we settle things there, I'll speak to all our troops," Tina told him.

"Yes, Ma'am!" Captain Parker said crisply, saluted and left to go collect the offenders.

Captain Parker was happy to see that Tina was still maintaining discipline. It seemed that as of late, discipline was sorely lacking. Fraternization was not allowed. The British army had no room for people who could not behave themselves. Although there were only 2400 of them left, they were still soldiers and expected to act the part. He collected the guilty parties and informed them that for their lack of self control, the Colonel wanted to see them and punishment was sure to follow.

Captain Parker marched all 20 of the sad looking group up to the cavern HQ. When he arrived, Major Tina was there with the Latino Colonel Marisa. They were talking when he came in and had the offenders form up in ranks. He stood in front of them and snapped a salute. "Colonel, I have gathered the fraternizers," he announced.

"Thank you, Captain," Marisa said and returned his salute. She looked them over and asked, "Who is pregnant?"

A couple women shifted in place and swallowed.

Louder, Marisa asked, "Who is pregnant, SPEAK UP!"

"I am, Ma'am."

"I may be, Ma'am."

Marisa pointed to the side and said, "Come over here, with the fathers."

The two women and two guilty looking men went over to where she pointed and stood at attention.

Marisa turned to them and said, "General Connor had made the order that no mother or prospective mother may be allowed to be in a combat zone unless the situation is dire. If the situation allows, the father will also accompany mother and child to their new post. You four will be transferred to General Reese on the east coast of North America. General Reese or his designated representative will be assigning you to your new duty stations. You leave on the next transport out."

"Ma'am?" the light brown haired woman asked nervously. "We will not be forced to ... abort, will we?"

"Negative. There is a severe lack of children due to the effects of the nuclear bombs being dropped. Those fetuses you carry are precious. You will be closely monitored, and every effort will be made to ensure you have healthy children," Marisa told them. "Fathers will be expected to support their women and children as well to the best of their ability."

Four smiles beamed at her. "We're not going to be court-martialed?" one of the men asked.

Marisa tipped he head slightly and asked, "For having a child? That would be counter productive. As I said, we desperately need children to ensure humanity does not go extinct." Marisa then turned to Parker who was standing open mouthed in shock. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Having a child is just as important, if not more important that destroying Sky Net forces."

"But..." he said weakly.

Marisa turned to the others who looked relieved. "Are any of you seeking to be pregnant?" she asked.

A blonde flushed and replied, "I wasn't, but if it helps save humanity... I can be."

"Good, go make those babies. You are dismissed," Marisa stated, which got her beaming smiles in return.

Captain Parker saluted and in his weak voice, said, "Troops, dismissed."

The line turned and filed out.

Tina offered, "There are two LST's due in tomorrow with escorts. I will have our expecting mother on them."

"Thank you, Tina," Marisa said.

To the four greatly relived prospective mothers and fathers," Tina said, "Tomorrow, be at center dock with all your gear when the LST's come in. I will have your orders."

"Yes, Ma'am!" they eagerly replied.

After she left, Tina collected the rest of the British forces and explained to them that they desperately needed children, and John Connor's orders.

Captain Parker was appalled. Fraternization was sure to become rampant now.

.

Now that the expecting mothers were going to be shipped back to North America, Marisa looked at the scouting reports. The roads along the northern Spanish coast showed no signs of Sky Net, yet. Her scouts were in the first pass in the mountains between Spain and France. Here, the snow was deep and showed no sign of Sky Net movement. She still had the pass watched as the lead scout groups moved on. She was getting supplies and reinforcements. Some of those supplies were digging and excavating equipment, along with seed to start gardens.

The caves these townspeople had used were large enough to be expanded, and there was water inside. Testing the water showed mild radiation, but after purifying, the particles were removed. Many of the townsfolk, eager to start making their own food, were helping to help construct garden spaces and set up the full spectrum lights for the gardens. By now, the Resistance had cave gardening down to a science. There was no longer the need to try and figure out how to do it, a few experts in underground food production came with the last reinforcements.

The mountainous area they were in now was much more defensible. Not only were her troops able to see anyone coming from a long distance away, but Marisa also had the ability to move and shift forces without Sky Net seeing, if they did come. With ski, and snow shows, her foot soldiers had a nice advantage over Sky Net troops, and the stugs seemed to b made to operate in snow.

The airport her crews constructed didn't have concrete runways, but three feet of ice that formed the runways. 50 ground attack plane and 30 H/K's had been delivered by the Lexington. Control of the air would no longer be one-sided.

A message came in from General Connor. Since Marisa had done well, and now had an army of 40,000, she was promoted to General. Once she had Spain isolated, she was to disable all Sky Net forces in Spain and be ready to assist in an attack on Africa.

Marisa hugged the message, feeling good that John had such trust in her.

.

John stood on the steps of the ancient Mayan Temple of the Sun. Beside him was the Mayan President on one side with his staff, on his other was Cameron and Maria. Thousands were gathered to hear him speak. He swore every single survivor of Mayan heritage was present. Looking out at the crowd, he spoke into his mike in Spanish.

"I wished he knew the Mayan language. I applaud all of you that do. It was not easy to learn the language of your forefathers. The Mayan culture has a rich heritage that was all but destroyed by the Spanish. That is a terrible shame. Structures like this one, and all the ones around us, show that at one time, The Maya had a great, prosperous empire, and were a proud people. The Mayan science and knowledge attained, at one time, was one of the best in the world. The most accurate keeping of time, the first culture to perform difficult surgeries and one of the best systems of math. You can be great again. The current war against Sky Net has devastated all cultures around the world. You, the Maya are one of the very few who have survived as a culture. That proves the toughness of the Mayan people. We come here, not as the Spanish to conquer, not as the Mexicans to force you into our nation, but as friends to help you succeed and grow. All people need to come together to get rid of Sky Net. I pledge my support to the Mayan Nation, and ask you assist us as we will assist you. If you allow it, I want to join hands with the Maya, and let the great Maya culture stand fee and independent as it once was. Thank you for listening."

A roar of cheers went up as did applause and raised fists. John waved to them and stepped aside to let the Mayan President speak. He addressed the crowd in Mayan. John had no idea what he said, but he waved to John a few times in his enthusiastic speech. Again, the crowd roared in approval.

John knew what the President wanted in return for growing more crops for North America. They needed construction equipment, coastal defenses and his help to make the whole Yucatan, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras into one Mayan nation. John had no problem with that. It would stabilize the upper part of Central America and give him a solid southern ally.

.

John talked with General Jacobson about the Panama canal. They had to take it back intact, with as little damage to it as possible. A straight attack by land would not do that. If Sky Net decided to blow the only three bridges across the canal to keep them at bay, that would slow them down considerably. Knowing they had to strike hard and fast, John decided to use General Bedell's fleet of Minisubs to land to the southern Atlantic coast with Stugs and terminators to secure that bridge as Jacobson's troops attacked from the north. He also had Catherine Weaver send her ships to the southern end in the Pacific at the same time to attack in unison with Jacobson's troops. They ground attack planes would bomb Sky Net forces farther south with H/K's and jets as air cover. Not knowing if Sky Net in South America had good communications, they would also drop the satellite scrambling buoys the night before into both coastal waters.

Once the plan was set, John and Cameron took a couple days to enjoy the warm weather and each other before they returned to Cheyenne Mountain.

Cuddled in a lounger on the veranda of their guest house, John idly stroked Cameron as he nuzzled her neck. "This is nice," he said, and kissed her neck.

"It is," Cameron agreed. "For only being five years into the war, we are doing well. Sky Net has divide itself, but we are finding and taking out each piece."

John chuckled and said, "We are. I can't stop thinking about the war either, even when I want to. We have a huge responsibility to make sure Sky Net is defeated. There is so much rebuilding to do as well. I was thinking radiation absorption towers, then ejecting the collected radioactive material into space. Preferably into the sun. "

Cameron pulled John's arms a little tighter around her, pressing a hand into her middle breast. "The towers needs to have a positive charge with negative grounding rods around it. Also very large air cleaners. It will take a long time to do significant reduction in radiation."

John fondled her and asked, "The most radioactive places first? We can find out sooner in those places if the system works." He kissed her neck and licked her ear.

Cameron laughed. Turning her head to eye him, she asked, "Is this our new play time? Discussing business during pleasure?"

The way she said it made John chuckle. "Maybe. It is a 'Hot' topic," He said and wiggled his eyebrows.

Cameron put a finger to his lips and told him, "Promise me the words, Sky Net, war, troops, or plans, will not come out of your mouth for at least the next hour, and I'll give you something to be happy about."

John beamed her a smile and said, "I will do my best to focus only on you, my love."

"I love you and you love me," Cameron said and kissed him.

Kissing and petting, Cameron made it easy to forget about anything but her for a little while.

.

Derek was thinking he was not doing enough. For months on end, he'd been battling his way to the coast, digging out Sky Net units and disabling them. Finding people who'd been holed up and taking care of them and adding willing volunteers into his army. Even after he reached the shores, there was tons of work to do, clearing out and building up, and turning museum pieces and old forgotten ships into a fighting new navy. There was a ton of directing and administrating to do.

With all that done, he'd become a god-damned glorified desk jockey. A regular office bound official. While Gentry was fighting in Canada, Jacobson was down in Central America now, and their forces were fighting Sky Net in Spain, he was doing nothing but handing out orders and banging Laura. Not that having sex with Laura was bad, he'd never had a better or more devoted woman. Some of the outfits Laura came up with to get him pumped up were real eye-poppers too.

Derek just wanted to be back in the action, to be taking down Sky Net.

A few days later, John called a meeting At Cheyenne Mountain. Derek was happy to pass command to Colonel Roberts and get away for a while. By the end of the day, Laura had them packed up, except for uniforms for tomorrow and the studded leather bra and strip-leather skirt she was wearing. With her mischievous grin, Derek knew she had something spicy in mind. Being free of bureaucracy for a few days, he was eager to participate in whatever she had planned. Again, Laura didn't disappoint him.

Taking a plane from Jersey City to Denver, Derek found a personnel carrier waiting for him and Laura at the airport. In no time he was in the Cheyenne Mountain complex and got himself and Laura quarters. The Lt. who escorted him to their quarters told him the meeting was this afternoon.

Once inside their quarters, Laura cast him a smile and said, "We can play after the meeting."

Derek loved the way she thought.

.

Going to the meeting, Derek met John in person for the first time on months. After the handshakes and back claps in greeting, Derek told him, "I hope you have something more exciting than construction projects in mind."

"I do. As soon as everyone gets here, I'll tell you all about it," John assured him.

The meeting room filled up. Gentry arrived with two TX's, and his Admirals, Martin Bedell and his aides. A TX named Arnold Benson came for Catherine Weaver. General Jacobson came with his entourage, as did General Perry. While John greeted everyone, Cameron set two maps on the wall and showed people their information folders.

Everyone took their seats. Derek noticed the maps were of the Panama Canal area and north eastern Spain.

"I'm glad everyone could make it," John announced. "We have three important operations going on. First, in the Pacific, Mrs. Weaver is making a new naval base in Hawaii. So far, Mrs. Weaver has found Sky Net has not been doing much with islands. Wake, Midway, all the way down to the Solomons, it seems like Sky Net has all but ignored the mid pacific islands. She also has scouts on their way to Australia to find out why Sky Net went silent there. Currently, we have more ships on the east coast, so if we need to assist the Aussies, we are going to need the Panama canal to move ships into the Pacific. General Jacobson, General Bedell and Catherine Weaver are going to head that operation. Ships from the west coast will land troops south of the canal, Admiral Dave will take 60 of his mini-subs to the Atlantic coast and land them near the Atlantic bridge. General Jacobson will come from the north. We need to take all those bridges intact, as well as the canal. We also need a strong enough force to ensure Sky Net does not take it back. This operation is set to converge on Sky Net at 0800 on April 20th."

John moved over to the Spain map. "In Spain, General Marisa has taken out Sky Net there and destroyed the factories she found. Now in the north of Spain in a good, defensible position, she is moving through the Pyrenees to block entrances from France to Spain. Her right flank is exposed. So far, she has had no large Sky Net interference, but that may change rapidly. Admiral Dave's fleet of Minisubs that are not headed for Panama, will pick up troops and equipment from the east coast. General Reese, get with Admiral Dave and let him know where you want him to pick them up. Besides the mini-subs, Use your LST's and warships to land your men at Carnota, up here. There is a long, suitable beach to land at. It is only 50 miles from there to Marisa's area of control. Land, make contact and search for Sky Net units. The northern area is mountainous, and so far, many people have been found hiding in caves. There is a significant Sky Net force still in Spain. As of yet, we do not know where they are, so ensure you keep your scouts on the looking for them. Once you land, You will be the senior General in charge. The goal is to isolate Spain and clear Spain and Portugal of a Sky Net presence."

John looked around and asked, "Any questions on our goals?"

General Gentry asked, "What is my part in this?"

"Overall General of the eastern coast once General Reese is on his way. Give him whatever combat troops he needs."

"Yes, General," Gentry said. He looked at Derek

Derek told him, "We'll get together after this." The news he was going back on the line made him happy. Tonight, he was going to do his best to wear Laura out. He didn't think it was possible, but he was going to give it one hell of a try.

.

In Barcelona, 4362 was having his terminators trying to dig out the four square blocks of rubble where Sky Net Spain used to be. Some forces were at the factory complex, salvaging and attempting to put together at least one factory. If human troops came now, there was no way to replenish losses. The only active mission he had was to remove humans from the mountain on the sea that was now a pile of rubble. To get another mission, he had to dig out Sky Net and receive a mission. Tying to rebuild a factory was only attempting to restore what was lost, as was getting Sky Net back.

Although terminators had removed the rubble down to the sub basement of the building Sky Net had been in, No usable server had been found. pieces of framing, wires and circuit boards were recovered, but nothing intact was recovered. Humans had somehow attacked Sky Net directly, slipping past two large groups without them discovering the humans had even moved. By the devastation here, it was obvious the humans sill had a formidable force. 4362 could not understand how the humans were beaten so badly on the coast, but still managed to go around his forces to hit Sky Net hard. He also still had vital information on humans having their small H/K's and flesh covered terminators.

4362 needed to get new mission orders if it was to deal with the humans that were here and might attack again someplace.

.

Marisa was slowly expanding her scout lines south and through the mountain passes. Her scouts were 60 miles from the coast of the Spanish/French border in a little place called Isaba, and had yet to run onto more than a small group of terminators. Most of their contacts were with people hiding out in caves or bunkers. With a 250 mile coastline, and at the edge of the mountains in the south, she was spread out so far, she dare not go much farther without more reinforcements.

While she was scrutinizing the map of Spain. Commander Jensen came in. Acting nervous he said, "General, Ma'am, you said it is vital to have children, correct?"

"Yes, it is," she replied.

Shifting foot to foot, he explained, "Well, I would be very proud to, umm, be a father to your children. It would be a great honor for me."

Marisa cast him a smile and said, "Thank you, Commander. I cannot have children, you must find a human woman to have a child with."

Commander Jensen frowned at her and asked, "You're not human?"

"No, I am a TX. As of yet, it is not possible for TX's to have children. I do thank you for thinking of me," she said sincerely.

Getting a far off glaze on his face, he said, "I never would have guessed."

"There is a fast way to tell us from human women," Marisa offered. Pointing to her chest, she said, "We grow a third breast so we can make more nanite milk to heal people. Human woman can't to that."

"I thought that was just an effect of radiation," he said absently.

"No. We do it on purpose," she told him.

"Well, ah, thank you for explaining it to me," he said. He left scratching his head.

Marisa went back to her work. She was getting the idea she was popular with her troops. That was the sixth man to come and offer to be a father to her children. Of course then again, Tina could not go anywhere and not receive offers of fatherhood from just about every man she met.

If Marisa was able to have children, the one father for her children she did want was John Connor.