Sorry for the extremely late update; with Christmas and all, I've been extremely busy working ridiculous amounts of overtime, and haven't had the energy to write. Plus a bit of a writer's block has kept me from writing much lately. Hope this chapter's okay.
"Just tell me I'm fine," Derek snapped impatiently. He was sat in the infirmary with his leg propped up on a seat adjacent to him while Charley poked and prodded the limb, checking where it had been broken by Cromartie, making sure it was healing properly.
"Yeah, I get it; you're a tough guy," Charley rolled his eyes as he got back to the task at hand. With the exception of a few violent drunks and junkies, Derek was by far the most difficult patient he'd ever had to work with. "It's not gonna heal properly if you keep straining yourself; you're just going to end up limping for the rest of your life."
Derek said nothing, having had this lecture from Charley several times already. Derek knew his limits and was sure he could find John. Not alone; he'd finally conceded that, but he could put a squad together and go search for him in Nevada, still. Charley may seem calm about it but Derek couldn't take much more waiting around, doing nothing while John could be anywhere.
All his other injuries had already healed, but his point blank refusal to rest his leg had set him back. It had been slightly under six weeks since Cromartie had stamped on him like a bug, but it felt like years to Derek.
"I shouldn't have let John go off hunting Cromartie with Tin Can," he said regretfully. He'd scorned himself since they'd got lost contact with Las Vegas and realised something must have happened to John.
"You're not gonna rant about Cameron again, are you?" Charley sighed. He found it weird, too, that John was in love with a machine, but from how John had described it to him, Cameron was intelligent and could think and feel and she loved him, too. She made John happy and she kept him alive. She still freaked Charley the hell out, but as long as John was happy, then he'd support it. "John said she has feelings. The way I see her look at him sometimes, it's pretty clear whatever she might feel is all for him. She's... different to 2007, it's like she's evolved or something. That's how John put it."
"Exactly," Derek replied. "She evolved; so did Cromartie. He's slipped our grasp at every turn; he's smarter than any other metal I've ever seen, even Tin Can. So many things could have gone wrong out there; we need to find John before Cromartie does."
"We will," Charley replied. "When Perry's taken care of Schriever then we'll put together some guys and drive out to Vegas."
"You think my leg's up to it?" Derek asked sarcastically, pulling his trouser leg down as Charley stopped his examination. It wouldn't matter what Charley said; he'd already spoken to Davenport about it and come up with a shortlist of people who'd be willing to go on a road trip to Nevada to search for John.
"I know you won't take no for an answer," Charley sighed. "And I'm going with you; make sure you don't strain yourself too much." Himself, Derek, Davenport, Ellison, Sergeant Burke and his entire squad – whose lives John saved in Fort Carson the day after Judgement Day - were all ready to go once the threat from Schriever had been eliminated.
Derek and Davenport had discussed it on their way from checking out the UCCS campus base, and had put together the shortlist as well as a quick checklist of the equipment they'd need. As soon as Schriever was a smoking ruin they'd pack up all the gear they'd need and go; no more wasting time. By the time Perry found out they'd be out of Colorado, and when they returned John would take over the reins again. Derek conceded that he'd have to wait until the attack was over, although grudgingly. He'd seen the satellite photos Ellison had printed out and shown to them at a briefing, and the sight of it had filled Derek with dread.
The air base was filled with satellite dishes, antennae, and radar domes that looked like giant golf balls; all of it used for tracking and controlling military communications and navigation satellites: the perfect platform for Skynet to retake control of the satellite network in orbit that John and Tin Can had wrested from the AI. There were seven hangar-factories inside the base, each of which could hold perhaps four production lines. Satellite photos taken from before Judgement Day showed the hangars had never been there before; there was no aircraft on the base, and neither had there been the partially constructed runway that now ran half the length of the installation.
Schriever was just like Nellis in some respects, Derek thought: large bases controlled by Skynet via a processing core that was connected to the scores, hundreds of other cores that consisted of Skynet's physical form. They house communications equipment, an airfield, military and industrial assets to build its forces to protect the base as well as to hunt down humans. In his future they'd called them 'Skynet Centrals,' and no sane person went near them willingly. They were notoriously hard nuts to crack, almost impenetrable, and protected by scores of machines. Connor in his future hadn't even tried to attack them, not for a long time. He gave them wide berth and instead focused on destroying Skynet's supply lines and creating holes in the vast net the AI had cast over the world.
Perry was different, though, and was determined to take out Schriever before it ever got that far. Derek wished him luck, he'd need it.
"How's he?" Derek pointed at the still form of George, laid out on one of the infirmary beds. His face had been covered with bandages and sterile dressing, as had the wounds on his chest. He looked almost too still to be alive; the only signs of life being the very slight rise and fall of his chest with each shallow, unconscious breath he took.
"I don't get it, Charley shrugged, confused. "He was awake, talking, yesterday, and now he's slipped into a coma; he's unresponsive. Watch." Charley picked up a small flashlight and stood over George and peeled open the man's eyelids, revealing wide, saucer-like pupils. He turned the light on and pointed aimed it into George's eyes as Derek got up and watched. Nothing happened; his pupils remained fixed and dilated
"What's wrong with him?" Derek asked. He knew basic field first aid and that was about it; the most he'd ever done was to stick a buddy's guts back into his body and slap a dressing on it.
"I don't know," Charley sighed. "I'm not a doctor so I've got no idea. He doesn't look like he's got any head injuries but without an MRI or X-Ray I'm in the dark. He shouldn't be comatose, but he is."
"Can you wake him?" Derek asked, looking down at George and frowning in thought. Something about the man still didn't add up, but he didn't know what.
"No chance," Charley replied. "He'll come out of it when he's ready; until then we've just gotta wait."
Derek shook his head, disappointed. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. "I've got a few questions for him when he does. Something's not right about him."
"You know that for a fact?" Charley asked doubtfully. He didn't think anything of George apart from the fact he was a patient and needed help; his instinct as a paramedic was to heal and save lives and to keep out of a patient's business, often leaving that to the police.
"How long?" Derek asked, ignoring Charley's comment.
"Could be an hour, could be a month; impossible to tell," Charley answered.
"In that case," Derek said, stepping away from George and towards the door. "He's not going anywhere; I'm gonna get some coffee and work out how we're going to find John. Want to come?"
Charley glanced back at George for a moment and decided that Derek was right, whatever happened to George wasn't going to happen anytime soon, and he'd spent hours on end in the infirmary tending to him. He needed a break. "Sure."
Neither Derek nor Charley saw George's right eye open wide; glaring at them intently as their backs were turned. Nor did they see the twisted, sly grin form on his lips as they left the infirmary.
The armoured column rolled slowly through the pitch blackness of the night, through the ruins of Colorado Springs and towards the Skynet-controlled Schriever Air Force Base. All four of Cheyenne Mountain's Abrams tanks, plus two Strykers and two Humvees with mounted Mk.19 grenade guns, approached their target from the west under cover of darkness. A nine man mortar section controlling three tubes would provide a distraction and add extra damage inside the base.
Perry's plan was simple; to pound Schriever with cannons, rockets, and mortars, from different directions. The bombardment would damage or destroy the radar domes and satellite dishes and the hangars that housed the factories, and also draw out any defending machines into the open to be blown apart by overwhelming firepower as soon as they came within range. Once Schriever's defences were down Lieutenant Davenport would lead two squads through the base – supported by the Strykers – and destroy the radar and communications equipment and the processing core Derek had told them controlled the machines posted to the base.
As an added element of protection, he'd issued Stinger antiaircraft missiles to the Abrams, Bradleys, and the mortar section. He wouldn't repeat the same mistake he'd made in Fort Carson, which was why he'd painstakingly made sure that all his forces were covered by each other and protected against any anticipated threats.
As the closed in on Schriever the base grew larger in the night vision goggles Perry wore. He could clearly see the large buildings, the hangars, and the massive radar domes that were dotted around the base.
Perry called on the radio from the commander's seat of one of the Bradleys and was happy to hear that all units were in position and ready to begin the attack, and so far no sign of reaction to their presence from Skynet. Perry wondered if they had to be within a certain range before the machines deemed them a threat and sent out units to intercept them. He wasn't going to find out.
"All tanks prepare to fire on my command; Bradleys, Strykers, and infantry will wait for targets to present themselves. Mortar crew, fire when ready; target factories first, radars second."
The next few seconds were in silence, barring the constant humming of the vehicles' engines idling as they waited for the sign to begin their bombardment. The silence was abruptly broken as the mortars started to rain down onto the base and explode in bright, violent flashes. "All tanks target the hangar bearing zero-zero-two degrees; fire now!" Perry shouted, his order answered a second later by four reverberating booms from the Abrams' 120mm guns, and more explosions as they struck their target. Perry watched through the Bradley's thermal imaging night vision equipment as the four shells impacted against a hangar/factory, the high explosive, armour piercing rounds penetrated through the steel walls and detonated inside, igniting fuel and ammunition for the machines under construction and causing secondary explosions that tore the hangar apart, huge flames flared up from inside the hangar and started to consume everything inside.
"Keep your eyes peeled," Perry barked through the radio. "We're gonna have company any second now." He was right; within moments Skynet's machines emerged through the gates and started to roll outside, massive cannons swivelling around as they searched for targets.
"T-2s," Corporal Fast said from the gunner's seat in the turret behind Perry. "I count ten." The behemoth machines rolled forward and their top halves swivelled as they searched for targets. A high pitched whine from inside the base indicated that HKs were taking off to intercept them.
"All tanks and Bradleys retarget the machines," Perry commanded, never taking his eyes off the increasing numbers of machines emerging through the gates. "Rocket crews; double up and fire on the T-2s. Waste the fuckers!"
The turrets of the four tanks and two Bradleys turned almost as one and launched a devastating salvo of fire on the machines, lighting up the night once more with the brilliant flare of heavy weapons fire. 25mm armour piercing rounds hammered at the giant tank-killers and shattered their armoured hides, penetrated chassis and tore through guns and sensor packages, shredding them apart in a hail of fire as the larger 120mm tank rounds simply blew their targets away. Five hundred metres away, an infantry squad lying prone fired a volley of rockets into the fray, their plumes led a streaking path towards the machines' formation. Knowing how difficult the T-2s were to destroy, Perry had ordered the rocket crews to target the machines with two rockets each. Ten missiles tore through the night air and struck five T-2s in the upper chests, the force of their impacts tearing through the machines' heads and rendering them either blind or inert.
Ten T-2s had been eliminated in the first few seconds of the fight and no human casualties so far. This was going right, Perry thought. They just had to keep it up and keep frosty. He wasn't going to let his guard down on this one.
"Mortar crews target the eastern half of the base only. Davenport, you have a go to infiltrate the base. We'll keep the bastards distracted."
Davenport clutched tightly onto his rifle as he watched the fireworks start. He was impressed, to say the least, with Perry's thoroughness. The man seemed to be making up for his past mistakes and had put together a solid plan. The heavy tank guns tore apart the first hangar as mortar shells exploded inside the base and created havoc, exploding through the roofs of buildings and blasting craters in the ground, destroying or damaging several machines and buildings that housed them.
Davenport was still nervous, though. Nervous because he was leading the tip of Perry's spear; the infantry squads to infiltrate the base and destroy the factories and control centre whilst Perry's forces kept the machines' attention focused on them. It was the only way of making sure the base was either destroyed or crippled, but it meant being completely at the mercy of whatever was inside there that might be waiting for them. Screw it, we're not gonna find out sitting on our asses out here.
"Advance by squads," Davenport said quietly, gesturing towards the base's perimeter wire.
He led his squad forward slowly and silently as the second squad covered them. So far all of the real action was happening half a mile away, between the tanks, the Bradleys, and Skynet's machines. Apart from their initial skirmish with the first wave of machines, they had no opposition at all. Good, he thought, that was the way he liked it. He loved his job, he really loved his job; ever since he'd graduated from college and joined up, the Army had become his surrogate family in place of the one he'd never had before, and he'd enjoyed every minute of it since signing his life away on the dotted line. Of course, fighting machines controlled by a supercomputer hell-bent on world domination and the extermination of the human race wasn't quite what he'd imagined, but he was still doing what he loved. Just not getting paid for it anymore, he thought.
They approached the perimeter wire, advancing by squads – one advancing while the other covered their movement – until they reached the perimeter wire unchallenged. Davenport and his men knelt down and pointed their weapons at the buildings behind the perimeter fence, waiting in case any more machines were ready to rush out and attack them. They had precious little cover on the rocky ground, which was mostly flat barring a few dips and rises here and there; no substantial cover for an eighteen man squad. Mortar rounds were still raining down on the base, likely responsible for the so far light response from Skynet. He looked to his right, eight hundred metres to his right, where Skynet's machines concentrated on defending the base from the heavier armoured vehicles.
More T-2s emerged from the front of the base and were hammered back by the rapid-fire bursts of heavy fire from the Bradley's chain guns as they joined in a volley of tank shells aimed at the machines' formations, Davenport winced painfully as two surviving machines returned with sustained bursts of cannon fire that tore one of the fighting vehicles apart and ignited the onboard magazine; the Bradley burned and shook as shells inside cooked off and exploded. The crew inside never stood a chance.
Several of Davenport's men brought out wire cutters from their webbing and took to cutting through the fence, as quickly and quietly as possible. In less than a minute they'd created a substantial hole in the wire, large enough to fit two men side by side. They all slipped through and dispersed, taking cover behind the nearest buildings in case they were spotted, and establishing an all round defence in case any machines came their way.
"Anders, Sites, Graham and Murphy, stay here and keep the door open for us," Davenport whispered. "Hide up out of sight and report any movement. Everyone else, advance by fire teams." The fourteen remaining men stalked nervously through the base like thieves in the night, keeping close to the cover of walls and staying in shadows wherever possible – more out of instinct than to hide themselves – they all knew the machines used infrared and other night vision packages that would aid them to see as well as if it were daylight. None of them made a sound or even spoke a word; their breathing was silent and their footsteps soft. The air was silent but for the booming of tank guns, the chatter of the Bradley's 25mm cannon and the explosions that erupted on the other side of the base from the mortar impacts and grenade explosions from the Strykers' Mk.19s.
Within a few minutes they'd reached the factory complex inside the base; seven giant aircraft hangars that looked as if they could each fit a jet airliner inside with room to spare. How Skynet had erected them so quickly, Davenport couldn't even fathom. He led a squad into the nearest one whilst Second Squad split off to enter another hangar. The massive rolling doors at the front were closed and blocked whatever was inside from view. They had to find another way inside.
Sergeant Burke was way ahead of Davenport, and veered around the left hand side of the hangar, his AA-12 shotgun shouldered and ready to fire at anything that jumped out at them. After skirting round the side they found an entrance towards the rear of the mammoth hangar. Davenport radioed the other squad to tell them to enter the hangars via the rear entrance on the left-hand side, rather than going in through the front door, while Burke turned the handle and pushed the door open a fraction of an inch.
"It's unlocked," he said to Davenport, a little confused as to why.
"Of course it is," Davenport whispered softly, grinning slightly as he replied. "They don't need to lock it; we're the only idiots dumb enough to break into a Skynet base. Everyone with half a brain cell would avoid this place like the plague."
Davenport moved to the other side of the door while Burke and Private Sharpe held their rifles up at the ready. The other four men in their squad were on one knee on the ground, spread out in a semicircle around the others playing with the door. Two rifles and two M-240 machine guns aimed outwards to cover Davenport, Burke, and Sharpe.
Davenport motioned for Burke and Sharpe to be ready and pulled the door open quickly. Burke and Sharpe burst in with their weapons raised, followed by Davenport and then the others as they entered one by one.
The hangar was easily the size of a football field and at least twenty-five metres high. Davenport's eyes opened wide like saucers as he took in the interior of the hangar. His eye and ears, accustomed to darkness and silence, were now assaulted by the harsh white lights that illuminated the cavernous structure, and the constant whirring of factory machinery that combined with beeps and bangs and the constant crackle of electricity. Four large production lines ran half the length of the hangar; assembly lines and conveyor belts whirred as robotic arms tended to the machines being built, putting together Skynet's lethal metallic warriors. The nearest line, Davenport saw, was assembling a T-2; the towering fifteen foot megalith glistened as the neon lights hanging from the ceiling bathed it in an iridescent glow that made the machine seem even more monstrous somehow. Machines building other machines, without any human input; the more he thought about it, the more Davenport wondered the more stupid he realised it was. No wonder Skynet had taken over so easily; they'd put so much faith into these damned machines, gotten so fat and lazy whilst the machines had been entrusted at every corner of military and industry, that they'd practically handed the world to Skynet on a silver platter.
"Look at this, sir," Sharpe pointed at large stack of containers that dominated one corner of the hangar. Davenport approached as the other men spread out and searched the rest of the hangar. Sharpe pointed to a sealed metal container easily big enough to fit three or four men inside. What was more intriguing to him was what was stencilled on the side of the container. 'BAE Land Systems/Kaliba Systems Model T-2 sensor packages and assorted components. Fragile: handle with care.'
"'Fragile' my ass," Davenport muttered, thinking of the difficulty he'd had before trying to take out a T-2; without antitank weapons it was nigh on impossible. He looked on and saw the crates all contained different components for various machines. Some contained M-230 chain guns for the T-2s, while others contained various parts for the T-70 models. There were no HK parts; Davenport assumed that some of the hangars were dedicated to aircraft and others to earthbound machines. This wasn't what they'd expected at all; Skynet simply assembled the machines here; they must have built the components somewhere else and then shipped them here and other places to be put together. Clever, Davenport thought. This way, if they destroyed a hangar, Skynet would simply send the components elsewhere to be assembled. It didn't matter if they took this place out, he realised. Skynet would simply build its armies in another location.
He and Sharpe both pulled out a square block of C4 plastic explosive from their webbing and stuck them onto a crate each; one on the bottom layer and another on the second layer of crates. The rows above would come crashing down when they detonated. Davenport watched as the others in his squad planted a block of C4 onto each production line as he left the crates and walked down the hangar.
"You see this?" Burke asked him as he cleared the end of an assembly unit and moved to the forward half of the hangar. In this half of the hangar stood rows upon rows of completed T-70s all motionless and stood to attention. The temptation to either run like mad or open up with everything he had was almost overwhelming. They were clearly offline, but that still didn't make them any less scary in his eyes. He walked up close to them and took a good look. They were different; their surfaces were smoother and less blocky, their heads were smaller and their faces were better protected; armour plating having been fitted over the exposed working parts. But the biggest difference he saw was in the weapons mounted to their right forearms; gone were the mini-guns, replaced with shortened .50 calibre machine guns and even Mk.47 grenade launchers: smaller, lighter, and more advanced versions of the Mk.19s mounted on top of their Strykers. Skynet was changing its own machines, refining them. How long would it be before it started to build those Terminators that Connor and Cameron had told him about?
"This isn't a work in progress," Davenport shook his head in disbelief. George had told them the base wasn't yet complete; its full potential not yet realised. Either George was lying, was dead wrong: there were scores of machines stood stock still in this hangar, and he could only guess that the other hangars were much the same. Another realisation dawned on Davenport as he took in the rows of machines the dominated the forward half of the hangar – there must have been fifty or sixty inside, easily. Assuming similar amounts in the other hangars; Skynet already had a small army of war machines at its disposal. And it wasn't building them in such numbers just to take out a few puny bunkers and outposts: Skynet was building an army to attack Cheyenne Mountain.
Perry needed to know about this, he thought. As the others swept quietly through the hangar and placed explosives, Davenport took out his radio to speak to Perry outside the base.
"Davenport to Perry, come in."
"...Is Perry, what's your status?" Davenport wondered why his transmission was so garbled, it had been clear a minute ago when he'd radioed the other squad.
"We've infiltrated the base and are planting C4 in the hangars, but it's worse than we thought; Skynet's got an army of machines in here, ready to go. How's it out there?"
"Holding our own... –r now. We've lost a Bradley and... Strykers. Haste would be appreciated..." The radio signal dissolved into static and white noise, so loud and piercing that Davenport grimaced in pain as his eardrums threatened to burst as he fumbled for the volume control on his radio.
"Perry, come in... Perry, respond!"
Davenport's only response on the radio was an ear splitting, high-pitched shriek of white noise that forced him to turn his radio volume right down. It still buzzed and crackled with static for several seconds until it settled down and was replaced by a voice that haunted Davenport to his very core as he listened. It wasn't Perry.
"And on that glorious Day of Judgment our divine lord Skynet deemed mankind unworthy and released His wrath upon the world. The flames of judgment did consume those who were evil and unjust, so that He may reign supreme over all. And He declared upon that day that man and all his evils were to be cast asunder. And that those who were prideful, and refused to accept His divine judgment, shall be laid low and cast down into the flames of eternal damnation."
"Who the hell is this?" Perry demanded from the seat of his Bradley. What was going on here? Why were the radios all screwy, and why couldn't he get through to Davenport anymore? And who the hell was spouting a load of apocalyptic religious crap over the radio, as if Skynet were some kind of god? "Identify yourself immediately!"
"And the eternal flames of Judgment shall rain down from above upon those who are evil, and shall consume them in the hellfire of eternal torment!"
Perry was about to dismiss the transmissions as the mad ravings of religious nuts who placed their misplaced faith into Skynet, when the air above exploded in an ear-splitting sonic boom and suddenly the last part of the message made perfect sense. 'Eternal flames of judgment shall rain down from above...'
"Air attack!" Perry screamed into his radio. "All units fall back, now."
Unfortunately for Perry, he could not see the source of the sonic boom. He never saw the hypersonic Aurora bomber soaring thirty thousand feet above them at over five times the speed of sound. He never saw the bomb bay doors retracting underneath the belly of the aircraft. Never saw the missiles drop from the ejector racks in the weapons bay and descend down towards them. And he never saw the infrared laser beams pointed at the human convoy from a hidden spot out in the open rocky ground, guiding the Aurora's bombs down towards them.
Explosions erupted all over the battlefield; brilliant flashes lit up the night sky and rocked the ground beneath them. The Bradley rocked violently shook the crew inside, rattling Perry around like a pinball inside his seat. He cracked his head on a console and blood spattered onto a screen. He winced in pain and gritted his teeth as blood ran freely from a wide, deep gash on his forehead and obscured his vision.
"What the hell was that?" He asked rhetorically, wiping the blood from his eyes and looking out of the viewport to take in the scene before him. They'd held the T-2s at bay, tearing into them as they emerged from the base. The Abrams tanks that had been giving the defending T-2s the good news just moments ago were now gone, nothing but twisted, burnt out shards of scrap metal.
"Smart bombs," Corporal Fast replied from the gunner's turret, "two-thousand-pounders, probably."
Jesus, Perry thought. He'd known it must have been something big; if he'd not known any better he'd have sworn it was nuclear, the explosions had been that close and that powerful. Fuck it, this attack had gone to rat-shit in a matter of seconds; there was no way they could complete it now. They'd be lucky to get out of this one alive.
"I see one Stryker and a Humvee still rolling," Fast reported. "I think we're all that made it."
Perry's gut twisted into knots at the loss of so many more men. It made the losses in Fort Carson and Area 51 seem pale in comparison. Almost the whole force had been wiped out; two-thirds of their armoured vehicles, and he had no idea about...
"Davenport!" He gasped in realisation. His men were still in there. "Get us into that base," he ordered PFC Finch – the Bradley's driver.
"Sir? That's crazy; it's death row in there."
"How're we gonna know where they are?" Fast asked.
"Just look for where the metals are shooting," Perry replied. "Now drive!"
The Bradley rolled forward towards the base and Perry got up out of his seat and into position behind the .50 calibre mounted machine gun on the turret, above and behind the chain gun. He charged the weapon and also waved his arms like a maniac at the remaining Stryker and Humvee, pointing at the base. The two vehicles followed suit, their crews catching on to what he wanted. He'd screwed up this mission already and lost a lot of men; if he could help it he'd make sure they didn't lose everyone. They surged onwards towards the base, gaining speed as they went.
"What the hell is that?" Burke asked, having heard the same broadcast on his own radio. "That's not Skynet! It can't be."
"Who the hell is this?" Davenport demanded. "Who's out there?"
"I don't like this," Sharpe muttered, his rifle pointed towards the T-70s, eyes darting across the hangar, watching for any movement, half-expecting the rows of machines to suddenly spring to life and attack them.
"Let's just blow it and get out," another soldier said, clearly afraid. Davenport couldn't blame him; that spouting religious rhetoric was the creepiest thing he'd ever heard in his life, but they still had a job to do.
Davenport heard the roaring sonic boom and the following explosion outside, so loud and so close that the ground trembled slightly beneath them. An air attack, he knew, and something extremely powerful.
"Perry, what was that?" Yet again there was no response. "Perry, respond!" Davenport urged nervously. The booming of tank guns had stopped, he noticed. They were on their own now; nobody was coming to back them up.
"Everyone bug out of the hangar," Davenport ordered, heading for the back door. "Move on to the next one. Second Squad, if you can hear me, move on to Hangar Four."
As the soldiers moved back towards the rear entrance, none of them saw the inert bodies of several T-70s start to move; their eyes glowed a bright red and they turned towards the retreating humans with the characteristic faint whine of pistons and servos as they aimed their weapons, causing the humans to turn back to face them, realising too late what was happening.
Gunfire chattered, muzzles flashed, and Private Sharpe exploded in a shower of blood and shredded tissue as heavy calibre rounds tore through his body. He fell to the floor in a gory heap as a T-70s emerged from the ranks of still machines and pointed their .50cal at them.
"Fuck! They're waking up!" Burke shouted as he pointed his AA-12 at the machine and loosed off a burst of armour piercing rounds, joined in by Davenport's M4A1 and another soldier's M240. The combined fire hammered into the machine and it knocked it over backwards. A second and third T-70 followed behind and spread out, opening fire on Davenport's squad. Without needing to be told, squad split up and spread themselves out and returned fire. Another man fell to the .50cals before the concentrated fire of the remaining weapons brought them both down; their armoured hides withstood the brunt of their fire before the Frag-12 and 7.62mm machine gun rounds finally pierced through to their critical systems and disabled them.
"They're everywhere!" Someone else shouted as they all ran for cover and returned fire on the increasing numbers of machines that reactivated and moved against them.
"It's a trap!"
"We're fucked!"
Machine guns and rifles chattered as they fired back, but the machines were reactivating and approaching from all angles. Davenport cursed as he fired a sustained burst from his rifle into the face of another machine; it took half the magazine before it finally succumbed and dropped to the floor with a clatter that was drowned out by the bursts of weapons fire from both sides. Davenport ran back behind the corner of part of one of the assembly lines and fired into the approaching machines, covering the others as they pepper-potted backwards, firing and manoeuvring; distracting the machines from those who were retreating, and then falling back once they'd gotten into cover and returned fire. Their cover was sparse, though, and the machines were advancing. Burke waited until one was right on top of him, then rolled out and tripped the machine over, sending the awkward-looking robot crashing to the ground. Burke was on it in an instant and fired half a dozen rounds into its face, putting it down for good.
"We're trapped in here!" Burke shouted as he gave another machine the good news with his AA-12, his armour piercing ammunition exploded against its steel hides and tore into its inner workings, also shattering the machine's shoulder joint connecting the gun-arm to its body. More and more machines were reactivating, though, and they were trapped in an open hangar with no cover, seconds away from being slaughtered with .50 cal rounds. He was only glad that the tin cans hadn't yet opened up with their grenades.
Grenades, he thought, remembering the launcher under his rifle barrel. He turned to the stacked pile of crates and triggered the weapon, aiming for the higher layers of containers. The round blew through the crate it struck with a flash and a loud bang, and the whole pile came crashing down and sprawled haphazardly throughout the rear end of the hangar, providing a number of large boxes filled with bulletproof machine components to hide behind.
"Get behind the crates!" He roared, firing the last of his magazine to distract a machine from the men who ran backwards to the cover he'd just created. Burke and another soldier named O'Malley grunted with exertion and pushed more of the heavy crates together.
Six men made it behind the impromptu fortifications and started to return fire, pouring rounds into the machines that just kept coming. Davenport fired off another grenade and shattered the upper half of another T-70 as two of his men – O'Malley and Anders – poured sustained fire from their machine guns into the machines' ranks, shooting at anything that moved that wasn't wholly organic. Burke threw a hand grenade into the row of robots that stood still, the explosion knocked several of them off their feet and to the floor. He wasn't taking any chances with those that had yet to activate.
"Grenade launchers!" Davenport yelled out; his men's response was three 40mm grenades, including his own, fired a volley into the machines and created spectacular blasts and showers of sparks that devastated their targets, tearing machine limbs from bodies, cracking armour and twisting weapons out of shape, shattering sensor nodes and tearing conveyor belts in half, bringing production on one of the lines to a grinding halt. Their action bought a few precious seconds of leeway, allowing them to fire aimed bursts rather than hosing down anything in the hangar that moved.
Davenport pulled out the detonator for the C4 charges, ready to blow it all now lest they all be killed before they had a chance to blow the factory. His finger hovered over the switch, ready to meet his maker.
The left-hand wall of the hangar suddenly exploded inwards with a horrific screech of rending steel and a fountain of erupting sparks showered over the interior of the hangar as electrical conduits were severed, shattering work lights hanging from the ceiling, adding to the rain of debris all over and plunging the battle into darkness, illuminated by only by muzzle flashes from human and machine weapons, and the handful of roiling fires that licked across production lines through the hangar.
Metal squealed and twisted in protest and a support strut snapped like a toothpick as a Bradley fighting vehicle burst through the wall, the chain gun turned towards the machines and loosed an almighty burst of heavy antitank rounds that shattered machine torsos and exploded all around the inside of the hangar. Davenport could barely believe his eyes as he saw Perry on top, firing the .50 cal into the machines, hammering them back with near impunity. Several T-70s fired their weapons into the Bradley, but the .50BMG rounds and 40mm grenades bounced off the heavily armoured fighting vehicle like raindrops.
"Get in, for fuck's sake!" Perry turned his head back at Davenport, not ceasing fire for an instant.
Davenport breathed a massive, heartfelt sigh of relief and placed the detonator back into his pocket as he ushered his men into the back of the Bradley, the rear hatch open and waiting for them. He'd written himself off moments ago, the sensation that he and his men were actually going to live through this was almost overwhelming. He couldn't believe Perry had actually come for them; the last time they'd been stuck like this, he'd left them to it at the first sign of a T-2. As the last to enter, he dived down onto a seat, grunting as his ribs caught onto the hard corner of a seat. He ignored it as best he could and reached up to slap the button to close the hatch. The hatch ascended upwards, agonisingly slowly, until it finally sealed shut over the entrance with a satisfying click as the locks engaged. As soon as they did Davenport shouted up to Perry.
"We're in, go!"
Perry abandoned the gun and dropped back down into the rear of the vehicle as the Bradley backed out of the hangar and turned away from the building in a wide arc, speeding out away from the building, chain gun still firing in long bursts as they made their way out of the base. More than one T-70 tried to block their path but were simply run down and crushed like bugs beneath the twenty-seven tonnes of armour. The vehicle rocked and jerked as errant 30mm rounds from T-2s struck the thick armoured hide, the reactive armour exploded outwards and deflected most of the force of the rounds but the vehicle was severely damaged. One round punched through and a loud bang almost brought the Bradley to a standstill, much to the horror of the men inside. Thick black smoke poured out of the damaged engine and into the air as the battered Bradley led what was left of their convoy home.
Davenport breathed in deeply as they punched through the perimeter wire and the firing died down, eventually fading away as the Bradley and its accompanying vehicles shot down the last of their pursuers and they rolled slowly back towards Cheyenne Mountain. The stale, metallic air inside the Bradley was one of the sweetest things he'd ever tasted in his life. He pulled out the C4 detonator once more and pressed the switch. They were too far from the base to be able to hear the explosion, but Davenport closed his eyes and grinned slightly as he tried to imagine the roiling fireballs that would erupt from the hangars they'd wired up. Then the image of Sharpe's exploding body dominated his mind's eye and he couldn't bring himself to smile anymore.
Five men sat around the square oak table in the briefing room; the highest ranking resistance members in Fort Carson were all present and the tension of the situation was clear to see. Colonel Marcus Perry, Lieutenant Joshua Davenport, Derek "Baum" Reese, former agent James Ellison, and Charley Dixon glanced at each other with hollow gazes and bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep as they mulled over the disastrous turn of events. They all looked as if they'd aged considerably over the last twenty-four hours. Sprawled across the table were documents and images that weighed heavily on their souls.
Thirty-three men had died during the attack; none of the tank crews had survived; nor had any of the men whom Davenport had assigned to guard their entrance in the perimeter fence; they'd simply vanished. Second Squad, led by Lieutenant Grant, had fared similarly; four men had survived, minus their commander who'd perished quite literally at the hands of a T-70 that, as his men described it, had punched a hole through his chest. By some small miracle, the mortar crews had survived; but isolated by the radio jamming that had been thrown up, had been in the dark as to what had been going on, and kept on firing until the battered and limping convoy had picked them up. All four Abrams tanks, one of their Bradleys, a Stryker and a Humvee had been destroyed by the machines; their entire armoured force now consisted of a battered Bradley and a handful of Strykers which weren't much good for anything except bus rides.
"Looking at this," Ellison said, holding up a satellite photo taken of Schriever air base for emphasis. "The attack wasn't a total loss." He felt dirty and wrong for saying it that way; there'd be thirty-three more names read out at his sermon on Sunday. But as he'd taken up the role of Cheyenne Mountain's intelligence officer, he had to show the facts.
"How was it anything but a total loss?" Perry asked irritably, shaking his head in dismay. The sudden loss of so many men was weighing down on him more than anyone; he'd sent Davenport and his men into the base, it was solely on his shoulders that the responsibility laid. "This mission was fucked from start to finish."
"Judging from these images, you managed to destroy three out of seven hangars; we've slowed them down, at least." Ellison replied.
"For a few weeks, at most," Derek chipped in coldly. "Give it a month and they'll be up and running again." He'd seen it all before in the future; they'd take out one factory or airfield and before the explosions had even died down, Skynet had construction machines already starting to work on a new one.
"It's not just the guys we lost," Davenport said. "Who the hell was out there, preaching that apocalyptic crap, moments before our tanks got bombed?"
"'And that those who were prideful, and refused to accept His divine judgment, shall be laid low and cast down into the flames of eternal damnation.'" Perry quoted part of the speech that he'd heard over the airwaves, it had haunted him since he'd first heard it. "What the hell does that mean? That George guy in the infirmary's got a lot to answer for," he growled.
"He's in a coma!" Charley insisted. "You're not going anywhere near him until he wakes up."
"Then wake him up," Perry snapped. Derek found himself in the unusual position of agreeing with the officer; he had questions to ask him, especially now. He had serious doubts over the injured man's loyalties; he could only hope that his growing suspicions were wrong, and there was some other explanation for it and they were just the victims of bad intelligence. He was going to keep an eye on George.
"I can't just wake him up," Charley shot back. "He's a person, not a light switch; I can't just turn him back on with a click of my finger."
"You'd better find a way," Perry said, pointing to more photos that had been taken of suspected and confirmed factories and Skynet bases throughout Colorado. They all showed faint images of machines emerging from cover and rolling en masse towards resistance tunnels and bunkers they'd set up over the last few months. "Because we went into that base on his intel; he told us it was a work in progress, not a fortress. I want to know what he knows, so you let me know, the second he wakes up, Dixon."
Charley simply nodded in agreement, unhappy about how one of his patients was being treated, but at the same time seeing that they knew nothing about this George character. They had to tread carefully.
"So what it's boiling down to," Davenport said with uncharacteristic pessimism, "is that we've just lost a lot of good men, our biggest sticks, and we've got a load of freaks running around out there that see Skynet as a god, probably planning to put a spanner in our works. Any more good news?"
"The machines in Fort Collins, Pueblo County, and Denver have started to mobilize en masse from suspected factories we've not been able to deal with," Ellison replied. "We've ordered units in those areas to fall back to Cheyenne Mountain."
"We're going to need them," said Perry, sternly. "Because when the machines are finished with the little fish they're coming after us." He'd spoken to Davenport before this meeting and the lieutenant had made it pretty clear what his opinions were when he'd seen the inside of the hangar. Skynet was building an army, purely for their benefit. Davenport hadn't been his usual, cheery self since the attack. Perry hoped sincerely that it was only a passing thing and he'd recover. Davenport's positive demeanour was a definite morale boost for his men, and not many people had much to smile about since Judgment Day. He'd never say it but it was refreshing to see someone with a sense of humour still.
The solid wooden door that separated their meeting from the rest of the mountain flew open and slammed against the wall with a loud crack, denting the whitewashed plaster and causing all the room's occupants to jump in their seats with shock.
"What is it?" Perry asked, not looking up to the soldier who'd just entered and not even bothering to reprimand him for barging in. It wasn't like it really mattered, he thought.
"Sir, I've just come from the command centre, and we've,"
"Spit it out," Derek said, having no time for chitchat. He hated it when people beat around the bush; people that did that often got themselves or others killed in the future.
"We lost the satellites, sir," the soldier continued meekly. "We can't control them anymore; Skynet's taken them back."
Everyone inside the room shared a silent, internal groan at yet more bad news. They'd lost a lot of good men – a quarter of their trained military personnel – their most powerful assets, and Skynet was already mobilising its forces against their outlying bunkers and tunnels. And now without the satellites they were isolated, able to safely talk to no one. In that moment it became clear to all of them that the 4th Infantry resistance of Cheyenne Mountain would soon have to face the might of Skynet's machine armies, completely and utterly alone.
Hope you liked it! Sorry once again about the delay. Hopefully the next chapter will be easier to write now I'm not spending almost every waking minute at work. An AA-12 is a fully automatic assault shotgun used by the US military. Frag-12 is a specialty HEAP (High Explosive Armour Piercing) shotgun round that goes hand in hand with the AA-12.