Judgment Calls

by Stephensmat

John Connor was aware the War was coming his whole life. Kate Brewster was not. This is their story, and the story of the war to retake the Earth. PostT3. AU From Terminator Salvation.

15. Z Plus 7 Years 57 Days

Z Plus Seven Years Fifty Seven Days

Connor's Own were speeding through the wasteland triple time, trying desperately to keep up with Noah and her men. Walters knew the desperation Noah was feeling. If this had happened to Crystal Peak, he'd burn anything he needed to get back and see it with his own eyes. Even if he knew it was long over.

And it had to have been long over. The call went through over a week before. If Connor had been talking to an Infiltrator mimicking his voice…

They were getting closer to target. Soon they would know for sure. As they approached, they left the vehicles, told the helicopters to find a staging area and wait for the call… The humans approached on foot.

Noah hadn't said a word in over three hours. She just stared ahead, her eyes pure ice, marching fast for a hundred yards, running for the next hundred, and then marching fast again.

But when they saw the smoke, Kate knew. Walters knew. Everyone knew.

The Castle Keep, once based in San Jose, now a mobile base, was burning.

Colonel Noah froze when the smoke became visible, and then bolted.

"Noah! Noah! Wait!" Kate yelled after her.

Noah kept charging. Her men started to follow.

Kate discarded her weapon, her pack, sent Walters a quick glance and took off sprinting after Noah.

Walters read Kate's mind in that glance and held out a hand. "HALT! Hold position! That's an order."

Walters was Tech-Com, not US Army, and technically couldn't give them orders, but even so, Noah's unit forced itself to a halt, looking not unlike dogs straining on a leash.

Without carrying weapon or pack, Kate was able to catch up with Noah, and bring her down to the mud in a tackle. "I said WAIT!" Kate snarled.

Noah snarled back, ferocious. "Get offa me before I kill you." She managed to roll them both over, getting a hand around Kate's throat, right in her face. Her frustration had finally snapped, and Kate had made herself a target.

Kate didn't flinch, knowing that this woman had probably killed more people than Kate ever would. "Think it through! What would Skynet do?"

"I have to get down there!" Noah yelled, reacting and not thinking.

"What would they DO Colonel?" Kate snapped. "THINK! THAT'S AN ORDER!"

Noah was fiercely loyal to her General, but had survived enough engagements to be smart about it. It was what Whickham would have asked her. Noah forced herself to calm down, cool and deadly again. "They would set up an ambush."

Fwisshhh!

Both women looked up at the noise. A bright red flare had fired off into the night sky. Kate tensed as they were all bathed in hellish red light.

"That's not Skynet!" Noah said quickly. "The most secured spot on base is set up to be sealed. It has air supply, fortifications, food and water... And a signal flare set to fire automatically when one of our radios comes within range. It's to let any returning friendlies know that there are survivors."

Kate didn't let her go. "If Skynet was going to lure us in, that would be a great way to make sure we didn't turn back."

"Ma'am... the secure zone is where we keep the... most precious resources."

Kate stared. "The Maternity Ward."

Noah nodded slowly. "Ma'am... that's where the infants are. The pregnancy cases. The nursery. My son."

Kate reacted. "Your..."

"Five years is a long time." Noah said softly. "One mom to another... I have to be sure."

It was a low blow, playing the 'mom' card, and Kate knew she was being manipulated. She didn't care.

She let Noah up. "Okay. But we do it smart."

---

Noah crept into the tent. It was the outermost edge of the Castle Keeper's Camp. She lifted the edge of the tent, slipped under it and froze.

No sounds, no shots. She waited for the sounds of Machines. Heard none. She clicked her radio.

Around the base, she knew her people would be moving into the outer perimeter, just as she did. There had to be a trap here. There had to be. It was all a question of where it was and when it would strike.

The edge of her tent lifted again, and she brought her weapon around subtly, till she saw Kate shimmy underneath, joining her.

They both peeked out into the courtyard between the tents. Just ripped tents and burning vehicles in view. There were bodies everywhere.

"Whole new war." Kate said under her breath.

"You were right." Noah whispered. "Can you feel it? The place is infested!"

"Where would the survivors be?" Kate whispered. "Other than the Maternity Ward, would they go anywhere else?"

"If they escaped Skynet, the contingency plan said to evacuate and wait for the all clear signal." Noah reported. "The idea was that they couldn't get caught in the cross-fire when we came back and retook the camp." She bit her lip. "If we're going to spring the trap and flush out the machines, we should try and find them first."

"Colonel, if the Infiltrators got among any of your people, then they'll be with the escapees too. There's no point looking for them. They're already dead."

Noah shut her eyes for a second. "Terminators look human now. How the hell did that happen? Did Satan feel we needed another challenge?" She gestured outside. "What if there's an honest to god human out there somewhere?"

Kate let out a breath. "I don't have an answer for that one."

Noah's radio clicked twice. "Well, let's give 'em hell."

---

Noah's men started sneaking out of hiding, moving slowly, and waiting for the alert to go up at any second. They crept their way toward the only solid concrete structure around. The Maternity Ward. There was no sign of anything alive, and there were dozens of bodies surrounding the entrance, all of them clutching weapons in their cold dead hands.

Marsden moved first, heading for the entrance to the Maternity Ward, when a human voice came from the side of the building. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Marsden snapped up his rifle. "Who's there?"

"Don't shoot! I'm coming out!" A man covered in dirt and grime edged out from behind the wall with his hands up. "I'm not armed!"

"What happened here?"

"Skynet came through a day ago. I played dead. I think they were chasing after you guys."

Marsden shot him in the head. The man took a hit to the skull and was knocked down like he'd been hit by a sledgehammer. His hair lit up in flames for a half instant and he dropped.

Marsden didn't flinch. This was the plan after all.

At the first Gunshot, the camp erupted. Machines boiled up from every angle, hidden and playing dead amongst the scrap piles and burning vehicles, metal hiding amongst metal.

The Humans soldier's didn't even bother to shoot back before diving for cover.

The Machines moved in on their hiding places, firing steadily to keep their heads down, when a pair of Connor's helicopters flew overhead, cannons blazing, ripping a line of destruction through the Machine ranks.

---

Still in the tent, Noah grinned. "It was an ambush for my unit coming back. They weren't expecting you to be with us."

"Machine thinking. You weren't with us any more, so they expected us to save our resources." Kate agreed. "What do you say we go over there and kill some more Machines?"

Noah hefted her rifle. "I think it's a great idea."

---

The man Marsden shot was getting up again, having shaken off the blow.

Kate and Noah came out from their tent and started shooting, pouring wave after wave of fire into his body until he was forced back down.

The man didn't get up again. His skin had been ripped away and gleaming metal was visible beneath, one machine eye now blank and dark.

Kate saw movement out of the corner of her eyes. "Lookout." She said quickly and yanked Noah aside as Plasma-fire rang out again. The two women took cover behind the corner of the Maternity Ward's concrete wall, and waited for a half breath as Marsden's men started cutting down their pursuers.

Connor's Own took to the field, moving in and out of the shredded tents as ghosts, barely waiting long enough to get a glance at the Machines. The tactic worked, as the Terminators' program ordered them to pick their targets based on visibility and threat level. The humans kept ducking in and out of view so fast it was hard to track a weapon on one before the other started firing.

As the Terminators tried in vain to locate their targets, it was easy for some of the younger children to sneak around behind them and gun them down from behind.

---

Noah saw all this from behind the building with Kate. "You've still got kids on the battlefield?"

"Yeah. They're really good at it." Kate growled and pushed her rifle around the corner to shoot blind.

One of the Machines took the hit from behind but didn't fall, and spun around to shoot at Kate, who ducked safely back behind the wall.

Noah grabbed her shoulder. "This way." Noah pulled her down the length of the wall, away from the corner, and let a grenade drop behind her as they ran. Counting silently, Noah waited till the last second and tackled Kate to the ground.

The Terminator came around the corner just in time to step astride the grenade as it exploded.

Noah stayed down and forced Kate to do the same until the intensifying sounds of weapons fire stopped finally. The battle was over.

The instant the radio clicked the all clear code; Noah was up and charging for the entrance. Right behind her, Kate got a decent look at it finally. It didn't seem to be something they built recently. It was probably a good solid structure that happened to be convenient and was adapted by the new tenants to be a fortified bunker. Hardly an unusual tactic.

"No! NO!" Noah shrieked. "NO!"

She fell to the ground and threw herself at one of the bodies.

Kate felt her heart jump into her throat. She knew.

She ran over toward Noah, her legs feeling wobbly, from the fight or the fear of what she'd find, she didn't know...

But sure enough, stone gray, with two stars on each shoulder, there was her uncle Chet Whickham, with blood on his uniform and a rifle clutched in his hands.

It was hard for a moment to tell who was taking it worse, Kate or Noah. Both of them sort of sagged for a moment, trying not to collapse in front of their soldiers. Kate was dimly aware of the news spreading through all the US Army soldiers, and no small amount of grief. She understood.

How, Kate asked herself, would Crystal Peak take it if Connor died?

"Open the door." Noah croaked finally.

The soldier, rattled by the loss of their leader, did so. He keyed in a code at the keypad. There was a moment of silence as another code was keyed in from the inside, and the door opened.

There were guns waiting for them, desperate and frightened eyes behind them.

One set of eyes bulged. "Ma'am?"

Kate smiled despite herself. "Dex!"

They quickly made their way to each other and met halfway in a hug. Kate looked over his shoulder at the rest of the room. A few soldiers standing guard, mostly medics and civilians. Including pregnant women. Whickham's plan hadn't changed apparently.

She pulled back and got a look at Dex. He looked older. A few light scars drawn here and there. She was about to go over and give him a hug…

And then the dogs went berserk.

Kate stiffened and moved without thought. "TERMINATOR!"

Major Horner dove forward as one of the Civilians threw back his ratty jacket, revealing a rifle. Horner took the gunfire straight to the face, and dropped instantly.

The Terminator turned and started gunning down the civilians, focusing on the pregnant women.

Dex still had that legendary quick-draw and fired the first return volley. Kate was right behind him. Too late to save them all, fast enough to save most.

The civilians had gone nuts, screaming hysterically as another threat came from behind them now.

It was a short, sharp rush of combat, and Noah rushed through the room. She whirled back on Dex. "Where is he? Where's Michael?"

"Erica!" One of the doctors called. "He's here!"

Noah rushed over and took the infant off him. "God. How long has that thing been in here?" She demanded.

"He... he came in with us!"

"Why are you all alive then?"

"He was probably waiting for us." Kate said darkly. "Waiting for an Officer or a high-profile target to show up. After he was caught, he figured he'd follow his directives and started killing people."

Walters whirled on Dex. "Connor told you to put dogs at the entrances!"

Dex was staring blankly. "I didn't think..."

"What was that?" Walters demanded.

"He didn't think we needed to. We saw the rubber skinjobs miles away!"

"What the hell else were you doing with your K-9 units?"

"What do you think we did? We ate them!"

Eric was looking murderously at Whickham's body, but a swift look from Kate made him bite his tongue. "How many survivors?" Kate asked Dex.

Dex nodded. "Thirty three when we came in. Mostly the pregnant women and the children. A few doctors and nurses who were in here, one or two guards that were stationed outside. Whickham shut the door on us when the fighting got really bad. His tactic worked. They survived. Nobody else survived, but they survived."

Kate nodded sickly at that. "All right. Eric, go over the way out with a fine tooth comb. If it's still clear, bring in the troop carriers. We move out ASAP."

"Kate!" Someone yelled. "This one's alive!"

Kate rushed over to Basil and knelt down next to the pregnant woman's body. "Half her face is gone, no pulse… Baz, what are you talking ab-"

"Not her." Basil told Kate. "This one."

Kate felt her jaw drop, and checked. The woman's belly was shifting. The baby was still alive. "Oh god…" She muttered. "How far along is this one?"

Noah settled carefully, keeping her son turned away from the body. "That's Elise… I think about eight months. Can you save the child?"

"Gotta do an emergency C-Section to find out. Where's Bowman?"

Noah looked at the nearest Doctor, who shook her head slowly. "He never made it in."

Noah took that in stride. "Dr Lana Chen, this is Colonel Katherine Connor. Dr Chen is now our Chief Surgeon."

Kate had her medical kit out already. "You ever done a Cesarean?"

Chen nodded. "Once or twice."

Kate was pulling on her gloves. "Colonels Walters and Noah, get these people outta here!"

"Have the choppers on combat rotation." Noah directed her people, carrying her son on her hip. "None of our aircraft take off until they've been carefully checked for sabotage."

"Move out." Walters barked.

---

The survivors of Castle Keep were loaded onto the helicopters. Noah's soldiers took whatever seats were available, and got the Troop Carriers together for the rest. The soldiers took the opportunity to move through the base quickly, checking for machines they might have missed, any more booby traps that might hurt someone later, personal effects that might have survived…

Noah put her son on the helicopter, and then went back to the base. Hasnk was waiting for Noah when she made it to the Command Center. The room was mostly intact, though filled with dead bodies. "They got in here." Noah said darkly. "This is how they took us whole. They made their first move in here."

Hasnk nodded slowly. "We were checking in with them twice a day! Crystal Peak called in too!"

Noah gestured over at the radio, with operator slouched dead over the table. "They got one of their own in without anybody noticing. Regulations say that if there's a chance of the enemy getting in, we burn everything sensitive. They managed to capture this room before we knew they were here. All our codewords, all our hidden frequencies… Skynet had it all. We were never talking to our guys when we checked in. And neither was Connor."

Hasnk nodded. "We don't really have a lot of people left, outside our own Regiment. What do we do now?"

"We need to tend to our wounded, get the civilians squared away. Crystal Peak is offering aid. Right now, I'll take humans over anything else."

"We go there, and they own us. They'll hold us to ransom."

"We have nothing left to ransom ourselves." Noah said plainly. "And if he was alive, he would say the same thing." She sighed, seeming more tired than anything else. "Get to the jeep. There's one bus left, and I'll take it with Connor and Chen."

---

Noah returned to the Maternity Ward.

There were one or two guards at the door. Kate and Basil were working feverishly with Chen inside.

She dismissed the guards and took their place, sitting against the wall, rifle slung across her knees, and Whickham's body at her side, moved away from the door.

"What would you do?" She asked him quietly.

For a long moment she just sat with him. Then there was a sound, from inside the Ward.

A baby crying.

Noah smiled. "Well… you saved that kid's life." She whispered. "And my son's. And mine. I'm sorry it has to be this way." She fought down the catch in her throat, fought to stay frosty. "I love you old man. And I'm so sorry I wasn't here."

Standing up, Noah met Kate, Basil and Chen as they came out of the ward. Chen was carrying a newborn baby. "A boy. Healthy."

"We've been here too long. We have to move out."

"I saved a ride for us." Noah promised, and slid into step to have a quick work with Kate. "What about Whickham?"

Kate didn't answer right away. "Th… there are a lot of bodies Erica, we can't wait for all of them."

"Not all of them. Just him." Noah protested. "I'm not the only one who would want…" Noah scrubbed her face awkwardly. "I know we can't take our time here, and I know he's not popular where you're from… can we take the general with us?" Noah asked. "Please?"

What would John do? Kate asked herself. Then she gave herself a quick mental slap. "Colonel… he was family to me too. He comes with us. We… I owe him that much."

"Thank you Ma'am."

Idly, Kate wondered when Noah started calling her 'ma'am', but let it go.

They made their way toward the troop carriers, heading for home.

---

Z Plus Seven Years Sixty Days

Kate had called ahead and told Connor who was coming with them. By the time the survivors got there, they had rooms and food waiting. Whickham's body was placed in isolation, as funeral arrangements were made.

The awkwardness that Kate expected between Castle Keep and Crystal Peak had largely faded. Whatever else the newcomers were, they were human. And guaranteed humans were no small thing now. There was some tension between the soldiers, but mostly there was relief that some of the other army had survived.

The cold shock that Kate had felt at the wrecked Castle Keep faded halfway through her first night home, and she woke up gasping for air. Her husband hadn't let go of her in five hours, and she was very glad for it, trying to lose her feelings in the sounds and touch of the man she loved..

The initial emotion wore off by morning, which saw Kate sitting numbly against her husband's chest, with his arms wrapped around her tightly from behind. "Well." She said finally. "I guess you won."

She regretted it the second it came out of her mouth.

John squeezed her tighter. "I know."

Kate squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, forcing the tears back. She hadn't cried since her kids were born. She hadn't cried in sadness since losing the baby. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. It's just…"

John stroked her hair gently. "You told me once that he introduced your parents. He was your dad's roommate in college; you called him Uncle Chet… of course you're going to be mixed up about this."

Kate felt her stomach tie in knots again and fought not to dry heave. "Hell. Aren't doctors supposed to grow calluses over their feelings?"

"Maybe the best ones never do." John told her gently. "At least not with family."

"He was the enemy too." Silently, she said to herself what she could never say to him. He came for you, and you won. It's what you do. When I asked what was going to happen to him, it wasn't because I thought he was going to die. It was because I knew… it was going to be either you or him in charge. And the only reason I was willing to bring my children into the world, was because I knew that those who declare war on John Connor lose. We've staked the future of everything on that. I staked the future of everything on that, my love. If I had any doubts, I could have supported him.

"He may have been my opponent, but never my enemy." John told her. "He loved you far too much to be an enemy of mine."

Kate snuggled back into him as tightly as she could, feeling six years old again. "I wanted him to meet Robbie." She croaked miserably.

The door opened, and two small faces peeked around the door. "Mommy?"

Kate fought to make her expression clear. No such luck.

Robbie looked borderline terrified. "Why is mommy crying?"

John patted the bed. "Kids, we're going to have a funeral today. For a man you two never met. His name is Chet Whickham. And he was important to a lot of people who came into the base today. And he was really important to your mom."

The kids looked back and forth between their parents. "Can… can I come?" Sarah asked finally.

---

With Kate busy with the school and other civilian projects, Yolanda had taken over much of the Nursery in Crystal Peak. The younger kids loved her, and the adults trusted her, knowing how tough and maternal she was in equal measure.

The inclusion of the infants from Castle Keep caused quite a stir. The pregnant women were delighted to see the other children, and the kids made friends as fast as they ever did.

Noah spent a lot of time there. She was still in uniform, though most of her soldiers were not. Her jacket stayed off and her hair was down around her shoulders when she was with her son.

Unsure what else to do with her, most of them left her alone. Noah was as close to happy as she could be. It was the closest thing to R and R she'd had since J-Day.

"Noah?"

She was sitting against the wall, near where her son napped, surrounded by his drawings and toys, but she looked up at Walters as he came in. "Is it time?"

Walters nodded. "Would you like me to bring him?" He gestured at the boy, sleeping soundly over near the wall. "You'll be busy…"

Noah looked at her son. "I don't… No. He stays here."

"Crystal Peak is secure. He can walk around the base freely."

"I know… but not the funeral."

Walters licked his lips. "Noah… this is something I have absolutely no right to ask."

Noah didn't look away from her son's drawings.

"Your son… his name is Michael."

"Yeah."

"General Chet Michael Whickham." Walters said the full name slowly.

Noah finally looked him in the eye. "Yes?"

Walters quite suddenly lost his nerve and shook his head. "No. None of my business."

"You want to know if my CO was the father of my son." Noah glared.

"It doesn't take a lot to see how much you cared about him." Walters offered awkwardly.

Noah sighed. "Eric... do you have kids?"

"No."

"If you ever did have a son one day... Is there anyone in the world you would name him after, other than Connor?"

Walters smiled softly. "Nope."

Noah pulled her hair up again, collected her jacket, suddenly a soldier again. "Let's go." She glanced at her son. "Let's not wake him."

---

The entire population of Castle Keep had rolled out to pay their respects, as well as all members of Tech-Com, or the civilians, who had come from Whickham's base years before. There were very few funerals performed in Crystal Peak itself. There were few fatal casualties that had made it to Home base. Memorials took place with toasts in the mess, or the Officers Club. Burials and Services, when they were even possible, were done out on the battlefield where soldiers had fallen.

They buried him in the orchard, the first human in seven years to be laid to rest beneath fresh healthy trees.

Connor turned to Noah. "Are you sure you want to do this yourself?"

"Due Respect sir, this one is mine. Having you do it…. Would stick in my throat too much."

Connor nodded.

Noah came up to the grave site, and started to speak. "General Whickham would have hated the fuss we're making. He said that soldiers deserve respect, and honor, and loyalty, but not reverence. At least, not for doing their duty. Wherever he is now, I hope he hears me when I say that we are not honoring him for that. Because the fact is his duty to us ended the minute the Bombs fell. Nobody could be expected to do half the work he did, to put forward half the effort he did, and he did it for us." Tears were rolling down her face unashamedly, but her voice stayed strong. "I know he may not be the most popular person here, but he was a soldier, and he fought the enemy, and he protected his own."

A quick look went around the orchard. Connor's people glanced at their General, who was at attention, listening attentively. They took their cue from him. Whickham's people were rigidly, almost desperately at attention. Training and grief were at war with each other.

"Whatever else he was to us… to me…" And for the first time, Noah's voice cracked just the tiniest bit. "He was a soldier first. And that is the way I want to remember him." Noah signaled one of her men, who brought over three items. Noah took them off him one by one, and held them up to the crowd. "The general's rifle."

Noah plunged the rifle; barrel first, into the dirt.

The second item. "The general's helmet."

Noah put the helmet, polished clean, and twin stars gleaming on the front of it, over the rifle's stock so that it sat on top.

The final item. "The general's tags."

She slung the dog-tags around the rifle stock.

Noah turned back to those assembled. "Every battlefield has this monument to fallen soldiers. Every jungle, every desert, every field of conflict where we fought, and our General… our father, has earned his place with them."

Most of the soldiers that came before Tech-Com were combat veterans, or at the very least US Army trained. Enough that they recognized the traditional battlefield marker.

"General Chet Whickham, US Army." Noah eulogized. She saluted. So did the US Army. And then, so did Connor. And then, so did Tech-Com.

Silence.

Some at the back started to sing.

First to fight for the right,
And to build the Nation's might,
And The Army Goes Rolling Along.
Proud of all we have done,
Fighting till the battle's won,
And the Army Goes Rolling Along.

Kate felt her throat close over. She was born and raised on Army posts. She knew the words better than her own mother's voice. She couldn't help but hear herself singing along passionately.

Connor squeezed her hand a little and joined in.

Then it's hi! hi! hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong;
For where'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.

Valley Forge, Custer's ranks,
San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks,
And the Army went rolling along.
Minute men, from the start,
Always fighting from the heart,
And the Army keeps rolling along.

There were tears on all the soldiers' faces, because they knew.

Chet Whickham was the last US Army General. The last soldier of the armies who served 'Back Before'. Tech-Com was new, and followed no flag. It was formed in a time when the nation was dead. The Castle Keep was the last holdout of the US Military remnant that had not changed uniforms

General Chet Whickham was laid to rest in a soldier's funeral, and the US Army was buried with him.

Then it's hi! hi! hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong;
For where'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.

---

Connor came into the mess hall and paused. Carla was sitting by herself, facing the wall, on the very end of a table, as far from the others as she could get. Connor came over and laid a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Carla held a hand out. It was trembling, but just a little. "I promised Kate." She whispered. "Five days, not a drop."

"Good for you."

"Feel like I have sandpaper in my eyes."

"No tray. Have you eaten?"

Carla shook her head. "I've been throwing up so much lately... My stomach must be inside out by now."

Connor leaned a little closer and whispered in her ear. "Look who's here."

Carla looked up, and saw Dex, a tray in each hand, looking nervous. "This seat taken?"

"Not at all." Connor answered Dex smoothly. "Carla was just telling me that she wished she had some company for dinner."

"...oh god..." Carla whispered.

Dex nodded and sat down; as Connor silently wished him luck and left them alone.

Dex slid one of the trays over to her. "I won't say anything if you don't want to talk. Can I just sit here with you for a while?" He looked embarrassed. "I um... I haven't spoken to these people in a while, and that's just the ones I know. To the new guys I'm an outsider, to the others I'm the rat traitor."

Carla smiled through the tears, just a little. "I don't believe it... but I'm really glad to see you."

"You too." Dex said quietly.

Carla took his hand. "Are you really hungry?"

Dex smiled. "Not especially."

"There's someone you should meet."

---

Over at the Officers table, Kate watched them leave and smiled at her husband. "That was nice of you."

Connor looked back innocently. "What do you mean?"

"Putting Dex on the night shift. Keeps him away from some of your more... passionate supporters, and it puts his meal break in at the same time as Carla's. This was a set-up."

Connor looked shrewdly at her. "Right. And you forcing Carla to come to the Mess Hall with you, and then leaving her alone at the last table right away? That was a coincidence?"

Kate smirked.

Connor turned to Walters. "Now then, what's the latest?"

"The violence is dying down. The mobs haven't found another machine yet, so it's starting to dawn on them that there aren't any more in here. They're getting it together."

Connor smiled. A real smile this time. "I knew they would. Survivors have phenomenal capacity."

Kate shivered. "Well. In the meantime, there's one last duck we need to put in the row."

"What's that?"

"I told you that there were two kinds of violence. The mobs and the stabbing victims. The mobs have stopped because they're not finding anything... but the attacks stopped a good bit sooner."

Connor looked at her sharply. "You know who it is." It was not a question.

---

Carla led Dex out of the base to the Orchard. The Tunnel Rats were there, working away at the small grove of trees like a busy colony of ants. "You see that kid down there with the red hair?"

"Yeah." Dex said carefully.

"That's Mac Curry. Erin Curry's kid."

Dex felt himself jerk in response. "Is… is he…"

"Yeah. He's yours Dex. He's your son."

Dex felt like someone had squeezed the air out of his body. "My… my son." Dex licked his lips. "Does he know?"

"Not yet. Family is a pretty flexible thing in the Underground. We all just sort of adopt each other when we need to."

He turned slowly to face Carla. "Carla… where's his mother?"

Carla looked back at him evenly. "Out on a recon mission. Why?"

Dex smiled. "I'm not carrying a torch, Carla. Just wondering."

"She was never going to be a big part of this. She checks in on him sometimes, but he thinks of her more as an aunt than a mother. Which was pretty much what she had planned when she introduced herself to you."

"I remember."

Carla squeezed his hand. "You want to meet him?"

Dex took in a long deep breath. "Yeah."

Carla led him over toward the trees and called out. "Mackie!"

Mac looked up and ran toward her. "Mom."

Carla bent down and gave him a tight hug as Dex felt his eyes widen in shock. Mom?

Carla hefted Mac up and turned around so that they faced Dex. "Mackie, I want you to meet an old friend of mine. This is Dex."

"Hi." Dex heard his voice say.

"Hello."

---

Basil was taking inventory of the medical supplies, when he noticed Kate at the end of the aisle. "Ma'am?"

Kate just looked at him.

Feeling his instincts start to scream, Basil looked back and saw Connor at the other end of the aisle. The General looked at him too.

Basil cleared his throat. "Is there... something I can do for you?"

"Three attacks." Kate counted. "All over the base, all times of day... and you were the first Medic in the door every time. Why were you always the closest one to the stabbing victims?"

"There's been a lot of violence." Basil defended.

"But not single stab wounds on individual people. I suspected when I saw you there first all three times, so I took you with me, out into the field. There wasn't a single attack the entire time we were gone."

Basil shut his eyes. "Ma'am, I wasn't attacking people. I was clearing them."

"Clearing them?"

"Well how else are we going to check?" Basil demanded. "I've been patching up the wounded from the violence too. All that violence from panic! From fear. Unfocused, unplanned. And what did it get them? What did they find? So I did it myself. More carefully. More selectively."

Connor glared at him. "Why Baz? You know me. If you had suspicions about somebody…"

"Due Respect General, but we had suspicions about Carla, and it was pretty clear that she was above reproach to you."

"You saying you didn't trust me?"

"I'm saying we wanted to be certain. We never meant to hurt anyone. You can't hurt a machine." Basil turned to Kate. "Ma'am, you said it yourself; I was the first one trying to save their lives. It was because they're human. Humans aren't the target here."

"One of them still died though!"

"A mistake. We were so sure. After that, I had the Medical Kit close by whenever I did another test."

"Another test. You mean when you stabbed another person to see if they'd bleed?" Kate snarled.

"I could have gone for the throat, or the head, or the heart. I only ever gave stomach wounds. I had some time to save them if I was wrong."

"You didn't save Haskin."

"I tried to." Basil looked genuinely crushed at that. "I was mistaken…"

"Baz. After you accidentally killed a man, why the hell would you keep going?" Kate demanded.

"Due respect Ma'am, but we lost thousands of people in one day to those things. If we accidentally killed one or two humans to find an infiltrator… isn't that worth it?"

There was a long beat of heavy silence.

Kate took a lethal step toward Basil, when Connor put a hand on her shoulder. "Basil. You said 'I had the Medical Kit' and 'I was mistaken.' But you said 'we were so sure'. Were you acting alone?"

"For the attacks I was. But I had to discuss it with someone else; just to compare notes. Just to have a sounding board. I didn't go picking people at random sir. I mean… I'm not crazy!"

Connor got right up in his face. "And who would that someone else be?"

---

"Lisa?"

Lisa looked over and saw Colonel Eric Walters coming into her Dorm Room with his men. "Yessir?"

"Can you come with me a minute? We need to ask you a few questions."

Lisa felt a thrill of fear go through her. "Am… am I under arrest?"

"No, we just need to find out a few things."

This was the great fear. The thing that no soldier wanted to happen, but everyone was desperate for. Someone getting fingered as the Terminator or the traitor and taken away. Everyone knew that sooner or later a Machine would get caught, and it was only a question of who it would be.

Sherrin was up instantly. "Lisa's not a Terminator!"

"Nobody is saying she is." Walters said quickly.

Amil grabbed Sherrin from behind, keeping him away from her. "Stay back. Tony; if she is… I mean, it's best to make sure. Don't try and stop them."

Cutter jumped in. "Amil, what the hell is wrong with you? We know Lisa. There's no way she's a Machine!"

"That's what Carla thought about Martie!"

"I'm not a Machine!" Lisa shouted, distraught.

"But we DON'T KNOW FOR SURE!" Amil shouted back.

"AT EASE ALL OF YOU!" Walters roared. "We don't suspect Lisa of being a Terminator. We're just trying to piece something together, and Lisa has some information."

Sherrin looked, miserable at Lisa, who had jumped to two dozen of the worst conclusions she could reach, and was crying softly as Walters did his job. Walters signaled his men, and they flanked Lisa on each side, marching her out.

The only way was the Main Auditorium, where the people were. They saw the horrifying sight. Lisa, openly crying, but with her chin up, was being marched away by a team of armed soldiers, Sherrin was limping along behind, roaring to anyone who would listen that she wasn't a traitor, or a Machine...

Riots had been broken up all week, but tensions hadn't cooled in the slightest. The more paranoid were expecting it. People picked and strung up as Machines or collaborators. The ones who trusted Connor and his men implicitly assumed she was guilty of whatever she had been charged with...

Walters did the math. "Guys, let's find another way around."

The guards started to turn Lisa around to go the other way when a hand flashed out. "Hold on!" A civilian woman blocked them. "You can't just take her away! What has she done?"

Another man came rushing up and stopped the woman. "Hey, you can't get in their way! What if she's done something really dangerous? You can't just-"

The woman shoved him away roughly, he reached out again and pulled her away again, she shoved him harder and he overbalanced, getting knocked down...

And the yelling started again.

Half a dozen people tried to pull Lisa away from the soldiers, another half dozen went for those people, trying to help the guards...

And then all their friends picked sides and all the others lost track of who was who...

And the yelling turned to violence.

Lisa felt a dozen hands from people she didn't recognize grab at her from all corners and yelped, trying to duck away.

Sherrin hauled off and slugged the guards still trying to keep her from getting away, knocking one down, feeling a nose break under his knuckles...

Lisa saw Sherrin and reached for him, pulling herself closer to him and away from everyone else as best she could. Sherrin's severed arm went around her shoulder and the two of them tried to fight their way clear, clinging to each other for what protection they could get as the world around them erupted into anarchy.

The danger of Infiltrators had made the distribution of weapons a more serious matter, and there were fewer heavy weapons around, but as the tension had grown, people had learned to improvise. Shivs of all shapes and materials flashed out and blood flowed.

The room had erupted into a heedless riot, out of control, and the sides getting confused. People were hurling things; people were trampling each other...

It was war. It was an insane free for all, made all the more ferocious since it was contained within a room, however large. The panic, paranoia and frustration of the last week had finally found a violent outlet, and it wasn't going to stop for hell or high water.

And then a piercing shriek of noise rang out. It came squalling out of the speakers mounted on every wall, it came screeching out of the radios. The pitch was so high it felt like an ice pick going through every ear; it was amplified so loud it made the speakers scream...

Everyone in the Main Hall broke off their combat enough to clutch at their own ears in agony, releasing each other voluntarily.

And there, at the entrance to the room, was Connor.

In one hand he had his radio, tuned to the PA, in the other he had one of the Jammers. He put them both away, waited till everyone got themselves together, and strolled to the middle of the room, in no particular hurry. The crowd parted for him. He just stared them all down. It was a thousand furious, adrenaline soaked, and bloodthirsty ferals in a staring match with General Connor. And they were the first to back down.

He didn't speak for a long time. It was a good thing, since nobody could hear a thing for several minutes over the ringing in their ears. More people started threading in quickly from all sides, drawn by the shriek over the PA, and the sudden absence of rioting noise.

"What is this?" Connor demanded finally. "I mean… WHAT IS THIS?" He roared with such sudden menace that everyone jumped. "I warned you. I told you not to give in to fear. I told you that we were going to handle this the same way we handled everything else. One. Exactly ONE Infiltrator got in here, and it was killed five seconds after the first shot was fired. And look at us. LOOK AT US! We've done more damage than that god forsaken windup doll did! We've taken more lives than the Infiltrator that got in here in the first place! We're the ones killing each other! Not them, US! Skynet did in five minutes with fear what it couldn't do with seven years of war!"

There was numb silence in the Underground. There was shame. There was awkwardness. One most faces, just the simple realization that Connor was right. They had been tearing into each other for over a week and found not one Machine.

It was a bitter pill to swallow to say the least.

Connor let them dwell on it for a moment, and then started again. "We have an enemy. An enemy that we do not know. So suddenly a face you don't recognize is the enemy. Well I'm looking around this room, and you know what? I don't see a single stranger here!"

---

Kate, a room away, watching the drama unfold from a private screen in the War Room, out of sight of anyone, had her radio, tuned to the private frequency. "Okay. First from your left. His name is Cotton. One kid named Mark, two years old. Next to him is Rica, she's Salvadoran, plays guitar a lot..."

---

Connor scanned the crowd and moved in close, grabbing Cotton by the shoulders. "Cotton. You're not a Machine, I know you. Remember when your son Mark was born? I was the first one to come visit!" A more personal statement than it sounded. Connor came to visit all the newborns on Base.

Connor scanned the room again, quickly dashed over to the next person. "Rica. What about you? Remember our first night here five years ago? You played the guitar for us! It was the first time this Base had ever heard music!"

There were smiles going around the room, people searching out familiar faces, having similar stories.

Connor turned to the entrances to the room, saw a pair of familiar faces, and charged up to them. "Dex! I know you. Back when I was a Colonel. We met in Medbay remember? You were injured on a patrol. You told me you were as good a quick draw left handed."

And then, in full view of everyone, he turned to Carla. "And Carla. You're one of my oldest friends here. I knew you back before I even became a soldier. We were in the Camps together. And I remember what a godsend you were when Kate and I lost our first child. You held my hand and told me how sorry you were... You helped me keep my wife strong again. You had lost your family too, and you still found it in yourself to hold us together."

"I would do anything for you guys." Carla answered quietly, knowing that everyone was watching his warm personal testimony to her.

Connor turned back to the crowd.

"We are the living, beating pulse of this base, of all Tech-Com. And the second the Machines get an edge, you all forget how we ever drove them back in the first place! What the hell is going on in here? Don't give yourself over to the Machine Men! They are unnatural fakes that walk around like humans but have Machine hearts and Machine minds. You are not Machines. You are warm living feeling people! A breathing heart and soul of something that can save the world!"

It was working. They were looking at each other. Remembering faces. Remembering names.

"This is not the time to turn on each other. If anything, the way to survive this, the way to know whose side we're on, is to know each other. To know enough to know that we are not Machines. We are not machines. We are men. We have emotion in our hearts and fire in our eyes. Cyborgs don't feel pain. We do. We feel pain when we get hit, and we have enough pain to go around already without inflicting it on each other out of fear.

"There is no machine that can fake a good joke. No infiltrator that will act to protect another. There is no machine that has a loved one, a brother, or a daughter, a son or a mother. Fight for each other, band together tighter than any machine could fake; and that is how you will know who we are. Who all of us are.

"And I know how scary a thought that is. To get so close to people when people are dying everywhere? That's scary. But here we are. We do the terrifying thing so often, that when I ask you to do one more frightening thing to save your lives; I know I can count on you to do it.

So now I'm asking: Can I count on you?"

There was the sound of a general agreement.

Connor snorted. "Ohh that sounded pretty weak. That sounded like a Mechanical agreement with the boss. Are we Machines or are we Alive?"

"…Alive…" The answer rumbled through the Auditorium.

"Can I count on you?" Connor shouted again. It was not a question. It was an order to live.

"Yes!" The call came back.

"Are We Machines, Or Are We Alive?" Connor demanded.

"Alive!" The sound or hope was growing stronger. It was working. He was winning them back.

"CAN I COUNT ON YOU?" Connor roared.

"YES!" The crowd roared back.

"ARE WE MACHINES, OR ARE WE ALIVE!" Connor roared over them.

"ALIVE!" The crowd screamed over each other.

"AGAIN!"

"ALIVE!"

It was breathless, it was glorious, it was all the fury of their fear turned positive, it was a limitless release of emotion that lifted the roof, and made them all cry out.

ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE!

Connor smiled, proud of them, and headed off, the now familiar chant growing behind him.

"CON-NOR! CON-NOR! CON-NOR! CON-NOR! CON-NOR!"

---

"Nice speech." Noah said, seemingly unimpressed. She and Walters were waiting in the War Room.

"The one I should have given the second we found out they looked human." Connor said darkly. "So, what have we got?"

"Skynet territory has expanded to include most of the Northern States. They don't have a lot out over the water. Intel says that most of the invasion forces are coming out of the Red Zone."

Connor swore. "They weren't running low on supplies Eric. They had plenty. They just weren't sending out what they built. They were building and conserving. They knew exactly how much space they could control, and exactly how much they could hide from us. They were sending out just enough to keep us occupied, and keeping the rest inside their zone. They've been planning this move for five years."

"And it worked too." Noah admitted.

Connor stared at the maps. "Are these time codes accurate?"

"As accurate as we can make them sir."

Connor glared at the maps as if interrogating them. "All right. Let's think about this chronologically. The first one to strike was here at Crystal Peak. It came in a few days before the hit. The second one to strike was your force, at the operational end of the Theater. It joined your Unit as a refugee almost a week before... Now, assuming they both started out at the same place, and assuming they have a standard foot speed... all the roads in the area are being watched, so they must have been traveling cross country... That means they had to have been coming from within..."

Walters felt his heart-rate tick up as Connor circled the map at a point between the two attacks. "Somewhere in there."

Connor went back to the maps. "So... the MASH Units too, had people coming as wounded, brought in on our own trucks... and that battle took place here, a few hours before that... so if they had to travel on foot also before meeting up with our people... they must have started..." Connor redrew the circle, a little smaller.

"You're making a lot of assumptions there sir." Walters pointed out.

"I know. But the area in that circle is a place we don't go. Radiation Zones. If Skynet was hiding something, they would hide it there." He paused. "But not this."

"Sir?"

"Skynet can put bases in radiation zones because they don't have to worry about radiation. But Infiltrators do. They have skin, flesh and blood. Maybe the radiation won't kill them, but it'll be visible. There would be lesions, hair loss..."

Walters looked back to the map. "So, where in that area is a place close enough to a hot zone we won't go near it, but far enough away to be safe. They don't need food or water... which is good, because there isn't any in that area... so where would it be?"

Walters suddenly grinned. "Sir, as it happens, we have someone who might know."

---

Kyle and Lupe came into the war room at a march and saluted. "Corporals Reese and Salceda, reporting as ordered sir."

Connor waved them over to the maps. "You two had to leave the roads a few times. Your reports say you had to edge your way around a Hot Zone to escape a landed H/K. Is that correct?"

"Yessir."

Connor looked at them both coolly. "And where exactly would that landed H/K be?"

---

Within an hour, The Principals were surrounding the Map in the War Room.

Connor was making the standard briefing. "Corporals Reese and Salceda have provided us with valuable intelligence as to the location on the Infiltrator Base. Brain Box has calculated a 87% chance that the Infiltrator Models are constructed on site, to avoid any chance of being noticed in transit. A tactic that seems to have worked.

"How is it possible that there was a whole Terminator Factory that close to us and we didn't know?" Oldham demanded.

"Reese?" Connor directed.

"We only saw the H/K, and it was landed for a very long time. If that's where the base is, it must be Underground."

"It's on the outer edge of a Hotzone. It has to be out there to keep their skin suits from rotting, so we've got a target area. Reese and Salceda will take us to the site. Reese."

Kyle licked his lips and made his report. "Lupe and I came across an Ambush site. Two Machines in an underground hole."

"We can assume that the area is laid out in a defensive pattern. The Tanks will make the first sweep, followed by our Metal Marines. This will continue until we find whatever entrance the Infiltrators have been using."

"And then?"

"Make sure that all our attackers are known to the Scrubbed Machines. And make sure our guys keep track of each other. There will be infiltrators in there, and if this dissolves into a close quarters fight we could easily lose people to friendly fire. I would prefer to take the Target in one piece. We need intel on the model's they're churning out."

"I hate the idea of going in there blind." Noah murmured.

Connor nodded and slid a piece of rough yellowed paper over the table to her. "This is a schematic of the Target base. It's incomplete, but what's there is accurate."

Noah stared at him, then at the map he'd given her, then back at him. Walters fought to keep his grin in check.

"Where did this come from?" Noah asked very calmly, pointing to the page.

"The paper? Kate taught the kids how to recycle paper. It's labor intensive, but it's not like we can get paper from anywhere else..."

"That's not what I mean, and you know damn well know it." Noah interrupted. "Sir."

Connor smirked. "The Infiltrators all came from that Base on the map. We have a dead Infiltrator in our Tech Lab. We pulled its Memory and started searching, once we knew what we were looking for."

"You can read Machine Memory Code?" Noah asked in surprise. "They changed the programming language when? Five years ago?"

"Shortly after we got a bunch of Terminators on our side." Connor confirmed. "Maybe we can't crack that code, but a bunch of very smart walking talking calculators can." He pointed to the drawn map. "Terminators don't explore their bases. Everything you see there is from the entrance to the assembly line, which is what we're looking for."

Noah accepted that and turned to Connor. "General, request permission to take my Unit on the strike."

Connor smirked. There wasn't anyone left who hadn't lost friends and comrades to the Infiltrators. But Noah had lost her Army, and her Commander.

"Permission granted."

---

Z Plus Seven Years Sixty Two Days

Travel across the wastelands, steering a large force of armored cars and tanks and soldiers around various Hot-Zones slowed them all down considerably.

When they got close, the Humans hung back a bit at Kyle and Lupe's direction. The Tanks and the Metal Marines rolled forward as the trap doors popped open, one after another, and the Terminators made their attempts at ambush. It was a failed move, as plasma fire couldn't get through a tank, and the Metal infantry was spread out enough to gun them down.

Skynet had full control over it's soldiers and what they saw, and knew that attacking the Strike Force one at a time wasn't going to work. In a heartbeat the desert sands boiled up with a small Army of Terminators from all angles.

The Tanks gunned their motors and ran down the ones ahead through sheer force, the Machines that ducked to the sides were off target from the holes punched through their lines and were quickly dispatched by the watchful Metal marines, and US Army remnant.

Eventually though, they made it.

At their old campsite, Lupe and Kyle crouched behind the wall with Noah and Walters, showing them where the H/K was parked. "Right there. There were at least a dozen Terminators."

Walters took that seriously. Noah a little less so. "We're not exaggerating just a bit, are we?"

Lupe looked disdainfully at the adult. "We're not looking to get our nose bashed in, are we?"

Walters smirked and raised his radio. "Mission ready."

The Scrubbed Terminators marched forward and started probing the ground.

"Are you sure there was nothing to locate the door in that Skinjob's Memory?" Noah pressed.

"We have everything it saw, but there are not a lot of landmarks out here." Walters argued. "One patch of dry dust looks a lot like any other."

It took several minutes, but eventually one of the Terminators found a hatch in the ground. It was sealed tight.

"Think we could just knock?" Noah quipped.

"STAND CLEAR!" Walters hollered. The Metal Marines moved back. Walters pulled a laser pointer and drew a red dot on the Door. "Tango One, you are clear to engage."

"Roger Lead One, beginning our run. Be advised, we received word from The Chief. He says that the aerial H/K's are trying madly to get here. He's got them under control."

"They know we've found them." Noah murmured.

The two soldiers hunkered down, and the air split as a pair of fighter jets screamed in and dropped their ordinance. The sealed hatch in the ground exploded with a great blast of heat. There was a sound of something rupturing, and then a quick whoosh as the air was met with a sealed underground atmosphere.

In the same heartbeat, a barrage of lethal plasma-fire came shooting up out of the smoke, and the Scrubbed Machines were quick to charge into the fray firing back steadily into the smoke.

"Bring the Javelin!" Noah roared.

Soldiers came charging in as the fight gathered around a smoking wreck of a hatch. Soldiers were carrying crates, carrying heavy weapons, munitions...

As the battle intensified, and the Metal marines were knocked down, fortifications were being set up. Platforms put flat on the dirt, with barricade walls bolted quickly into the plate by power tools, and suddenly there was cover. Mini-guns and batteries were set up in a neat semi-circle around the entrance and suddenly there was a kill-zone...

The math of it was undeniable. The Scrubbed Machines were overwhelmed by the force of numbers and superior models defending down below, and the Metal Marines were pushed back as the fight came to the surface.

The Human soldiers were ready for it. The second a new machine poked its head up, the humans opened up with everything they had.

As the smoke started to thin, Walters could see inside finally, and the hatch opened onto a ramp that lead a steady decent under the surface. It went far enough that Walters couldn't see the other end of it from where he was, and with everyone firing madly at each other, he didn't dare get closer.

Thoom. Thoom. The mortars fired behind him, the grenades coming down in a short neat arc with landed them in the tunnel. The grenades went rolling downhill till they exploded amongst the Mechanical defenders.

Noah was up with the 'Javelin', and the laser guided missile speared down the incline neatly, practically clearing out the whole tunnel. Deep below, it hit something and erupted, shaking the ground.

The blast took the lion's share of the reinforcements. The fight for the surface leveled off after that.

The Humans started pushing down for the facility. Bare Spartan walls and very few lights.

"Looks like Skynet décor." Noah commented.

"Let's do this." Walters agreed, pulling out the Map. "Assembly lines are this way. Let's pull the plug on this place."

"Cover every corridor!" Noah barked.

Soldiers started moving, covering every direction that another wave of opposition could come from.

"Oldham, Marcus." Walters ordered. "Find the signal relay to Skynet, and take it offline."

And eventually, they found their way to the heart of any factory: it's assembly line.

They knew the room by the sounds as they approached. Both Colonels had been in Terminator factories before. It had it's own pulse. The sounds of it were unmistakable.

Whirr. A machine torso was pulled being upright. Bzzt. A pair of legs was being welded onto it. ZZZZ! A pair of arms were being screwed in pneumatically. Crack! Crack! Body armor being riveted onto the torso. Clang Clang Clang. Metal footsteps.

And then... silence.

"Did they shut down production?" Noah asked inaudibly.

"I doubt it. They'd be churning out guards, surely. Whatever this place is... it has a different setup. The infiltrators must take longer. Another step in the process."

Noah nodded. That made sense. "Connor wants this place whole. How exactly do we do that?"

"Take out the programming station." Walters said instantly. "The Machine that programs the soldiers on their way to being constructed. Take that out, and they're just a bunch of bodies without a brain. We have parts that we can repair that easily enough once we reprogram."

"We can't reprogram if they self-destruct the base, which they will do the second they know we've won."

"Three on our Ten!" Someone yelled and the team of soldiers spun to trade fire with a fresh batch of steel skeletons coming from one of the corridors.

"We've found the relay Colonel!" Oldham's voice came from the radio. "Do we kill it?"

"Stand-by!" Walters yelled back over the sound of his own rifle. The air was thick with the smell of burning air, but eventually, the battle ended.

Noah nodded, drawing the room in her head from the map. "Okay. Let's do it."

Noah and Walters both signaled their men to take up positions as they came into the Assembly room.

The Terminators were there; lined up before all the machines, ready to defend the assembly line. The Humans opened fire immediately, knowing exactly where to strike. The Terminators fired back just as fast; with they're typical inhuman precision.

No room to dodge, no cover to hide behind, The Terminators had a lethal advantage.

Noah came around to aim her weapon, and took a hit across the arm. She hissed and ducked back behind cover. Walters started checking her quickly.

"It's okay. It's not bad." She gritted out instantly to Walters. "But they've got the target well covered. I don't think we can hit it."

"I can!" A small voice piped up instantly, and Noah stared disbelievingly at Kyle Reese.

Walters nodded. "Kyle's smaller and faster than any of us. He can make the shot."

"You want to give a fourteen year old kid a grenade launcher?" Noah roared.

The sounds of her men being gunned down in the factory forced her to take a breath. It was all the time Walters needed to take the Grenade launcher off her, and give it to Kyle. "Go for it kid." He keyed his radio. "Oldham, cut the uplink. Do it now!"

The human targets gave Reese enough cover to come around with the Grenade Launcher. He saw a machine aiming for him, and made a maddening shift that twisted his smaller body out of the way as he doze across. He needed only a moment to pick the huge bank of computers. The launcher fired quickly, with a reverse vacuum sound as the grenade was launched across the room... and into the computer bank, the brains of the assembly.

The automated machines stopped instantly.

There was a shudder that went through the ranks of the machines as the factory stopped working. The mission to shut down the Infiltrator factory had been fought and won. But the next step would be to capture it whole.

With the uplink to Skynet destroyed, the base auto-destruct couldn't happen, so the Terminators followed their program to keep the assembly line out of Human hands. The Machines turned quickly and started tearing things apart themselves.

The humans came rushing into the room guns blazing, their suddenly dumb predictable targets facing away from them. The humans mowed them down before they could finish their jobs.

And quite suddenly, the battle was over.

Noah and Walters didn't relax, sending out orders to search the whole facility top to bottom, just in case they missed anyone, and to disarm the auto destruct charges manually, just in case..

Noah came into the factory floor. "Not bad, Corporal Reese." She admitted to Kyle grudgingly.

They looked around the room. The assembly line was more or less like any other factory. Only beside the end of the line was a series of large clear tanks. Each of them was about human size, and filled with some kind of clear liquid.

And in each tank was a Terminator.

Each Terminator had its eyes dark and non-functional. They were all wrapped in what looked like thin fly screen; and it looked like there was something growing on the surface of each of them.

They knew what that 'something' was.

"So, this is how they do it." Noah murmured.

"Colonel Noah, we found something on the upper level."

"On the way."

They worked their way through the base, till they reached one of the higher levels. There wasn't much there, but the smell of fresh ozone and burnt meat meant that their men had to fight their way in.

They found their people gathered around a row of prison cells.

"How many prisoners?" Walters demanded first thing.

Marsden gestured. "Three occupied cells. One with a woman, one with a young child, one with an older man. The male is the only one still alive sir. From the state of him, it looks like they just forgot about their prisoners a long time ago."

Noah let herself into the last cell, where both her medics, and Walters' were working madly to keep him alive. He seemed impossibly thin, impossibly old. His skin was grey and yellow; the smell that clung to him was foul. He had a bar-code burned into his arm and he was barely breathing.

Walters keyed his radio. "Get the choppers moving. We have wounded. Tell Kate we have an intensive care job coming too."

Noah had her gun pointed directly at the old man, unconscious on the floor. "Assuming this one is even human himself."

Walters looked to the walls where the words 'Dear God, how long?' had been scratched into the walls, along with many equations and diagrams that Walters couldn't figure out.

Z Plus Seven Years Sixty Four Days

The helicopters moved much faster than the ground troops, and were reserved for the wounded only. As the victorious ground troops finally started arriving at the base, things returned slowly to normal. The violence had dropped off, and moral was back up a bit once word of the victory spread.

But the old man had not woken up, but the Time Walters and Noah arrived at the Base and came to check on him.

"He's human." Kate confirmed when they all came to Medbay. "I have no idea why he's alive, but he's human."

Connor stared at the old man. He didn't recognize him. "Any ID?"

"No identification, no records in our databases, clothing is all Skynet issue, the bar-code doesn't match any of our people..."

Connor looked at Walters. "Eric, it's time you introduced Noah to Brain Box."

"Yessir."

---

"Who the hell is Brain Box?"

Walters had led her to a sealed room on the base, fairly well defended. The room itself was not guarded, but there was a keypad at the door, and Connor entered at lest twenty digits into it. "Let me ask you something Erica." Walters said quietly. "When Connor first showed up in San Jose, did you get information on his background? I know Whickham had information he didn't get from interviews with my people."

Noah considered the question, not at all blind to the fact that Walters had used her first name for the first time. "Yeah. Yes sir, I did. I got it from one of our own captured Terminator chips."

Walters nodded. "The Terminator CPU acts like any other CPU. it takes the information on the hard drive and matches it to the directives each machine gets. It simply does it at a devastating speed. The information is not kept in the CPU itself. Connor was a primary target, so it had that information immediately available on the chip. It had similar information on some of my Command Staff, Whickham..." He opened the door and turned to Noah. "The thing is that all the information on every other topic was not immediately available to us. The CPU is one thing, the programming language was another."

"You couldn't figure it out either?"

"Well, with all the Terminators on our side, all we had to do was ask, and it would give us whatever answers it had. But a computer is notorious for not volunteering more information than is asked for. So we had our Terminators program something of an Oracle for us."

Noah came into the room and froze. The room was almost bare except for an overhead light, a chair and desk...

And a Terminator Torso mounted on the wall. It had no arms, no legs. It was welded to the wall, not chained there. The only part of it that could move was its head, which turned to watch as they walked in.

"Hello Brain Box." Walters said calmly. "I have some more questions for you."

"Yes sir." The Machine said. "Who is this?"

"It's asking questions." Noah whispered. "They don't have curiosity. Do they?"

"This one does." Walters said. "Oracle, tell her about yourself."

"Unit Brain Box is an retrograded unit. CPU processing speed is 200% of normal. Information recall is 400% of normal. Please direct any questions you might have to me and I will answer them."

"All the information we get, every Terminator we hack, all gets fed into our Crystal ball here." Walters explained. "And his Directives have been replaced with one simple command. To answer any questions and volunteer any relevant information. including supposition and theory."

"It's a Think Tank!" Noah exclaimed.

"Effectively." Walters agreed. "It has no contact with any uplink, to us or to Skynet. it has no limbs, no offensive or defensive weapons. It's a brain welded to the wall."

Noah nodded, interested. "Wow."

Walters pulled the picture from his folder and held it up to Brain Box. "Do you know this man?"

"Yes." Brain Box responded. "His name is Abraham Merzer."

---

"Abraham Merzer." Walters briefed the others. "Head researcher of cybernetics division for CIA. Took part in a number of projects, and was the brain of the operation. He helped design AI algorithms for Government agencies; joined the CIA to get funding for his own civilian projects."

"What were those projects?" Connor asked, knowing the answer.

"Prosthetics." Walters answered. "His pet project involved using fiber optics to replace human nerve endings. His theory was, that you could use artificial nerve endings to gain sensation in prosthetic limbs." Walters tapped the folder. "He also did some work in Stem Cell research. Namely the use of cloned flesh to repair massive damage to burn victims, amputees..."

Connor and his wife traded a bleak glance. "He was working on a way to make artificial limbs and skin work like real limbs and skin."

"Yes sir."

"And it appears he succeeded." Noah commented. "We went over the things he scratched into the walls of his cell. Most of it goes over my head, but part of it is a journal of sorts. They had his daughter and grandson prisoner. He obeyed Skynet's orders to find a solution to their Flesh and Blood problem under pain of them being tortured."

"And once he figured it out, they recreated it and left him and his family to rot." Connor finished.

"Is he going to live?" Noah asked.

Kate sighed and shrugged. "Carla?"

The Head Nurse had the same look. "He's an old man. He hasn't exactly been in comfortable surroundings, and he hasn't been treated well. He's got fractures everywhere, malnutrition, nervous exhaustion, blood infections..."

"Do we care?" Kate asked finally. "This is the man who designed the skinjobs. Do we care if he lives?"

Coming from her, it was so unexpected, that everyone was caught unawares.

Kate realized their scrutiny and flushed. "I... Have other patients."

Connor followed her.

"I know what you're going to say John." She said before he could talk. "I have no idea where it came from. I didn't really mean it... I don't know."

Connor looked shrewdly at her. "You can always talk to me, you know."

Kate looked back at him in surprise. "I know. What are we talking about?"

"We never really talked much about Whickham." Connor said gently. "About what happened to him."

Kate shrugged. "John, I had to sort out my feelings on the matter five years ago. I haven't heard from him in as long, and the last thing I heard was that he wanted to arrest you for Mutiny. I'm fine."

"You are?"

"I am."

---

Merzer was still unconscious on the gurney. The few machines were muted; the lights were never set high to conserve power, turned lower at night.

His face was horrifically drawn and thin, his skin was gray, and the bags under his eyes were so deep, he almost looked like a skeleton already.

Kate studied his hollow shape, reminding herself that this man was the genius that figured out how to make a machine look human. Make a Terminator look human. Make the machines into Infiltrators, like the one that killed her father, killed her husband's father, killed her boyfriend, killed Chet, killed dozens, killed mercilessly...

Because this man figured out how to disguise them.

Carla had told her in no uncertain terms that the prognosis was impossible to predict. He had been in captivity for a long time before he collapsed. This was the long term damage. He was an old man.

An old man with a lot to answer for.

Kate followed the wires from his chest to the life support. Then she followed the tube from his nose to the IV's... She reached out and took a fistful of the wires in her hands. It would only take a few moments, surely…

"Kate?"

Katherine leaned away from the gurney him on instinct as she turned. Her husband was in the doorway, and he came over and took her hands, very slowly pulling her away from the gurney. "What were you doing?" He asked her, knowing the answer.

Kate didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Couldn't even look at him.

"That's not what we do here." He said slowly.

Kate didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Couldn't even look at him.

"That's not what we're here for." He pushed gently.

Kate pushed him away in horror and headed back for their room.

Kate did not cry. Not for bad things. There were too many of them to cry over. She had not cried since losing the baby. She had not cried before that since Crystal Peak. She was a soldier now. She was fighting back hell tooth and nail. She couldn't go to pieces over an old man. Or a friend. Or her Uncle. Not like this.

She would not cry. Not for him. Not for this.

John came in, sat down next to her. "Kate?"

"I'm not fine, am I?" She asked quietly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You think I'm mad at you."

Kate didn't sit up. Couldn't look at him.

Connor sighed. "Machines don't have families. Machines don't have kids, don't have fathers. They have factories. Lights and calculators. That man in our infirmary is the victim. There's blame to go around. Blame Dyson for being so smart. Blame your father for pushing the button. Blame me for being on the target list so long and leading both of them to their death. But most of all; and I do mean most of all: Blame Skynet, for blowing up the world, designing these machines, for wanting to kill us, for hunting us day and night. Miles Dyson died, trying to stop his own invention. For nothing. Your father had a hand in it too. He died trying to protect us. And billions paid for it. Including me."

Kate couldn't say anything to that. Such thoughts kept her awake at night. Her father was the reason Skynet took over. She had seen it. He had hit the button personally. Her father had opened Pandora's Box, and set John on this path.

"How can you even stand to be around me?" She asked, with no particular emotion in her voice at all.

"Must love you, I guess."

"Guess so." She agreed.

"You think I don't understand the desperate need to blame somebody? Carla's in the middle of this same feeling right now."

Long silence.

"I just... Chet was family to me for a long time. No matter what else it was, he was family then..."

John nodded. "Kate, even the machines know that it's human nature to destroy ourselves. We've got an enemy."

"I know." She admitted.

John put an arm around her and squeezed her close tightly. Kate threaded her fingers through his.

"Eric's team is back. Mission accomplished there."

Kate nodded and stood up. "Let's get started then."

"Are you sure?" John asked in some concern.

"Yes. John, nothing happened, and one thing about meeting time traveling robots, it sort of keeps you from thinking about the what-ifs."

John chuckled. "Guess so."

---

Walters found Noah in the Orchard, sitting against a tree. "I see we have similar habits. I like to walk in the green too."

Noah looked up at him, amused. "I haven't seen a tree in so long… I think I forgot how beautiful they were."

Walters sat down across from her. "What's on your mind?"

Noah sighed. "I failed him."

"You weren't there."

"That's how I failed him. If Connor got killed when you were away, would you forgive yourself?"

Walters paused. "No." He confessed.

"We're the Second in Commands. We aren't the big heroes. We're the guys the big heroes count on." Noah was silent a long moment. "I… too many of my people want to join on with Connor. One way or another, the US Army is dead. I'm the last soldier."

"Are you going to join up?"

"I… I want to. But I can't. I just can't."

"Why not?"

"Whickham would never forgive me. I want to beat Skynet. I want to strike back. I want to wipe the Machines from the face of the earth. And I know we can't do it without an Army. But…"

Walters tilted his head. "Erica… I can't believe that you think Tech-Com is a ragtag group. Not any more. Maybe five years ago you could write it off as a desperate act from desperate people. But we're the real deal. Connor is the real deal. You must know this know, you must have sensed it, if nothing else. It's the last, best hope to win!"

Noah waved her arms furiously back at the Mountain. "Eric, do you have any idea who he is?" She snapped. "He's a criminal! He's a criminal from a family of terrorists and mental patients!"

"Is that all you know?" Walters asked in open disbelief.

Noah reacted. "How did you find out?"

"He told me!"

"He told you?"

Silence.

Walters held out a hand. "Noah… can I introduce you to someone?"

Hesitant, somewhat derailed, Noah took his hand. "Okay."

---

The day ended as the days often did, with Kate and John just getting ready to sleep when one or both of them were summoned back to duty. This time the radio buzzed with the news that the Main Entrance was receiving a large shipment of dormant, deactivated Infiltrator models.

Connor was up in seconds, telling them to take it to one o the storage rooms. He was almost sprinting.

Kate didn't realize what had him so excited...

...until they reached the storage room, and she saw the Infiltrators.

Five of them were strangers' faces. One of them was not.

It was him. It was their Terminator. The one that Connor knew and considered a father figure. The one that had kidnapped Kate to save her life. The one that had been destroyed saving them from something far more powerful than all of them put together.

Inwardly Kate knew it was not the same one. The infiltrators rolled off an assembly line like any other Machine, but she couldn't help but feel a twinge. Something she had thought long dead was awakened at the sight of that familiar face. It was one o the few links they had to the time Before.

Kate slipped over and threaded her fingers through her husbands. They stayed with him for a long time.

---

"Enrique?"

The grizzled man looked up. He was sitting cross legged on the floor in his bandit's dorm, looking over the lists of the killed and injured. His eyes were red, but without tears. "What?"

"I want you to talk to someone for me. This is Erica Noah."

Enrique rose to his feet easily, without pushing off from the floor he sat on cross-legged. "Erica huh? My father had a goat named Erica and we ate her."

Noah frowned, taken aback. "Um… okay."

Walters hid a smile. "She needs to know a few things about Connor. About who he is. About where he comes from."

Enrique suddenly went still. His face was a stone wall that gave away nothing. "About… what exactly?"

"About his mother." Walters said quietly.

Enrique let out a breath. "My people have loud mouths."

"Tell her, Enrique."

Enrique waved Noah down. "So Colonel, how much do you know about Connor's family?"

"I know his father was long out of the picture even before he was born, and I know his mom was locked in a Mental Institution for much of his childhood. Charges of domestic terrorism."

"Well, that's true as far as it goes." Enrique admitted. "She tried to destroy a computer company called Cyberdyne Systems. That was the terrorism charge. She damn near succeeded too. Before they caught her, she stayed with me for a while. The General too. He was about six at the time. I threw her out because she was nuts. She honestly believed in some really crazy ideas. She said that the world would end in a Nuclear War started by a machine called Skynet. She thought her son was going to lead humanity to victory over them. That's why they locked her up."

Noah felt her jaw drop. "No. I don't believe it."

"Believe it Colonel." Walters said. "I've heard the story from others too. Connor grew up learning how to fight an enemy that wouldn't exist till he grew up."

"So.. so what are you saying?" Noah said with sarcasm. "That Sarah Connor Senior… What? Prophesied the end of the world? And her son?"

"Definition of a prophecy: History accurately written in advance."

Noah was stuck in brain lock for a moment. "But… but that would mean that… that Connor is…"

Walters nodded. "I didn't believe it either Erica. I had no reason to trust him. Except that I did. I had no reason to believe in him. Except that I did."

Noah was staring into space; her concept of reality was shaken to the core. "I… I have to… I can't… I have to think about this."

She turned and left without a word. Walters started to go after her, but Enrique put a hand out. "Don't poke the bear."

---

Still in the storage room, the others long gone, John spoke finally. "Kate, Eric told me something interesting when he went over the numbers."

"What's that?"

"Chet's base is a mess. It's in a good position. The Terminator couldn't use the antenna for his own signals to Skynet, but they trashed him before he could get out of that valley to radio back to base. We've got some time to fortify it..."

"Yeah?"

"So we're going to need someone to set it up properly. Someone who's fought machines, and who's been to that base before personally..."

"No." Kate told him firmly. "My place is here. With you."

"I agree."

"I know that there's-wait. What?"

"I agree."

"Oh. Sorry."

John grinned. "Which is why I'm sending Eric and the 637th."

"Eric? But he's your guy here. Except for the Command Briefings... Half the army comes to you through him."

"Which is why I'm going to need someone who knows everything about everyone to take over for him."

Kate closed her eyes and leaned into him. "And you think that's me?"

"Who's in Medbay right now?"

"Cameron. One of Eric's original men. Lorreni, the techie from the 73rd Recon, and I think Stahl from the Kill-Switches."

John nodded. "Jason's K-9 Unit caught up to Noah's unit quickly after you gave the order. So quickly in fact that you didn't have time to check position with C-in-C."

"I knew where they were." Kate admitted.

"You're the right person for this."

"I guess so."

They stood together silently for a while, staring at a familiar face in the dark.

Z Plus Seven Years Sixty Five Days

Noah came into her Dorm room. Most of the US Remnant had been given one of the unused dorms to live in. There were only half a dozen or so soldiers there, still in their US Army uniforms. "Gentlemen."

The soldiers stepped over to her quietly. "We liked the eulogy." Hasnk volunteered.

"Thanks."

Hasnk licked his lips. "Mm. Um, the rest of us were talking, and we were thinking… there's a reason that most of the guys want to join Tech-Com. They can't see much of a future in the US Army."

"I'm not so sure they're wrong." Noah admitted. "There's no Army left…"

"There's you." Hasnk told her. "We all know how highly general Whickham viewed you. It's no secret he was planning for you to take over if anything happened to him."

Noah smiled, despite herself. "Well, that's probably true, and nice of you to say." She took a breath. "But there's no infrastructure. There's no bases, no ammo, no supplies, no reserves…"

"Well that's what we were talking about when you came in. See, there's a place where we've got all those things."

"Where?"

"Right here in Crystal Peak."

Noah reacted. "What?"

"We've been asking questions." Hasnk said intensely. "It's easy enough. There's just the War Room. They didn't confiscate our weapons when we came in. There are only four or five people who outrank you anyway. Connor, his wife, Walters, and maybe Oldham. Oldham's on maneuvers… It would take only a few minutes to cut off the head."

Noah stared at him.

Hasnk nodded. "Ma'am, most all of them just need someone in charge. I doubt they'll care who it is."

"You idiots didn't learn that lesson five years ago? If they didn't care who lead them, they wouldn't have followed him in the first place."

"They won't fight for him over you if he's dead." Hasnk told her, the six of them nodding along with him. "You can have Crystal Peak whole, and the manpower, the supplies, the ammo, all of it. Under a US Army banner all over again, just as it was meant to be."

Noah turned away from them, shrugged out of her jacket, unconcerned with the six men watching her strip to the waist. One thing a soldier living in Underground quarters couldn't afford to be was shy.

"It's what Whickham would have wanted for you." Hasnk offered.

Noah froze, and then very slowly turned around and slugged Hasnk across the jaw so hard that the soldier, two feet taller than her, was knocked squarely on his back. By the time the rest of the soldiers were able to get him upright again, Noah had pulled on a light blue-grey jacket and zipped it up tightly.

The six of them pulled back a bit, in a half-semicircle, looking stunned. Noah was wearing a Tech-Com uniform.

"Hasnk. You don't get to tell me what the old man wanted for me." She told him, cold and deadly. "And if I hear one more word about killing officers again; out of any of you; I'll run you all in for attempted mutiny. Is that clear?"

---

"You want me to run Castle Keep?" Walters couldn't bring himself to believe it.

"Not permanently." Connor assured him. "But we need someone who can set it up properly. Or at least, set it up like a Tech-Com base. After six months or so, their people will be 'our' people and we can put someone they have more history with in charge. Meantime, Noah can work here in a Colonel posting with some relevance and have our people get as used to her as they are to you. Its the fastest way to intergrate everyone."

Walters nodded, seeing the logic. "I wish you would give me some warning the next time you rearrange the social structure of the human race."

"Sorry Eric, but that's showbiz."

---

The morning briefing in the War Room was not the exciting news of coming victory it was a few weeks before, but the news was getting batter.

"Our lines have stabilized." Connor reported. "We were able to retreat far enough for Skynet to over extend it's march a little, and pulled them in close enough to some of our surviving units that we could do some damage. We lost a lot of people, and a lot of territory. But we started this war by being under their feet. We can do it again."

Nods went around the table.

"The old tactics will still work. Our guys may have gotten used to having secured Green Zones, but for now that's limited to Crystal Peak and surrounding areas, the supply lines, and Lori's Stronghold." He gestured across the table. "Enrique?"

Enrique stood up. "Everything south of the New Mexico Border is secured. The Cartel Union has agreed to patrol it and protect it and the people and jungle land down there on their own."

"Is there still jungle?" Noah asked in amazement.

"Yes. Skynet sent a force to burn it over a year ago, but we were able to stop them. The jungle land is smaller than it used to be, but it'll keep growing. Due to our losses up here, we've reclassified the Cartel Union as an Allied Force. Our forces are to be pulled out of the South American continent immediately, and redeployed up here. Colonel Noah?"

Noah stood. "The US Army has chosen, with only one or two exceptions, to disband. Most of them have signed up with Tech-Com already. Is there any way we can keep their old units together for a while? We know each other pretty good."

"We keep them together, are they going to have trouble taking orders?" Walters asked. He wasn't trying to provoke anything, he just needed to know.

"If they do, I'll skin them alive." Noah promised. "This should be more about killing Skynet than anything else, don't ya think?"

Smirks went around the table at that one.

"Keeping the former Army remnant together will give us a full Regiment." Connor said with calm authority. "Our Units are smaller and faster than the usual US Army Units were. They'll have to be redeployed, but we'll be glad to have reinforcements this week."

"At your service General." Noah said evenly, not a trace of defeat or awkwardness.

"What's the word on identifying infiltrators?" Lori asked.

"We're still going over Merzer's notes, looking to see if there's anything in the formula that can help. But for now, the K-9's seem to be the most efficient means. We're already set up a fortified post at the entrance. Anybody going in or out has to submit to K-9 inspection." Connor explained. "I'm making it a General Order that any base we set up has to have similar inspection points at the entrances. Any more questions?"

Silence.

"Colonel Noah, take your unit and clear out the surrounding sectors around Castle Keep. Colonel Walters, you will take command of Castle keep and move it to Sector fourteen. There's been a week's worth of shock and survival. As of now, we're back at work." Connor commanded. "Good hunting. Dismissed!"

---

On their way out the door, Noah came within earshot of Walters just long enough to mumble in his ear. "I still don't believe a word of it."

Walters grinned to himself.

---

The meeting broke up, and Kate took the opportunity to stay behind with her husband a moment, before the War called them back to the others. "John?" Kate asked finally. "About last night..."

"Shh." She felt his fingers on her lips gently. "We don't have to talk about what happened, because nothing did happen."

"I wish it was that simple."

"I told you, my mom was looking for someone to blame too. But she let him live. And we told Dyson everything we knew, and he helped us lead the charge into Cyberdyne that same night, becoming the single greatest chance we ever had of ending Skynet before this started. Mercy makes the world stagger on. Something I've never had to worry about from you."

Kate grinned. "Stop comparing me to your mother."

"I said not one word."

Kate squeezed his hand, and pulled him back for a quick kiss. "Love you husband."

"Love you wife."

---

Skynet to all units.

Tech-Com Units have secured Sector 12-15. Infiltrator units mobilized.

Enemy has divided. Former South American Continent Now independent of Tech-Com Command Structure. Infiltrator units 1982-6457 Activated.

Infiltrator Factory 19 Destroyed. All other units active.

Castle Keep terminated. US Army remnant terminated.

Crystal Peak infiltration failed. Reattempt underway.

Continue Stratagem.

Terminate John Connor.

End Transmission.