Z Plus Ten Years Seventy Days
Kate answered her radio. "Connor here."
"He's back." Carla said. "Sarah too."
She smiled. "I heard. I'm on my-"
The Alarms started screeching.
"Code Red; Repeat; Code Red! Breach at the Upper Level!" The PA roared. "All hands, report to your positions!"
Kate paled. The Upper Level was the entrance. If John and Sarah had both checked in right this second…
She sent a glance around. The civilians were frozen, paranoid. And she was unarmed. As bad as she wanted to go running up there to check on her family...
Noah and Perry heard the same announcement over their radios.
"Connor." Noah hissed silently.
"Lupe." Kyle breathed at the same moment.
Perry turned to Kyle, currently in the driver's seat. "Reese, get us in there fast! Before the Outer Door comes down! We've got to get inside Crystal Peak NOW!"
Noah muscled their way through the Entrance on rank, and Kyle raced past her when he saw Sarah crouched over the bodies. "Sarah!"
The younger Connor looked up at him and the blood ran away from her face. "Kyle... Don't look."
Kyle looked.
And he started to scream.
Sarah was up instantly, and pulling him away from the bodies. "Kyle! No. Don't look!"
Noah caught up and saw the two soldiers, still both children to her mind, trying to wrestle each other to and from a row of dead bodies. One of them Noah recognized. It was Lupe, with a permanent look of surprise on her split-open face.
Noah took half a millisecond to feel pity, and shoved that away."Where is it?"
Sarah gestured. "It's in the Base somewhere!"
Noah grabbed Kyle by the collar. "Reese! We're still at war here!"
Reese embraced the raw anger. Pain was too... awful. Anger was so much stronger. Stronger was so much better. He gripped his weapon so tight he heard it creak, and took off with Noah. He didn't even look back at Sarah, or Lupe. "Let's kill that thing!"
Kate was working feverishly. There were certain protocols that had to be followed when the base was suddenly at a Code Red, and as she was now Base Commander, she had to make sure all of them were done before she could go to the War Room herself.
She was hustling a group of civilians to the shelters, when 'Curry' came around the corner at the opposite end of the hallway, back behind them.
Kate glanced at her charges. No chance that they would make it to the emergency elevators and tunnels below. Not before it caught up to them.
What would John do?
Kate let the civilians run ahead of her and pulled back, heading into the nearest empty room she could find. She paused at the doorway and gave 'Curry' a whistle. "Hey! It's me! Katherine Connor!"
'Curry' turned instantly toward her. Kate got ready to duck into the room and slam the door, when the Machine lifted a hand, and Kate felt a spear stab into her shoulder, pinning her to the wall.
Kate howled. The thing had moved faster than she could follow it. By the time she knew what was happening, one of it's fingers had turned into a long thin blade, stabbing right through her left shoulder, just below her collarbone. The pain was excruciating.
'Curry', her face impassive, used it's other still-human hand to lift Kate's radio from her belt, and hold it up to the pinned soldier. "Call him."
"No!" Kate snarled.
The Machine twisted the spike, making Kate shriek again. It was merciless. "Call John Connor."
Kate hocked off and spat at it. The only thing left she could do. One arm was useless, the other was trying to get a grip on the blade pinning her.
The Machine held the radio closer. "Call to John. Use any necessary code words so that he knows it's really you. Tell him to come and save you."
"Go to hell!" Kate hissed.
'Curry' lifted the radio to its own lips and spoke. "Connor."
Connor, now in the War Room, armed guards; both human and Machine on all sides, looked up sharply at the announcement.
"I have your wife. Listen." Curry's voice came through flatly. A moment later Kate's voice came over the radio, screaming in pain. John twitched like he'd touched a live wire.
Walters was on him instantly, a hand on his shoulder. "Don't fall for that. You don't know it's her."
Kate's voice howled from every radio in the War Room.
Connor gripped the edge of the table so tightly he felt the maps rip between his fingers.
Curry's voice returned. "Come down here Connor. Come to corridor Whiskey-2 and I will spare her. You're the one I want, you know that. She is nothing to me."
"Thanks for telling me where you are." Noah hissed, taking off. "Security teams to Whiskey-2."
Kate was trying to make herself black out from the pain before she could be made to do anything worse. "Don't you do it John!" She roared at the radio.
"If you do not, I will cause her enough pain to keep her screaming." The monster said into the radio. "I know exactly how much she can endure without passing out."
At that instant, a security team came around the corner and started firing immediately.
One blast nailed the chrome finger spiked through Kate, more out of luck than anything else, and Kate was suddenly free, with a knife blade melting out of her shoulder, and slurping back into Curry's foot once it hit the floor. The Machine turned to face them, not even bothering to dodge as its body was marked by the Plasma-fire. The impact points were silver and chrome, and apparently meant nothing to it.
Blood running down her now useless arm, Kate rolled away from it, dragging herself in the opposite direction as the security team distracted the invader.
It waded through them. They all stayed out of reach, as it's 'arms' suddenly extended nearly ten feet, twice the width of the corridor, catching them in their hiding places with quick lethal strokes.
"Spartacus!" The team leader yelled a coded order.
"Sarge! No!" One of his guys yelled back.
"That's an ORDER!"
The team scattered, not firing, as the majority of them backed up the hall. The Sargent however, kept firing as fast as he could, backing into the nearest room with an unlocked door, firing steadily to try and buy time. A tactic that wasn't working; as the rest of the survivors lucky to be behind the Machine stayed well away.
The Infiltrator followed the Sargent into the room, and proceeded to gut him with frightening efficiency.
The last surviving members of the Security team were the ones that ran away, and they moved fast back down the hall, slamming the door shut, and keying the 'scramble' code, sealing it in. There was one such cage on each level, for exactly this reason. The doors were reinforced in the always concrete and steel walls. Since the first Terminator got in, they had drilled endlessly on all the ways to stop the march of another. How to get them in the trap was a source of considerable frustration. The internal guards were off the front lines, but nobody ever jeered them for it. They knew what would be asked of them if another ever got inside.
"John!" Kate's voice gasped. "I'm all right. It's okay!"
John let out a breath, back at work instantly. "Get out of there Kate. Right now."
"I am out of there." Kate moaned. "I'm in the elevator. Shaft four. They've got it locked in one of the rooms in Whiskey-2."
"That won't last for long." Connor switched frequencies. "Noah. Plasma-Guns don't have much effect. They burn too clean, with no solid state ammo. Use concussive force. A lot of it."
"Understood sir." Noah was at the Door in corridor Whiskey-2 within minutes. The entire path there was littered with bodies. Whomever had come across the Machine on its march had paid with their lives.
Over a dozen security teams were waiting for her. She checked. They were all armed with grenades. "Listen up. Connor says concussive impact force is what we need to use. We're going to hit the thing with as much bang-bang as we've got. We're going to put so many holes in it that it won't be able to recover. That said, now is not the time to conserve things. Use every grenade you've got. Remember, this thing is a shape shifter, so it could be any person, any bit of furniture, any wall or door..."
Her people tensed, ready.
"Don't look, just throw." Noah took a deep breath and opened the door. About a dozen grenades went flying into it, and she slammed it shut again.
BOOM!
The soldiers scattered to either side of the doorway, and Noah opened it again. A brief burst of flame gusted out at the rush of air from the corridor, and the soldiers came rushing in, weapons bristling.
Connor managed to stay patient for five whole seconds. "Report!"
"There's nothing in here." Noah's voice reported after a moment. "Hang on, we're searching... Aw hell."
"What is it?"
"Looks like it can go through vents sir. It could be anywhere now!"
"Go Nova!" Walters barked.
Still more guards flashed into the room, and weaponry bristled in all directions, half of them aiming at the air vents in the room, the other half aiming at the door.
Connor didn't even register them. He pulled his radio. "All personnel. General quarters. All teams evacuate public areas immediately."
"Due respect sir, that's what's known as 'Divide and Conquer'." Walters muttered.
"No choice. If it gets into a crowd we'll never find it again, and if we trap it in a public area, it'll be a massacre. We aren't done losing people today. All we can do now is minimize our losses." Connor responded as alarms rang through the base. "All personnel gather around whatever radios you have, tune to channel five, and start talking. All of you. Everyone on the base. Don't take turns, don't pause for each other; and it doesn't matter what you say. Keep talking, all of you. Mention what room you are in every few seconds, but you don't stop talking."
A cacophony of voices rang out from the radio a few moments later. Nobody understood why, but Connor ordered it; and everyone in Tech-Com knew: When Connor stopped making sense; it meant he had another idea.
Connor keyed his radio to a different Channel. "Tom-Doe, report to the War Room. NOW!"
Everyone reacted.
"Sir." Walters seethed. "I don't think bringing a gawd-forsaken Terminator into the War Room… another Terminator into the War Room is going to help the situation."
Connor grinned cruelly as Tom-Doe came in at a quick run, not even out of breath. Connor tuned his radio back and tossed it to the newcomer Machine. "Tom, take this radio, and listen to it. I want you to listen to every voice, take note of every room each particular voice is in, and let our security teams know the second the pattern in the babble is interrupted."
"Understood."
Connor glanced at Walters. "The Mercury can go through a room full of people before they have time to scream, and it can mimic voices, but not at the same time."
Walters grinned, understanding instantly. "How do you think of these things?"
Bob Doe piped up. "Locating the Machine is not enough. Weapons seem ineffective."
Connor turned to Bob Doe. "That's going to be your job."
Taking that as his orders, Bob Doe turned to head off and Connor put a hand out. "Not yet." He told the Terminator. "Amil, here's the plan. Have one of our security teams head for maintenance corridor 36-Baker. Tell them to get each and every cylinder of liquid nitrogen or Freon gas that they can, and get it to the inside of Meat Lockers Alpha. Move fast."
Amil didn't understand, but he obeyed.
"Evacuate the War room, rig the vents to blow. Use trip wires." Connor turned to his bodyguard. "You're with me."
Connor turned and charged out of the War-Room, with the Terminator on his heels.
"Dorm 4, Level nine, has stopped responding. Security teams en route!" Walters' voice called.
They made it all the way to the Presidential Suite, and Connor went right to the bed, tearing the mattress off savagely and throwing it to the side. Under the mattress was a compartment in the bed frame. He opened it and revealed a row of military grade shotguns; now obsolete in a plasma-gun war.
"This thing doesn't react to plasma-fire. We need kinetic weapons. Something that will put large messy holes in things." Connor tossed a shotgun to the Machine and took another for himself. He threw a bandolier of shells to the terminator and slung another over his shoulder.
From Connor's Radio came a litany of yells and plasma-fire. "It's like we're shooting blanks! Oh, god!"
Connor turned to the Terminator. "Well, here we go again!"
"Again?" The familiar voice said blankly.
Connor smirked secretly for a second. "Never mind."
"This is tactically inadvisable." 'Bob-Doe' said. "The attacker is apparently a far more efficient and adaptable Machine than myself."
Connor pumped the shotgun. "Due respect, I've heard that from you before."
"Before?"
"You're clear on the plan?"
"Affirmative."
"Let's go hunting."
The walls rumbled for a moment with the sound of an explosion.
Connor pulled his radio as they made it to the stairwell. "Report!"
"He used the grenades." Kyle's called back in agony. "Checker used his grenades. The thing's been blown to bits. Literally."
Connor could hear the sound of cheering over his radio. He didn't smile.
"Reese, are you all right?" Noah called over the radio.
"Yes Ma'am." Kyle grunted. "I'm stuck."
Connor willed himself to move faster, counting down in his head.
Sure enough, Kyle spoke again. "Wait… it's moving. The pieces are… oh my god. It's still alive! It's MOVING!"
Kyle was kicking madly at the debris that pinned him down, as the mass of liquid metal ran together, one drop at a time, until the puddle they formed seemed to shiver, and then raise itself back upward again, rolling over debris and flames.
Kyle finally dug himself out, and ran for it, limping on bloodied, injured legs… He spared a glance over his shoulder and saw that the chrome mass had taken on a humanoid shape, and it was walking toward him with an even powerful stride...
When Connor suddenly stepped around the corner, armed with a pump action shotgun; a bandoleer of shells slung over his chest.
The chrome Machine saw him and forgot about Kyle instantly.
"Get Down." Connor snapped.
Kyle dove for the floor and Connor brought the shotgun up. Gunpowder was a thing of the past in this war. The explosions of shotgun blasts made Kyle's ears ring almost as bad as the grenade blast.
Chrome caved under the force of the shot. The form jerked backward like a sledgehammer had been slung into it. Another blast from Connor. Another. Another.
The Machine dropped to the floor, seemingly stunned.
Connor reached down and grabbed Kyle's collar. "On your feet soldier."
Kyle caught a bare glimpse of the chrome fading back into Curry's shape, and he moved, half running half limping; Connor supporting his weight.
The T-1000 got up second later and took off down the corridor after them.
Connor had made it to an intersection in the hallway. He pushed Kyle left toward the Mess Hall, and he himself went right; toward the Meat Lockers. The T-1000 followed Connor. By the time it reached the corner, Connor had made it to the other end of the hallway. No way to double back around 'her'. Doors led into the huge freezer rooms, where the perishable goods were stored. The fridges were locked up tight, except for one, which was left open.
The T-000 ignored the hallway's features, focusing on Connor at the other end of the hallway, with no way out, or around.
Standing there between them, carrying a fully loaded shotgun, was six feet and two inches of pure ruthless machine death dealing precision, battle scarred and unbowed. The dark sunglasses were cracked, the leather jacket torn and faded, and its skin flayed over enough to show chrome underneath; and the expression on what was left of its face didn't even seem concerned.
Connor took a moment to appreciate the nostalgia as the two machines marched at each other down the hallway, in no particular hurry. His bodyguard in the black leather jacket was firing steadily, in flawless rhythm. Step, pump-action, BOOM! Step, pump-action, BOOM! Step, pump-action, BOOM!
The T-1000, still wearing Curry's face, jerked, blown backward on its feet, a round chrome cavity carved into its body with each blast till it fell to the ground, completely still.
Connor stared at them, slightly transfixed. It was a scene straight out of his childhood…
And then the metallic holes blown through her torso melted back into shape and faded, as 'Curry' stood back up again.
'Bob' flashed the weapon around again, but 'Curry' was moving faster, pointing it up at the ceiling. They grappled over it for an instant, before going offensive, smashing each other into the walls, the concrete crunching under them.
The new model was faster and stronger, and 'Bob' was thrown in something like a judo move; his huge heavy body skidding down the hall as 'Curry' ignored him and went for Connor.
The General darted into the freezers. Everything that required freezing was kept in several large rooms that were kept at below zero temperatures. Since most everything in them was perishable, they were kept cool not by electricity, but by liquid nitrogen stores, running through the room in thick tubing. The super-cold chemicals were kept in storage…
The machine followed him in mercilessly. Connor had taken cover behind the frozen shelves, and started shooting instantly. Just like before, its march was checked by kinetic force of the shot alone.
It wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. Eventually the shotgun emptied, and Connor stood alone as the mercury flowed back into Curry's shape.
'Curry' raised a hand, index finger extended…
Bob-Doe came charging in behind them both, and picked the attacking Machine up with sheer momentum; crashing them both into the frosted gas tanks.
Connor felt the super cold gas hit his lungs and reeled out of the freezer room, coughing horrifically. It took the last of his strength to shut the door; and he collapsed to the floor.
He could barely focus his eyes, either from the blows to the head or the cold in his lungs halting his breath, but he could barely make out the fuzzy shape of the keypad by the freezer door.
He was dimly aware of the sounds of combat in the freezer, as he lifted his gun lazily, and put a bullet through the keypad; shattering it; sealing the room.
Noah was sprinting through the Base, weapon out. Her security team was behind her but she was outpacing them as they paused to check every side corridor.
They came around the corner to the Meat Lockers. There was a body slumped against the wall.
Her team crept up on it carefully. A Terminator could play dead. The one they hunted could shape-shift.
It could be the Target. One of her men signaled her silently.
Noah crept forward and prodded it with her rifle. That was when she noticed the shattered control panel in the door. Eyes wide, she turned the body over.
It was The General.
Her team all started cursing and praying in horror to themselves as she quickly checked his pulse, and then grabbed for her belt.
"General Kate?" Noah called into her radio. It had become the shorthand, to avoid confusion on which 'General Connor' was being called.
"Noah? Good to hear your voice! I got the Nursery to the shelters. Micheal's fine."
Noah sagged with relief. "That's good news. I found Connor. We need a Med-Team to the Meat Lockers fast!"
"On the way!"
Noah looked to her men. "Go Nova! Find the Intruder... and Bob-Doe."
"Found them." One of her men said, sounding awed and silent. He was peeking through the viewing port in the window. Her team went to the window to look.
Noah stayed behind a moment, and tenderly stroked the side of Connor's unconscious face with her fingers once their backs were turned, softly caressing his long curved scar.
"Ma'am, you gotta see this!"
Noah shook off the momentary weakness and went to join them. The viewing window was frosted over from the inside, but they could see enough. The two Machines were inside, both of them locked in combat. But neither of them was moving. The Intruder wore Curry's face, and one arm had morphed into a long flat blade at the elbow, stabbing into Bob-Doe at the midsection.
'Curry's' frozen body had several huge holes blown through it, no doubt by the shotgun that Bob-Doe was aiming with one hand. Both Machines were frosted over, completely motionless.
Noah and her team just stared at the macabre tableau for a long time.
"Well." Noah said finally. "There's something you don't see every day."
Z Plus Ten Years Seventy One Days
Connor's eyes fluttered open slowly. He was in Medbay, with an oxygen mask over his face. "...hat 'appened?"
Carla appeared at his side instantly. "You got a lungful of Industrial strength 'cold gas'. It essentially gave your lungs frostbite. We were kind of worried for a while there."
"...'here's Ka'e?" Connor slurred.
"Trying to sort out what's left of the Base." Carla said quietly. "We lost people. Pretty much everyone who came across the Thing."
Connor cleared his throat. "Kah... hurt?"
Carla had a foul taste in her mouth. "It's too soon to be sure if she'll keep the use of her arm. But she'll live."
"...e Ma'hine?"
"Both of them are posing as statues in our deep freeze. Kate has the area under guard. A guard made up of reprogrammed Infiltrators, by the way."
Connor nodded, coughing thickly. His 'Uncle Bob' died for the third time now, doing what he always did; saving him from a better Machine than he was.
John slowly drew another breath. "Lup'?"
Carla looked sad. "She didn't suffer."
"...'Rique?"
"We... haven't been able to reach him yet. He's with the Cartel Union. Rest General." Carla said gently. "We got it covered. You taught us well."
Enrique had taken two helicopters and a boat just to get to the Cartel Union Headquarters. He'd been constantly moving and evading Skynet just to get to a meeting he didn't want to go to with someone he didn't particularly like.
As such, the pilots were only too happy to see their destination as they dropped him off.
The Union HQ was originally a Church Mission long before, when it was first set up. When Mexico's government somewhat stabilized, the mission became a town, and thanks to the sometimes violent history of the area, it was defensible. The design of the town meant that the whole area was surrounded by a solid defensive wall; with the church and its dormitories at the center, and the post-J-Day spread of the wastelands had given them an excellent view of the surrounding area.
Enrique was watching the second it came into view. The inner walls had a few new bullet-holes. Bullet-holes with bloodstains.
The courtyard was full of vehicles, as it almost always was, and the roof of one of the buildings had a helipad on it.
The courtyard had more than the usual number of people running back and forth, doing things. Enrique had been back and forth to this place a lot since Connor declared them Allied Forces, and he'd never seen so many people carrying guns in the Courtyard.
As the helicopter came in to land, he noticed that almost a dozen soldiers were coming up to the landing pad.
When the helicopter landed and he jumped out, he was surrounded before the door closed. Enrique made a point of not moving an inch as the Helicopter took off again.
A huge man half Enrique's age, with more muscles than two thirds of the Infiltrators, stepped up. "Enrique Salceda." He said calmly. "I'm Colonel Lothar; head of Security. Governor Rojas has asked me to escort you to your quarters until he has a chance to talk to you."
Enrique felt his instincts scream. "I thought the head of security here was..."
"Things change." Lothar said calmly. He pointed the the holster at Enrique's hip. "And I'll have to take that. A new directive. Nobody outside Union forces are allowed to carry weapons on Base."
A few of his guards were already aiming their guns at him. Enrique slowly drew his handgun, and handed it to Lothar, handle first.
Everyone breathed a little easier.
Enrique picked the largest guard that had his weapon aimed, and swiftly took one step toward him. "BOO!"
The man squawked and jumped back fast enough to trip over his own feet. Everyone snapped into ready position and there were suddenly a dozen guns aimed.
Enrique let out a demented coyote laugh. "Gee Lothar, if I didn't know better, I would think that I was dangerous."
Kate, her arm in a sling, was overseeing the cleanup. The bodies were even more of a mess than Terminators usually left. Kate hated it, but with her husband down, it fell to her and Eric and Noah. The three of them had put their heads together, and realized in a few hours of work what her husband would doubtless have seen instantly.
The Siege of Arecibo had cost Skynet dearly. It had pulled in ground forces from all over the place. The reinforcements that hadn't made it were destroyed by Kate's fighter escort, and the Terminators that had made it were almost uniformly taken; not even counting the Machines that were wiped clean and captured after The Pulse.
Crystal Peak and Tech-Com had been busy during the rescue mission, collecting or sabotaging every fried Machine they could reach. The human Units not involved had been charging forward, gaining as much ground as they dared, rushing right past whole armies of Skynet soldiers.
Tech-Com's ranks swelled dramatically with captured Machines, and Skynet had suffered it's most costly defeat of the War.
Tech-Com was celebrating, but Crystal Peak wasn't. It had been a day of the worst casualties the Base had ever taken. But Connor's tactic worked. Within the Deep Freeze of Crystal Peak, 'Bob Doe' and some macabre parody of Erin Curry were frozen solid, midway through a fierce battle.
Kyle had found Connor first and summoned everyone who had a radio.
Carla and Kate had treated him, and then Kate had gone on with the war and Carla worked with the rest of the wounded. When they were stable, she had moved on to the dead.
Kate had taken the news about Lupe in particular like a kick to the gut. Her first call had been to Enrique, the next of kin. She was secretly relieved when she was unable to reach him; his helicopter to the Cartel union running silent. Her next stop had been Yolanda, who had been crushed, but immediately sent Kate away, sending her to Kyle. Kyle had found out before she could get to him; and nobody had seen him since.
Sarah and Robbie were waiting for her. "Mom?" Robbie said.
"Where's Kyle?" Kate asked quietly.
Sarah and Robbie looked at each other, uncertain.
"I'll make it an order if it will help." Kate said softly, wondering when her kids had become her soldiers.
Kyle was getting too big for the closet space. But there was nobody else there. He was sitting against the wall, with his arms hugging his knees. The door opened, and Kate pushed her way in, twisting to find room, wincing a little as she sat.
Kate sat down next to him and pulled the door shut, not saying a word. They didn't look at each other, sealed in the tight space.
"It's just..." Kyle said finally. "She was the one who... told me what a birthday was. She taught me all about that. And about lullabies and about dancing... I haven't used anything she taught me with anyone else except her. All the things she told me are useless to me now. They won't keep me warm, won't keep me fed, and they won't hurt Skynet. So... why does it feel like this if it doesn't matter?"
"Because she mattered." Kate said quietly.
"We were a team...Colonel… Gener-Kate-Mom...Hell!" He didn't even know what to call her. Kate felt so sorry for him. "What do I do without her?"
"Anything you would have done with her. You just do it with other people now. People like me, and Sarah, and Robbie, and Mackie, and-"
It was enough. Kyle leaned over and cried on her good shoulder. "Don't tell The General."
"I won't." Kate promised, pulling him down gently till his head was resting in her lap. She stroked his hair and whispered softly to him as he let it out. "Just let go Kyle. Cry it out all night if you want to. The rest will wait."
"I'm not crying." Kyle sobbed hotly.
"Of course you're not." Kate promised immediately.
They stayed that way for a while, Kyle sobbing silently, not making a sound.
Kate sang softly.
"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do."
Kyle opened his eyes and looked up at her. "She... only when we were off base... How did you know?"
"You're my son Kyle." Kate whispered. "Mom's always know."
They stayed that way until Kyle fell asleep in her lap.
"Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true."
Connor found them a few hours later. Kate was near to dozing herself. A forgotten closet space under a stairwell wasn't exactly comfortable, but it felt safe. Connor opened the door quietly, saw them, and sighed, seeming to deflate at the sight. He started to climb in next to Kate and she pointed a finger at him harshly. "No."
Connor froze. "What?"
"You need to be outside this place." Kate said quietly, not waking Kyle up. "I'll send him back to you, and you'll give him whatever you've got then."
Connor was floored, staring at her with his jaw hanging open. "Kate..."
"John, you love him like a son. So do I. But he's a soldier too, and he's terrified of letting you down. He needs to let this out, but he can't let it show. Not to you. He can cry with me as long as he likes, but when he's with you, he's strong and tough. I let him be soft, you let him be hard. That's what we can do for him. For all of them. Maybe they need to break down sometimes, but they can't cry on your shoulder. No soldier can. Not with The General."
John just stared at his wife, aware at how good she had gotten at this. "You're supposed to be in Pre-Op right now."
Kate rubbed her shoulder absently. "I know. Plenty of people in the base got much bigger holes carved into them. I can handle it on painkillers and bandages for a few hours."
"It's already been a few hours."
"I gave Chen a heads-up when I left, she understood. I organized the cleanup, I treated the wounded I could, and I can't operate one handed. Everything I could do, I did. Everything else that I still need to do, I can do in half an hour. I can say that, but you can't."
Connor didn't have an answer to that. And then he closed the door, letting them alone.
Sarah and Robbie were at the end of the hallways, waiting for their father to come back. "How's Kyle?" Robbie asked.
"Sleeping. Your mom's taking care of him."
Sarah was staring at the closet like she was missing something. "Is... is Kyle crying? Kyle doesn't cry."
John stared at his daughter, realizing Kate was right. In this kind of world, soldiers needed to be harder than humanly possible. Even if they weren't feeling it, they had to show it. "Naw. Kyle's not crying. He's just sleeping. Mom's making sure he doesn't sneak out and go back to work. You know Kyle, he doesn't sleep as much as he should."
Sarah nodded, actually relieved at that. "Oh. Okay."
"Why are they in a closet?" Robbie asked, as only boys his age could.
"When we first came to this base, Kyle was your age. he and Lupe used that as their hiding place, like you kids do in the tunnels. He misses Lupe, that's all."
Robbie nodded. "Oh. Okay."
Connor knelt down, looking his kids in the face. "Now guys... I want you to tell me the truth. Does it bother you; that your mom and I look after Kyle too?"
Sarah and Robbie looked at each other, a little confused by the question. "He's family."
"You look after us too." Robbie said. "Does... does that bother Kyle?"
"Of course not. He's family, but... he's nor Family family." Connor said. "You understand what I mean?"
Robbie nodded. "Uh-huh. But Carla looks after Mac. He calls her mom. They aren't Family family."
Connor smiled. His kids had learned instinctively what he'd been trying to drill into everyone since the War started. When the whole world's an orphanage, family was whoever you picked. "All right then. Carry on soldiers."
"Yessir." they both chorused. He said it to everyone. Everyone saluted their daddy, but to them it was a private joke.
Connor smiled at them and moved on. He had more stops to make.
"Noah."
Noah turned and saluted. "General. How are you feeling?"
"Thawed." Connor smirked grimly. "And speaking of that...?"
Noah gestured at the Meat Locker, its door surrounded by Infiltrators. "They're keeping an eye on it. We're watching the thermometer. Neither of the Machines in there has moved an inch since you shut them in there. Of course... that's only half the story."
"What's the other half?"
"All the Freon Gas and Liquid Nitrogen in the Base is in there. All the Cold Gas. These Meat Lockers are huge. Bigger than any fridge you'd find in a supermarket Back Before. To say nothing of the fact that they're over sixty years old. This place was built during the Cold War. We used that Cold Gas to keep the Freezers below freezing. With all of them busted open in there keeping the Infiltrator on ice, we lost a few Meat Lockers."
"No more hamburgers?"
"Not for a while. Got replacement cold gas coming in; Saint's a miracle worker sometimes. But it's not like we had plenty of livestock before."
"We'll survive." Connor said roughly. "How long have you been down here?"
"A while." Noah admitted. "I don't like taking my eyes off it. I don't like having it in the Base."
"It's not a monster Noah, it's a Machine. If it's broken or shut down, it's a paperweight."
"I know."
"Let's get back to the War Room."
They returned to the War Room, and Connor faced his people. "Alright, for purposes of this conversation, we'll call the frozen thing in our meat locker Codename Mercury, or the T-1000. Brain Box says it doesn't have a solid state chip, so a Model number will be hard to come by unless we thaw it out and ask it for a name."
"We won't do that, right?"
"Right."
"Just checking."
Connor smirked mirthlessly. "Where are we?"
"Casualty reports are not encouraging." Noah said. "Large blades actually cause more trauma than small bullet-holes and surface burns. How's Co... General Connor? The other one. Mrs General."
Connor nodded in acknowledgement. "She... can't move the arm that got skewered. They're operating now. She was giving orders on cleanup and wounded right up until the anesthetic put her out."
"We've cleared the corridors of all the bodies, we've cleared the hallway that got blasted from Checker's grenades, the Meat Locker is under guard by the remaining Infiltrators, and temperature monitors and motion sensors are all running in the cold room to make sure it stays frozen."
"Eric, we lost track of the 1000 for a full eleven minutes." Connor said. "It carved it's way through half our security teams in far less time. What did it do for those eleven minutes?"
"We don't know yet. We're taking headcounts, checking for explosives..."
"People are still freaked." Noah told him.
"They want to know what we have that can take out a 1000."
"It's not a ridiculous thought sir." Walters offered. "We won't always have a deep freeze set up... We run into a 1000 on the battlefield..."
"Have the Think Tank come up with anything?" Noah asked.
"As a matter of fact, they have a few interesting conclusions. They've taken all the reports, got the interviews, and put their heads together with Brain Box. They want to know when they can brief the two of you and the other Commanders." Connor was silent a moment. "Actually, I have a better idea. Hang on a sec, let me talk to a few people."
Connor headed out by himself. Noah stayed behind and turned to Walters. "Okay, so here's my thing: Nobody has ever seen a Mercury before. Nobody knows what it can do, what it's made of, that it gets stunned and knocked about by slug-throwers, or that it exists at all. So how did The General jump straight to taking it down to the freezers, and hitting it with shotguns. Weapons, by the way, that have been woefully obsolete, and thus non-existent for over a decade? How did he know?"
Walters just smiled. "He's John Connor."
It was the first briefing to be held in the Main Hall. The Unit Commanders and the Command Staff were all in the front row, but behind them was half the population of the base, civilian and soldier alike.
Gould took his place at the entrance to the main hall. It was the logical place to speak from, and everyone found a place to sit or stand while he talked. There had been rows of stools brought in from the Mess Hall, though there wasn't enough for everyone. The surplus people found their own places, mostly sitting with their backs to the wall.
At the head of the room, there was also a mostly bare wall. Large and flat enough that Gould could project an image. He showed the freezer room, and the two motionless Machines, frozen in combat.
Connor stepped up, and everyone fell silent to listen to him. "All right, everyone listen up. This is rumor control. Yes, there is a new Machine model. Yes, one got through; and you can relax, because it's already dead."
A cheer went up at that.
Connor let them cheer. "Now, a few corrections. It is not true that one of those things can turn into a nuke and end us. So cut out that rumor. Sargent Erin Curry was not a Machine the whole time. I don't know who started that rumor, but it's not true. Knock it off. "
A few people who knew details glanced uncomfortably at Mackie, and Dex put an arm around his son protectively.
"This new Model, has been dubbed the T-1000; Codename Mercury. If Skynet has a designation for it, we don't know what it is yet. First the bad news. This new Model is far more dangerous, and chewed its way through a lot of good people today. Now for the good news. We don't think there's many of them." He paused long enough for that to sink in. "Now don't worry, we've got more information than that. But I'll leave this part to our head of R&D, and chairman of our think tank. Colonel Gould?"
Gould felt a thousand eyes on him, but didn't flinch. Talking about Machines was the one thing he was good at. He tapped the image. The frozen 1000 was half Curry's face, half grey metal. "I can go into the science with some detail, but I doubt the science bothers you. Suffice to say, the 1000 is what we're calling a poly-mimetic. What that means in English, is that it can copy anything, and it gets an ability to copy something by touching it."
A murmur ran through the room, everyone calculating the news.
"Now for the good news." Gould offered. "It's still metal. Which means it can only do what metal can do. It cannot shrink its mass down to a matchbook; it cannot grow large enough to tear the Base out of the ground. It can only form single shapes, so it cannot turn its arms into rifles..."
At the back of the room, out of sight, the Command Staff was watching reactions. They'd heard it before, their field commanders hadn't. Nor had the civilians. Nobody was eager to repeat the mistakes of the paranoia after the first one got through.
"This. Is. A bad idea." Noah said under her breath. "Not all the news is going to be good."
"They can handle bad news Colonel." Connor whispered back. "If they can't, they'd be dead by now."
Noah glanced around, and noticed he was right. As the information was laid out, she saw people calculating, imagining how to face this. Briefings were done for Officers and Combat teams. There were no civilians any more. Not in the way she had been raised and trained to see it.
Gould was still going. "With regards to what can fight Mercury, here's what we've got so far, and I'll remind you that we've been on this for less than twenty hours. So far we have the high energy Sabot rounds, still in use in our helicopters, gunships and mounted weapons. Kinetic weapons seem to give the 1000 a good kick, if temporary. If we can combine that with the high heat plasmafire, we might be able to carve up a 1000 like any other machine." Gould shrugged. "I know it sounds thin, and at this point it is, but we're working on..."
Kate slipped in next to Connor as the Techie spoke. "Sorry I'm late." She murmured. "I seem to have more to do now that you went and made me a General."
Connor smiled, just a little. "Should you be here?"
"Post-Op is full. It's my shoulder, not my legs. I can walk, I can sit, and I can listen. Plus, I'm a big time General now; I have to set an example." Kate said. "Seriously John, why oh why would you confuse people that way? Suddenly having two General Connor's on the base..."
He smirked. "Maybe somebody will finally call me 'John'."
"Oh, Supreme General John Connor, Commander Tech-Com and Allied Forces, I think we both know that's not true." Kate teased.
Connor smirked. "Kate, Robbie's been taking the lead in The Eden Project downstairs."
Kate turned and looked at him sharply. "The Eden Project? He's not even rated yet!"
Connor smiled gently. "Our son is a strong kid Kate, but I think we both know he's a better grower than a soldier. He's got a natural gift for it."
"He does, poor thing."
John looked at her. "Poor thing?"
"He's John Connor's only son. You have any idea how much pressure he feels to be a super-soldier?"
John sighed. "Have to think about that one. Kids are taking on jobs that most adults couldn't do Back Before. The Eden Project is one of them. Kate... at some point we may have to face up to the fact that our Eden team here goes out across the world to set up new plantations, teach people in other countries... hell, other hemispheres how to restore forests and fields. Kate... our son is now part of that team."
Kate looked cannily at him. "Is this why you made sure that The Eden Project never became a military operation?"
Connor looked caught out. "Well..."
"You could have put any of your lieutenants in charge of it. It started on a military post, it uses our equipment, our transport... but you never put a soldier in charge of it. The only soldiers who get involved with it permanently are the One Boot Brigade, who were never going to be combat troops again. They don't requisition things, they ask for them. Eden is a civilian project."
"Which has to be run and defended, and supplied by military. So... we need a General in charge of that since it's gone global. Someone with the authority to say yes on behalf of any base in the world."
"Me." Kate said. It was not a question.
"You."
"And Robbie?"
"At some point, he's going to want to go with them when they head out to Canada, or Mexico, or wherever we send our team next."
Kate shivered. "Not until Trial By Battle." She said seriously. "You were right. He's got a natural gift for Eden, but until he's confirmed as a soldier, he's always going to assume that's what you want for him. If you tell him to focus on Eden, he'll think you're coddling him."
"I know."
Silence.
"I'm sorry about The Terminator." Kate said quietly.
Connor sighed. "I never know what to feel about this. Seems like every ten years I get to lose him all over again. Except it's not the same one." He sighed. "But... thank you for letting me see him again."
Kate smirked. "I'd like to say it was a secret little moment, but the fact was I couldn't find another way to save your life."
"If nothing else, you managed to demonstrate how useful Infiltrators can be." Connor said, mindful of the crowd. "Did you reach Enrique yet?"
"Can't get a straight answer out of the Cartel Union for love or money." Kate said darkly. "I'm getting a bad feeling."
Connor whined; an unusual sound for him. "Hell. I want to run this down, but... At the same time I don't want to be the one to tell him."
"Me neither." She sent him a quick look. "Anything from Eric yet?"
"No. He hasn't found anything. I have a real bad feeling."
"You and me both."
Carla slipped into the seat next to Dex in the Mess Hall. "I'm sorry about Erin."
Dex nodded.
"...are you okay?" She asked finally.
Dex sighed. "I feel... I feel like I should be taking this a lot harder than I am. Is it very terrible that I don't feel gutted about this?"
Carla smiled mirthlessly. "I don't know. I really don't. I've never known what to think about you two. You knew each other for a few days and you started making babies, and then you didn't see each other for years afterward... I really don't know."
Silence.
"Carla?" Dex said quietly. "Out on the mission, during the siege... She and I talked about a few things. You and Mackie mainly..."
"Yeah?" Carla felt her jaw drop. "Oh my god! What if it wasn't her? What if it took her face before you even got there?"
Dex stared at her, horrified. "I didn't even think about that!"
"I know. Take it from the girl that knows better than anyone; they're damn good liars!"
"Yeah!" He suddenly thought of something. "How are you holding up? I was never really sure what to make of you and Erin either."
"We were... friends, I guess." Carla offered. "We barely knew each other too, but I pretty much adopted her kid the day he was born."
"Our kid." Dex corrected absently; though which 'our' he meant wasn't immediately clear. Dex cleared his throat. "But, there was actually something else..."
"Oh?"
"Well... Time is a tricky animal in any war zone. A war like this, even more so. I've been in one Hot Zone or another most of my adult life, and I tried to avoid... close connections, because you never know. But I can't see why I ever thought that was a good idea any more. And that's because of you."
His tone had turned so soft and sincere that Carla felt her heart start to pound. "Dex?"
Dex slid their trays aside, looked deep in her eyes, and took both her hands. "Carla, will you marry me?"
Carla blinked, stunned at the sudden change in topic. "Yes." She said softly.
They kissed each other lovingly.
The war was over. They were all of them free! Tears were streaming down every face, people were dancing in the Underground, screaming Connor's name with barely restrained reverence.
But John was far away from that. He was in his room, with Kyle Reese. They both wore their uniforms, both sipping good booze, smiling broadly at each other.
"You did it sir." Kyle smiled. "You saved us all."
John toasted him. "I never did it alone."
"That's good of you to say; but we all know who we have to thank."
Connor smiled gently and tossed back the last of his drink. "As much as I'd love to continue the celebration, I have one last job for you Kyle."
"Name it."
"I need you to die."
"Yessir." Kyle drew his weapon and put it against his temple without hesitation.
Connor felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned away from Kyle and looked up at his mom, healthy, tough, and lethal. "You made the right decision soldier."
BLAM!
Connor looked back. Kyle was dead, but the gun was somehow in John's hand.
Kyle glanced up at his mother, but now the Terminator was there, the familiar face. It said nothing.
Connor glanced back. Kyle was still there. So was Mac, and Susan, and Becki, and Marsden, and Curry and Lupe, his foster parents, and his Terminator bodyguards, and his soldiers...
Connor glanced over and saw Kate cradling Kyle's dead body. "John, why didn't you tell me?"
John woke up sharply. She was reaching back in her sleep, shaking him awake as the nightmares made him shake. He reached over. She hadn't even woken up. He shook her shoulder. "Kate. Wake up. I've gotta talk to you!"
Kate moaned and turned her head slightly. "Is it AM or PM?"
John checked his watch. "Very AM."
"What's wrong?"
"I lied to you."
Beat. Kate opened her eyes and fought to sit up slightly. "Okay. Tell me, but I'm asleep so do so slowly."
"Kyle is not my son." Connor whispered. "He's my father."
Silence. He could chart the thoughts processing through her brain by the look in her eyes. Confusion. More confusion. Replaying the conversations about his father. Replaying every moment either of them had spent with Kyle... Realization. Disbelief. More replaying. More realization...
"Oh my god." Kate whispered. "This is it. This is the secret you've been keeping."
John... was crying. He hadn't cried since he was Kyle's age. "Uh huh."
Kate leaned over and wrapped her good arm around him tightly. "You've been carrying this for so long. You found him that soon after J-Day and you...?"
"Yeah…"
Kate sat up and climbed into his lap, wrapping him up in her limbs, squeezing him tighter, like she was trying to climb inside him. "John…" She rasped. "Don't do it. Don't send him back."
John was crying as he buried his face in her neck. He didn't cry this much on J-Day; he had tears rolling down his face.
"John… When we left LA, Kyle came to me. He asked about our first baby. The one we lost. He said he didn't have any parents and since everyone else was pairing up to find whatever they needed he asked… he asked if he could fill in for our kid."
John felt like he'd been punched in the head. "Oh god Kate…"
"And I said yes."
Connor was dying inside. "Kate…"
"He asked if he should call me 'mom'." Kate continued, hating every word coming out of her mouth.
Connor wept.
"Don't send him back." Kate begged, stroking his hair. "Choose someone else. Let history change. You don't know what will happen. The timeline's changed twice already. Don't choose Kyle. He's my son!"
"No." Connor told her, suddenly fierce. He tried to pull away enough to look at her. "He's not your son. He's your father in law."
"He's not! He's a kid!" Kate insisted, refusing to let him pull back. "He's a teenager. He's a boy soldier who wants me to be his mommy."
"Kate..."
Lupe was pregnant. It was on the tip of her tongue. She couldn't do it. She couldn't lay that on him. She loved him too much.
Connor was about to say something when his radio buzzed.
"Ignore it." Kate told him.
"Kate…"
"Just once, just one time; stay and talk to me." Kate begged as the tears washed down both their faces. "Please John, just this once..."
He wanted so badly to put the radio down.
He almost did. "Connor here."
"Colonel, would you join us in the Food Stores please?" Eric said very smoothly.
Connor reacted. "On the way."
Kate just stared at him. She looked at him like he'd just slapped her. He was leaving now?
Connor took a breath. "Eric's too calm. Something has gone very wrong, and he doesn't want anyone to know how scared he is, and it has something to do with our food stores."
Kate wanted to strangle him. But she got dressed anyway. Always on duty. Always something more urgent.
She hated it.
But this one time, she was relieved too.
The Storerooms were the largest rooms on the base, except for the Main Hall. The Storerooms had everything that a base full of people could ever need. Once Tech-Com had moved in, they had reorganized. The food stores now took up most of the Storage. Everything else, such as spare parts and clothing and furniture, had been shifted around to departments and other bases. Crystal Peak was meant as a fallout shelter, not a Command and Control; but Skynet had taken over the cities before they had even escaped the Fallout.
As a result, all the storerooms were saved for things that Crystal Peak needed personally. And food was the top priority.
Walters met them at the door to the storeroom. He started talking before they got there. "We searched the whole base, end to end. We were trying to clean things up, take care of the wounded, figure out how to keep the freezer icy enough to keep Codename Mercury stuck... We didn't have a lot of people around. We ran a search through any room that could explode, or let Skynet in; nothing there. We moved on to the-"
"Eric, tonight is not really the time for the Socratic method; get to the god-damned point!" Kate snapped.
Walters reacted to the unexpected hit from the most unexpected quarter of all, and quickly obeyed. "We know where Codename Mercury went during those eleven minutes we couldn't account for."
Connor spun on him. "Tell me it didn't come to the Food Stores!"
Walters didn't bother to answer. He just opened the door.
They both felt their stomach's drop. The stores had been destroyed. The tins, the sacks, the fruits and veg that they grew themselves had been torn apart, shredded by huge wide blades.
Kate felt numb. Dozens of people were there, taking inventory, and like them, she picked her way through the room, edging around the mangled remains of their food. What had been scattered about had been shredded, burned, or covered with other products that had been stored, like flame retardant or motor oil. The huge room that had been full to bursting with edible food now stood reduced to a few cans and tins that weren't worth mentioning.
The T-1000 was a masterpiece of destruction, and it knew it's trade well.
"This was the mission." Connor said. "If it couldn't find me, it had to do as much damage to as many people as it could. When it saw a person to kill, it killed. When it had a way to find me or chase me, it took it. But we locked it in an empty room and it went back to a base program. Destroy our stores, kill our soldiers..."
Kate turned on Walters. "The other Storerooms?"
"Nine storerooms. Eight are like this." Walters said.
"One storeroom worth of food will never be enough to feed everyone in the Base, let alone supply Tech-Com!" Kate yelled.
"I know that!" Walters yelled back. "What are you yelling at me for?"
"Convenience!" Kate snapped, cooling off. "Sorry. Your call caught us at a bad time."
Walters looked around the mangled room. "That's almost hard to believe."
There was a long silence.
"John..." Kate whispered. "Where are we going to get our food?"
Silence. Connor was the closest to beaten Kate had ever seen him, and she blamed herself. If she hadn't laid into him about Kyle... She felt like she did when they first left Crystal Peak. He had a war to fight, and all humanity counting on him, and she was a distraction.
She shook that thought away. It was easy to think that he was doing it all alone, but he wasn't. Hold on. She urged him. Hold on.
There were times she wondered if the late Chet Whickham was right, and she and John enjoyed their own private telepathy.
He looked at her. Are you still on my side then?
Always. She promised silently.
"South. We get our food from down south till we can rebuild our stores." Connor said aloud seriously. "We need to get a supply train through."
"The Union's been blocking our calls for over a day and a half." Kate set her mouth in a grim line. "I… still haven't been able to get through long enough to ask for Enrique. He doesn't know about Lupe."
Connor grimaced. "Not a task I'm looking forward to."
"Just be glad he's in another hemisphere." Noah put in. "Weep for the Union Men."
Enrique's instincts were screaming. He was being shut out. He was being taken to places, he was being allowed to talk to people, but he wasn't allowed to talk to people he picked, and he wasn't allowed to go anywhere alone.
Everyone was glancing at him out of the corner of their eyes. He felt like he was living in a fishbowl. Even in his room, not the usual place he stayed, he could hear people moving in the corridor
Rojas came in, and Enrique jumped to his feet. "Governor Rojas." Enrique said politely, though he was already scanning. More guards in the hall, Lothar at the door, gun in hand.
The door closed again, with only Enrique and Rojas in the room.
"I've been kept waiting here for a while now." Enrique said.
"The unfortunate death of my predecessor left a number of things in a state of confusion." Rojas said smoothly. "You can understand that the demands on my time are considerable."
"I'm sure." Enrique was scanning the room without turning his head. Cot, chair, table. Rojas had a gun. Safety was off, but he hadn't drawn it yet. Enrique had three knives that the standard search hadn't found...
"You must understand that your arrival was something of a surprise. It's a pretty open secret that you're Connor's little errand boy, and now you're here. We were wondering why."
He opened with an insult, which meant he wasn't worried about anything Enrique had to offer. Enrique quickly started counting in his head. This had maybe thirty seconds or so before one of them was going to die. "Connor heard that another Governor had died, and he wanted to get a clearer picture of why, and how things are now."
"And, why would it be any of his business?"
Twenty five seconds... "You're a member of the Allied forces, and there's a war on. Connor is running almost all of it, and would like to know the state of his Allies."
"Really? Because he could have just picked up a phone and asked. Instead he sent you. He sent the Man who told all the Cartels to unite behind a soldier in another country, and was either impressive enough, or had enough dirt on everyone to get them all in line. And then you left. You went back to Connor's side, and you pretended like his name would be all it took to rally a bunch of people who were so savage, so strong, so determined, so suspicious, and so damn deadly, that Judgment Day itself couldn't knock them down."
Fifteen seconds... "How did the last guy die?" Enrique asked firmly. The chair maybe, if I can swing it fast enough. The water pitcher?
"He wasn't strong enough." Rojas said simply. "The kind of underhanded tricks that went on back when we were all honest criminals is nothing compared to how it is now. He wasn't strong enough, and nobody was at all surprised when he was found dead one morning."
Ten seconds... Enrique grinned savagely at him. "What makes you think it'll be different with you?"
"Are you kidding? There's no money left, and drugs aren't going to make us rich. They'll keep people under control, but they won't keep us fed. Everything changed. The only currency that hasn't is pride and power. You know how important reputation is. You've spent how many decades cultivating yours? When Connor declared us Allies, he took away our pride, and made our reputation one of being obedient to him by our own choice. What I have to offer is better than food and water. It's pride. It's power. It's respect. Men are still men, and they will seek honor and glory."
Five seconds... "You think you're the man to give such suspicious, such dangerous men a sense of pride?"
"If I couldn't a week ago, Connor handed it to me on a plate a few hours ago. Tech-Com's calling for help." Rojas said, smirking like a shark. "Like the deal he cut six Governors ago actually matters to anyone still alive. Connor... is Skynet's problem. Not mine. The General's managed to get what's left of the world in line, because nobody woke up to the fact that he doesn't have the right to be in charge. The Americans gave up the right to have any say over the world when they built Skynet."
Enrique knew the cards were on the table and ignored any pretense of being polite. "You think they'll follow you? Without Connor, the whole Union would still be a bunch of drug dealer's running through dead towns raping and beating and stealing from anyone you could find."
"And America's founding fathers were a bunch of slave owners committing high treason. But they won, so they wrote the history books. The Union might have started out as a bunch of criminals, but every revolution does." He gestured over his shoulder, back toward the radio. "Connor's demanding food. Like we owe it to him. Like his army deserves to eat more than ours does."
Enrique blinked. And stonewalled his face. He was suddenly worried. Crystal Peak had huge food stores. If they're demanding food urgently... Something happened. Something bad. He let nothing show on his face, suddenly aware of the minefield he was in.
"What do you plan to do?" Enrique said guardedly.
Rojas elaborately gestured to the window. Enrique went to the window and looked down at the courtyard.
Trucks. Dozens of them. Transport carriers. Exactly what Connor was calling for. Except they were being filled with...
"A layer of food packs, and under them, crate after crate of heavy explosive." Rojas said. "Dirty bombs, we called them. All the fear about nuclear dirty bombs, you can kill people just as dead if you spray regular poison into the air. A lot of it. Odorless, colorless, in a confined airtight space that cycles the air around through vents and pumps, propelled by a confusing explosion that hundreds of people will come and look at? Crystal Peak will be done in an hour."
Enrique spun...
...and felt his stomach explode like somebody had swung a sharp sledgehammer into him. He was hit so fast he never heard the gunshot.
"You missed your cue." Rojas taunted. "You should have killed me the second I came in the door."
Enrique shook off the confusion, and looked down weakly. There was a bullethole in his stomach.
Enrique had been shot way too many times to lose his concentration. Part of him was already cataloging the symptoms, calculating how long he had before he bled to death, or passed out...
Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out!
The rest of him was still reeling from the sight outside. "S-S-Skynet!" He gritted. "You take Crystal Peak..."
"You haven't heard. Skynet is on the ropes. They were apparently setting up something big in Arecibo, and they blew it. Well, somebody did anyway." He grinned like it was a funny joke. "We've been waiting for this since Connor gave us the Continent, letting Skynet and Tech-Com beat each others brains out, till neither of them could stand up."
Enrique was dragging himself up the wall, acting more hurt than he really was, till he could see out the window again. Crates of food were being carried out to the trucks, to be used as cover.
They were being carried past the window, down below.
Rojas was still talking, enjoying his moment. "Skynet's been chewed through, and Tech-Com's begging for food from people they don't trust. If Connor's stupid enough to think that we'll fall into line when he whistles just because we're human, he's about to wake up big time."
Enrique threw his wounded body into a lunge, and he went out the second story window. It was locked, so he didn't bother trying to open it before smashing straight through.
Rojas spun at the sound of breaking glass, and rushed to the window. Enrique had picked his moment well. He'd landed on one of the two people down below the window. The man he'd landed on was carrying a weapon, as every soldier in the Union did, but both his hands were full as he carried one end of the crate. Enrique had broken his fall by landing on him.
The man at the other end of the crate leaped half out of his skin in shock, and fumbled to spin around in time.
Enrique wasn't as incapacitated as he'd let on, but he still had a hole in his belly. The bullet had missed the vital organs, but Enrique knew how many minutes he had left. He grabbed the body he'd landed on, and rolled them both over so that his unwitting victim was on top. His partner finally got a proper grip on his rifle and fired…
…Enrique's human shield took the hit, as Enrique grabbed for the dead man's weapon, managing to fire back. The first shot killed his attacker; the next went up at the window, trying for Rojas.
Rojas ducked back into the window, taking cover.
Everyone in the courtyard spun at the gunshots, well trained instincts making them ready to fight…
Enrique had vanished by the time anyone was looking in the right direction..
"Yes General, we're trying to locate Enrique now." The voice on the radio called back.
Connor traded a look with Walters. "They're blocking us." He said bluntly.
"Why?"
"I don't know, but I don't like it." Connor said darkly. "I feel like we're about to be punched in the head."
"Again." Noah, Kate, and Walters all said at the same time.
Enrique had made his way through the Compound. It was less than ten seconds before the alarms went off.
The blood was running down both legs, getting darker. Enrique had stripped off his shirt, and his jacket, and his vest and improvised bandages. One soldier rushing to his post made the mistake of running down a corridor alone and Enrique had managed to get a local uniform, ill fitting though it was.
The Compound wasn't a military base; it was originally a Mission, which meant that some of the equipment had to be stored in various improvised storage cupboards. Enrique had found one near the Medbay and helped himself to some proper bandages, needle and thread; and a few large needles full of adrenaline. It wasn't the first time he'd had to do emergency field surgery on himself.
He'd been lucky enough to pick a corridor that didn't have a lot of traffic, and he fought to get a proper idea of the layout. Soldiers had every entry and exit covered. The weapons stores, the Medbay, the Motor Pool, would all be guarded.
He slunk up to a window, and sent a look out into the Courtyard. The Convoy had already left. Soldiers were already heading that way. Rojas was a smart enough tactician. He knew better than to keep the Convoy in here while Enrique was prowling around; but didn't dare send it away while there was a chance it could be used to escape. The Convoy would be searched.
If that Convoy made it to Crystal Peak, the game was over.
Enrique's vision swam for a second. Focus! He told himself. What are the priorities? Figure out the next move. Next Move... nesmooove... all the pretty little moves, dancing a row...
He shook his head hard. His brain was drifting. His eyes rolled back in his head for a second and he looked at the antennae. The church Belltower was now the radio tower. Enrique strained his eyes through the window and saw the cable, leading down from the antennae on the steeple, to the tower; the church bells long removed and the openings bricked up.
Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out!
He could hear the guards coming, searching every room.
He couldn't hit the Convoy... not with them on alert, and him bleeding to death. Escape? Questionable. The only vehicles going the right way were on the wrong side of a locked door, and being searched.
But he could probably reach the tower.
Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out!
His hands were shaking so much he could barely get the adrenaline needle pointed at his own chest.
Rojas was in his Command Center instantly. There was a crackle from all their radios.
They all blinked. Lothar came back, radio in hand. "I can't raise the Convoy."
Rojas snapped his fingers. "He's in the Tower. He's jammed our frequencies."
"But our base radios still work. It must be the long range antennae." Lothar reasoned.
Rojas was silent a moment. "How long would it take to rebuild and refit the radio if we just shot the antennae?"
"Too long."
Rojas swore. "You'll have to get in there then. Preferably before he gets hold of Tech-Com."
Rojas's security chief, Lothar was moving across the courtyard at a quick march; with his whole team behind him.
The belltower was retrofitted, but relatively unchanged. There was only one way up, a narrow staircase. His team could only get through it one at a time, and Enrique had rigged grenades and tripwires the entire way up.
It would be so much easier to just get an RPG and blow the top off the tower.
The radio crackled, and everyone sat up a little straighter.
"Connor." It was Enrique's voice. He sounded... pained.
Connor lifted the radio. "Enr-"
"It's a double-cross. They're not sending a convoy of food. They're sending dirty explosives."
Connor traded a look sharply with Walters. Connor lifted the radio. "I understand. Enrique, get out of there! Get back to us!"
"I uh... I don't think that's really an option sir."
Kate squeezed her eyes shut.
Connor did not. "Enrique... you told me once about what old Tigers do. Don't disappoint me."
"Yessir. But the fact is... They know where I am."
Connor was dying inside. "Enrique... please?"
"Gotta be a winner in every race Johnny-boy, this time it's me." Enrique sighed, running out of steam.
Connor steeled himself. "Lupe's dead."
Dead silence from the radio.
Enrique's eyes went so cold and dead he was certain he could send a wave of Anti-Life through the staircase beyond that door right now.
BAM! They were ramming the door.
Connor kept going. "A new model Infiltrator got in yesterday. It was... Mercurial. Know what I mean?"
Mercurial. The word ran through him like a shudder. He didn't even notice the hand going up to his collarbone, rubbing the jagged scar that had been there since Connor was a boy.
Enrique was suddenly unaware of the pain in his gut. The familiar lethal weapon was coming back. He hadn't been so psyched since his first encounter with a T-1000, and not since Khe Sahn before that.
BAM! Another slam against the door.
"Enrique, you there?" Connor asked.
Teeth bared, eyes dead, anger blazing, he ripped the radio up. "Are you lying to me?"
"No."
"Are you?"
"No."
BAM!
Enrique put the radio down carefully. His temper was the reason he joined the Armed Forces in the first place. They had taught him how to make it cold and deadly. It was a ice-cold flame that had served him through war, drug-dealing, gun-running, Judgment Day and everything in between.
Enrique put the radio down.
"Enrique? You there?"
He pulled out his flask, full of moonshine, and poured it out on the floor, over near the door. The pressure building in his head eased to nothing, calm and savage. Blacking out wasn't a problem; he was certain his heart had stopped beating long ago. He took the chair in one hand, and calmly waited next to the door, the chair in one hand, a match in the other.
BAM! The door was blown back on its hinges, and Enrique was ready with the chair, swinging it hard into the first man through the door, who ran into the swing with all the momentum of a man trying to knock down a barricaded door down. He practically flipped over before he hit the floor hard.
Enrique didn't even blink before he flicked the match alight, and dropped it in the spilled high-octane moonshine.
The man on the floor screeched as he was instantly on fire; the people behind him suddenly checked by the thrashing man blazing away in their path.
Enrique leaped over him, through the flames, and hurled himself into them, dead silent. He didn't even bother with the gun. In a close quarters fight, it was too big and too heavy.
The first one was still trying to figure out down from up after suddenly walking into a human torch, and Enrique sent him rolling back down the stairs. In such close a tight stairwell, all it took was the man at the top being tripped.
Five men in a team, plus Rojas's security Chief Lothar. Enrique thought, chasing their tumbling bodies down the stairs.
Lothar was the chief, and he played it smart. He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, weapon drawn. He just made the fatal mistake of waiting half a second to try and spare his own men. Enrique used their falling bodies for cover and got within reach. Lothar's gun went off and the bullet went wide enough to put a round in one of the men on the floor.
Two left, plus Lothar. Enrique thought clinically, still cold and deadly. I have maybe three minutes of function left. If that.
Enrique and Lothar spent a few seconds in close quarters, Lothar trying to get the knife, Enrique trying to get the gun. They wrestled for a second, until Lothar sent a quick jab to the blood-soaked bandage around Enrique's middle. The older man howled and reeled back, sweeping the knife fast enough to send the gun flying.
The two others were back on their feet, and Enrique recovered enough to throw himself at them, a far more frenzied version of the hand-to-hand lessons he'd been giving in Crystal Peak.
Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out! Don't black out!
Connor was pacing the War Room. The silence was making him nuts. He normally took anything in stride. This was not a normal day.
Kate never took her eyes off him.
Neither did Noah.
Walters noticed something he wished he hadn't. Noah had the same look on her face as Kate did.
Enrique left the fallen guards and turned back to Lothar without missing a beat. The two of them squared off again. Lothar was in his prime, every muscle like a steel cable. Enrique was far older, grizzled and bathed in sweat as the bloody wound took its toll.
"Old Tigers don't go down easy." Enrique said, his voice colder and flatter than any Terminator. "I was willing to, but I'm not any more. I want to thank you for that. But just so you know, this doesn't mean for a second that Rojas won."
The fight was swift, smart, brutal. It was hopeless, it was doomed, it was everything Enrique ever wanted from his last stand. They glanced off each other, swift and deadly. Enrique went for weaknesses that youth and strength couldn't protect you from, inflicting damage; Lothar struck for Enrique's gaping wounds, inflicting pain.
They broke for a moment, eyes wild, staring at each other. Enrique suddenly grinned, letting out his coyote laugh, one last time. "Game Over Man! GAME OVER!"
Enrique lunged, but not for Lothar. He lunged for one of the bodies on the floor, scrabbling with his vest. He spun around with a grenade in his hand, and he released it. It rolled to a point between the two of them, less than two feet from either.
Lothar spun away and dove for the floor.
A moment later, Enrique calmly walked up and collected the rifle, putting the barrel to the back of Lothar's skull. "I never pulled the pin."
And another team of guards came running around the corner.
Enrique put a boot on Lothar's head and brought the gun around, firing at them madly. The whole Cartel Union was at war with Enrique Salceda, and they were in trouble. The soldiers were firing at him blindly, staying behind cover.
Lothar made his move and heaved his whole body to get free. Enrique was just distracted enough that it worked, and Enrique was off balance.
It took three different shooters from three different directions, but the bullets shredded into Enrique, and the feral older man finally fell.
Of the eleven soldiers sent to kill him, three remained. They were all breathing hard, grateful to be alive, and wounded in some way. They kept their weapons aimed right up until Lothar checked for a pulse.
"What a Nightmare." Lothar grunted, and pulled his radio. "Sir. It's done. He's dead."
"Can you undo whatever it was he did to our long range radio? If you can sort out the Jamming, get word to our Convoy that they can expect incoming."
Lothar was limping his way up the stairs to the radio tower. "Yeah. I think so. I think he just set up the long range radio equipment to stick halfway between two frequencies. Shouldn't be too hard to dial it back to normal."
Sure enough, Lothar had all the dials set properly in less than a minute. He picked up the microphone to warn the Convoy, when he felt a tug on the handset, and looked. A thin wire was connected to it. A moment later the wire dropped, with three pins hanging from the end of it, released from somewhere behind the console.
He had just enough time to realize what it was as he heard the sound of grenades dropping behind the desk.
Rojas jumped out of his skin as the tower above his head suddenly exploded, bringing the whole radio antennae down.
Connor shut his eyes at the sound of the sudden static. He carefully reached out and switched the radio off; and then turned deliberately to Walters. "Blow the bridges south. And don't let that convoy through to our territory. Enrique killed their radio, so they won't know we're on to them. Wipe them out."
Orders went out instantly. Kate kept watching her husband. He looked about a thousand years old.
Noah was digging her fingers into the table. "We got played. Twice. Skynet threw away half it's army just to get the Mercury in here. And we fell for it. The Union fed us for two years after we declared them Independent just so it could get this moment when we were dependent. The war went to a three-way battle and we never noticed."
Walters was nodding with her. "We cut off the Cartel, they can afford to wait. They'll starve us out. They've done it before. Back before they allied with us, they kept their civilian and military under control through drugs. They had plenty of it from when they were suppliers Back Before. They used to do it with drugs, now they can do it to us with food."
"To say nothing of the fact that we've still got Skynet to deal with. If Rojas thinks they're running out like we are..."
Kate finally had to speak. "John..."
Connor looked at her. "Yolanda." He said, and rushed for the door.
They let him go. Writing letters to family was the worst part of being in command. It didn't happen much any longer. Most soldiers in this war had their families blown away before the war started in earnest. Yolanda had lost her whole family in the last twelve hours.
Z Plus Ten Years Seventy Two Days
Walters, Kate, and Noah hadn't left the communications room all night. Once the orders had gone out, and the attacking Convoy destroyed, the situation with the Cartel Union had frozen. They had no idea who was still alive over there, or what they would do.
Connor had been making the rounds, having conversations with parents. And children. Mackie thought of Curry as his aunt, more than his mother, but even at that age, the boy knew.
Kate argued with herself briefly, and knocked on the door.
"Better be important!" An unfamiliar voice yelled.
Steeling herself, Kate let herself in quietly. The room was full of Enrique's Bandits. They looked wrecked. They were the fanatical warriors of Tech-Com, the most feared men and women to cross, both on and off the Base. And they were miserable. Not for the first time, Kate wondered what would happen to Tech-Com if Connor died.
And at the back of the room, being given plenty of space and as much privacy as they could get, was Yolanda, getting a big hug from Connor. From the look of it, he hadn't stopped hugging her for a long time.
The Bandits parted for her, letting Connor's wife pass through them. She made her way quietly to her husband. "Hi Yolanda."
Yolanda was older than Kate's mother was. This was the first time it showed in her face. "Katia..." She croaked. "He always liked you so much more than you thought he did."
Kate hated herself for breaking it up. "John... I hate to do this, but The Union has announced that their leader is making a broadcast. Every frequency, non-encrypted."
Connor sighed.
"Johan." Yolanda sighed softly. "Go. It's what you do. Enrique would say you need to be The General."
Connor squeezed her shoulder. Kate felt for him. Yolanda was probably the most maternal woman he'd ever had. "I'll be back." He promised her. "I'm coming straight back."
Yolanda had tears rolling gently down her face. "I know."
Connor scrubbed his face hard with both hands as they walked. "You know what the worst part is?"
"What's that?" Kate asked quietly.
"The Siege cost Skynet. A lot. Kate, you have personally blown more of Skynet to hell than any other single soldier ever has with that plane crash. We managed to peck away hundreds of Terminators, to say nothing of the counter-attack. Add to that all the 500's we've collected that Skynet fried with the pulse... Kate, we won a huge victory today. Skynet won't be able to hold half the territory it holds now. This was... god help me, this was a very good day for us."
Kate rubbed her weak shoulder and brushed against him sympathetically. They walked silently for a moment. "Any ideas what that Pulse was?"
Connor sighed. "Nothing official. Skynet cleared out every piece of equipment, every record made; all of it was gone before we got there. If the blast was caused by something with a purpose, Skynet isn't leaving any clues. Gould is speculating it was all a trap, just to get the 1000 in here."
"What do you think?" Kate asked.
"I think Skynet would happily make that many sacrifices if it meant cutting the head off Tech-Com. But I don't think that's what it was for." He sent her a look. "You know what I think it was."
"Yeah. I do." Kate bit her lip. "Think it succeeded? This time, I mean?"
"I don't know. But to be honest Kate, if it is the Time Machine, and if it did succeed, then it changes our plans not at all. It's a Time Machine. We can wait as long as we need to before we use it. We have all the time in the world."
"This latest tragedy has demonstrated that Tech-Com is too widespread to be a proper defense against Skynet. My first and greatest duty is, as with any other leader, the safety and protection of my people. We will always remember the bond of blood that has been paid by our Brothers to the north, but in this time of stringent resources and fear of death, we must see to our own needs first, and make the security of our people our first priority.
It is thus with deepest reluctance that The Cartel Union is hereby succeeding from Tech-Com. We will remain an independent state, proud and victorious. We will never forget the danger of Skynet, and the courage of our distant allies. We will of course maintain trade and intelligence agreements with the American Remnants and Connor's Armies. But no longer will our people be called on to fight other people's wars.
"To my own people, I say that the time is at last upon us. How long have we waited for the chance to claim our birthright with no strings attached? How long have we sought our freedom without anyone telling us how to do it? The time has come for a clean sweep of the old hierarchies..."
"Turn it off." Connor said quietly.
Walters did so. "'Old Hierarchies'. It's been two years since we set them up!"
"'Other people's wars'." Lori scoffed. "There's no such thing."
"Worst case of testosterone poisoning I've ever seen." Noah agreed.
Connor growled, low in his throat. "Well. Now we have a problem."
"Down south is cleared out." Noah said. "There's no danger of Skynet there any more, and I think we can safely say that they can patrol their own coastline. It puts us up against a wall, no doubt, but that's where we're at our strongest."
Connor glared at her. "And where do we get our food?"
Nobody had an answer to that one.
Z Plus Ten Years Eighty Six Days
Tech-Com went on immediate rationing. The Kitchen Staff had to be careful about handing out food at all times, but with no more food coming in, the Rations had to be cut. It took all of thirty minutes for everyone to find out why. Fear spread quickly, but not as bad as the Command Staff feared. Most of the people in Crystal Peak had come from somewhere that had no food to go around. The notion of keeping all the security, the walls, the hot water and the company in exchange for smaller portions didn't bother anyone too much.
So far.
It wasn't going to last. But it bought them time. The Eden Project, the Fish Tanks; and pretty much anywhere else that made or stored food were pressed into service.
Kate's left arm still didn't work, and she was getting more than a little scared by it. John was less concerned. His mother had received a similar wound, and it had taken her a while too.
Dr Chen and Carla had put their heads together and come up with the exact number of calories that each person had to consume to be healthy, and then translated that into portions for the Mess Hall.
"What were the numbers?" Kate asked her husband on the way to the Mess Hall.
"Not encouraging." Connor said quietly, making sure they were talking softly enough to go unheard. "Brain Box says that even if everything goes exactly right, we're never going to get enough food in here to keep everyone fed. If we get drastic, we can stave off starvation for a few months. But not for everybody." He sighed "Any ideas?"
"Me? This is usually where you pull a rabbit out of your hat." Kate offered. "This time you have to pull about a million rabbits, grill them and serve them up."
Connor sighed. "Maybe."
They got in line at the Mess Hall. Connor glanced around. A few of Connor's Own were present, sitting at tables having chats. Unofficially, they were there to make sure nobody complained.
A scale was in full view back behind the chow line. The KP Staff went to it with each portion, weighing every portion precisely, and in full view of everyone. When Connor came to his turn, they looked a question at him, and he shook his head subtly. The General got the exact same amount as everyone else.
So did Kate, and they took the trays back to their room.
Kate looked at her plate. "Not much, is it?"
"Enough to keep from starving to death. For a day."
"What's everybody thinking upstairs?"
"Noah and Walters are both trying desperately not to recommend sending people out on dangerous missions. The number of ways they've tried to get around using the words 'thin the herd' is staggering."
Kate shivered. "Is there any other way?"
"It's not like we were holding much back on ways to make food before." Connor sighed.
They chewed slowly, not talking for a while.
"We've got vitamin supplements in Medbay." Kate offered.
"Not anymore."
"Where are they now?"
"Under guard, in a safe place. When the food runs out, we're going to be adding them to the leftovers. Find someone who knows how to cook and have them figure out how to make less food seem like more food."
"Easy. Make soup." Kate said. "I remember my mom bought barbecue chicken at the store sometimes, and when we finished, she boiled up the leftover bits, made it into chicken soup." She paused. "Whoa. Haven't thought about that in decades." She blinked. "Decades. I feel old." She blinked again. "Why am I talking like this?"
John didn't smirk. "Low blood sugar. Less food is making people a little loopy."
Kate scrubbed her face hard. "Part of me wants to lick the tray clean."
"Go ahead, I won't tell."
"General John Connor to the War Room." The PA announced.
"I have to go." John said. "You can have the rest."
"Take it with you, eat on the way." Kate said seriously. "If anyone needs a clear head, it's you."
Connor nodded and did so. Kate kept chewing slowly, trying to make it last.
Robbie came into the room with his own tray. He had pretty much cleaned it off by the time he made it back. "Hey mom."
"Hey sweetie." She glanced at him, very aware of how thin he was. He wasn't any thinner than the day before, but now she knew how serious that could be. It wasn't like any of them had weight to lose.
Kate pushed her tray to her son. "Here. You can finish mine, baby. I'm not hungry."
Robbie took it obediently and basically inhaled what was left.
"What do we do?" Berk asked.
"We do what we do. We survive." Stacey said firmly. "Mikey says Keeper's gonna feed us. That's good enough for me."
"Keeper ain't our mom." Cory shot back.
"Keeper loves us." Stacie yelled furiously. "You bite your tongue!"
Berk grinned. "It's the most meat he'll get for a while."
The Tunnel Rats chortled.
Tish stroked her braids. "The General will think of something. He always does. He's smart."
Molly gripped her arms tightly. "I miss Lupe."
"Me too."
Berk rocked for a while. "I miss her voice."
Meg licked her lips. "I miss her stories."
Silence.
"Tell us a story Meg. Lupe won't be back to tell 'em."
The Tunnel Rats huddled together tightly, keeping warm; for they knew hunger would make them cold.
Meg smiled at them. "Once upon a time, in a land far away, there were wonderful things called Dolphins, and they loved to play and swim in blue water!"
"Kyle says there ain't no such thing! He says The General told him there ain't!"
Meg glared at him, furious as a child half her age. "SO? That's what makes it a story!"
It was late when Connor got back to the Presidential Suite. Kate was sitting up in bed, under the covers. She just looked at him. It was the first time they had been alone since he'd told her about Kyle.
They looked at each other like total strangers for a long time. Connor finally came forward, sat down on his side of the bed, and started undoing his laces. His jaw was square, his back was straight... He was The General, and not her John.
Normally, Kate would work on him till the tension cracked and he was her husband again, but this time she couldn't bring herself to do it. "Don't send him back." She said quietly. "The timeline changed once. If you send someone else, it could change again and we'll still be okay."
"Or it could be a disaster." Connor said tiredly. "I know all the reasons Kate. I've been trying to see a way out since I was old enough to know who my father was."
Kate didn't soften. "That was before you met him. Or me."
"That changes nothing."
"It changes everything." She said coldly. "He's not some soldier that died before you were born, he's a boy who worships you. Don't do this to him."
Connor shrugged off his jacket and vest. "And how would we win this war, if I never had the nerve to send boys who worship me on suicide missions?"
"That's different."
"Why? Because Kyle means more to us than them?"
"Because you know how this mission ends." Kate said miserably. "Of all the people in the Underground, you have resolved in your mind that there's no way to save Kyle Reese. If the war ended tomorrow in easy victory, you would still send him back to his death. He has to live, because he has to die."
Connor lay down next to her. "It's... the way it has to be."
"What happened to 'No Fate But What We Make'?"
Connor slid down, and turned to face her. "My mom taught me that... because she heard it in a message I sent her from the future, via Kyle Reese."
Kate turned off the light and slid down in the bed. He reached for her and she shrugged him off, turning deliberately away from him in the dark. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.
They lay silently a while.
"John..." She said finally, not looking at him. "Please."
John sighed. "What will happen if he doesn't go back?"
"I don't know, and neither do you." Kate snapped. "If Kyle gets killed in this war, what happens then? The timeline changed once, and you didn't notice anything. Did Kyle suddenly get a year or two older when he arrived in the 80's? What if something changed so that Kyle won't survive a battle that he did in the first timeline? What happens then?"
"I don't know." John admitted softly.
Long silence.
"He calls me 'mom'." Kate whispered. "The only ones that call me mom are Kyle, Robbie, and Sarah. How can you do this?"
"That's not fair!" Connor hissed. "This has nothing to do with you! This choice was made before I ever met you!"
"I know."
Connor sat up, and reached for his boots.
Kate switched the light on. "Where are you going?"
"Back to the War Room." Connor said roughly. "At least in there I can think of an answer to the impossible problems."
Kate sat up in bed and watching him dress for a moment. He went back to the door without a word. "John..." She called after him.
Connor paused in the door. "Yeah?"
Long silence.
"Don't be late tomorrow." She said finally.
Connor slumped imperceptibly. "They can't start without me."
"I know. Should I wait up for you?"
Connor hesitated. "No."
Kate turned away from him, giving the cold shoulder again. "Fine."
Z Plus Ten Years Eighty Seven Days
Weddings in the underground were a pretty straightforward affair. For the most part, the only authority on any given base was the Base Commander. Kate had officiated more than a few ceremonies, as Commander of Crystal peak. But Carla was one of their oldest friends, and she had wanted it, so John Connor performed the ceremony himself.
People were tight knit on any front line. Closer than family, so for all the uncertainty that some had felt about Carla years before, she was part of the family again, and as many people as could fit into the Main Hall came to attend.
Nobody was really clean any more, and tech-Com was a new army, made out of whatever was left over after a Nuclear War, so there wasn't really enough to provide dress uniforms for everyone. But it was a wedding. Something that said life was wonderful and full of love. Everyone made it their business to reflect that, and to get a piece of the celebration in return.
At the head of the room, Dex was waiting for his bride, with Connor in front of him. Connor looked over, and noticed Kyle. He looked... hard. Like he was trying to keep his expression from changing, even a little bit. When he looked at Dex, Connor could see it in his eyes. He was so jealous of Dex, getting to marry his girlfriend, there was almost hatred in his eyes.
Kate was next to Kyle, and she rested a hand gently on his shoulder. Kyle softened a little. Kate looked to John, fiercely protective.
John looked at her, hiding what he was feeling from the waiting groom at his side. Kate, what do you expect me to do?
Kate's look was clear. You cannot expect me to be okay with this. He calls me mom, and you've written him off as an inevitable casualty.
Connor didn't have an answer to that, so instead he turned to Dex. "Nervous?"
Dex smiled. "Nope. Just wish I'd done this the day I met her."
Connor spared his wife a quick look. "I know what you mean." He saw movement at the back of the room. "Eyes front soldier." He whispered. "You don't want to miss this part."
Dex turned to look down the Aisle, and found Carla smiling brilliantly at him. She was wearing a white dress, made from a sheet. She had borrowed it from Kate who had not worn it since her own wedding. She looked beautiful, especially compared to everyone else. Someone started playing music, and everyone's eyes were on her; but Carla only had eyes for her groom. A long look he had no trouble returning.
They gave each other smiles full of love, and under it all, relief.
As everyone sat down, they turned to Connor, who smiled at both of them. "It has always been the honor of every commander, since the days of wooden sailing ships, to unite people together in this way. I am luckier than any of them put together, as the Bride and Groom are both good friends of mine. Carla, Dex… The two of you, and others like you, you make all the hard choices bearable, by sharing your joy with us. Speaking for myself, when days like this come along... Sometimes this is a great job."
Both of them smiled at him warmly.
Connor smiled back. "All of us put our lives and our hopes in each others keeping every day. It takes so much courage to give your heart to someone too. You've already promised to always always have each others back, no matter what life throws at you. You promised that when you put on that uniform. But this means that you agree to need each other. When times get hard, and things are dark, you always turn to each other first for help. Even in this place, where we all have to be in everything together; you two are partners now, over and beyond anything that came before"
Dex and Carla never took their eyes off each other.
"So." Connor said. "With that in mind, we now come to the most important questions I will ever ask you: Do you, Carla Eposita, take this man as your husband?"
"I do."
"Elihuia Dexter, do you take this woman as your wife?"
"I do."
"Elihuia?" Walters whispered in disbelief to Noah.
Noah was wiping away welling tears. "Hush."
"By the authority I have as Commander In Chief, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife."
"Yah!" Mackie shouted from the front row, and ran up to the front of the room to hug them both at the same time. Everyone laughed warmly.
So did Connor. "Dex, what are you waiting for? Kiss the bride!"
Dex proceeded to do exactly that, as everyone smiled happily at the whole family together and applauded.
Everyone lined up to offer congratulations, and Walters took the opportunity to slip over next to Connor. "Wedding speeches get better every time you give one."
Connor smiled thinly.
Walters didn't believe it. "So what's bothering you?"
Connor shrugged. "Not a lot. I just… I wish we could have put out a feast for them."
That brought reality back with a thump. Walters nodded grimly. "Let that be tomorrow's problem."
"Agreed." Connor said quietly as the Bandits started playing happy dance music. Dex and Carla headed off the back of the room, where the Hall widened out, to start off the evening with his first dance with his wife.
"So, Kyle." Kate teased him lightly. "Willing to dance with an old lady?"
"You're not old." Kyle said flatly. "And I can't dance."
Kate bit her lip on that one. She knew he could. Lupe had taught him. Kyle was looking at Dex, his arms around Carla, and was rubbing the inside of his arms absently. He was thinking about Lupe. About holding her the way Dex was holding his new wife.
"Kyle…" She started to say, not knowing what she was going to tell him.
"If you need me, I'll be in the gym." Kyle said softly, and marched out.
Across the room, Yolanda had slipped in next to Connor. Both of them had seen the whole thing. "Is it possible that Noah cried?" Yolanda asked.
"Lots of people cry at weddings." Connor said, watching Kyle leave.
"The Bandits have a bet going downstairs about whether or not Noah has actual tear ducts. Looks like I lost." She watched Kyle leave the room. He was the only one walking out. "Enrique told me. About Kyle."
Connor looked sharply at her. "He did?"
"Yup. Is he ready?"
"Unbreakable."
"Are you sure?"
"Lupe did it. Can't break somebody who's already broken."
Yolanda nodded once. "Good. Then it was worth it."
Connor felt the hairs on his neck raise. "Was it?"
"Enrique would say yes. So would Lupe if she knew." She sent a fierce gaze at him, harder than Enrique ever was. "We're playing for keeps Johan. We do whatever we have to do, to gain any edge we can. Defeat means extinction. Victory at any price."
The 'Price' she was so coldly writing off included her whole family. John felt his doubts fade in favor of her certainty. "Kate knows. She's furious. She says not to send him back."
"Let her say what she likes. She can afford to weep for her adopted children. You can't. You know what needs to be done. I sacrificed my family for this. We all sacrifice something for the burden of this war. You have given up more than most for longer than anyone. Kyle is the most pivotal loss you'll ever have. That's a fact of being John Connor."
Kate was smiling at Dex and Carla. They looked so happy. John shook his own feelings off. His mother had taught him that happiness like that was meant for the people under his charge. Not for him. He, Kyle, his mother... they were meant for something that would do more good for everyone else. Not for themselves.
Connor felt his resolve harden, as Dex kissed his wife. This is why. He told himself. The Great John Connor has to win, so that people like Carla and Dex can be happy. "You're right." Connor heard his voice say. "Winning the War comes first. Kyle has to go back. I can't compromise on this. Victory at any price."
"Now." Yolanda told him. "Smile."
Connor felt his face make a warm happy smile that he didn't feel.
"Go dance with the Bride, tell her how happy you are for her." Yolanda directed him. "Then go do what you were born to do... and win this godforsaken war."
Z Plus Ten Years Eighty Seven Days
Connor was in the the War Room before anyone else the next morning. He hadn't gone back to his room, having come straight here after the Wedding. The party had continued without him, people finding it easier to relax when The General wasn't in the room.
"Begin Day Watch." Walters called as he came in, one hand to his head. The party had lasted for hours after Connor had left. People changed seats in the War Room; the arriving Day Shift getting reports from departments and forward units, the Night Shift happy to go get some sleep.
Noah staggered in after him, looking somewhat haggard after the party, and turned to Connor. "Have you been here all night?"
Connor nodded absently. "Yes. Report."
"Lori's getting her people together, bringing her own supplies here. Oldham is mobilizing Castle Keep and bringing it in. More mouths to feed, but everything they've got to feed their people with they bring too." Walters reported. "He wants his people in close when they start running out."
Connor nodded. "In the meantime, there's still a war going on, right?"
Noah picked up the report. "Yessir. Skynet apparently got the announcement about the Union succeeding from us, and they've redeployed. They didn't have a lot in position. I think the break surprised Skynet way more than it did us."
"Are they attacking?" Connor asked.
"Skynet took some pretty bad losses, and the Union's making a grab for territory. With us pulling back there's a lot of No Man's Land out there to claim. The Union's hitting out pretty hard." Walters said. "But for now... that's their problem."
"But in the meantime there's our problem..." Connor fought to keep his mind clear. Smaller portions meant people with low blood sugar. Tempers would start getting a little short, people would start having mental lapses... "How many Infiltrator factories are within range?"
"In driving range, we found about fourteen." Noah reported. "Helicopter range, twenty three."
"And how many did we take intact?"
"Are you asking how many we took intact, or how many are intact now?" Walters asked.
"Intact now."
"Just twelve." Walters reported from memory. "Mainly as traps for Skynet if they come to retake them."
"They aren't ambushes any more, and I want that number up to twenty ASAP." Connor ordered. "Where's Gould?"
"Tech-Lab." Kate reported.
Connor headed out without a word.
Noah grinned at Walters. "He has an idea. I can tell. He's got that look."
"I know, I love that look." Walters commented.
AN: Yes indeedy, Connor has an idea. But since when has that made things easy?