CH 10. Preparations for war
Sky Net had the pattern of human habit. Most worked five days a week, and stayed home or went out to do different things on 'the weekend' of two days. The terminator monitoring the Palmdale area had seen the rouge T-1001, and John Connor leave and return to the air force base there. It was safe to assume that the other rouge AI's were there also.
The chance at getting to the human made nuclear weapons was very small while the rouge AI's commanded the internet and all communications. Sky Net knew where enough weapons were to start the deadly exchange that would wipe out most of humanity, but to put that plan into action, it needed to get rid of the rouge AI's first. To be successful at that, it needed to cause a large enough distraction to keep anyone from helping the rouge AI's.
Supplies and war machines were now on every major continent. In the mid-east, it had acquired the knowledge of toxic gas weapons, and was manufacturing those. Gas weapons were more efficient, for that would kill humans and leave more resources intact for later use. Selecting the correct places to begin the attacks and using the symbols of the correct countries to attack their enemies, Sky Net developed a plan to get humans fighting each other.
At the eastern end of the Mediterranean sea, 800 waterproof tracked rail gun vehicles holding canisters of poison gas and with Iranian markings were placed just off the shore by Sky Net submarines. On a remote North Korean shoreline, a thousand more with 500 H/Ks bearing poison gas bombs were landed, bearing South Korean markings. In a remote mountainous area just inland off the coast of China, six thousand rail gun vehicles, 1000 H/K's and two hundred rocket launching pods were landed and set up, all the rockets bearing poison gas and aimed at the large cities. All of those machines bearing the rising sun markings of Japan. The last immediate duty of the submarines bearing Russian markings was to sit off the English coast, and off the US coasts, to surface and shoot missiles bearing poison gas into the cities there.
Once the transmission of all those units being in place arrived, the Sky Net could launch the diversions, then attack the true targets and get rid of those rouge AI's and John Connor.
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The mini-stug design was easy to build, and with Cameron guiding them by remote control on a long range frequency, simple to operate. Cameron had her first war fighting machines, 5 mini-Stugs armed with copies of the rail gun they found on the original, as well as a .50 cal machine guns mounted on top.
In the new combat center, Cameron sat in a chair in front of a computer bank, while the brass sat watching a large monitor. The opponents for the war game against the mini-Stugs were six M-1 Abrams tanks, a pair of Attack helicopters, and a platoon of soldiers with TOW anti-tank missiles. Cameron's object was to get to the air field. The combined Army/Air force objective was to stop the mini-Stugs.
For the exercise, all vehicles and men were fitted with lazer receptors, all weapons fire a lazer beam that could be picked up by the receptors. If something received a lazer signal, it was considered dead/OOC.
The exercise started with a message, five unidentified enemy units were closing on the base. Search and destroy. Tanks rolled, helicopters took off, and men scrambled.
Cameron started out in the desert. Flat, dry and visual range for miles around in every direction. The first thing she did was send two Stug's out, looking for a dry wash. Finding one that angled towards the base, she got all five in the bottom of the shallow creek bed with only the machine guns and sensor arrays sticking up above ground level. Watching the sky and area around them, they headed for the base.
Upon seeing movement far to the right, all five stopped. Zooming in,Cameron noticed the top sensor globe on an attack helicopter. The pilot was being cautious, using cover as she was. A search of the horizon showed where the other one was, a mile to the right. Using triangulation from the front and rear vehicles, Cameron got the range, and aimed two machine guns at one helicopter, and two at the other one. Figuring the arc, she knew she could hit both of them. Lazer's didn't have an arc, but she'd still tag their sensors. She fired, and both sensors disappeared.
Turning all the Stugs, Cameron made them shoot up out of the dry wash and charge full speed towards the base. She went on for a mile then split her force, two left, two right and looked for cover for the center Stug. Coming upon a small rise, Cameron moved the center Stug up to just peak over the top. She moved the other pairs towards the base, each a half mile to the sides of the center Stug that was watching the horizon.
Fire came from the left. One Stug was hit. She positioned it's mate behind the wreck of the first, and found a tank, hull down about a mile and a half away. She stopped the other two Stugs in a shallow spot. Keeping the center Stug's optics looking for anything moving ahead of it, she turned the body towards where the tank was.
Ahead of the center Stug, a pair of tanks came racing at the remaining left Stug to finish it off. Using the center Stug, she hit the rear one first then the front one. To the far right, a tank had gotten around behind the pair of Stugs' there. Turning one around, she fired and got that tank. Identifying the positions of four out of six tanks, Cameron left the one Stug behind the 'wreck' of it's mate and charged on with three, spreading them evenly apart. With the control tower of the airfield showing in the distance, Cameron turned her Stugs to run parallel with the base. A soldier with a TOW launcher popped up, she fire the machine guns first, then turned all three Stugs to intercept that spot.
The tank watching her Stug behind the wrecked one moved out to help the base defenders. She moved her Stug out from behind cover and got it. Running that Stug towards the base, it got hit from a tank farther to the left. The three Stugs running fast, panned their machine gun fire over the defense trench as they sped at it. Jumping the trench, she stopped two to 'kill' the soldiers she could see. While the soldiers were busy with those two Stugs, the last one ran onto the airfield and stopped in the center of the runway.
The Air Force General was pissed. The Army General and Major Franklin were impressed.
"Cameron, can you tell us how you did that so easily?" Major Franklin asked.
"Yes. There were a known number of enemies. The largest threat was the helicopters. They could call in fire as well as shoot themselves. Being used for recon, the defender made them easy targets. The tanks were the next biggest threat. Once I had four down, and knew where the other two were, that threat was minimized. I left one Stug farther out to keep the rest of the tanks busy. The platoon had TOW launchers, and were spread out. Once I found the location of one and took it out, that made a hole to get onto the base. Leaving two Stugs to keep the platoon busy allowing me to drive the last Stug onto the runway, achieving the goal of the exercise. What I did was basic tactics."
"So, your planned worked just like you wanted it to?"
"Better. I had anticipated sixty percent losses, but only suffered forty percent losses," Cameron said.
"Call in all forces for a debriefing. Excellent work, Cameron," Major Franklin told her.
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The debriefing proved the usefulness of the mini-Stugs. The helicopters hadn't even seen them. Most of the tank crews hadn't been able to get a shot off before the Stugs did, and the men were simply overwhelmed by them. Costing only a hundred grand each, and able to take out multi-million dollar tanks and helicopters, General Abram promised to get the funding in next year's budget for a minimum of twenty more mini-Stugs.
Cameron told them she would fund twenty machines today, and strongly recommended a sharp increase in attack drone construction. The Zeita corporation had the ability to make them, so Cameron gave Catherine the contract for them. Having already made the prototypes, Zeita was ready to start cranking out mini-Stugs.
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John Connor worked with Cameron and came up with a partially independent operating program for the Mini-Stugs. Once set on a target, the Stug, or a group of Stugs would keep attacking the same target until it was destroyed, allowing Cameron to focus more on the over all battle.
While they worked at fine tuning the controls, Sarah Connor was concentrating on home defense. Sarah Connor believed in bunkers capable of surviving a nuclear exchange. There was already a bunker system for the Air Force base for the airfields and the command centers. She worked at making one under their house. When not at work on their mini-Stug projects, Cameron and John helped dig a deep cellar and put in the emergency generator and block walls as the bunker grew.
During all this, Cameron never missed her daily calls to Allison.
Early one morning, Cameron lay in bed beside her sleeping husband that was holding her close in the classic spoon. Normally, she would have checked the perimeter and gotten work done on their bunker before calling Allison. Last night, however, after a vigorous love making session, Cameron lay holding John and felt a pleasant sensation.
She was hungry. The last time she'd been hungry was when she was carrying Allison. Her body was calling for nutrients and rapidly using up her stored supply. That mean she was pregnant. Lying there, she performed a self diagnostic and confirmed the fact the second egg had been fertilized, and was growing. What surprised her was the third egg had also fertilized. That meant twins. To celebrate conceiving, she stayed with John all night, relishing the fact she was going to have more children.
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"OK, Mommy, you have a good day too, Bye," Allison said and closed up her phone. Getting used to her room, Allison was having a good time at school. She had her 'school' mind set, and her 'home' mind set. While at home, she told her parents what she did during the week, and spent time going places, watching TV and having fun with her parents. During school, she focused on studying and after classes, doing things with her friends.
Both Becky and Byron had dorm rooms and went home on the weekends like she did. Dan stayed at school the whole school year. Some nights they watched documentaries on TV, others they played games. Allison found out she 'kicked ass' at chess, at least that's how Dan described how well she played.
Another game she found was interesting was a computerized war game involving the American Civil War. In this game, it wasn't just the 'pieces' marking the opponents that were important, but also so was transportation, the ability to trade with other places, how good your generals were, and the condition of the soldiers. If they didn't get their supplies of food, clothing and ammunition, the soldiers were sluggish and performed poorly. If they lost a string of battles, or were new recruits, that also affected how well they fought. Having resources also affected how well your army did, as did how many things you could 'invent'. When they played this game, Byron and Allison chose the south, teaming up against Dan and Becky. Allison liked being on the southern side because it was the more difficult side to play. The slightest mistake meant disaster, many times unrecoverable. The one time Byron and Allison won – by keeping a hole open in the sea blockade, denying the Union the use of the Mississippi river, and performing a surprise invasion of the North combined with a successful assault that isolated Washington, they literally jumped with joy.
School work was going well also. Allison was well into third grade and doing 'side studies' of math and science. Allison found she loved astronomy. The school had a telescope on the roof inside it's own protective dome. Some nights she and Byron would sit at the telescope and find the bodies they had been learning about to see them first hand instead of just in a text book.
Having lunch the day after Allison had completed her Third grade studies, she decided to do only her side studies for a while, She took her usual place across from Becky and beside Byron. Pulling out her shakers of nutrients, she gave her food a light coating as usual.
Byron eyed her and asked, "How does that taste? I know you need it but, is it good?"
"I think so."
"Can I try?"
Allison winced. "Not a good idea," she she told him. "These are made for my different makeup. I don't think it would be good for you to eat them."
"You might get sick," Becky added.
"Yeah, guess you're right," Byron admitted.
"Excuse me, you're name is Allison, right?"a boy asked as he sat down with them.
"Yes."
"I'm Jerome Potter from junior class two? I've been doing some studying, and I think I know why you got those things sticking out of your head."
"Really? You know about Lucy?" Allison asked.
"Lucy?" Jerome asked. "Is she an Annunaki too?"
"I think Lucy is a yokai," Allison told him.
"Ah, OK, so that's what they called themselves," Jerome said with a nod. "See the ancient Sumerian texts called them Annunaki. They were here like a hundred thousand years ago, according to the Sumerians, Anyway, the Sumerian stone tables recorded people with horns on their heads that lived here and did amazing things. They taught humans how to do ... just about everything from how to plow fields to how to build buildings and ships, math, and everything. Anyway, some of these Annunaki mated with humans. I think that there are some, like your mother that had latent genes. That's why you have those protrusions," he said triumphantly.
"Ah, not exactly," Allison said. "Mom couldn't have a baby by herself, so Lucy, Mommy's friend, gave her DNA so Mommy could have me."
Jerome grinned at her. "So, is Lucy still here?" he asked excitedly.
"No, Lucy lives with her family. I don't know where. I've only seen her one time, when she came to offer me a school to go to." Allison explained. "Lucy went back to wherever it is she lives."
"Did she like come and go on a flying saucer?" Jerome asked eagerly.
"No, she appeared in the back yard, talked to Mommy, then disappeared. She was there, then she wasn't."
"Really, like teleportation?"
"What's that?"
"Suddenly leaving one spot to appear in another."
"OK, yeah, Lucy did that," Allison agreed.
Clenching his fists, Jerome cried, "All right! This is PROOF the ancients were right. We have been visited by aliens, and they are still here!"
"Um, Lucy is a yokai," Allison told him again.
"Her race doesn't matter, she's from another planet!" Jerome explained happily. "That means you're one of these yokai too!"
"Not all yokai," Allison told him. "I do have Lucy's horns and her Hands, but I got Mommy's bones and Daddy's smart brain."
"Yeah, you're a hybrid, but you ARE part alien."
"Yokai."
"Yeah, Yokai. You are also living proof they exist!"
Allison frowned at him and said, "So? You're living proof your parents exist too. What's the big deal?"
Jerome gapped at her and let out a chuckle. "OK, here's the big deal," he said and tapped the table with a finger. " You see, all the professional scientists think the Annunaki the Sumerians wrote about were nothing but a myth. BUT, there is too much evidence to the contrary. The Sumerians had a better grasp of our solar system than we do now. They knew about all the planets at least six thousand years before us, and they count twelve planets, not nine, ten if you count Pluto. They said their knowledge came from these Annunaki. HOW could the Sumerians have known about any of the outer planets when they supposedly didn't even have telescopes? We didn't know about Pluto until 1934, and it was exactly where the Sumerians said it would be."
"OK, so they were smart," Allison agreed.
"Not just smart! They got information from the ... Yokai, like this Lucy your mother knows," Jerome beamed.
Allison shrugged and said, "So, the scientists are wrong. Scientific opinion has been wrong before. Once,long ago they swore the earth was flat, which it obviously isn't."
"That's my point. To advance science we need to make them see the truth," Jerome stated. "Can I put up a web video of you to prove to people that you exist?"
Allison gapped at him. "What? ...No! Jerome, there are ... things after my family. If you put something up about me, they will come after me again!"
"Again?" he asked.
"Yes! Don't you remember Becky's party? That thing called Sky Net tried to kidnap me. If you put something up where it can see me, it's going to cause trouble. Maybe get someone hurt or killed. You can't do that!"
"I heard about Sky Net, that's the crazy AI that wanted to kill everyone, right?"
"Yes, and it's after me," Allison said, then begged, "Please, Jerome, once Mommy and John Henry find Sky Net and get rid of it, I will help you get the truth out. Right now, it's too dangerous."
"Oh, wow," Jerome said quietly. "I guess it is. I don't want anyone getting hurt."
"I'm happy you can prove your theory about what the ancient people wrote, but you can't tell anyone yet," Allison explained.
Jerome dropped his head and let out a huff. "Well, this really sucks!" he grumbled. "I know, but you're right, we can't tell anyone."
"Hold on," Becky said. "This means Allison doesn't have metal bones and her abilities from evolution taking it's course?"
Jerome eyed her. "Allison has metal bones?" he asked.
"Yeah, just like my mom," Allison told him. Turning to Becky, she said, "Maybe that is how evolution works, by slightly different species getting together and making something new."
"How did your mom get metal bones?" Jerome asked.
"Mom's a cyborg."
"What planet is she from?" Jerome asked.
"I don't know. I'll ask, OK?"
"This does explain something," Becky said. "We all are different from the rest of Earth's primates. Every other primate has 24 chromosomes, but we have 23. We also have much thinner bones than even the nearest primate to us, which what science thinks now, was Neanderthal. Maybe cro-magnon. The thing is, we are different, this ann ... whatever they are may be why."
"Then why don't we have horns and invisible Hands like Ally?" Byron asked.
Becky shrugged. "None of our ancestors were cyborgs," she said.
"That makes sense for the bones, but not the other things," Byron countered.
"Um, what are these invisible hands?" Jerome asked.
Pointing to the end of the table, Byron asked, "Ally, could I have the salt on the end there?"
Allison nodded. Reaching out over everyone, she grabbed the salt with an invisible hand and brought it over to set it in front of Byron's plate.
"Wow," Jerome said, staring at the salt as it drifted past him. "You can levitate things too. That's awesome."
To shorten Jerome's curiosity, Allison said, "Our class did a scientific study on my abilities. I'm sure Gloria can show you the findings if you ask."
"OK, yeah, I'd like that."
Miss Jacobs came in and clapped her hands. Loudly she said, "Everyone! Come with me to the Auditorium immediately! Leave your lunch trays there, everyone come now."
"What's up?" Byron asked as he got up.
"The teachers will tell us," Becky assured him.
Miss Jacobs hustled them all out. In the hallway, Allison noted Gloria was monitoring the flow, keeping them pointed in the right direction. As they went in, teachers were calling their students to separate areas of seats, counting heads. Gloria went in the middle rows, calling her students over to her to make sure they were all there. Once everyone was inside, the doors were shut.
"Do we have a lecture?" Byron asked.
"We're not in trouble, are we?" Dan asked.
"Just sit down, Miss Jacobs will explain," Gloria said, then took her set at the end of her class.
Miss Jacobs took the stage, looking nervous. "Everyone's attention please! Teachers, is there anyone missing?" She waited a moment then said, "We have just learned there is a missile attack in progress on the United States. Several cities along both coasts, including Los Angeles, have been hit with poison gas attacks. At the moment, the military is doing their best to stop these attacks. The auditorium is sealed and has it's own filtered ventilation system. If there is any danger of poison gas around the school this system will be shut off and the damper will close, ensuring no harmful gas gets in here. The chance of us getting gassed is slim, though possible, so we are taking every precaution to ensure your safety. Everyone, remain calm. I am sure that soon, this will be over."