T2 - 03 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Times of Trouble

by Russell Blackford

  "What are we going to do with it?" Gabriela said.

  "We won't take any chances," Anton said, manhandling the frozen-up T-1000 from the crate. He walked it to the nearest wall, and leaned it there where everyone could see it clearly. Fifteen guns were aimed at it. The slightest movement from the thing would be an emergency. John knew well what an efficient killer one of these monsters could become, once it was operational. He'd fought one in his own world, and then fought two, just a few weeks before, In the mountains of Spain. The one that had been tent to kill him in 1994 had been destroyed only when It was hurled into a vat of molten steel...and it had melted down, its substance scattered through the steel at a molecular level. In 2001, he'd fought a T-XA sent from Jade's World, made of the same material. As he'd seen each time, anything made from mi-polyalloy was almost indestructible.

  But Terminator never moved. It seemed to have no mission now that Skynet had been destroyed. It had been like a bodyguard to Skynet, ordered to protect the war computer's hardware. "It may have some backup instructions," Anton said. "The less we deal with it the better, until we can examine how it is programmed."

  They'd discussed this many times in the past six weeks, what kind of security they needed in handling the T-1000s. Nothing was perfect, but they'd worked out a system. "All right," General Connor said to the welders. "Just cut off one hand, somewhere between elbow and wrist. Then we'll put it back in that goddamn coffin, and we'll put that back where we've been keeping it."

  "Still under guard," Isaac said. It was reassurance, not a question.

  "Yeah, still under guard. And we'll guard the hand as well. We don't let this thing out of our sight for a moment. This may be the most dangerous machine in the world at the moment—it and its twin back in Spain."

  "Put it here," one the welders said, pointing to a spot near their equipment. Anton passed his rifle to Jade, who took aim with both of the huge weapons. Anton walked the T-1000 to the spot requested.

  As the welders did their job, the deadly Terminator remained inert.

  "I get a sick feeling just being near that thing," Sarah said, though nothing about her face or the way she stood showed any lack of courage—just hatred and determination. She was ready to fire at an instant's notice.

  "Me, too, Sarah," Jade said. "Everybody does."

  The hand came off cleanly, and fell to the floor. Gabriela stooped to pick it up. John half expected it to liquefy and try to run back into the Terminator's body. But it made no attempt. Gabriela held up the hand/arm, testing its weight and solidity, not saying a word. In this world, her husband had been killed by a T-1000 Terminator. He wondered what thoughts might be going through her mind.

  "All right," General Connor said. "We've got what we wanted. Get that thing back in the crate, Anton, for God's sake. Get the damned thing out of my sight."

  SEPTEMBER 6-7, 2029 NEW YORK/VIRGINIA

  That night, John washed his face, then his upper body, over a metal bowl of water in a room that opened off the barracks. From here, a dimly lit tunnel led to a cesspit dug deeper into the earth, one hundred yards away. A three-inch-long black roach crawled on the wall near the broken mirror that stood over the water bowl. It was no big deal.

  He wiped himself down with a torn, threadbare towel, then headed for bed. He still ached from the flight across the Atlantic, and poor sleep for as long as he could remember. In the morning, he'd have to face the aerial H-Ks, side-by-side with Sarah, the Specialists, and newer comrades. Yet again, he'd be putting his life at risk. The least he could do to prepare was get some decent sleep, try to be clear-headed when he faced the enemy. He tossed on the mattress, trying to get comfortable. The frame creaked when he moved, which was annoying since he feared keeping the others awake in their bunks nearby.

  It seemed to him that he never slept, but then a strong hand was shaking him awake, and someone was holding a lamp. John squinted, and saw it was Anton. "Jade and I are waking everyone." John guessed that the Specialists probably had some means of ensuring that they slept for just the right amount of time.

  In a moment, Sarah joined them, then Jade and the others. Time to get to work.

  At the airport, General Connor farewelled them. John shook his hand before entering the Black Hawk. "Good luck," the General said. "Return safely."

  There was nothing to say. John returned the man's strong grip, then climbed aboard the chopper. On this flight, they would have none of the sophisticated technological aids that he had used when flying in his own world—no ground radar, satellite weather alerts, GPS. They would track by compass bearings to the last known location of the team that had been destroyed by Skynet's H-Ks. If they encountered bad weather, so be it: they would just have to turn back, and try another time. He had heard tales of storms with 300-mph winds—the entire global weather pattern had become unstable and terrifying. On the flight across the Atlantic, they'd encountered nothing quite that bad, but you never knew. Nothing above-ground could survive winds like that, but they would just have to make a judgment if anything of the kind happened.

  Inside, the Black Hawk was no more comfortable than the Hercules had been. Its rear compartment was almost bare, but it bristled with weapons. Mounted at the forward windows, positioned on opposite sides, were phased-plasma laser cannons, salvaged from one of Skynet's larger machines—perhaps from a land or aerial H-K—then modified for human operation. Its wing pods contained Hellfire missiles, which could be used effectively against low-flying aircraft such as air H-Ks, though they had only five of them, not the full sixteen that could be mounted under the wings, four in each pod. Dwindling supplies of ordnance had been a problem as the war had drawn to its conclusion.

  Sarah piloted the Black Hawk, with a Spanish copilot called Ramirez. John and Jade took seats behind the cabin to act as gunners, controlling the laser cannons and the missiles. Accompanying them on the ground were two Humvees and one of the modified flatbeds, all of them well armed with guns that could take on H-Ks. Anton rode in the back of one of the Humvees, manning a laser cannon, similar to the ones in the Black Hawk. The other ground vehicles were mounted with high-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Extra fighters went with Anton and the other gunners in those vehicles, to take over if needed, or otherwise to fight with grenade launchers or RPGs.

  It was a formidable force, but little more so than the expedition that the H-Ks had annihilated a week before. Still, they had the Specialists this time, as well as other advantages. After all he'd been through with Sarah, and after what he'd seen Jade and Anton do, John felt okay about it. They'd survived so much; he couldn't believe that this would be the end. One thing was for sure: Once they made contact with the H-Ks, the outcome was likely to be quick. They were capable of taking out the war machines with their missiles, or perhaps with direct hits from the laser cannons, but the H-Ks could do the same to them, just as efficiently. Still, they had to win and return. So much depended on it.

  He was not so much afraid as conscious of his own Importance in the scheme of things. Suddenly his mocking, singsong jibe of "I'm too important" didn't seem all that funny. He had to help Jade and Anton, and he had to return to his own world, to carry on the fight there. When he and Sarah had left their own world, they'd entrusted that fight to the government people who knew about Cyberdyne and Skynet—to Jack Reed and Samantha Jones, in the Pentagon. But he couldn't trust other people to do that job, and Cyberdyne would never let up.

  As they worked their way south and inland, high winds blew across the semi-desert, whipping up dust, and the air grew colder. Hours passed as the Black Hawk flew slowly, keeping pace with the vehicles on the ground, which negotiated broken roads, stretches of demolished cityscape, longer stretches of hills and valleys, all of them choked with dust under a dull, sunless sky. Then Sarah called out from the cockpit. "Trouble ahead!"

  Jade had seen it, too, from her window on the left. She moved like a blur, swiveling her laser cannon. Nothing had appeared out of the right window. Sarah veered to the right, g
iving Jade a clean shot at her targets. Jade was firing, oblivious to anything else, as the chopper gained altitude. Sarah must have been trying to get an advantage.

  John went into action, too. He needed to lock onto his targets with the Hellfires, hit them quickly, before they could take out the chopper and the ground vehicles. But then there was an explosion. The force of it kicked the Black Hawk across the sky like a football.

  Before Anton saw the aerial H-Ks, Jade told him they were coming, transmitting to him by her throat mike. Only seconds later, they became visible from the ground as they swept across the dusty plain like black angels of death. Suddenly, they climbed into the sky; they must have seen the chopper, and wanted the advantage of a higher altitude. The H-Ks were essentially designed for hunting down human beings on the ground below, not for fighting other airborne adversaries, and their laser cannons were mounted in a way that favored shooting down on their enemies.

  The Black Hawk swung to its right and opened fire with one of its laser cannons. Anton held fire for the moment, as the H-Ks were out of range. Beside him in the Humvee, one of Isaac's fighters from New York, a wiry man called McLoy, prepared to fire a rocket-propelled grenade. Then one of the H-Ks fired a smart missile, aimed at the Black Hawk. The second fired two missiles at the vehicles on the ground. Sarah, flying the chopper, evaded—turning steeply to the right, and trying to climb higher. Anton and the other two gunners on the ground opened fire to defend against the missile, but shooting them out of the air like this was beyond merely human skill. Only Anton had a chance.

  Bolts of white-hot laser light shot out at the missiles, as the chopper continued to climb. The missile aimed at the Black Hawk exploded, well short of its target. Jade must have done the job. Anton subvocalized to her: Well done!

  Thank you, Anton.

  Neither of them lost concentration as they tried to defend against the H-Ks' missile attack. Anton tried drenching the remaining other missiles in laser fire, even as the drivers took evasive action, slamming down the throttles, zigzagging desperately across the open country. The other gunners blazed away with their high-powered projectile guns, but that was useless. Anton felt in a zone, like riding a wave, as he'd done as a young man—before Judgment Day in his world, when the sea had become a storm-wracked monster with titanic, unpredictable surf. He rode the back of the Humvee, standing to fire his laser cannon, seeming to anticipate the driver's actions before he took them.

  Deep into the zone, he compensated for everything—the movement of the vehicle below him, the movements of the missiles themselves as they homed in—and nothing was going to stop him shooting at least one missile clean out of the air. Nothing.

  One missile exploded, still fifty feet away, the Shockwave sending Anton's Humvee spinning and throwing Anton off his feet, but a second explosion totally destroyed the other Humvee in a ball of fire.

  Only seconds had passed. The Black Hawk had been knocked off its course, but it righted itself as Anton watched, momentarily sprawled on his back. The other Humvee was now a burnt-out ruin, with no sign of any survivors. A small fire stayed alight in its front compartment, and smoke billowed from it into the sky. As Anton righted himself and manned his laser cannon, the Black Hawk struck back, getting four Hellfire missiles away, but one of the H-Ks stabbed back with laser bolts, hitting the chopper's armored skin and puncturing it. One missile exploded only a second after it left its pod, shaking the Black Hawk, which must have suffered further damage.

  Anton fired up at the H-Ks, but they were too high in the air; laser fire was not effective at this range. Though he scored direct hits, they did no damage to the H-Ks' metal skins. McLoy fired his RPG tube, bending onto one knee and keeping the backblast away from Anton. The grenade fell short, doing no damage. Two men in the back of the flatbed truck fired with its mounted 20mm. gun, and with 40mm. impact grenades, all tono effect.

  A second missile from the Black Hawk exploded in mid-air, far from its target. Despite the speed at which the Hellfires traveled, their trajectory was too predictable, relatively easy for a machine intelligence such as an H-K to calculate. But two of the missiles struck cleanly, taking out one of the H-Ks in a ball of fire, blasting wreckage through the sky, making paths of flame like giant orange tendrils. As it dropped quickly toward the ground, the chopper fired off its last missile. The H-K responded with a wall of laser fire, destroying the missile harmlessly fifty feet short of impact. Damn! The Black Hawk landed two hundred yards away as the remaining H-K turned in a huge circle in the air, preparing to attack like a swooping bird of prey. Anton's Humvee and the modified truck sped across the dusty ground toward the downed chopper, ready to defend it.

  Again, Anton subvocalized into his throat mike. What's happened?

  We'll have to assess the damage, Jade said. Maybe it is not too serious, but we could not risk flying any further.

  Even as he spoke with Jade, he took aim at the H-K. It had not fired any more missiles. Perhaps it, too, had run out, in which case it would rely on its laser cannons to burn them all down like grass. Are you hurt? he said. Is anyone hurt?

  No Anton, nothing serious here. Sarah is an excel-lent pilot. Some cuts and bruises, minor wounds. The grounded Black Hawk's rotors slowed down, though

  they still sucked up masses of dust.

  Okay, he said into the mike. As the H-K opened fire, Anton anticipated it. He had a good sense of the range of this world's weapons. He stabbed up at the H-K with bolts of hot light. He had the best chance of any of them to take out the machine. The Black Hawk was not well-designed for fighting from the ground. Anton's weaponry, skills, and reflexes far exceeded those of any others here, save only for Jade.

  Anton, take out the H-K now! Jade said to him.

  Done, he said, firing once more. He hit one of the H-K's gun turrets, then scored an even more vital hit that knocked out a turbo-fan. But the remaining laser cannons swiveled on him, picking him out as their most dangerous enemy. A bolt of light pierced the center of the Humvee, and the driver lost control. Another struck Anton's thigh, as he fired once more, causing an explosion in the machine's aft. The H-K swung 180° around its central axis, then its middle section buckled; it began to fall from the sky, but its laser cannons were still firing. One raked the wounded Black Hawk. Another pierced Anton through the chest.

  That was the last he knew.

  "Anton! No!" Jade rushed from the chopper as the H-K screamed from the sky, still firing its guns, then crashed into the ground and was silenced. Anton had shut it down, but at what cost?

  John ran after her, slipping in the dust and falling behind.

  The Humvee had skidded, then stalled fifty yards away—Jade covered that distance in a few seconds. John regained his footing and caught up with her, leaping into the back of the Humvee where she knelt cradling the big Russian's body in her strong arms. Anton must have weighed 250 pounds, but she lifted him to her chest like a rag doll. Desperate tears filled her eyes and streamed down her flawless face.

  "No, Anton. Please! Then she looked up at John, giving the tiniest rueful smile, shaking her head. "I am fooling myself. He is dead, John."

  John's heart sank. Anton was not breathing, and nor was the man who'd fought beside him here—McLoy. They'd lost so many in this fight, and the loss of Anton was crushing.

  Even when people had died in the other Humvee, it had seemed worth it for a moment, when he knew they'd all fought so well and destroyed both H-Ks. Sarah had piloted the chopper brilliantly; John had done a good job with the missile launches. And for a few seconds, he'd dared to hope that Anton would survive yet again. He'd seen the man endure terrible wounds and burns, then recover within hours. He'd seemed unstoppable. Anton had been engineered, genetically and cybernetically, to recover from anything that didn't kill him immediately, but now he had met his match.

  John remembered the first Specialist he had actually seen die—Robert Baxter, in Mexico City, hit squarely by the beam of a phased-plasma laser rifle. The other Specialis
ts had saved his body. John remembered their comments. Jade had said, There are some things even we can't survive." Now Anton had died the same way, cut down by another of these terrible laser weapons.

  The Humvee's driver got out, miraculously still alive. Laser bursts had killed the two men in the back and destroyed the Humvee's engine, but he'd been spared, even regaining some control and bringing the vehicle to an emergency stop.

  Jade shook her head, distraught. "He's dead. I'm the only one left." It was almost like a protest, as if she thought John could do something about it. Beyond that, it was a protest at the unfairness of life, at a universe that didn't care, that killed good men like vermin. She got to her feet with a slowness that seemed unnatural in her, this woman who could run like shot from a catapult, or strike blows faster than the eye could see. She raised her hands hopelessly. "I don't think I ever accepted it—that Anton could die. Just like anyone else."

  Sarah and Ramirez joined them. The flatbed truck pulled up beside them. The driver and the three men in the back all seemed unhurt. They'd done little damage to the H-Ks, but at least they'd fought well, dodging its fire and taking the fight to it with their relatively weak weapons.

  Sarah looked at Anton, then at Jade as she shook her head once more. "I am sorry, Sarah," Jade said. "I'm so sorry."

  "No," Sarah said. "I'm sorry. All of this. I..." She shook her head despairingly. "Anton died well. No one else could have done that. He did the job." She glanced at McLoy, then at the burning Humvee. "Someone check out that Hummer. Someone just might have survived." They all knew better, of course. The driver of the flatbed nodded and returned to his truck, driving it over to the burnt-out shell of the Humvee.

  Jade's eyes were still full of tears. "So many dead," she said. "It is always like this. Skynet just keeps killing. It always happens, in every world, every universe. I don't know what we can do."