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

by Russell Blackford

  More explosions, deafening her. More heat beams.

  This was pandemonium.

  She looked up...to catch a glimpse of the H-K plunging from the sky, between the trees. It crashed somewhere out of sight with a mighty crunching noise, but no explosion. The T-799 rolled away from her, and she saw death and destruction all round. She crawled to John's side—he lay unconscious, covered in blood.

  SIXTEEN

  JUNE 12, 2036 AMAZON BASIN

  Krystal Taylor rushed through the jungle toward the transporter's landing zone. She had grasped only the outline of Jade's story—that four out of the five Specialists who had been sent back in time had been killed in battles with Skynet's machines, and that the Skynet of this reality was a potential threat to every reality. That was all she needed to know. Despite the shock of Jade's arrival—particularly the presence of the Terminators—Krystal trusted her completely. There was no other option but to defeat Skynet, once and for all, in their own reality, impossible though that seemed.

  With her went a force of six humans—all from her enclave and fully equipped to fight—plus ten of the Terminators who'd appeared here with Jade. One of them was a liquid-metal Terminator that Jade had called a "T-1000." Krystal had no doubt that it would be a formidable weapon. As for the T-XA sent by Skynet, and the aerial H-K, she'd have to leave them to Jade, Dmitri, and the others. Her task was to try to stop that transporter from offloading whatever machines it carried—probably a force of endos. If that was not possible, they'd have to destroy those machines, though they'd be outnumbered.

  She moved quickly and silently through the forest. The transporter's most obvious landing zone was a low, treeless knoll, just half a mile away. From behind her came the sound of explosions, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  Up ahead, visible in glimpses through the trees, the transporter reached its landing zone. In open terrain, they could have bombarded it from this distance, but too much vegetation blocked them. Krystal accelerated, trying to reach a point where she could fire at will. She pulled ahead of the others, using both arms to wipe branches out of her way. Though the other human fighters fell behind, the Terminators stayed close on her heels, and the T-1000 came up level with her.

  They burst into a clearing. There was a slight dip ahead, just before the knoll. The transporter had already landed. A door in its side slid open, and endos began to step out, two at a time. Krystal fired her laser rifle, straight-arming it as she ran. She hit an endo as it stepped down from the side of the transporter. The shot took it cleanly in its metal skull, burning a hole above its eyes where the CPU was located, but not penetrating deeply enough. Other endos returned her fire, she dodged for cover behind a thick tree trunk.

  A transporter such as this was difficult to destroy. it was heavy, and thickly armored, designed for just this sort of warfare—making landings in battlefield conditions, and offloading endos while under heavy fire. It lacked the maneuverability and the attack capability of an aerial H-K, but was even harder to finish off with light weapons. More endos were stepping to the ground from it, ready to fight. The best thing was to try to take them out from behind cover, while they were open targets, and before they could orient themselves.

  Krystal aimed around the tree trunk, firing at the same endo that she'd already hit, and striking the same point. This time, the bolt of light went deep enough, frying the endo's CPU, and it collapsed like a pile of bones. Devastating return fire came from the other endos and the transporter itself. It had one turret-mounted laser cannon, which now swept the margin of the jungle all round her, incinerating everything it hit, snapping off branches, creating spot fires. But Krystal hit the ground the moment she saw the gun turret move. Its laser bolts did not pierce the tree she was using as cover—but next time they might. Searing bolts of light passed by her on both sides.

  The Terminators took positions close to Krystal's, and the human fighters soon caught up. The T-1000 ran ahead, bounding with an almost feline gait up the side of the knoll, straight for the endos and the transporter. John Connor had implied some sort of plan, but it wasn't clear what he intended. The T-1000 carried no guns or other weapons, but it seemed willing to take on the endos and the transporter by itself. She hoped that it and the Connor boy knew what they were doing. She and the others were virtually pinned to their positions. They could retreat, but attempting to fire would be suicidal now that the endos were consolidating.

  One way or another, they were going to need the Terminators. Even then, one of those transporters could carry two dozen endos. So far, they had destroyed only one.

  Effortlessly, the T-1000 ran up the knoll, momentarily protected by the slope from the endos' laser fire. Even the shapeshifting Terminator could not survive indefinitely against massed fire from military laser weapons such as these. As it ran, it plunged one hand into its body and found the weapon that it had brought on its journey across the dimensions: a phased-plasma-based thermal grenade. It reached the top of the knoll, and several bolts of laser light hit it, stopping it in its tracks. Each hit vaporized a small quantity of its polyalloy substance and caused local disruption to its multiply-distributed programming. The stress staggered its system momentarily, and many hits could ultimately destroy it.

  Stunned but still operational, the T-1000 twisted the mechanism to activate the canister-shaped thermal grenade, then hurled it with maximum force among the mass of endos, aiming for a specific target at the center of them. The grenade struck its target in the pelvic area, exploding with enormous heat and force ball of orange fire lit up the T-1000's entire visual field. The endo that had been hit was burnt and blasted into several pieces, its legs and torso flying away. Others around it were sent flying by the shockwave. Some were partly melted, a few were merely shaken.

  For several seconds, no more laser bolts struck the T-1000. Behind it, the humans returned fire at the endos, though the transporter's laser cannon continued to sweep the jungle. The T-1000 ran directly to the transporter. It wrenched the laser rifle from the metal hands of one damaged endo, and fired it into another's skull at point-blank range, burning out its CPU. Other endos fired upon the T-1000, several laser bolts striking it at once. For some seconds it was paralyzed by the intensely hot beams burning its silver-

  chrome surface. Then the humans struck back with high explosive weapons. They had gained a chance to regroup. The explosions around the T-1000 did it no harm, but they scattered the closest endos, badly damaging one.

  For the moment, the T-1000 could move again, and it broke free, through the remaining endos, finding its real target. The last endos had left the transporter, and its side door began to close, ready for take-off. In an instant, the liquid-metal Terminator dropped its laser rifle, and its hands morphed into steel-hard pry-bars. With all its immense strength, it caught the sliding door and forced it open. Then it leapt into the cargo bay. It was in control.

  The T-1000's actions gave Krystal and her team the break they needed. She subvocalized to the fighters with anti-armor weapons, ordering them to fire at the endos, especially those closest to the T-1000. Explosions threw up clouds of dust on the knoll, and some endos were scattered like ten-pins, though she knew it would take more than that actually to destroy them.

  She thought of sending the Terminators forward to attack hand-to-hand, but that would be a waste of her resources. She would hold the Terminators in reserve until the last possible minute. If only the sweeping laser cannon fire from the transporter would stop...

  They could try to shoot out its turret, but now she could see what Connor had planned. She only prayed it would work.

  VILA NOVA DO SUL

  A radio message came through from Vicario.

  "Tagatoshi here," Hiro said.

  "I can brief you some more," Vicario said. "We've made contact with Jade and a group of humans and Terminators. They're under attack."

  "Humans and Terminators?" Hiro said incredulously. "What do you mean?"

  "That is a
very long story, and I don't understand it all yet. I can tell you that Jade is okay, that she claims to have come here, not from our past, but from another world altogether...another timestream. Have you got that? And the Terminators are on her side. They've been reprogrammed to fight against Skynet."

  This was a lot to take in...almost more than Hiro could absorb.

  "One more thing," Vicario said. "The people with her include Sarah and John Connor."

  It seemed to Hiro that he had no choice but to accept it all. "Very well," he said. "What about the others, the ones who went with Jade? The other four Specialists."

  "Only she survived, Hiro. Listen, they're under attack from war machines, including a T-XA. I'll send what reinforcements I can, but we're very vulnerable here. This could be the end of us."

  "Yes, all right...I think I understand. What do you want me to do?"

  "There's not much you can do, Hiro. I'm just letting

  you know what it's like. How is the battle there?"

  "We're surviving...maybe not much longer." " I'll call again soon." Vicario signed off, leaving Hiro with his thoughts.

  Another timestream? He wondered what that meant. Had Jade succeeded in her mission, and returned from the new world she'd created? And why would she want to come back? Even if she'd brought help, it would take an army to turn the tide against Skynet; Jade knew that as well as anyone.

  Be that as it may, all they could do was fight to the end. Hiro himself might be one of the last to die. For the moment, he was needed here, using his knowledge, rather than physical skills. Above him, in the streets and the air, the battle was going as well as possible, meaning that his people were losing slowly and inflicting losses on Skynet. The outcome was not in doubt, but they would all die honorably.

  If Jade could not affect the outcome, why had she returned?

  He fingered her pendant thoughtfully. "Jade," he said to himself. "What does all this mean? What are you trying to do?"

  AMAZON BASIN

  John came to, with Sarah crouched over him. Blood and gore had sprayed him, but it didn't seem to be his own. Looking at the condition of the Terminators, it must have come from them. He couldn't begin to find the specific bruises and tears to his body—everything hurt. He'd hit his head, something had crashed into him, and his skin felt scraped back to the meat all along one side. He watched as three of the Terminators fought the T-XA, forcing it away from him, Sarah, and the other humans. It was a difficult battle. The giant liquid-metal Terminator was far more powerful than the T-800s, and as slippery as an eel, continually sliding and morphing to gain an advantage.

  All around there was a scene of carnage. "What happened?" he said weakly.

  "One of the missiles hit close by," Sarah said. "They shot down the other two...and destroyed the H-K. Curtis and Barbara are dead."

  "I saw Curtis—a laser got him. That's about all I remember."

  "The missile killed three of Jade's people. The Terminators took most of the harm—they threw themselves between us and the explosion. Poor Barbara was the unlucky one."

  All of the T-800s and T-799s had been mauled by the force of the exploding missile, with strips of skin and muscle torn away from their metal skeletons. One T-799 must have taken the full brunt of the explosion. It had been blown into fragments, its head severed from its body, its covering flesh sprayed all round, limbs torn away.

  Terminated.

  As the T-XA fought the T-800s, three figures leveled high-powered weapons at the giant Terminator, waiting their best chance to fire. Jade and the other Specialist—Dmitri—had laser rifles. One of the T-799s held a tube-like anti-armor weapon, which it must have taken from one of the dead. Its rear end extended over the Terminator's shoulder as it sighted along the barrel. Of the humans who'd survived, only Jade and Dmitri were still on their feet.

  John recalled that one T-1000 had gone with Krystal; he'd sent it in the hope that it could make the difference. In the other world, working with General Connor and his people, they'd had time to discuss scenarios and battle tactics. Whether any of that would help in practice was a different proposition. In its featureless silver-chrome form, the other T-1000 stood slightly to one side, observing closely as the T-XA fought the T-800s. Though there was no expression on its "face," John would have sworn that it, too, was calculating, waiting for the moment to act.

  The T-XA's arm became a four-foot steel-hard spike, which it rammed into the body of one of the T-800s, finding a weakness in its armored chassis. There was a flaring discharge of energy, and the T-800 slid to the ground. The T-XA shook off one of the other T-800s and seized the head of the third in both enormous hands, attempting to screw it from its shoulders. The smaller Terminator fought back with blows that would have killed a human being. The T-XA hurled the T-800 off its feet.

  Just then, the T-799 with the anti-armor weapon fired. The high-explosive, rocket-propelled round slammed into the T-XA's chest, penetrating, then exploding within the liquid-metal Terminator's body. The T-XA was ripped almost in two by the force of it, its upper body and head splashing out free-form, like an inkblot. It staggered back a step. One of the T-800s acted—it jumped at its enemy, then tore a three-foot-long strip of liquid-metal from where the T-XA's shoulder had been, hurling it close to Jade's feet. Jade immediately turned her laser rifle on it, firing a steady stream of powerful bolts, trying to bum it down, to destroy its programming before it could liquefy and find its way back to the body of the T-XA.

  As the rest of the T-XA began to reform, the T-1000 reached into its own liquid-metal body. It withdrew the thermal grenade it had brought on the journey across the dimensions. Elegantly as a cheetah, it rushed forward, activated the grenade, and rammed it into the metal of the T-XA. As the T-1000 stepped back, the larger Terminator seemed to explode—most of its body stayed together, but some pieces flew from it. Jade and Dmitri shot those out of the air with their laser rifles and continued to fire on them. They were still trying to burn whatever they could of the T-XA into inert, unprogrammable matter.

  Cecilia crawled on her stomach to John and Sarah, speaking softly to them. She dragged two laser rifles, which she'd taken from the bodies. She was obviously in pain...a jagged piece of metal had entered her leg, high up near the hip, and she was bleeding heavily. "We'll never destroy it this way," she said. "Not with the firepower we have."

  Sarah shook her head. "We will destroy it. However long it takes." She took one of the laser rifles, since Cecilia seemed too hurt to use them. Jade and Dmitri advanced on the T-XA, firing into its body with their laser rifles, walking it away from the rest, step by step, with each bolt of burning light. "What else can we do?" Sarah said.

  But nothing they did destroyed the T-XA. They were weakening it, breaking down some of it, but it was taking too long. John's mind was racing, trying to find a plan. There had to be another way.

  The interior of the transporter was almost dark, and utterly simple: just four walls of metal with a sliding or on each side. Near the ceiling, a strip of some plastic substance glowed faintly, giving all the light a Terminator could need. The rear wall was mounted with steel brackets for thirty laser rifles—mostly empty, but a dozen rifles were held there. Those might be useful later on. There was nothing like a separate cockpit, no heating, or air pressure control.

  Nonetheless, the transporter had some internal systems, controlled by its artificial intelligence. Within its walls there must be circuitry controlling its engines, doors, communications, and the laser cannon that it had used to such effect. Where there was circuitry, the liquid-metal Terminator could act. It had been enhanced for exactly this kind of task. The T-1000 morphed its left hand into a sharply-pointed spear, two inches thick. With great force, it drove the spear-arm through the metal paneling.

  It poured itself into the wall, disappearing like a rat into its hole. Its substance spread through the interior of the transporter's walls, finding paths and crannies, analyzing circuitry, locating the craft's nanochip brain. Whate
ver the low-level artificial intelligence controlling such an aircraft could do, the sophisticated Terminator could do at least as well. Within one second, it shut off connections between the CPU and its communications systems: it would not allow the craft to make contact in any way with Skynet or its other machines. The war computer must not understand what it was up against.

  In another second, the T-1000 shut off the CPU's control of the transporter's laser cannon. As it examined its options, the Terminator quickly saw how to control the cannon itself. First, it needed to isolate the transporter's sensors from its CPU, then patch them into its own nanotechnological circuitry; that took another two seconds. By now, the T-1000 was an extended, shapeless skein of polyalloy, penetrating all through the interior structure of the transporter, shadowing every yard of its controlling circuitry. Nothing could attack it now, without attacking the transporter itself. It had insinuated its way into there like fine roots snaking into brickwork, or a virus in a human cell.

  With the sensors and the laser cannon under its control, it opened fire on the endoskeletons. It never considered its mechanical affinity to them, their common ancestry in Miles Dyson's work. It was programmed to assist the humans, and was equipped to carry out the task. Next, it needed to seize control of the transporter's engines, and to isolate the CPU entirely. Rapidly, it examined the craft's internal cir-cuit logic. The T-1000 had two advantages over the enemy CPU: not only was it more intelligent, but its circuitry was like a living thing, able to change, move, and adapt as quickly as it needed. Soon, it had total control. The transporter began to climb, firing down on the endos. Caught in the open, in the crossfire from the transporter's laser cannon and the human's weapons, they were easy targets.