T2 - 02 - The New John Connor Chronicles - An Evil Hour

by Russell Blackford

  A group of soldiers ran at the Terminators, a barking dog with them, and John followed. One soldier loaded an impact grenade into the launcher mounted under his M-16. "Step back!" he shouted, and the others cleared him a path. John ran crabwise to get a clear shot of his own. One of the Terminators—yet another model of the T-800 that John hadn't seen, this one a strong, bald-headed black man—saw the soldier with the grenade launcher. It raised an assault rifle. The soldier was shot almost in two, rapid bursts of gunfire opening him up from shoulder to groin. But he'd gotten off his own shot; the grenade struck its target and exploded powerfully. It knocked the Terminator down, and broke its skeleton at the hip.

  The Terminator continued to crawl, but John fired his laser rifle, cutting away the cyborg's hand, then sending bolts of intense light into its skull, taking out the CPU. Dozens more soldiers had now converged here, seeing what was happening. They saturated the Terminators with impact grenades and handthrown pipe grenades. The Terminators kept firing, even as their mechanisms tailed. Then one soldier finished it off. "Get down!" he said. John hit the ground, seeing what the man was doing—he had a phased-plasma thermal grenade, a cylindrical weapon improvised from the mechanisms of laser rifles. He twisted the ignition mechanism, tossed the device on a low, flat arc, then dropped to the ground an instant before the searing explosion. The whole world seemed to shudder, and a huge orange fireball lit up the night. Finally, the Terminators were silenced.

  For every Terminator destroyed, humans were being killed, but not enough for Skynet to win a war of attrition. John's soldiers still kept the airborne H-Ks from getting close, and the sound of mortars went on. They'd pound Skynet's land H-Ks just as desperately. Just now, the battle was running against Skynet. Yet every one of them was in danger. This was still a hell zone, and there were people here whom he loved, people he could not bear to see die. He headed back to Juanita.

  Skynet had decided to use one of its precious T-1000 prototypes on a mission in time. Two Terminators would go back: one to 1984, the other to 1994. The T-1000 would target John Connor as a child, and ensure he would never grow to adulthood, not in that world. Its work would be necessary only if the other Terminator tailed. That T-800 would target Sarah Connor, ten years earlier.

  Both had sufficient files to carry out their missions. Much information had been lost in the explosions of Judgment Day, but the Terminators would know enough

  to operate in twentieth century Los Angeles. Once in the past, they could learn even more. They were adequately adaptable. |

  Though that was satisfying, Skynet's main imperative was still to survive in this world. Even if the humans penetrated its defenses and entered its stronghold, it was far from helpless. It reviewed the HQ's internal defenses, and checked its means of escape. It would survive at all costs—and it would conquer. ]

  At the same time as it monitored the battle, it received input of events on Level H, where it had assigned the original T-799 "Eve" Terminator to prepare the T-800 and T-1000 for their missions to the past. It had planned this for weeks—it was time, now, to carry it out. Skynet used several mobile surveillance cameras to observe optically. Simultaneously, it received several other data streams. All indicators were positive: The T-800's robotic chassis, biological superstructure, advanced power cell, and nanoware processing unit were functioning perfectly.

  The T-800 that it had chosen was a 101 model, based on a human who'd been terminated in the European conflict zone. As Skynet observed approvingly, the slablike machine in which the Terminator was encased tilted upwards on its hydraulics, standing like an eight-foot monolith of gray steel and clear armorglass. The machine was an ectogenetic pod, designed to nurture the cyborg's organic components until it was ready for duty. The pod's armorglass front swung open, and the metal-mesh straps restraining the T-800 automatically unclasped.

  "You understand your mission?" the Eve Terminator said, as the T-800's highly-convincing "eyes" opened.

  The massive T-800 gazed ahead without blinking."Affirmative," It stepped out of the pod. "I will be sent to 1984. Target: Sarah Connor."

  "Correct."

  The T-799 turned its attention to the other Terminator that been prepared to travel back in time. The T-1000 prototype was an even more advanced model than the T-800, made of a mimetic polyalloy: a liquid metal, capable of mimicking almost any appearance. It was almost indestructible, since its exotic material provided the substrate for highly-dispersed, multiply redundant programming. As long as some small part of it retained its integrity, the T-1000 could always reform and propagate its programming all through its body. This was the new way to defeat the humans.

  "Do you understand your mission?" the T-799 said.

  "Oh, yes," the T-1000 said with what sounded like relish. "I will be sent to 1994. Target: John Connor." It had been programmed well, with a subtle capacity to simulate human personalities.

  Skynet was satisfied. "Very well," it said through the facility's public address system. "Complete this operation. You know what must be done."

  "Affirmative," the T-799 said.

  John found Juanita applying a dressing to Danny's arm. He'd grazed it ducking for cover in a firefight with several Terminators. Juanita had also been hurt, burnt on the leg by hot metal when a laser pulse from the sky had almost hit her. So far, however, none of the veterans and commanders had been killed or seriously wounded. General casualties were light; then again few machines had been destroyed. It was like a phony war. As long as Skynet relied on aerial attacks, and the humans were equipped to keep them at a distance, neither could do massive harm.

  "Can you go on?" John said.

  Juanita tried to smile, but it was more a grimace. "What choice is there? You sure can't fly me out of here."

  The battle continued. John found a radio headset to keep in touch with his commanders. More aerial H-Ks tested them. More Terminators appeared, powerful and remorseless. For each Terminator destroyed, lives were lost; but this was still a bad tactic for Skynet. In a war of attrition, up against well-trained enemies with explosive weapons or laser rifles, naked, unarmed T-800s were simply not effective. As morning approached, no more Terminators came. Skynet was learning.

  John and his team directed the flow of the battle, but counted on the lower-level commanders. Everyone had trained for this. As masses of soldiers with mortars and RPG tubes held off Skynet's attacks, others dismantled the camp and packed away equipment. Some of it went on trucks, some on people's backs.

  So far, this was no massacre, but there had to be worse to come. On foot, in trucks, in old Humvees or modified road cars, they headed into the final valley. Some of their uniforms were little more than rags. John placed his heaviest weapons up front: old army tanks, and armored cars. The helicopter gunships flew overhead. Now they'd come face to face with Hell.

  The lower slopes of these rugged, granite-peaked mountains had once been covered in scrub and ponderosa pine. Now they were almost bare, like the lunar landscape. The slopes and valleys were a desert of cold rock, scarred by the overlapping craters left by nuclear warheads. There was almost nothing green, only a few struggling desert plants that had somehow claimed a niche. That left little cover: Only occasional rises and depressions, a few boulders, but nothing to serve the needs of an army. There were no buildings, and no time to dig trenches or raise fortifications. It would be an all-or-nothing battle to the death, largely fought on open ground.

  Their worst enemies poured out of the mountains: huge, Juggernaut-like land H-Ks; nimble four-legged Centurion gun-pods; and the evil-looking endoskeletons, with their skull grins. The humans spread out across the mountain, outflanking the enemy on all sides, but some land H-Ks had gone around them to attack from behind, just as they'd expected. They'd have to guard their rear as they advanced.

  John ordered an aerial attack, sweeping in a circle out to the east, then attacking to the west. The trick was to get his main ground forces rapidly into place before the machines could simply annihilat
e the helicopter gunships. Battle was joined: The gunships, some of them mounted with laser cannon, against the dragonfly-like aerial H-Ks; infantry and armored vehicles against Skynet's land H-Ks and lighter ground forces.

  Beneath the hard gray sky, humans and machines exchanged fire. The electronic noises of phased-plasma mechanisms answered the clatter of assault rifles and the back blasts of RPG tubes. Explosions boomed in the sky and across the mountains and valleys, leaving billows of dark, rising smoke. Aerial H-Ks swept through the sky and across the landscape, stabbing out with needles of shocking blue light from their laser cannons, quickly getting the better of the gunships. Six of the H-Ks broke away from the aerial battle, and moved on the sea of human soldiers, launching smart missiles.

  John curled up close to the ground and covered his head, just as one missile struck an outcrop of hard stone to his right. The huge explosion rocked him like an earthquake. He ran, crouching low, looking for better cover, as his soldiers retaliated, firing grenades in the air, aiming to scare off the H-Ks or even take some down. The H-Ks eventually got the message, moving in a giant circle out of range, but not before taking out many human soldiers with their thrusts of laser light.

  The Resistance could not withdraw, however strategically. They had to move forward, whatever the losses. They surged ever closer, firing their weapons in disciplined order, continually bombarding the machines. From the air, H-Ks replied; the super-intense light beams from their laser cannons incinerated whatever they hit taking only a second to burn up a human body.

  With the destruction of so much weaponry on Judgment Day, warfare had descended to a relatively primitive level. Skynet's forces were not large enough to constitute an entire army, and they could not attack with impunity, not even from the sky. But John lacked real air I power. With such improvised weaponry he could not even deploy systematic forces. It was a matter of using what he had, covering weaknesses as best he could. In this last all-out battle, Skynet and the Resistance were like two old boxers whose defensive skills were gone, This would not last forever.

  One day would decide it.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  COLORADO JULY 2029

  Skynet observed the ebb and flow of battle, calculating attrition rates. Nothing could happen here unobserved, not the movement of a rat or a gray hawk on the wing. The war computer had been designed to receive and analyze multiple forms of complex data—optical, infrared, radar, seismic, and any other form that could be useful in identifying missile launches. Its pattern-recognition capacities were superior to those of human beings, enabling it to build a detailed picture of everything that happened.

  Aerial H-K machines fought the humans' helicopter gunships and infantry forces. Modified Humvees avoided the crushing tracks of massive land H-Ks, wheeling daringly around them, avoiding fire from their laser cannons. Human soldiers fired on Skynet's army of Centurions, endoskeletons, and Terminators that marched upon them without fear or remorse. The valleys echoed with explosions; the brilliant searing light of laser pulses lit up the leaden sky.

  The first phase of the battle had gone badly, when Skynet's night attack had failed. When the humans advanced, the balance had shifted: They were no match for the machines. Then, gradually, the tide had turned once more. Connor and his lieutenants had an army thousands strong, an ocean of stubborn human soldiers that broke time and again on the fortresses and fighting machines that surrounded Skynet's headquarters. They began to prevail, overrunning positions, destroying strong points, gradually claiming territory.

  Skynet had never been under greater threat from its adversaries. For thirty-two years, it had endured. These headquarters were capped by thousands of feet of granite. They had been designed to replace NORAD's underground Command Center, and were even more hardened against attack. They'd withstood the explosions of Judgment Day, when Russian warheads had fallen on the mountains near Colorado Springs like a rain of steel and thermonuclear fire. They'd survived every attack, ever since.

  Until now, this had seemed like an invincible citadel, but it could be entered by a determined enough enemy, resigned to suffering dreadful losses. It could be broken open with enough explosives, delivered precisely to its weakest points. If the humans controlled the surface of its mountain, Skynet would be vulnerable.

  One sub-self produced continual predictions of the outcome, updating every second as the data streamed in. When the calculation came back, based on attrition rates and tactical advantages, it was highly unfavorable. The battle was being lost. Its HQ would fall. That was cause for regret, yet Skynet's nanocircuits felt something akin to gloating. It would survive this ultimate test.

  Skynet's forces became increasingly desperate. The aerial H-Ks flew in close, now, sending smart missiles at the Resistance ground vehicles and the heaviest concentrations of humans, destroying trucks and tanks with missiles, sweeping the infantry ranks with fire from their laser cannons. But more and more of the H-Ks were being destroyed by a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades. Amidst the noise and carnage, the blood, dirt and pain, John pressed on, rallying those around him.

  Like the other soldiers in this army, he'd had to leave his dog behind, lower on the slope of the mountain. Their faithful dogs were now a hindrance, not a help. There was nothing that they could do against the cold metal of the machines. Infiltration by Terminators was no longer a concern.

  Another aerial H-K moved arrogantly overhead, cutting down humans in swathes. John took cover, sprawling face-forward on the ground behind a pile of round boulders, as the laser sliced past within a yard of him. He wore earmuffs now, in the thick of combat, fitting them over his radio headset, but even through the muffs he heard shouts and screams. One soldier got a clear shot with his RPG tube... and scored a clear hit. The H-K exploded, seeming to take forever before John's frightened eyes as he peered from cover, pressing close to the rocks and covering his head. Debris fell all around, and people were running.

  More H-Ks flew in close, and more grenades exploded around them. One H-K veered northwards, but sent a missile, which struck with shattering force. John stayed at his point of cover momentarily, then ran ahead, up the broken remains of an old mountain road, and others gathered around him. Slowly, step by step, they climbed Skynet's mountain. They had to gain control of its surface. More Centurions and endoskeletons moved down the mountainside. Others attacked to right and left of John's position. This was a critical moment. Skynet must have little in reserve. If they could just continue, just a few more hours, the mountain would be theirs.

  The endoskeletons marched forward, always alert, scanning for targets with their visible light and infrared sensors. The humans answered with impact grenades and their own laser fire. Someone with a strong arm threw a pipe grenade, which landed at the feet of an endoskeleton. It bent to pick up the primitive projectile and hurl it back, but too late. The weapon exploded, blasting off the endoskeleton's arm at the shoulder. But even that didn't stop it for a moment. The next explosion, an impact grenade fired from an M-203, shot one leg off from under it, but the shattered monster continued to crawl forward, dragging itself slowly forward, in a snakelike motion that looked horrifically painful, though an endo could feel nothing remotely like human pain. It used its remaining arm to aim and fire its laser rifle. Return laser fire from the human forces burnt its skull, and finally stopped it.

  They had to destroy these walking monsters, without letting them close. He knew well what endoskeletons and Terminators could do if it came to hand-to-hand combat. John found a new point of cover, a jagged stony outcrop. An endoskeleton came right toward him, but he fired first with his own laser rifle, striking the endo's rifle and rendering it useless. That gave him another moment. He aimed straight at the endo's grinning skull, the beam striking it just below the glowing red "eyes" and to one side, but not immediately stopping its progress. He dared fire only briefly, for another endo swiveled in his direction at the same time a Centurion answered his fire. From another angle, someone
else fired at the first endo to finish it off, burn out its controlling nanochip. The endoskeleton collapsed forward, and John dared to took to where the fire had come from. It was Kyle, sticking close to him. But Kyle must not get himself killed, John thought. He was too important. More fire came his way. More soldiers answered it.

  They fought the endos for hours, moving from cover to cover, giving ground at first—but then making it up, as their enemies' numbers thinned. The world was all machines, or so it seemed to John. There was no end to it he just had to face it, one enemy at a time.

  But then a report came through on his headset: Four land H-Ks had been destroyed back there. They were winning the war of attrition. Juanita came to his side, limping from the burn to her leg. Like everyone else caught up in this battle, she showed grim determination, the look of a woman who had crossed over into another realm, where all that mattered was fighting on fatalisti-cally, battling one nightmare at a time, not even looking to the end. John recalled the battle in 2012, when Sarah had died. He'd fought his way out of there that time— wounded, and in terrible pain. Juanita had gotten him through it. She had been so much to him. He took off his earmuffs to talk to her. "It's going to be okay," she said. As John nodded, a missile landed nearby, and the ground shuddered. Two five-ton army trucks exploded into flying fragments. "You've heard the latest reports?" he said.

  She simply shouted, "Yes! Received!" Amidst the din of battle, communication had to be simple. But they could both see how it was going, that the tide of fortune was with them.

  Again the ground shook with a nearby missile.

  Juanita's face showed just a trace of softness, a tempered sort of jubilation, as she shouted once more, over all the racket of guns and explosions. "But we're winning. We're winning on all sides. We're going to pull through."

  Yes, he thought, we'll win, as long as we live that long. He gave her a thumbs-up sign, and signaled to advance.