Terminator Salvation

Ashdown had no difficult communicating his fury via the encrypted frequency.

“Then as of now you’re relieved of your command, goddamit.” His voice echoed as he addressed men on the sub. “Get back to your stations.”

The encryption timer hit zero and the transmission cut out. Connor slowly put the headset down. As he did so, Barnes took a step forward. The lieutenant’s expression was unreadable.

“Transmission got pretty garbled there at the end, sir. I didn’t make out that last statement.” He nodded toward the communications officer.

“Neither did I.”

Barnes stiffened, almost to attention.

“We’re with you ’til the end—sir.”

Connor nodded tersely. Handing the comm set back to the officer, he turned and walked away, his pace increasing as he left the communications station behind. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders and from his heart. Once again he was back on the outside, where he understood the rules.

Not least because he had made so many of them.

***

At the speed he and Barnes were moving it did not take long to reach the broadcast stack. Though a ramshackle compilation of antennae, signal boosters, cabling, and isolated computer components, he had no doubt that when turned on it would send out the signal sequence that had been programmed into it. Incongruously, the whole high-tech pile was powered by a single clattering, reasonably intact diesel generator.

Entering a storage room nearby, he studied the contents. Grabbing a roll of C-4 det cord, he passed it across to Barnes.

“Here. Wire the broadcast stack for detonation.”

Barnes looked uncertain. “Our own?”

“Yes.”

The lieutenant fiddled with the loose end of the cord.

“If you don’t mind my asking, sir—why?”

The expression that came over Connor’s face was one the lieutenant had seen before.

“The hunter just became the hunted.”

While Barnes and the communications officer wrapped the cord around the just completed broadcast stack, Connor picked up the handset for the short-wave radio. Activating it, he hesitated, trying to gather his words. Then he just started talking.

“This is John Connor. If you’re listening to this, you are the Resistance.

“I once knew a woman who told people to fear the future, that the end was coming. That all would be lost. Nobody wanted to hear her truths. Society locked her away. That woman was Sarah Connor, my mother. Now we know that what she was predicting all came to pass. And so I ask of you to please, please believe in me, her son, as we all should have believed in her.

“Command wants us to fight like machines. They want us to make cold, calculated decisions. But we’re not machines. And if we behave like them, if we make the same kinds of decisions they would make, then what is the point in winning?

“Please. Please listen carefully. I need every one of you now. We have to stand down. Believe me when I tell you that if we attack tonight, our humanity is lost. Our hope for a future—is gone. Sarah Connor told me a moment would come when we would need to make our own fate. That moment has arrived, and that fate will not come to pass without you. Without all of you. You must stand down until sunrise.

“Everything we’ve fought for, everything we’ve achieved, comes down to this one moment.” He paused a moment, then rushed onward.

“Our fate is created not in the past, and not in the future. It is being created right here and right now. If even one bomb is dropped on Skynet before sunrise, our future will be lost. Please stand down. Give me the time I need to finish this. Give me the time to protect the future that we—that all of us—are fighting for.”

He started to say more, only to realize there was nothing more to say, and quietly put down the handset.

The contents of the base armory reflected the eclectic nature of the Resistance, but it was well stocked. Connor went shopping.

As he was making his selection he was joined by a second figure. After a brief glance in Kate’s direction he continued choosing his weapons. She watched him for a while as he worked, then moved closer. Her voice was calm, but tight.

“What do you think you’re doing, John?”

He replied without looking over at her as he checked a brace of heavy ammo.

“Skynet has Kyle.”

“We’ve discussed this. How can you be sure?”

He pulled a heavy pistol, turned it over in his hands, put it back in its rack.

“A machine told me. A wind-up toy. A cuckoo clock with a conscience.” He smiled humorlessly. “It might be wrong but I think it’s Wright.”

He shook his head.