The Future War

daylight, and this was well after sunset. The water was cold, but her wet suit made it tolerable; she didn't think she'd need to worry about anyone on board finding her here. They were being carefully watched from the harbor and from the oil tanker, and at the first sign that the sub might be deploying sailors, there'd be trouble.

Her expensive face gear would allow her to speak to them as though she were on dry land. Eventually they'd figure out that she was right beside the sub, but probably not until she'd swum away.

'This is Captain Thaddeus Chu of the USS Roosevelt. Please identify yourself.'

Her lips quirked, not a request. 'This is Sarah Connor,' she said. 'You may have heard my broadcast.'

'Yes, ma'am.' Damn, it did sound like her. 'What is it you want?'

'To help. Down-coast at Puerto Deseado, there's a cache of supplies waiting. You'll have to pick them up yourselves. I'll be there waiting for you.'

'Thank you, ma'am,' Chu said. 'But we have a small problem here.' Which you may have noticed since it's as big as a city block and sitting on my back.

'It's being taken care of, Captain. Be prepared to move momentarily. Connor out.'

'Ma'am?' Chu said. He looked at the radioman.

'She's gone, sir.'

Chu looked up and met Bob Vaughan's eyes for a long moment. Then he shrugged. 'If worse comes to worst we've had a drill. If we're lucky and the lady is as good as her word, we're back in business. Status?'

'Ready to go, sir, as per your orders.'

That was one good thing about a nuke boat; as long as you kept the reactor hot, you were ready to roll whenever you wanted, and you didn't have to worry about wasting fuel much.

* * *

Sarah swam off, guided by an occasional glimpse at the GPS

compass on her wrist, confident in the knowledge that she'd hired the best pirates that pure gold could buy. She'd left them scaling the side of the huge tanker. They were well armed and quite capable of capturing the small band of soldiers aboard and two of them could pilot the tanker if no crew had been left aboard.

She popped up on the far side of the harbor, well away from the lights the army had set up. Her battered Jeep—driving something too desirable, like a Humvee, was asking for trouble—and clothes were all as she'd left them; something very loud and unfortunate would have happened if anyone had tried to lift them.

The pebble beach was rough under her hands and knees as she leopard-crawled up from the waves, and the air was cold on her naked flesh as she peeled out of the synthetic fabric and quickly donned her clothes, shivering and stamping. The high-tech binoculars came next. There was nothing she could do to make the operation go better at this point.

God, she thought suddenly. All these years … I wonder how Sarah Connor the student and waitress would have felt? Men may be dying out there— because of me— and I'm completely calm about it now.

Then she shrugged. That was how it had to be if Skynet was to be beaten. What had that German philosopher Dieter told her about said? He who fights dragons becomes a dragon?

No muzzle flashes through the binoculars, though. She switched to thermal imaging…

They've got her engines hot.

She could see the heat plumes from the stack at the rear, and more faintly as a blob of different color on the side of the hull at the stern. The tanker wasn't a super-giant, which would have used steam turbines and taken a long time to move. It was a medium-size job used to shuttle refined products along the coast, about fifty thousand tons, powered by big diesels. Those you could fire up right away; if it was even remotely modern, the whole process could be controlled from the bridge at a pinch.

Yep, there she goes.

So slowly that at first it didn't seem she was moving at all. The tanker had backed halfway to its own berth before the soldiers onshore realized what was happening, and the sub had begun its turn away from the dock. It maneuvered cautiously— Ohio-class boats were a good five hundred and sixty feet long —but swiftly, backing and then heading for the entrance to the harbor with a rush that sent a smooth black wave breaking into foam.

Sarah grinned as she gathered her diving gear and tossed it in the back of her Jeep and vaulted into the driver's seat. She had a sub to meet.

* * *

The only good thing you could say about Puerto Deseado was that it was more picturesque than Comodoro's tangle of refinery tanks.

Which isn't saying much, Sarah Connor thought. Well, all right, the turn-of-the-century architecture was interesting.

More important for her purposes, the local government hadn't broken down; there weren't any—well, many —bandits in the area around it, and food was reasonably cheap. Particularly if you liked mutton, because the estancias all about had lost their markets.

Sarah was thoroughly sick of it, enough so that the sight of the piled carcasses was faintly nauseating, though she'd long ago overcome any city-girl squeamishness about butchering livestock or game.

Still and all, the sailors will be glad to get it, she thought.

The carcasses were as the trucks had left them; not entirely sanitary, but needs must, and the weather was cold enough that they wouldn't go bad in a day or two. She'd gotten sacks of flour as well, and canned vegetables from the Chubut Valley.

She sat atop the pile of boxes and watched the sub rise gleaming from the waves through her binoculars. Teams of men emerged and began to inflate rafts and put them overside; then some dropped into the sea beside them. They and the men still aboard the sub maneuvered engines onto the craft, climbed aboard the zodiacs, and headed for the shore. She could see the night-vision apparatus on their faces and wondered if they'd spotted her yet.

The men were well trained and efficient; deploying the inflatables with the engines had taken only a little more than five minutes and some of that had been because the rafts needed time to inflate.

Oh, this is a happy day for the resistance, she thought. A hundred trained SEALs, the rest of the crew, the sub herself…

They were armed, and going by the position of their heads, they most definitely had seen her. Sarah smiled grimly.

Technology was a wonderful thing—when it was on your side.

She slid down from the top of the pile and stood waiting for the zodiacs to beach themselves. /

One of the men trotted up to her—young, hard, fit, in cammo fatigues and body armor, face hard to see behind the goggles.

'Are you Sarah Connor?' he asked.

She nodded, then said, 'Yes. I'd like to speak to your captain if he wouldn't mind.'

'Sarah Connor would like to speak to the captain,' he said.

She blinked, then realized he was wearing a throat mike, almost invisible in the dark.

'The captain would like me to bring you now, ma'am,' the sailor said.

'Let's fill the raft with supplies,' she said. 'No need to waste fuel.'

The sailor relayed that, then nodded and grabbed a sack of rice. Sarah followed suit, and in short order they had the zodiac filled to capacity and were on their way, cold salt spray flicking into their faces.

Looking up at the conning tower, she saw two shadowy figures outlined against the night sky, above the diving planes.

'Permission to come aboard,' she called softly.

'Permission granted, Ms. Connor,' Chu said. 'Welcome aboard.'

* * *

It wasn't until he'd sat at his desk that he realized exactly how small she was. Somehow he'd been expecting an amazon, six feet tall or more and pumped with muscle. Although for a middle-aged lady she was, in fact, quite muscular and moved with the ease of one who kept very fit. He gestured her to a chair and she gave him a polite