“You get in the way of this assault and I’ll kill you myself. You do any thing to jeopardize the plan, I’ll wipe out your entire base. Too much has gone into this, Connor. We can’t take any chances with this attack.”
“That’s just what I’m asking you to do, General. Not take chances.”
“Negative again, Connor. We strike now.”
The communications officer looked up at his leader. So did Barnes, who had stopped by to listen.
They were running out of time.
Always running out of time, Connor thought resignedly. Only this time around, it might be for real. It might really be the last time, in every sense of the term.
“I’m going to Skynet,” he said flatly into the pickup. “With your permission or without it—sir. Those people being held prisoner deserve at least that much. Maybe they don’t want to be remembered as heroes. Maybe they’d rather be remembered as survivors.”
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.
“This is how my mother must’ve felt in that nuthouse. She tried warning everyone. She knew the future and no one listened. I hope to God somebody out there is listening to me. Kate, you promise me that you’ll listen and that you’ll evacuate. That you’ll leave here and you’ll get to someplace safe.”
She had already put it all together.
“You’re going to try to save Kyle, aren’t you?”
He didn’t reply.
“John, this doesn’t make sense. It’s you Skynet wants. You just admitted that the only reason you’re sure it has Kyle is because a machine told you. They’re using him to bait you. This is a trap.”
Halting his work, he favored her with a sad smile.
“Maybe it is a trap. But we’ll use their traps against them.”
Reaching to a high shelf he pulled down a 25mm semi-automatic grenade launcher, then a box of thermobaric shells.
“If Kyle dies, Skynet wins.”
Her hands balled into fists at her sides. She moved closer, pleading now.
“John, you can’t go in there alone. Reese gave up his life for you. Throwing away your own like this, in a futile attempt to save him, would be the last thing he would want you to do.”
Connor’s expression was grim.
“That’s exactly why I’m going. Because he went. Because he saved my mother’s life and he gave me mine. Because I owe him that much. To at least make the attempt.”
“This is suicide, John. I will not stand by and watch you kill yourself.”
Looking away from her, he loaded a shotgun with sabot shells, then began packing grenades and plastic explosive into a waiting pack.
Kate watched him for a long moment. Then she picked up a handgun and very carefully placed it against her temple. Pausing in his work, he slowly turned to face her, his eyes flicking from her face to the handgun and back again.
“Look at me. How does this make you feel? This is what you’re doing to me.”
Connor’s expression softened. “Kate, please....”
Slowly, she lowered the gun. But not her gaze.
“What about our child?”
He took a deep breath. “If I don’t stand up for what I believe in, what kind of father am I going to make?”
She gestured slightly with the muzzle of the weapon.