Terminator Salvation: Cold War (20 page)

Losenko let Ivanov’s cruel assessment pass.

“And if this ‘Skynet’ is indeed responsible?”

Ivanov shrugged. “Who built Skynet?”

“The Americans have already suffered the consequences of their folly,” Losenko reminded him. Mushroom clouds still rose above Alaska in his dreams. “We ourselves saw to that.”

“Good!” Ivanov said emphatically. “That knowledge alone lets me sleep at night. We did our duty—and struck a mighty blow against the enemy. They got no more than they deserved.” He poured himself a fresh glass of wine and gulped it down. Under the circumstances, the captain overlooked the indulgence. “Permission to speak frankly, Captain?”

“By all means,” Losenko assented. This confrontation was long overdue. They needed to clear the air between them.

Ivanov did not hold back.

“To my eyes, it is you who are having difficulty coping with what has transpired, who refuses to accept the reality of what was done to our country and our people. Instead of feeling the anger you so condemn in me, the righteous fury any true patriot should feel in the wake of so treacherous an attack, you wallow in guilt and melancholy and impotent philosophizing. You seize on this ‘John Connor’ deception as if hoping it will grant you absolution—for something you have no cause to be ashamed of!”

Losenko did not flinch at the accusations. He waited for Ivanov’s diatribe—which had obviously been festering within the other man for some time—to exhaust itself. Then he spoke softly.

“You are mistaken, Alexei,” he said. “There is no absolution for me. If Connor’s story is true, it only magnifies my guilt because it means that I did not strike back at the enemy, as you put it; instead I was tricked by a machine into killing millions of innocent people.”

Ivanov shook his head. “I refuse to believe that.”

“But you are not the captain,” Losenko said firmly. His voice took on a sterner tone. “I should not have to remind you of that.”

Ivanov glowered at him.

“What do you want,
Captain?
My resignation? To confine me to my quarters?” There was no brig aboard
Gorshkov. “
I would request reassignment, but I fear that is no longer an option!”

There was still no word from any other subs. As far as they knew, they were the Russian Navy.

“No one is suggesting that you resign,” Losenko assured him. “Believe me, I can ill afford to lose my most able officer. I simply want your word, on your family’s sacred memory, that you will not let your anger against the Americans override your duty to this ship, and that you will curb your present tendency toward insubordination.”

“Insubordination?” Ivanov looked genuinely offended. “How can you even suggest such a thing? I am the
starpom,
not a mutineer!”

Losenko leaned forward.

“Do I have your word, Alexei?”

“You are the captain.” Ivanov placed his right hand over his heart. “On the memory of my martyred Yelena and Nadia, I pledge that I will continue to respect the chain of command. You need never question my loyalty— save in one respect.”

“Which is?”

Ivanov lowered his hand. He looked squarely into the captain’s eyes.

“Do not ask me to forgive the Americans. Not in my heart.” A flicker of pain crossed his face. “That is one command that is beyond my ability to obey.”

“I understand,” Losenko said, taking the young officer at his word. “I can ask no more of you.”

But I pray that someday you will find a measure of peace, my friend.

Even in a world now menaced by machines.

A sudden ringing, like the sonorous peal of a church bell, interrupted the tense encounter. The two officers shared a startled look. Both men knew what the ringing meant.
Gorshkov
had been pinged by another vessel’s sonar.

The intercom crackled to life, bearing an urgent message from the sonar room.

“
Captain, we have contact! On the surface, bearing straight toward us, speed thirty knots!”

The sub had been found.

But by whom?

Perched atop the breaker building, Molly kept watch over the Terminator while Folger and Sitka made their way across the roof to a fire escape at the rear. She was tempted to join them, but she still had unfinished business with the monster below. The Resistance had already lost one camp tonight. She couldn’t give the T-600 a chance to track her people to the rendezvous point.

It had done enough damage.

A raging fire was busily consuming the ghost town that had been Molly’s home up until less than an hour ago. From the catwalk atop the mill, she could see her own cabin going up in flames. She and Geir had made love there earlier tonight. Now their bed and its cozy comforters, along with whatever keepsakes they had managed to acquire over the years, were nothing but ashes. Her gaze swept over the devastation.

The chapel, the mess hall, the infirmary... all one big funeral pyre. The heat from the fire combated the arctic chill of the night. The air smelled of smoke and soot. It was hard to imagine that a single machine could be responsible for so much destruction.

All the more reason that it had to be destroyed.

The Terminator bided its time in the alley below, assessing the situation. Its stolen chainsaw hung at its side. Was it waiting for the fire to drive her back down into the open, or was it just keeping watch over her until reinforcements arrived?

Probably wants to take me alive,
she guessed,
so Skynet can interrogate me.
Would the machines believe her when she admitted that she had lied about knowing where John Connor was? Or would they just keep torturing her until there was nothing left of her to question?

What the hell,
she thought.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Tearing her gaze away from the burning buildings, she surveyed the surrounding terrain. To the west, beyond her torched cabin, the ground descended to the frozen stream. Molly’s brow furrowed as she contemplated the icy ribbon, which the more reckless of the camp’s offspring had sometimes used for skating. A sly smile lifted the corners of her chapped lips.

That has possibilities.

But before she could put her plan into action, gunfire blared in an alley below. Molly leaned out over the railing to see who on Earth was still around to pick a fight with the T-600; she had hoped that all of her people would have cleared out by now. The glow from the inferno was like a giant torch, illuminating the night the way city streetlights had back before Judgment Day. Even from fourteen stories up, Molly had a perfect view of the conflict going on beneath her.

No!
She couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Die, you wedding crasher!” Tammi Muckerheide, nee Salzer, fired at the Terminator from behind a sturdy metal ore cart. Its wheels and axles had rusted away generations ago. An M-16 had replaced her bridal bouquet. Military fatigues and a green Kevlar army helmet provided better protection from the elements and the enemy than her second-hand gown. Rage contorted her adolescent features. “You ruined my honeymoon!”

For a second, Molly feared that the pregnant teenager had lost her mind. Had something happened to Roger? Then she spotted Tammi’s youthful husband creeping up on the distracted Terminator from behind. Shaky hands gripped a skipole with a tip that had been sharpened to a lethal point. He came up behind the T-600 even as the machine advanced on Tammi, brandishing its bloodstained chainsaw.

A barrage of high-caliber fire, spewing from the flaring muzzle of Tammi’s rifle, retarded the Terminator’s progress while simultaneously drowning out Roger’s stealthy footsteps. She shrieked like a madwoman to keep the machine from checking its rear.

“You like that, metal? I’ve got plenty more where that comes from! You picked the wrong day to barge in here. This is my friggin’
wedding night!”

Molly guessed what the newlyweds had in mind. The T-600s had a weak spot at the back of their necks. That was another thing Molly had learned from John Connor’s broadcasts; she was glad to see that Roger and Tammi had been paying attention during combat training. A sharp jab to its ventilation system could momentarily impair its motor functions, perhaps long enough for them to permanently disable it.

She had no idea what had possessed the two kids to try to bushwhack the Terminator this way, but there was a chance their risky plan might work. Molly held her breath, afraid to interfere for fear of tipping the Terminator off.

They pull this off,
she thought,
I’ll throw them a baby shower myself.

Roger came up behind the machine, which appeared oblivious to his approach. Tammi eased up on her fire, pretending to reload, to avoid shooting her husband by mistake. She ducked behind the heavy metal cart, and the only sound was the idling chainsaw.

Roger lifted the point of the skipole. The T-600 was a good two feet taller than the boy, so he would have to strike upward to hit the right spot.

Keep to its left,
Molly urged him silently.
It’s blind on the left!

Then again, so was Roger. A black eyepatch covered an empty socket.

Do it!
Molly thought. The suspense was killing her.
While you’ve still got a chance!

A shard of broken glass, left behind from when the log crashed into the repair shop earlier, crunched beneath Roger’s feet. It sounded like a rifle shot, even over the rumble of the saw. The Terminator’s head jerked around.

Realizing he was screwed, Roger lunged forward with the pole, but, in his haste, struck only a glancing blow off the side of the machine’s neck.

“Shit!” the boy exclaimed. He knew he was dead.

“Roger!” Tammi shrieked, this time for real. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so horrible. “Oh God,
Roger!”

The Terminator didn’t even turn around. Its right arm swung backward over its shoulder, bringing the chainsaw down upon its target. The whirring chain sliced off Roger’s right arm and a good chunk of his shoulder. The boy screamed and dropped to the ground. The useless skipole clattered onto the snow beside him. His youthful face contorted, and he howled in agony.

Roger was minutes away from bleeding to death, but that was too inefficient for the T-600. The only good thing about the machines was that they didn’t believe in playing with their victims. Sadism wasn’t in their programming—only eradication. It took just a moment to sever Roger’s head cleanly from his shoulders. The mangled body stopped thrashing.

Terminated.

That’s gotta be the shortest marriage on record,
Molly thought bitterly. She hoped the kids had enjoyed their brief time together. It was all they were going to get.

“Killer! Monster!” Tammi let loose on the Terminator with her M-16. Tears streamed down her face. She made no effort to escape from the oncoming machine. “I loved him, you motherfuckin’ machine!”

A satellite dish was bolted to the top of the mill, placed there to pick up encrypted messages from Command. Molly blasted it loose with her pistol, then wrenched it free. She hurled the heavy dish at the Terminator. It smashed harmlessly against the machine’s titanium skull, but got its attention for a moment.

It paused and looked back up at Molly.

“Run!” she hollered from atop the mill. She wanted Tammi to live, even if the young widow didn’t seem to; no way was Molly going to let the pregnant girl go the way of her husband.

“Save your baby! That’s an order!”

The reference to the baby hit a nerve, cutting through Tammi’s understandable lust for vengeance. Abandoning her crazed assault, the girl ran, leaving the decapitated body of her beloved behind.

The Terminator hesitated, torn between pursuing Tammi and keeping its eye on Molly.

She helped it make up its mind.

“John Connor!” Molly hurled a loose brick at the T-600. “You want John Connor’s address, right? Well, I’m the only human vermin here who knows where that is!” She was tempted to claim that Connor was her brother or something, but that might be pushing it. Skynet doubtless had a comprehensive dossier on his closest friends and associates.

His wife’s supposed to be a medic....

Tammi’s racing footsteps faded away as she disappeared from sight, moving in the direction of the other evacuees. Satisfied that the girl now had a fighting chance at living to see the sunrise, Molly looked to her own survival. When planning the layout of the camp, she had made certain that every key location offered multiple escape routes. Glancing around, she saw ropes and bungee cables stacked all along the catwalk. She tied one end of a cable to a sturdy post, then flung the rest of the rope over the railing.

Forget the fire escape,
she thought.
I’m in a hurry.

Her heart pounding, she rappelled down the side of the building, just around the corner from where she’d left the Terminator. As her feet touched down on the snowy gravel, she fired her pistol into the air.

“John Conner! Going, going, gone...!”

The T-600 wasted no time coming after her. She heard the chainsaw even before it rounded the corner. Its luciferous red gaze locked on her and didn’t let go.

Molly bolted for the river, taking care to head in a different direction than Tammi and the others. The heat from the burning camp made her sweat beneath her parka. The wind blew smoke in her face, stinging her eyes and throat. She was faster than the T-600, but a lot more tired. Adrenaline could only keep her going so long, especially after only a couple of hours sleep.

Fatigue poisons burned her leg muscles. She was breathing hard. Ragged exhalations puffed from her lips, misting in the frigid night air. The wind chill felt like it was at least fifty below.

I can’t keep this up much longer.

The frozen stream beckoned to her, looking like a winding white ribbon about twenty feet across. An icy glaze coated the rushing current underneath. A wooden footbridge crossed the river further upstream, but that wasn’t her destination. Crossing the bridge was the last thing on her mind.