Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes

CHAPTER

TWENTY

Kyle woke up to the very strange sensation of being hot and cold at the same time.

Carefully, he opened his eyes. He was lying on his side on the ground, his head propped up on Star’s lap. One of her hands was resting on his cheek, the other clutching his shoulder like she was afraid he was going to leave her.

“How long?” he asked, startled by the croaking sound of his own voice.

Half an hour, Star signed. Her expression, Kyle noted, was seriously worried. How do you feel?

“Cold,” Kyle told her. “And hot. What—?”

And then it all came flashing back to him. The fire and explosion he’d set off, the wall of flame that had thrown him clear out of the tunnel…

He reached a hand to his cheek. It was warm, but sunburn warm, not at all like skin that had been burned to a crisp. The image he’d had of being bathed in flame must not have been nearly as bad as it had seemed at the time.

His back, on the other hand…

He started to reach behind him, but stopped as Star caught his hand. Gone, she signed. Your jacket. Gone.

“Ah,” Kyle said. So that was where the cold part of the sensation was coming from. The wall of flame that had kicked him out of the tunnel had burned the jacket clean off his back.

Hopefully, it had left most of the skin behind. At least Kyle couldn’t feel any particular pain coming from back there.

Maybe the pain would come later. Propping himself up on one elbow, he blinked his eyes a few times and surveyed the damage.

It was pretty impressive, if he did say so himself. The broken-building camouflage that had disguised the three entrances to the gasoline stash was completely gone, though pieces of it were still smoldering with foul-smelling black smoke. Where the chamber and stash itself had been was now a deep crater.

And lying in the middle of the crater were three unmoving metal bodies.

So it had worked. He hadn’t been completely sure it would, not even with something as hot as a gasoline fire. But it had worked.

“Come on, we’d better get moving,” he said. Pressing one hand to the ground, he heaved himself to his feet.

And nearly fell over again. Star was instantly at his side, holding him up as he fought against the sudden light-headedness that had sent the whole world spinning around him.

The spinning faded away, leaving behind a terrible weakness. There was no way they were going to make it back to the Ashes, he knew. Not yet.

But there might be another option.

“The ganghouse,” he told Star, nodding his head in that direction. “The one where they tried to jump us yesterday.”

But there’s someone still in there, she objected.

So she’d also seen the face looking out when they’d passed by earlier with Nguyen’s people.

“I doubt it,” he said. “If they had any brains they took off as soon as the Terminators started shooting.”

And even if they hadn’t, he added to himself, there was still no choice but to risk it.

It took them five minutes to pick their way around the smoldering rubble and get to the ganghouse. Gripping his Colt—somehow, in all the chaos around the gasoline stash he’d lost the rifle and shotgun—he pushed the door open.

To his relief, the place was deserted.

“This’ll do,” he declared, glancing around and spotting a chair that had been conveniently left beside the door. “Hang on—I have to sit down for a minute.”

He eased himself down on the chair, relieved that he’d made it here without collapsing. His legs were trembling, and there were white spots dancing in front of his eyes. Taking deep breaths, keeping his eyes on the floor in front of his feet, he concentrated on not passing out.

And started as a ration bar and a bottle of water suddenly appeared in front of him.

He looked up. Star was holding them out to him, a worried look on her face.

“Where’d you get these?” Kyle asked, frowning as he took them from her.

Over there, she signed, and pointed across the room.

“Whoa,” Kyle murmured, gazing in surprise at the pile of clothing and the small boxes stacked neatly on one of the room’s other chairs. “Where’d that come from?”

Star gave him the kind of exaggeratedly patient look that she did so well.

“Right—you don’t know,” Kyle said. “Well, I don’t suppose whoever left it is coming back any time soon.” He peered across at the clothing. “You suppose there’s a jacket over there that would fit me?”

Star’s answer was to make a beeline for the stack.

Kyle had finished the ration bar and half the water by the time she returned, triumphantly carrying not just a new jacket, but a new shirt and new jeans as well.

“That’s great,” Kyle said, setting down the water and trying not to wince as he stripped off the tattered remains of his own clothing. The new outfit was a little big for him, but it was warm and—most importantly—not half burned away.

“Just like Christmas, huh?” he commented as he sat down again. “I don’t suppose there was any more water over there?”

Connor had met General Olsen a couple of times over the past few months, and hadn’t been particularly impressed. The man had a casual way of talking, and an air of easygoing charm that Connor found gratingly at odds with the deadly seriousness of life in Skynet’s shadow.

But if Olsen the man wasn’t anything remarkable, Olsen the soldier and commander was.

Connor had seen only a partial list of the man’s accomplishments, but that was more than enough to have earned him humanity’s respect, and Connor’s as well.

And so it was without a single twinge of resentment or cynicism that Connor threw Olsen a salute as the general stepped out of the last of the five Black Hawk troop carriers to land on the warehouse grounds.

“General,” he said. “Glad you could make it.”

“Nice to be here,” Olsen replied. He glanced around at the swarm of men and women lugging the crates and boxes to the line of cargo helicopters, then looked back at Connor. “ ’Course, I expect you’d’ve been even gladder if we’d shown up, say, an hour earlier?”

“It could have been helpful,” Connor agreed, choosing his words carefully.

Olsen grinned tightly.

“I’ll just bet it would’ve.” The grin faded. “I wish I could’ve, too. But I ’spect you know how it is.”

“Command needed to know you weren’t risking men and resources for a hopeless cause?”

Olsen grunted. “You never have been much of one for spackling over your words, have you, Connor?”

“Not really,” Connor said. “Did we pass the test?”

“Passed it and then some,” Olsen said, nodding. “Enough that Command’s ready to take you and your team on full-time.”

“You mean like the last time they took us on?” David put in as he came up to them. His voice was respectful enough, but Connor could see the slow simmer going on behind the other’s eyes.

Connor could sympathize. Having their hard-earned prize suddenly and casually taken over this way wasn’t an easy thing to swallow.

But then, getting Command’s attention had been the chief goal of the mission, after all.

“No, I think you’ve actually convinced them this time,” Olsen said. If he had noticed David’s anger, he was pretending he hadn’t. “This isn’t some new probation or any of that crap. You’re being offered a full slot in the Resistance structure, no strings, and all the goodies that go along with it.”

“Funny,” David said, throwing a pointed look at all the crates making their way into Olsen’s helicopters. “I thought we’d already found ourselves a stack of goodies.”

“Oh, that you did,” Olsen said, his genial voice hardening just noticeably. “But if you’ll look closely, you might notice it’s mostly goodies you can’t use.”

He pointed to a pair of crates being manhandled into one of the Black Hawks. “That ammo, f’rinstance. Fits HK Gatlings. You have anything that caliber?”

“Probably,” David said stubbornly.

“Probably not,” Olsen countered. “Might figure out a way to adapt it to an A-10’s GAU-8, but it’d be real tricky. Be a lot simpler to just take out the GAU-8 and shove an HK Gatling in its place.” He raised his eyebrows. “You have any spare HK Gatlings lying around?”

“Our pilots don’t usually leave much worth salvaging,” David said with a touch of pride.

“True enough,” Olsen acknowledged. “ ’Course, even if you had one, swapping it out would take a heap of work and a crapload of equipment you probably don’t have. And as for the rest of the stuff…”

He looked back at Connor, a frown creasing his face.

“You really don’t know what you’ve got here, do you?”

“I only arrived just before you did, General,” Connor told him. “I haven’t had a chance to look around.”

“Then let me enlighten you,” Olsen said, his folksy manner suddenly gone. “This here wasn’t just a neighborhood-sweep staging area. It was that, too, but it wasn’t mostly that.” He waved a hand behind him. “This here was gearing up to be a brand spankin’ new maintenance center.”

Connor shifted his eyes over the general’s shoulder, an unpleasant tingle running through him.

No wonder Skynet had been so hell-bent on defending the place.

“Really,” he murmured.

“Really,” Olsen assured him. “And maybe not just maintenance, either. There are whole crateloads of electronics and minicomputers in there, plus some weapons we’re going to want to look into reverse-engineering. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing Skynet was planning a serious upgrade for pretty much everything it’s got in this sector. And all that was slated to happen right here.”

He smiled lopsidedly.

“Except you and your team have just single-handedly stopped it. You think Command’s going to be fussing over probation protocol?”

“I see your point,” Connor said.

“I would damn well hope so,” Olsen said. “They’ve got a base all picked out for you to move into—nice and big, well protected, and out of this mess that L.A.’s become.”

“Sounds enticing,” Connor said. “And the catch?”

Olsen shrugged. “You learn to take orders.” He grinned. “ ’Course they’re all good orders. That goes without saying.”

David snorted. But the sound was more thoughtful than resentful, and he was no longer glowering as he watched the crates being loaded aboard the Black Hawks.

“Okay, it’s a deal,” Connor told Olsen. “We’ll need to get the rest of our people back, and there’s some food and random equipment we left at our staging area.”

“Call the people; forget the clutter,” Olsen said briskly. “I got a report just before I landed that Skynet’s got more HKs burning their way up from San Diego. It is not happy with you and your crew right now.”

“Understandable,” Connor said, flipping on his transmitter. “Barnes: get your squad together and bring it in, double-time. Don’t bother stopping by the staging area—we’re leaving whatever’s there behind.”

“Got it,” Barnes said briskly. “On our way.”

Connor flicked off the transmitter and turned to David.

“Go gather your squad and Tunney’s,” he told him. “We’ll be traveling—” He raised his eyebrows at Olsen.

“In my personal choppers, yes,” the general confirmed with a nod. “Oh, and I got another report on the way in. The other choppers have finished cleaning out the rest of your base, people, and whatever else they could load aboard. Soon’s we’re done here, we’re out.”

Connor nodded. “And double-time it,” he added to David.

The other nodded and moved off.

“What about our pilot?” Connor asked. “Last I heard she was being escorted out, but had been ordered to shut down her radio.”

Olsen nodded. “Security measure,” he said. “Our airstrip is still secret, and we’d like to keep it that way as long as we can.”

“Of course,” Connor said. “I just want to make sure she’s taken care of.”

“Oh, she will be,” Olsen promised. “We treat our pilots very well, and from what we saw tonight she’s definitely one hell of a pilot.” He shook his head. “One hell of a plane, too. That has got to be the damnedest patchwork job I’ve ever seen on an A-10. I’m surprised the thing’s still flying.

Whoever your mechanic is, he’s a wizard.”

“He is all that,” Connor agreed. “And before you ask, you can’t have him.”

Olsen grinned. “We’ll see. Anyway, like I said, we’re on tight numbers, so grab your people, grab your butt, and get all of it aboard the choppers.”

“Yes, sir.” Connor turned and started to walk away.

Olsen’s hand snaked out to touch his arm.

“You did good today, Connor,” he said quietly. “Right now, everyone knows that. But they’ll forget. People always forget.”

“That’s fine,” Connor said. “I’m not in this for the glory.”

“I know you’re not,” Olsen said. “I’m just saying that when the rest forget, don’t you forget, too.”

Connor gazed out at the quiet city around them. The city where so many people had died tonight.

“Don’t worry, General,” he said quietly. “I won’t forget. Ever.”

It took Kate a good half hour of work, plus nearly a third of the medicines and bandages in her field kit, to put Sergeant Orozco back together. But when she was finished, she had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes flicker open.

“Sergeant?” she called gently. “Sergeant Orozco? Can you hear me?”

The eyes closed, flickered again, and then opened all the way. For a long moment he stared up into her face, his forehead furrowed with questions or confusion or disbelief.

“It’s Kate Connor, Sergeant,” Kate said, wondering how much the morphine was fogging his brain. “We were here this morning.”

“I know,” Orozco said, his voice weak but with no signs of disorientation. “What are you doing here now?”

“We came to help,” Kate said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.”

Slowly, Orozco turned his head, his eyes taking in the devastation and death around them.

“How many?” he asked.

Kate felt her stomach tighten.

“You’re the only one we’ve found alive.”

For a long moment Orozco lay silently. Kate watched him, wondering if he was going to slip off into unconsciousness again. Then, finally, he stirred.

“I’m not feeling much pain,” he said. “Morphine?”

Kate nodded. “I have more if you need it.”

“Maybe later,” he said. “What’s the damage?”

“Not as bad as it could have been,” Kate assured him. “You had a through-and-through in your upper left arm and another slug in your shoulder. I got it out. There were also several grooves in your left forearm, which I sewed up, and you took a grazing shot across your right hip.”

“Right hip, huh?” Orozco said, frowning. “I didn’t even know about that one. How mobile am I?”

“Well, you won’t be going on any long hikes for awhile,” Kate said. “Fortunately, you won’t have to. Now that you’re stable enough to move, I can call for a litter to get you to the chopper. A few weeks in rehab—”

“Whoa,” Orozco interrupted. “Chopper?”

“The Resistance has arrived in force,” Kate told him. “We’re going to be taken to one of their bases.”

“A base with generals and admirals and everyone?” Orozco asked.

“Probably,” Kate said. “And that’s good. It means they should have everything we’ll need to get you on your feet again.”

“Glad to hear it,” Orozco said. “I hope they find someone they can use it on. You’d better get going. Thanks for patching me up.”

Kate stared at him.

“What are you talking about?” she asked carefully.

“We’re taking you with us.”

“I don’t think so,” Orozco said, a sudden bitterness in his voice. “It was people like your precious generals and admirals who brought Judgment Day down on the world in the first place. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll ever work for them again.”

“But you can’t just stay here,” Kate protested. “Where will you go? What will you do?”

“I’ll survive,” Orozco said. “I’m a Marine. That’s what Marines do. If you can spare me a little food and water, I’d appreciate it. If you can’t, that’s fine, too.”

“Sergeant, you’re not thinking clearly,” Kate said, putting some firmness into her voice. “You’re alone, you’ve lost a lot of blood—”

“Your generals are waiting, Ms. Connor.” Orozco cut her off.

“Then look at it from my position,” Kate said, switching tactics. “I’m a doctor. How can I just walk away and leave you here alone? Or never mind me. What’s John going to say when I tell him I left an injured soldier behind?”

“You’ll tell him first that I’m not one of his soldiers,” Orozco said. “And you’ll tell him second that you didn’t have a choice.” His right shoulder twitched.

And Kate looked down to see the man’s bloodied hand gripping the butt of the Beretta belted at his side. “You wouldn’t,” she said, looking him squarely in the face.

For a moment he held her gaze. Then, almost reluctantly, his eyes drifted away.

“No,” he admitted. “But you never know what a crazy man’s going to do, do you?” He looked over her shoulder, toward the huge mound of stone rubble she and the others had had to climb over to get into the building.

“Did a good job on that archway, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Kate said, conceding defeat. If he truly didn’t want to come with them, there really wasn’t any way she could justify forcing him to do so.

Her earphone crackled.

“Barnes: get your squad together and bring it in, double-time,” John’s voice came. “Don’t bother stopping by the staging area—we’re leaving whatever’s there behind.”

“Got it,” Barnes said. “On our way.”

“Time to go?” Orozco asked.

“Yes,” Kate said, unfastening her ration pouch from her belt and laying it beside Orozco. “This is all the food and water I’ve got with me, but there’s more in a sort of long house two blocks west of here. It’s on the street where—”

“I know the place,” Orozco said. “Passed it once or twice.”

Kate nodded and stood up.

“Last chance.”

Orozco nodded. “Better get going.”

“Right.” Kate hesitated, then unclipped her medical bag and set it beside the ration pouch.

“Good luck.”

“One other thing,” Orozco called after her.

She paused and turned back.

“Yes?”

“There were 280 people who died in here tonight,” Orozco said, his voice dark. “I’d consider it a personal favor if you and Connor would take out a Terminator for each of them.”

Kate swallowed, her throat feeling tight. “We’ll do our best,” she promised. “And we’ll think of you with every single one of them.”

“Good enough,” Orozco said. “Vaya con Dios, Ms. Connor.”

* * *

Kate had been waiting by the pile of stone for about two minutes when Barnes and the rest of the squad returned.

“No one else?” Kate asked. A silly question, she knew—they would certainly have called her if they’d found anyone else still alive.

“No,” Barnes said, making it official, as he gestured everyone to start climbing the rubble. “You got a litter coming for Orozco?”

Kate shook her head as she started up the treacherous footing.

“He’s not coming with us.”

A couple of the other heads turned at that one. But Barnes just grunted.

“You get attached to a place like this, I guess.”

They were over the rock pile and walking down the empty streets before Barnes spoke again.

“I found that preacher—Sibanda—over in the hallway off the lobby,” he said. “Still had his arms around a couple of kids.”

“Thin black guy?” Simmons asked. “North hallway by one of the windows?”

Barnes nodded. “That’s him.”

“I saw him, too,” Simmons said grimly. “Looked like he was huddled over the kids, trying to protect them, when they shot him in the back.”

Kate felt a fresh wave of sadness and guilt flow through her. All those children…and neither she nor anyone else had been able to save a single one of them.

“Any particular reason you brought that up?” she asked Barnes.

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “Just making conversation.”

* * *

For nearly half an hour Kyle and Star just sat there in the abandoned ganghouse, quietly eating and drinking, Kyle on the chair, Star on the ground at his feet. It was the first time since they’d left the Ashes, Kyle reflected soberly, that he’d felt at peace.

But it wasn’t real, he knew. Peace was only an illusion these days.

And it was time for them to go.

To Kyle’s relief, there was no lightheadedness this time when he stood up. Maybe he hadn’t really been injured in the blast, but had mostly been just hungry and thirsty. Adjusting his new shirt and jacket across his shoulders, he fastened his holster around his new jeans.

“Ready?” he asked Star.

She nodded, then pointed questioningly at the packages of ration bars and water bottles.

Kyle pursed his lips. If this stuff had belonged to the gang that Orozco had chased out, he would have no particular qualms about taking it all. It wasn’t really stealing to take something from a thief.

But his new clothes didn’t look like the stuff the gang had been wearing. It was too clean, for one thing. And the water bottles seemed way too well taken care of, too. He had the feeling that someone else had moved in after the gang had cleared out.

And he and Star couldn’t steal from ordinary citizens. Even if all the stuff really had been abandoned.

Or at least they couldn’t steal everything.

“Go get two bottles of water and four of the bars,” he instructed Star. “Somebody might still come back for the rest.”

Star wrinkled her nose, but nodded and went over to the stack. She was sorting through the packages when something behind the clothing seemed to belatedly catch her eye. Reaching down, she lifted a shotgun into view.

This time, Kyle didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” he said firmly.

A minute later, shotgun in hand, food and water in his new jacket’s pockets, Kyle opened the door and they once more slipped out into the night. Where are we going? Star signed.

“Back to the Ashes,” Kyle told her, frowning as they set off along the street. Was that the sound of helicopters just fading away in the distance? Probably his imagination.

“We need to see if there’s anything we can do there to help,”

The streets were eerily quiet, with only the sound of their own footsteps breaking the silence.

Kyle looked around carefully as they walked, wondering if any of the people they’d seen earlier were still lurking around here somewhere.

But they all seemed to have left. Could that have been what the sound of the helicopters had been about?

Too bad. He would at least have liked to find out who they’d been, and whether they’d really been with the Resistance or just faking it. He might have been able to find out whether the people in the bus who had saved him and Star had made it out alive, too. Now, he’d probably never know.

But at least when the men and women had left, the Terminators had left with them.

The Ashes building, when Kyle caught his first glimpse of it, was a shock. The distinctive stone archway was gone, as was most of the front of the building just above it, the whole mass having collapsed into a shattered heap of stone blocking most of the entrance.

Star clutched suddenly at Kyle’s arm.

“It’s okay,” he soothed her. “Remember how Orozco told us that if there was ever an attack he could put bombs in the archway to bring it down on them?”

Star shook her head violently, her fingers digging into Kyle’s arm. Kyle frowned…and then, his fogged brain got it.

He pushed Star against the building beside them, pressing himself there next to her as he fumbled his new shotgun to his shoulder. Heart thudding in his ears, he gave a quick look around them, then turned back to the Ashes building.

There it was, digging diligently through the rocks at the far end of the pile, lifting huge chunks of stone and concrete off the stack and setting them down on the street beside it.

Apparently, not all the Terminators had left.

Kyle frowned, wondering what the machine was doing. Was it looking for other Terminators that had been trapped in the collapse? It was using both hands, he noticed, and he looked briefly for where it had set down its minigun.

But there was no weapon to be seen. It must have lost the weapon, Kyle decided, or else had run out of ammo and dumped it. The Terminator pulled out another block of stone and set it aside.

Then, without warning, it turned directly toward Kyle and Star.

And as Kyle got his first clear look at the torn skin on its torso, skin torn away by a close-range shotgun blast, he suddenly realized who this was. Not some random Terminator, but their old enemy Fido.

For a long moment the machine gazed toward them. Kyle froze, his shotgun still pointed even as he realized how utterly useless the weapon was at this range.

And then, to Kyle’s surprise and relief, the Terminator merely turned back to the rock pile.

Leaning over, it reached both hands into the hole it had dug.

Kyle started breathing again. Maybe the machine hadn’t seen them. Maybe its optics had been damaged by its tumble through the rotten floor near the Death’s-Head compound.

The Terminator was still working at something in the hole, perhaps a stubborn stone that didn’t want to be moved. Then, with a massive tug, it pulled a half-crushed metal arm out of the hole.

Only it wasn’t just an arm. It was an arm that was still clutching a minigun, the weapon’s ammo belt trailing down into the hole behind it.

Fido hadn’t given up on hunting them. It also wasn’t simply looking for broken Terminators or scrap metal to take back to Skynet.

It was looking for a new gun.

“Time to go,” Kyle murmured, taking Star’s arm and backing them along the wall again. They reached the corner, and just as they eased around it out of the Terminator’s sight the machine once again turned its red eyes toward them.

It had seen them, all right. And as soon as it got its new weapon free, it was going to come after them.

“Come on,” Kyle said. Still holding Star’s arm, he broke into a dead run back toward the ganghouse.

Where? Star signed frantically as her feet pounded against the pavement.

“Not sure yet,” Kyle told her. “Let’s first just get some distance between us and it. Distance and buildings,” he added as he pulled her around the corner onto the next street heading north.

He took a deep breath, consciously settling his pumping legs into a steady rhythm, feeling a trickle of frustration run through him. He’d thought the terror of the night was over. He’d needed the terror of the night to be over.

But it wasn’t. Maybe it never would be.

But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he and Star were still alive.

And they would stay that way, too. No matter what happened, no matter what the universe and Skynet threw at them, they would get through it. If and when that Terminator back there found them, Kyle would find a way to destroy it. Then he’d do the same to the next one Skynet sent after them, and the next one, and the one after that.

Because Star was counting on him.

The street stretched far ahead of them, fading away into the darkness. Watching Star out of the corner of his eye, making sure she was keeping up, he began studying the ruined buildings they were passing. Somewhere along here, he knew, he’d find something he could use.

The quarters General Olsen’s aide took Connor and Kate to weren’t a lot bigger than some of the other places they’d called home over the years. They weren’t all that much better furnished, either.

But it wasn’t bitterly cold, there was space for them to stow their weapons and other gear, and the floor was mostly nice and flat. More importantly, it was safe.

And that was a far rarer and more precious commodity than anything else the Resistance could have offered them.

“Yes, I could live here,” Connor commented as he set down his MP5 and started taking off his gun belt.

Kate didn’t answer. Crossing the room to a table beside the bed, she began divesting herself of her own load of weapons and equipment.

She’d hadn’t said much on the helicopter ride out of Los Angeles, Connor had noticed. Virtually nothing, in fact, except for her brief assurance that she wasn’t injured.

“You hungry?” Connor asked. “There’s supposed to be a twenty-four-hour mess tucked away somewhere.”

“Not right now,” Kate said, her voice low.

Connor watched her, his own heart aching in sympathy. No matter how well an operation went, there never seemed to be any truly solid victories against Skynet. And even those partial victories always had to be paid for in human lives.

But seldom was the price as high as it had been tonight.

Kate finished unpacking her equipment and hung her jacket on top of her rifle. Then, not bothering to undress any farther, she climbed into the bed, rolling up onto her side and turning her face toward the wall. Setting down the rest of his own gear, Connor climbed into bed behind her.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked gently.

“Yes.” She hesitated. “But first I need to apologize. I shouldn’t have sneaked off against orders to join Barnes’ squad. Apart from the fact that you’re my husband, you’re also my commander. It was inexcusable, and it jeopardized the whole mission.”

Connor shrugged. “I don’t know about the jeopardized part. I gather the only person who knew I hadn’t actually sent you was me.”

“Which could have been more than enough to get everyone killed,” she reminded him soberly.

“No, I was right the first time. Anything that distracts you affects your judgment, and damages your ability to be who you need to be. And if my presence on a mission is that distraction, then I just have to stay home.”

“Or I need to adjust to you being who you need to be,” Connor pointed out, resting his hand on her shoulder. “And the fact remains that if you hadn’t been there, Reynolds would probably have died. You did good, Kate.”

Her shoulder seemed to tighten beneath his hand. “Not good enough,” she said in a low voice.

“All those people…Orozco…”

“I know,” Connor said. “I wish we could have saved them, too. But we don’t always get what we wish for. We gave it everything we could. It just wasn’t enough.”

“But Orozco,” Kate objected, some fire finally coming back into her voice. “Why would a strong, competent military man do something like that? Can someone really hate authority that much?”

“It’s possible.” Connor hesitated. “Or maybe it’s that he hates us that much.”

Kate rolled over to face him, her eyes wide.

“Us? But we tried to help.”

“But we’re part of the official Resistance now,” Connor reminded her. “The people who didn’t show up to help until it was too late.”

Kate’s face went rigid.

“You mean Orozco thinks—? Oh, John.”

Connor nodded, forcing back a surge of frustration of his own.

“I know,” he said. “And there’s nothing we can do about it, either. Except try to make sure it never happens again.”

He ran his fingers gently across her cheek. “But don’t worry about Orozco,” he added. “He’s a survivor. He’ll be okay.”

“I hope so,” Kate said, laying her hand on top of his. “And as long as I’m apologizing, I also need to apologize for the way I’ve been lately. I think I’m—well, I need to check, of course, but all the signs are that—I mean—”

“Hey, relax,” Connor said gently, smiling at her sudden babbling. He’d seen that a lot after missions, and it was a lot healthier than her earlier silent act. “Like I said, you did good out there.

Barnes and Simmons both told me that, and you know how hard it is to get those two to agree on anything.”

“I’m glad it worked out,” Kate said. “Since you probably aren’t going to take me on any more missions for awhile.”

Connor grinned. “Why? Because you get all dark and moody when it’s all over?”

She smiled, a hint of the old impish Kate peeking through.

“No,” she said, lifting her hand from his and resting it on his cheek. “Because I think I’m pregnant.”

And for the first time in years, John Connor couldn’t find a single thing to say.