Hello, my friends! Author here, back from the loooong hiatus! Sorry for the delay, and here is a new chapter for you guys. Enjoy!
******
BOOM. KABOOM, BOOM.
John Connor glanced behind him for the umpteenth time as he fled, at his maximum speed, from the explosion sounds and ground tremors that were closing in towards him from the depths of the hollowed-out mountain that served as the Skynet Core Facility.
As he was looking behind, another huge tremor shook the machine assembly complex. A massive steel beam broke off, falling down from the roof and smashing one of the large gas pipes open.
John's heart skipped, his eyes widening for a brief moment in shock. This is bad, he thought.
KABOOOM!
A large ball of fire bloomed at the far end of the complex as an entire large section of the assembly line exploded, sending machine parts flying into the air all around as dangerous shrapnel.
John ducked for cover behind another large machine, but he still felt some of the heat from the explosion reach all the way up to him from more than twenty meters away.
"Run! Let's go! Faster! Faster! We are almost out!" shouted John, urging and exhorting his soldiers to escape faster to safety.
The Time Displacement Equipment was gone. Skynet had it blown into unsalvageable pieces, completely destroyed in its final spiteful act in order to permanently keep its most important technology out of the hands of the Human Resistance. Fortunately, John had managed to figure out Skynet's final scheme and had sent Kyle Reese and one of his personally reprogrammed T-800 Terminators through the Time Displacement Equipment before it self-destructed.
Then they had been forced into a flurried scramble to escape out of the facility before the activation of the equipment's self-destruction program brought the mountain down on their heads.
As the leader of this Strike Team, and the entire Human Resistance Army, John Connor had stayed behind with a couple of his men to delay the pursuing Terminators buy some time for the other surviving remnants of his Strike Force team to escape further away and put some much greater distance from the machines in pursuit without their having to be forced to leave any of the injured soldiers behind. This was especially important for the highly combat effective but numerically limited Augments in the team who looked tired and exhausted as they started to experience some symptoms of the 'Burn'.
John Connor's trio held out against the fierce and unrelenting assault of the pursuing Terminators for several minutes before all of the Terminators surprisingly stopped attacking them, and then, the T-800s all turned around and fled back into the depths of the undermountain complex.
Unfortunately, at this point, his two men were already dead, killed by the plasma rifle shots during their fierce shootout with the Terminators. So, he had to sigh with regret and leave their bodies behind as he ran towards the rest of his team as the collapse of the facility was closing in on his current location.
***
John Connor burst through the main entrance of the undermountain Skynet Core Facility, skidding to a halt as the cool predawn mountain air blasted his face. He kept his plasma rifle aimed at the ready, scanning the chaos for any machine ambush amidst the war raging between the machine army and the Resistance soldiers outside—along the slopes, on the flat plains, everywhere.
Fortunately, before he and his Strike Team went into the facility, John Connor had commanded his friend and right-hand man, Barnes, to lead a group of Resistance soldiers to man the facility's entrance gates and protect their retreat point. And Barnes and his men, whom he had left outside, did not fail his expectations. They had carried out their mission with utmost perfection, successfully manning, defending, and holding the main entrance open and safe while under immense fire from all kinds of attacking machines until the return of John's Strike Team.
"General Connor! Thank God you made it out!" Barnes exclaimed, his face lighting up with joy and relief when he saw John come out of the facility.
A small smile appeared on John Connor's face, his slightly lifted lips twisting the deep, thick furrowed scars on his face as he walked towards his best friend and right-hand man who was jogging up to him.
The battle outside was already winding down. The Resistance soldiers and aircraft were shooting and bombing down the last fleeing remnants of the machine army.
John Connor took stock of the scarred, ruined, and completely devastated battlefield.
He saw the still burning remains of buildings and structures, the ruined burning skeletons of both Resistance and Skynet vehicles and aircraft. He saw weeping soldiers dragging the corpses of their friends and colleagues out from under collapsed wreckage. He heard horrifying screams of many soldiers who had been maimed, with one or more limbs missing, or who were lying on the ashen ground as they died slowly from gruesome wounds and cried out in agony. He saw many soldiers, overcome with vengeful wrath from losing their friends and colleagues at the hands of Skynet's machine army, relentlessly chasing down the fleeing Terminators in pursuit and mercilessly gunning them down from behind.
He had already witnessed so many similar scenes on so many different occasions, and in so many different places. These scenes still always aroused the same feelings and emotions within him—like a punch to the gut.
For a brief moment, John Connor's eyes watered as his heart clenched with pain and sadness. But it was only for a moment before he stamped down the emotion and suppressed it. That was the most he could allow himself to feel.
I can't yet afford myself the luxury of grieving, of succumbing to my emotions. Not yet. Not now. But soon. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled, and when he opened his eyes, he had regained the iconic stiff, cold, emotionless expression of John Connor, the leader of the Human Resistance.
Soon, he thought, comforting himself. For now, I still have to be John Connor, the leader of the Human Resistance, but soon, I can return to just being John Connor, the husband, the father, the friend—the man.
*********
Thanks for your support on :
三尺孤城, Charles Linder
***
Check out my to support me: At www.pat * reon.com/Kendrix (remove the * and spaces)
I am now posting extra 'Terminator: New Fate' prequel chapters, character backstories and various other side stories, and chapters from my new original novel 'The Last Primordial Exarch' on my Pat * reon.