Slow and Steady

It was the year 2024, and General John Connor of the Resistance was wondering where his laser guns were.

Crystal Peak had seen better days, but it still functioned as the hub of the Resistance. In what had been intended as a suite for the president in the event of nuclear war, John sat at his desk and watched a feed of the disaster at Anchorage, taken from the shoulder camera of a H. Sandiago. The Resistance needed oil. Anchorage was a hub of oil coming out of Alaska, before being shipped to ports across the west coast of the United States. The Resistance needed oil. Skynet had oil. Taking oil from Skynet would solve the problem of the former, and help correct the imbalance of the latter. Hijacking oil from Anchorage was a win-win, provided it could be pulled off. And having sent a Tech-Com unit to the frozen north a week ago, still mostly verdant as opposed to the hellscape that was further south, John had hoped that it would go without a hitch.

It hadn't. Maybe Skynet had discovered they were coming. Maybe it had a mole via one of its infiltrators. Whatever the case, the Tech-Com forces had arrived at the docks and been ambushed. Hunter Killers in the sky. Spiders on the ground. And among those machines, Skynet's deadliest weapon of all – Terminators. Those of the T-800 variety.

John winced as he listened to the shouts. As the screams cut through his ears and entered his soul. The fighting was chaotic, but he could see the machines steadily advancing across the docks, opening fire with automatic weapons in each hand that would knock a human over given their recoil, if they'd held them like the machines did. He could see the Tech-Com forces return fire at the machines, their own rounds bouncing harmlessly off the Terminators' chassis. True, they might be staggered. They might even fall over. He saw an RPG hit one of the walking skeletons and saw it tumble, the glow in its eyes flashing on and off, and its fingers reaching in and out over and over like some kind of feedback loop. But none of them were destroyed. They kept coming. They kept firing. They kept killing.

Twice in his life, John had been protected by one of these constructs. The first time, he'd seen the machine use its own body to protect him from pistol fire, the handgun accomplishing nothing. The second time, one of these constructs had been smashed through an entire block of buildings with a crane, before climbing into the car John had stolen, apparently not the worse for wear. Both times, his protector had seemed invincible, able to be matched only by a more advanced machine that Skynet had sent to kill him. Now, seeing those machines used against his soldiers…

It made him feel ill. It made him feel for his mother, who'd had to survive one of these monstrosities, and only after the sacrifice of his father. And even more than that, it made him feel for the squad he'd sent to their deaths. He watched as Sandiago began to fall back, gesturing for his squad to do the same. The squad in question obliged as best they could, as the Terminators continued to fire and hit their targets. Sandiago got into a Hummer and they roared off, cursing and shouting as they did so. With a scowl, John terminated the feed, dropping the remote on the desk.

"That bad huh?"

He quickly looked up from the desk, seeing Major Blair Williams standing there before him. Looking at him, and the pistol he'd pulled out of his holster on instinct.

"Did I startle you?" she asked.

John holstered the pistol. "Jesus Christ major, how long have you been standing there?"

"Three, maybe four minutes. It didn't seem right to interrupt the…well, whatever you want to call it."

"Disaster?"

She shrugged. "If you want."

John leant back in his chair, hand to his chin, looking at the black screen. Truth be told, it was the third time he'd watched it. And third time lucky didn't apply in making it any easier to stomach, or to see any way the Resistance could counter Skynet's latest weapons.

"You know," Blair said, "if I was here to kill you, and I was a skinjob, I kind of have to ask what a pistol would actually do."

John couldn't help but smirk. "Fair point."

She shrugged. "Just saying sir. I know there's more handguns left in the world than people these days, but what can they actually accomplish?"

John decided not to go into semantics. Pistols could certainly protect a Resistance member against the human marauders that roamed the wasteland that was planet Earth (or at least this part of it), and there were a few examples where they'd managed to take out a T-800's eyes. But the truth of the matter was that it gave him a small measure of comfort. He'd been around guns before he could even walk. They'd been as close a thing as he'd had to toys until he got sent to live with foster parents. Not that his biological mother had ever treated them as such, but chess had never been a game, and one could only read Wizard of Oz so many times.

"Anyway," Blair said. She took a seat opposite John. "Let's cut to the chase. We need oil. Our planes and helicopters most of all, or rather, what's left of them."

"You're preaching to the choir major."

"I know sir, but still…"

"Still?"

Blair shrugged. "You've led us the last six years. Far as I'm concerned, you were leading the Resistance even before Ashdown's death. Before…" She looked aside, and John knew who she was thinking about. Whose death, to be most specific. A few seconds later however, she looked back at him. "Look," she said. "I'm happy to still be in the cockpit of an A-10, and to tell where the flyboys to drop their bombs and whatnot, but we're dealing with vehicles that are twenty years old at this point. It's hard enough to maintain them, we don't have any way of replacing them, and now, we don't even have the fuel for them."

John picked up the remote, pointed at the screen, and clicked a button. "Like I said," he murmured, "preaching to the choir."

The image wasn't from Sandiago's camera feed. Rather, it was a map of North America, reds and blues corresponding to territory controlled by Skynet and the Resistance respectively. In an irony that wasn't lost on John despite having lived off the grid most his life, California was entirely red, the ruins of San Francisco and Los Angeles given black spots to mark their role as command and production hubs respectively. Other red dots were scattered throughout the landscape, from New York to Cheyenne Mountain, to otherwise random locations. Or what might have seemed random, if John wasn't aware that these were oil wells. Coal mines. Sites of iron and other minerals. Skynet had the means of production, and Skynet had the resources. In contrast, the blues were scattered throughout the country, the only concentrations being in agricultural areas. The Resistance needed food, especially in a world that was still suffering the effects of nuclear armageddon. Problem was, if they were going to win, they needed a lot more.

Blair didn't say anything. She knew nearly as much as John did, and what she didn't know was information he was fine withholding. Information such as how the machines Skynet was using now were ones he'd encountered even before the bombs fell. Information such as the role Kyle Reese had to play. Information that he'd so far shared only with Kate – having seen one of Skynet's time travelling assassins herself, he'd had little trouble convincing her that it wasn't the first time that Skynet had attempted retroactive assassination.

"Alright," Blair said eventually. "So. We've got the tattered remnants of an air force that we can barely afford to field. Skynet's used the T-800 model for six years, and they're making the old T-600s look like papier-mâché. Over those six years, we've constantly been on the defensive, and the only success we've had at all are Tech-Com's strikes in places like LA. Am I missing anything?"

John remained silent.

"Are you?"

John stared at her. "Pardon?"

"Are you missing anything?" Blair asked.

"I don't follow."

She lowered her gaze and began to fold her hands against each other. "I'm just saying…back when we were in the field, you wouldn't shut up about the shit Skynet was going to deploy. The Hunter Killers. The Terminators. Now it's like you're out of…"

"Insight?" John asked.

"That," Blair murmured. "And drive."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just saying John, your broadcasts don't have the punch they used to."

John leant back in his chair, scowling. "You know I've got better things to do than that."

"Do you?" Blair asked.

John didn't say anything. Thing was, despite his 'promotion' to being leader of the Resistance and the potential saviour of all mankind, he'd never intended to step away from the broadcasts he'd once done. His mother had drilled into him his supposed "inner strength" ever since the cradle, and in the 2010s, she wasn't the only one. But these days, it was hard to say that the fight could still be won. It was hard to give people hope when he had so little of it himself. It was hard…

He reached over and poured himself some whiskey. This wasn't the future his mother had told him about. Of what the Kyle Reese of a now non-existent future had told Sarah Connor, among them was that it was Skynet who'd developed phase-plasma weaponry, and it was the Resistance who'd captured the tech and reverse engineered it. In the end, Skynet's quest for more effective weapons had ended up creating weapons that could actually harm it. In this timeline, Skynet had developed the T-800 (and well ahead of schedule at that), but had neglected to develop the weapons they'd used in the future his father had come from. And worst case scenario was that Skynet was intentionally holding back. Somehow, this Skynet, the one created by CRS rather than Cyberdyne, had learnt of its counterpart's efforts. Both it and its greatest foe had gone into the future with knowledge of what portended for both of them. And in this future…

In this future, Skynet could win.

"John?"

He blinked and took a sip. "Want some?" he asked.

"No, thank you sir," Blair said, not looking at ease at seeing a man people called the messiah consume alcohol. "Sir, there is the option that we so far haven't considered…"

John frowned. "Go on."

Blair cleared her throat. "We need oil. Course we need a lot of things, but we need oil most of all. Stealing oil didn't work. Sabotage only knocks Skynet back for so long. So…what if we throw everything we've got at it? Take an oilfield in, I dunno, Texas. Take it, smash Skynet's forces, hold the position."

John frowned. "You'd risk everything on a single attack?"

"I'm just saying sir, all the risks we've taken over the last six years haven't accomplished much." She nodded towards the map. "And that red is expanding day by day."

John didn't say anything. He'd seen the same thing. Day in, day out, looking for any kind of refuge against the machines.

Blair got to her feet. "It's your choice sir. I trust you. Lots of people trust you. But it's been six years since you took command, and while you've kept us alive, I think people want a bit more."

John took another sip of the whiskey.

"Sir," Blair said, giving a small salute and heading out of the office, softly closing the door behind her. Leaving John to lean back in his chair and take another sip.

Want more, he reflected. Don't we all?

Truth was, he'd already considered it. Throwing everything at one of Skynet's bases, taking it, holding it, and moving on from there. He got to his feet and looked at the map, silently admitting that Texas wasn't the worst idea in the world. Close to California, sure, but if they took its oilfields, they'd be able to keep their birds in the air. Keep their jeeps moving. Give what few tanks they had a few more years. Because so far the alternative was relying on Tech-Com to keep sabotaging Skynet's bots, and despite their best efforts, Skynet could keep pumping them out.

"John?"

He looked to the side, seeing a woman stand before him. "Doesn't anyone knock?"

She smiled. "Didn't think I have to."

John forced a smile as well. "Chain of command still applies to you Kate."

"And yet, Major Williams can just walk in." She kissed John on the cheek. "Don't worry, I'm not jealous."

The thought had never entered John's mind. He figured that if Kate had stuck with him for twenty years, and helped raise their children for six, then that was a fairly solid foundation for continued marriage. Or at least as solid as a world such as this could allow. He took another sip and felt Kate put her hands on his shoulders, rubbing them, before lying her chin against the right shoulder.

"Can I help?" she asked.

John sighed. "If I suggested that we risk everything on a single strike against one of Skynet's oilfields, in the knowledge that if we failed, we'd lose the war, but if we won, we'd get continued air support…what would you do?"

Kate stood aside, and when he looked back at her, he could see the concern in her eyes.

"That bad huh?" she murmured.

John grunted. "I'm starting to think so." He looked back at the map. "You know, sometimes I think I've been going about this wrong."

"John?"

"A Terminator tried to kill me when I was ten. It was destroyed less than forty-eight hours later. Then Skynet tried again when I was nineteen – it was destroyed twenty-four hours later, and minutes before the world ended."

"I don't follow."

"My mother prepared me for war, but Skynet had me fight battles. Now, we've got T-800s everywhere, and I can't help but think that…" He sighed. "That it should be easier."

Kate didn't say anything. He couldn't blame her. She'd encountered a Terminator once, and it had been a machine more advanced than anything Skynet had so far created. He'd encountered them twice, but both were in the context of his mother preparing him for the horrors they'd unleash. Horrors that were turned on their head, granted, but horrors all the same. He headed back to the desk, collapsing in his chair and rubbing his eyes. Nineteen years of life, twenty years of war. Right now, it felt that the first half of his life had failed to prepare him for the second.

"Listen, John," Kate began.

He looked up at her.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do," she murmured. "But you survived Skynet twice. You've survived it so far. Maybe…maybe believe that you can still survive it?"

John snorted. "That's not a strategy Kate. That's a sermon."

"I'm just saying John, maybe the battle is still the same? You fight. You survive. Twenty years, you've helped us all survive."

"But how?" he asked. "I'm supposed to be this great military leader, and so far, all I've done is keep Skynet to a stalemate."

"Which is more than most people could do," Kate said.

John grunted.

"John, you won. You won, so Skynet tried to stop you from winning, and still failed. If you beat Skynet once before, you can do it again."

"In another timeline," he murmured.

"Yes, in another timeline. And in this timeline? I believe you can do it again." She reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Believe it or not, a lot of people still believe that."

John remained silent. Even as she kissed him on the cheek and walked out. Leaving him alone – a state of being he'd been used to for much of his life. In silence, he looked at the screen. Weighing his options.

Choosing his future.

A/N

So, as tangental as it is, the idea for this came from a comment made by James Cameron in regards to the films that followed Judgement Day. The comment was, paraphrased, was that (part of) the reason they failed was that they didn't keep the pace of the first films, what with the bulk of their stories taking place over just a few days.

Now, I could give you many reasons why T3-5 aren't in the same league as the first two films (and chances are they wouldn't be unpopular reasons), but this supposed lack of pacing isn't among them. T3 and T5 still take place mostly over the course of a few days, and even Salvation, while probably the slowest paced film, still takes place over a timeframe of less than a week.

So, drabbled this up. Because reasons.