'Moving out in ten.'

The breathless voice jolted him from his thoughts. Marcus looked up at the young soldier who had peered through the door of the locker room, and gave him the barest of nods to acknowledge he'd heard him.

Ten minutes. It was time. Marcus fingered the fabric of the trench coat lying on the bench beside him. It was his old coat. The one he'd taken off a dead soldier, then left with Blair the night she helped him escape. She had apparently held on to it afterwards, returning it to him only now, minutes before he was set to ship out.

On what was most likely a suicide mission.

However you looked at, Marcus told himself, odds were pretty good there would be another dead guy in that coat before the day was out.

'I'll see you,' she had whispered finally, as he stood clutching the trench. Her dark hair hung like curtains down the sides of her face. She couldn't seem to look him in the eye. Marcus put his hand out and let his fingers graze her cheek. 'Okay,' was all he could say. He wasn't about to make any false promises.

'I should go,' She looked at him finally, then glanced furtively over his shoulder towards the door. 'You need to gear up.' She was right, he had to focus.

'Okay.' His lips formed the word almost soundlessly.

She hugged him quickly, hard, and turned abruptly to go. His hand caught hers and squeezed it one last time before it slipped from his grasp and then she was gone.

Now he bent over and began lacing up his combat boots. They were new – or newer, anyway, than the ones he'd been wearing so far.

The boots came with the gear he'd been given specifically for this mission. Another notable addition was an odd, wetsuit-like garment he was wearing under his clothes that was meant to dampen the heat signature of his body. Marcus was skeptical of this, but had been told it would cut down his visibility significantly.

He wasn't able to get a straight answer as to whether it had been field tested. "Just... wear it, alright?" the techie had snapped when questioned. Fuck it, Marcus had thought as he'd stripped off his clothes to yank on the suit. He figured it would keep him warm if nothing else.

He had been provided a set of tools and some explosive charges to disable the turret controls. He eyed the small arsenal of weapons lying on the bench in front of him. He was as well-prepared as you could possibly be for something like this, he decided. He had been over the basic plan about fifty times and knew what he had to do. He'd stared at maps and schematics, trying to commit them to memory. The past twenty-four hours had been spent gearing up for this.

But somehow, Blair coming to say goodbye had thrown all that preparation out the window. It had rattled him. Even though she'd made it a point not to say goodbye. The trench coat had rattled him. He didn't want to think too deeply about the gesture – what it meant… what her having held on to the coat in the first place meant…

Suddenly, he didn't want to go through with it. He didn't want to go out there and face the machines. He wanted to stay on the base, safe behind perimeter walls and minefields, and eat disgusting food at Connor's table in the mess and wander aimlessly with Star and sneak out at night with Blair like errant teenagers to lie in the cold looking at the stars.

He wanted to call for a time-out. I've changed my mind, he imagined saying to Connor. Connor would probably break his nose, for starters.

His fingers trembled as he pulled on his laces, fumbling several times before finally getting them tied right.

Kyle glanced up at the sound of footsteps to finally see Kate approaching. Pushing away from the wall he was leaning against, he fell into step beside her as she walked down the hall. Her pace was surprisingly brisk considering how far along she was.

'What is it, Kyle?' Her face was tense, her mouth drawn. Kyle knew she was worried about Connor, that she hadn't wanted him to accompany Marcus and Barnes, even if it was just till the drop point. Connor couldn't stay safe on the base forever, obviously. But Kyle figured he could understand that for Kate, after what they'd been through, it was just too soon…

'They've headed out.'

'Uhuh,' Kate confirmed.

'I was just wondering…' he began hesitantly, 'Do you think I could watch? I promise I'll stay out of the way. You won't even know I'm there. I gotta be there Kate, please.' He looked pleadingly at her.

She stopped in her tracks, giving him an inscrutable look. She chewed on this for a few seconds. 'It's not usually the done thing,' she told him. 'But what the hell. John won't mind. Come on.' Kyle' eyes widened in excitement but he tried to suppress this, nodding seriously.

'You know it could go either way right?' Kate asked him. 'It's tough to be there watching when that happens.'

Kyle looked solemnly at her. 'I know. All the more reason I want to be there.'

They entered the Command Room together.

The sky was beginning to lighten, taking on an unearthly shade of blue as dawn started to break. The open-air jeep hurtled over the uneven terrain, heading toward the drop-off point.

'Earpiece?' Barnes barked over the roar of the engine.

Marcus felt for the small device lodged in his ear and nodded.

'Okay, this is it,' Connor was leaning in to yell, his features in shadow in the diffuse early light, "Just stick to the plan. You'll have your signal to move with the first fly-by. Let them engage before you close in. Stay close to the ground and keep moving. And remember – radio silence until you're in position to move out. Got it?'

'Got it.' Marcus reflexively adjusted his grip on the rifle that lay across his lap. They were going to take him in as close to the facility as was safe for a couple of jeeps to get. He'd have to make it the rest of the way in on foot to avoid being detected.

The jeep bounced roughly over a large pothole, jostling them all hard. Marcus noticed it made Connor wince. He'd insisted on coming out to the drop-off point, overruling the objections of the others.

Connor was eyeing him closely too. As Barnes turned to talk to the driver, Connor shifted closer to Marcus, grasping his shoulder, looking him square in the eye. 'You're going to do fine,' he told Marcus firmly. 'If there's anyone who can do this, it's you. That night at Skynet? We time this right, and this might be a piece of cake compared to that night.'

Marcus returned his gaze. He didn't believe Connor for a second but was grateful for the encouragement. 'Just make it count,' he told Connor. 'If I manage to get the defenses down… Make sure they take their shot the minute they get it. Don't… you know, worry about me.'

In response, Connor thumped his shoulder.

He turned away to talk to a soldier seated behind them. Marcus forced himself to draw in a deep breath, staring out at the horizon as they hurtled forward into the breaking day.

The turrets loomed as large as he remembered them. Larger, in fact. They were uglier, more menacing, spaced out evenly over a large area. The low hum of power filled the air and the massive searchlights mounted on each tower rotated steadily across the landscape even as the sky brightened with every passing moment.

Crouched behind the rocky outcrop he'd made his way to from the drop-off point, he tried to gauge the distance between him and the nearest of the four turrets. He was close enough. He had to wait for the jets now.

Marcus crouched lower and scanned the barren terrain again. Not a whole lot of places to take cover. Just some shrubs, some rocks, a few hillocks here and there. He was going to have to run for it and pray that they didn't cut him down before he even got there.

He adjusted the weapon slung over his shoulder and turned his face up to the sky as if praying for Providence. No sign yet of the fly-by that was to be his signal to move in. Come on. Come on.

Too much adrenalin coursing through his system was making him feel sick. At least, that's what he told himself. It was the adrenalin. Not fear. His gut churned and a cold sweat covered his skin. His heart was pounding in his throat.

He didn't have time to dwell on this – at last, the fierce roar of an A-10 streaking through the sky overhead ripped through the ominous silence of the morning.

Showtime.

He darted forward through the scrub, moving erratically through the uneven terrain from one sheltered spot to the next. He was careful to keep low to the ground, keeping watch for machines patrolling the perimeter. He had memorized the steady sweep pattern of the floodlights but the sky was brightening, and soon they wouldn't be of any use. His breathing and the scuffling of his boots through the dirt and brush were the only sounds he made, and the only other sound he could hear out here was the faint hum of power and distant mechanical clanking. The factory churning.

As he flung himself into the meager shadow provided by a thorny shrub, he doubted that he would get close enough to the first turret undetected. The land had been cleared for several hundred meters around the perimeter and there was no place to hide. He'd just have to make a run for it. Eyeing the sides of the turret, he searched for the quickest way up. He knew the turrets featured shafts to enable maintenance bots to climb up.

As he scanned the area taking one final stock of his options, a tremendous boom resounded through the air like thunder, making him duck instinctively. The aerial bombardment had begun. It was now or never. Marcus leapt forward from behind the brush and broke into a sprint, heading straight for the turret as fast as he could move.

The air around him filled with an electrifying sensation of power and an acrid smell as the perimeter defenses snapped into action, firing back a sharp volley of blinding plasma at the receding aircraft. Marcus crouched lower as he ran, hoping fervently none of their planes was hit.

Come one, come on…

The turret sidewall was straight ahead. If he could just make it there undetected, that would buy him at least a minute or so to climb up and begin his work. The tower was merely meters away when the screaming drone of jet engines was followed by another violent boom – he had never heard anything so loud in his life – and this time the shockwave sent him sprawling to the ground.

He explosion churned up a massive cloud of dust and debris that pelted down steadily, choking and blinding him. Marcus swore out loud, tasting sand and grit, scrambling, half-crawling the last few feet to the tower. There wasn't time to think about where that last explosion had come from, or how close it was – he began feeling his way around the mammoth surface of the structure's base for a handhold, and finally located the recessed shaft running the length of the tower. Deftly, he began climbing this and in less than thirty seconds he had reached the narrow ledge under a large panel behind which manual controls were concealed.

The air around him was filled with static electric discharge that made his hair stand on end, and the noise was hellish – the jets continued to bombard the towers and the entire perimeter defense system rallied to return fire. The thundering explosions of missiles being decimated before they could hit their targets made him jump and duck involuntarily every few seconds. After that last explosion, his hearing had shut down – his ears were ringing with a constant high-pitched whine.

Suddenly being plunged into the heart of in a warzone was an immense shock to the system, but he had no time to even consider this. His senses were simultaneously heightened and dulled to the point where he almost felt like he was in a dream. This was the moment of truth. His world collapsed in on itself as his focus became laser-like and everything but the task at hand receded.

Wrestling a large wrench from his tool-belt he began cranking away at the bolts as fast as he could. He found that although he was shaking, his hands were mercifully steady. Soon he was pulling away the large, heavy protective panel about the size of a car door, tossing it aside easily. Exposed before him lay a vast patchwork of wires and circuits. Marcus reached for an explosive charge – then froze.

With a sinking heart he realized what he'd been dreading all along. He could fry the controls for this turret, but then what? There was no way in hell he was going to make it to the next tower… never mind the other two after that. He had a matter of minutes, maybe less, before ground enforcements showed up. Was just one disabled turret a significant dent in an otherwise impregnable system? Not likely. Think, Marcus, think… he told himself desperately.

The control panel was intimidating up close. The minute schematics he had pored over and tried to commit to memory didn't seem to translate now that he was here. But somehow, somewhere in his brain, a glimmer of an idea was forming… the seconds continued to tick by, time a commodity that was increasingly precious, as he armed sweat off his forehead and stared at the circuitry.

Okay. Okay. Let's do this.

Marcus reached for the wires.

'Three minutes," Connor announced grimly, his eyes flickering tersely between the screen and Kate's face. There was tense silence in the Command Room as screens flickered and beeped. No one else spoke, but all eyes were on the monitors that relayed information from the ground offensive. Behind Kate, Kyle hovered anxiously, forgetting his promise to remain in the background. Kate crossed her arms tighter.

'Barnes,' he barked into his mouthpiece, 'Status.'

'Holding off defenses so far,' Barnes reported, then there was abrupt silence. 'Wait,' called out, his voice snapping with tension. 'We got trouble. Ground units incoming, west end of the perimeter.'

'How many. Cover him, Barnes. Buy as much time as we can.'

'Gonna try. Can't get in close enough.'

Connor sat back, barely controlling his frustration. He couldn't bear to be watching on the sidelines.

He looked at Kate, shook his head slightly. 'He's not going to make it,' he mouthed.

Kate's expression was grim as she watched the screens before them. It didn't look good. The northern-most turret, the one Marcus was supposed to have disabled by now, was still firing away, volley after volley of scorching plasma –

'Wait.' Connor started forward. 'What was that?'

Almost instantly Barnes' voice thundered over the radio "Okay, something's up – the north turret is firing… at Skynet's own defenses."

'It's Marcus,' Kyle breathed. 'He's done something…'

The turret's guns had swiveled smoothly in the opposite direction and were aiming at the closest turret. There was a split second of silence from the remaining turrets as though the perimeter defense system was baffled.… Machines trying to compute why one of their own was targeting them… Then all hell broke loose.

The guns on all three remaining turrets rotated ominously toward the north tower and unleashed their firepower to spectacular effect.

As they all watched, stunned, the sidewall of the turret Marcus should have been on exploded in a fireball.

'Wright, come in,' Connor called grimly. 'If you can hear me, acknowledge.' He expected only silence.

But after a few seconds there was a crackle on the airwaves and barely audible through the deafening chaos, came Marcus's voice, breathless, frantic. 'I'm here, I'm here,' he yelled out, 'I mean, copy… Had to change the plan, I' –

A deafening blast cut him off and was followed moments later by muttered expletives and ragged breathing.

"Copy Wright, get your ass out of there. Now!" Connor yelled into his headset.

Barnes' was calling out over Connor: 'Ground units approaching your position!'

'What?' Marcus screamed over the din.

'T-800s,' Barnes bellowed back. 'I count four machines, one's almost on you. We're coming for you… do not engage, just run for it – repeat, we're en route to you!'

Another deafening blast echoed over the airwaves. 'Holy mother of…,' Marcus's voice was muffled and distorted. 'Okay, okay I'm moving… Shit… I see one…'

'Barnes is right,' Connor told him urgently. 'There's too many to take on. You can outrun them… Just… move.'

Connor leaned forward into the screen as if willing himself to be transported through it to the scene of the battle. He adjusted his headset, 'All units, hold your fire till Wright has cleared the area. I repeat, hold your fire.'

Complete chaos was reigning on the ground from the look of things from their vantage point. The turret Marcus had managed to rig was engulfed in flames, and all other ground defenses were unleashing their payloads onto the tower, but it was still attacking its own facility systematically.

'You see what he's done?' Connor breathed, touching Kate's sleeve, 'Fucking… brilliant.' His eyes were wide as he watched in awe.

'Oh my God, come on Marcus…' Kate whispered, her hand pressed to her mouth, eyes riveted to the screen. 'Think he's going to make it out?'

'I don't know, Kate. I sure as fuck hope so.'

'He will,' Kyle piped up from behind them. 'Just watch.'

As soon as he'd seen the turret's guns swiveling, he'd launched himself down the chute… another few seconds and the spot he'd been standing would be engulfed in flames. He'd either be roasted alive or blown to bits, and neither option was particularly appealing.

He'd landed hard, his left arm and shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, and lay stunned for a moment, winded. He'd dragged himself up off the ground, catching his breath just enough to radio in his status as he crawled out of the shadow of the turret, trying to figure out his next move while dodging the flaming debris that was now raining down around him.

And there on the horizon, even as Connor and Barnes were yelling in his ear, he saw the menacing glint of the first of the T-800s Barnes was warning him about. The thing was moving toward him with its characteristic slow deliberation, and strangely, it looked even more chilling in the bright light of the morning sun than it had that night.

Marcus considered his options quickly but it was a no-brainer. Connor and Barnes were right. It had taken everything he had to take down one T-800 that night at Skynet Central. Four was just way too many. Scanning the horizon quickly, Marcus broke into a flat-out sprint – literally running for his life.

'It's gaining on you!'

He couldn't reply. He couldn't spare a single breath or an instant of focus to speak, not when he was running harder than he'd ever run in his life and it took all his attention and effort to keep moving, to push harder, to keep from losing his footing on that tricky, sandy terrain…

Marcus kept waiting to feel bullets ripping through his skin. He was zigzagging like crazy all over the place in anticipation, but strangely, the thing didn't seem to have fired off a single shot at him, content to chase him down relentlessly like a jungle cat running down its prey. Tiring it out, slowing it down, expending no more of its own resources and energy than were needed for the inevitable kill…

Maybe it had the right idea.

Marcus's legs pumped as hard as they could – like the finely tuned pistons that they were. He was all too keenly aware that technically, he and the T-800 were pretty evenly matched. Under his skin and flesh and muscle was essentially the same endoskeleton that carried the metal monster behind him.

But the goddamn machine definitely had the unfair advantage: no human heart that could only pump so fast for so long, no need to gasp for air that it just wasn't getting enough of, no muscles to tire and begin to ache….

'Move, Wright, move,' Barnes urged.

Shut the fuck up! Marcus thought desperately.

His heart was just about ready to explode in his chest cavity. Stopping to fight seemed inevitable soon. Hand to hand it would be a fairly close but relatively evenly matched contest, but Marcus' instinct told him to keep running. The others couldn't be far behind, he knew, and he could take on this one, but if the others caught up, he was as good as dead. Or captured, depending on what Skynet had planned for him.

He could hear the thing behind him now, could hear its ominously silent, heavy footsteps falling fast. He needed to look behind him to see just how much distance there really was between him and it, how fast it was closing in, but he couldn't afford to tear his eyes from the ground in front of him, couldn't afford to lose speed for even the second it would take him to slow and glance back…

The thought had barely formed itself when his foot caught on a root protruding from the ground and he tumbled hard, crashing headfirst into a large boulder with spectacular force. Stunned from the blow, Marcus struggled to regain his bearings when he felt something cold and hard close painfully on his arm and yank him up off the ground like a ragdoll.

As he glared into the glowing red eyes in the impassive metal skull, seething hatred suddenly engulfed him, eclipsing any fear he might have felt – eclipsing even his sense of self-preservation.

'Motherfucker!' Marcus spat out at the machine.

'Yeah, it's me… How d'you like that!' he screamed wildly into the terminator's face, knowing that he was screaming into the heart of Skynet, that Skynet was watching and listening...

'How's that for second chances, you fucking piece of shit?'

The T-800 would no doubt have responded similarly had it been able to. Instead, it pulled back its free arm and shot its fist forward in a precise, economical motion – a vicious punch that caught Marcus squarely on the jaw. If there had been bone under his flesh, his jaw would have shattered to pieces. Instead, the skin split under the impact. For a second, Marcus blacked out from the blow.

Braced against the chopper door, Barnes peered through his binoculars and swore softly. Wright was definitely insane, taunting the T-800 like that.

He signaled for an RPG launcher. The weapon was passed to him and he shouldered it, squinting through the telescopic sight. It didn't look good from where he was. The machine was laying into Marcus, and while Marcus was fighting back, it was obvious the advantage wasn't his. Hand-to-hand combat with a T-800 was a risky proposition even for human-machine hybrids, it seemed. And Marcus didn't seem to have helped matters by screaming abuse at the machine.

The only way Barnes could help was to take a shot the instant he had one.

'Come on,' Barnes muttered, adjusting his position as best as he could against the chopper door. Wright was losing the battle. Any moment now the machine would decide it had had enough of punishing him and end it with one simple, swift motion. All it had to do was snap his neck, or rip out his heart, and the fact that it hadn't done this yet made Barnes wonder if maybe, just maybe, Skynet wasn't actually exacting a little human-style payback… enjoying watching its wayward creation be slowly pummeled to death instead of efficiently, instantly terminated…

Barnes needed one clear shot, but Marcus and the machine were too closely entangled.

Right then, Marcus wrestled free of the machine's grasp. Barnes saw him scramble away in a desperate attempt to reach his weapon, which the machine had knocked about ten feet away into the dirt. As Barnes steadied the launcher and took aim, the terminator lunged after Marcus, seeming to sink its claws into his lower right leg. Wright yelled out, flailing and kicking out with all his strength, trying to free himself from the machines' claws, and right at the moment that he had finally scrambled loose, Barnes finally had his target locked. He pulled the trigger.

With a thunk and a hiss the grenade sailed through the air, striking metal squarely. The terminator was hurled back a split second before the explosion that blasted its head off.

With grim satisfaction, Barnes lowered his weapon; that was a pretty good shot if he did say so himself.

He activated his earpiece, 'Wright, stay put. We got you."

Marcus lay splayed on the ground where the machine had left him. He made no move to get up. There was wheezing on the other end. Then: "About – fucking – time," he managed.

Barnes grinned in spite of himself as the chopper circled around, dropping low to the ground. 'Sir, more machines closing in,' one of his lookouts told him urgently, pointing.

Barnes shouldered the RPG launcher again. 'Move!' he barked at his men but they were already throwing a rope ladder over the side, sliding down it. 'Get him in here quick.'

'Ahh, fuck,' he heard Marcus moan in his ear.

'Cover them!' Barnes yelled to his gunner, as the rest of the machines converged. The men were running toward Marcus, bent low to the ground in the powerful draft from the chopper's rotors.

Barnes fired off one more grenade, then another. Next to him, the gunner took aim with the chopper's mounted cannon and rattled off a volley of shots at the remaining machines, kicking up clouds of dust.

'Talk to me Wright,' Barnes called, scanning the area quickly with his binoculars. 'You okay?'

'Yeah,' Marcus panted, 'I'm okay.' He didn't sound okay.

The men had reached Marcus, were dragging him back toward the chopper…

'Come on!' Barnes screamed, leaning out over the ladder as the cannon rattled away furiously. With effort, they hauled Marcus into the chopper.

'Move out!' he bellowed to their pilots.

He turned to his men. 'Good job out there.' They nodded, panting. One soldier clutched at his bleeding arm where a stray bullet had caught him. 'Get that taken care of,' Barnes told him.

Marcus had collapsed onto the floor right by the entrance. Barnes crouched over him now, peered into his dusty, blood-streaked face. 'You still with us?'

'Unhh.'

'You're insane, Wright.' He grinned, relief and exhilaration washing over him. He couldn't resist adding, 'That machine had your ass if I hadn't saved it.'

'Bite me,' Marcus responded weakly.

'Better me than that T-800, asshole,' Barnes shot back, shaking his head. Unsurprisingly, he noted that Marcus was in bad shape. He gingerly took hold of his chin, turned his head to examine the bloody mess that was his jaw.

Marcus grimaced, jerking his head away. 'No,' he whispered. 'My leg.'

Barnes glanced down and the grin faded from his face. 'Oh shit…' he began.

Marcus nodded, 'Fucker got me pretty good…' he tried to move it, winced.

'You're bleeding.' A lot. Barnes paused. The leg was positively gushing. The shredded fabric of his trousers was soaked through and a pool of blood had already formed on the floor…

Barnes looked at him in alarm. 'This didn't happen last time,' he told him, almost accusingly. 'The bleeding – not like this. What the fuck…'

Marcus tried to give him a dirty look, but his eyes were glazing over. 'Don't know what to tell you,' he muttered, his voice growing fainter by the second. 'They didn't leave a user manual.'

He paused, tried to lift his head, then let it fall back on the floor with a thunk. 'I don't feel good,' he admitted now, his voice barely audible. His eyes were beginning to roll up, his lids fluttering.

Oh hell, no. Barnes gritted his teeth in frustration. 'I need a medic here, now!' he yelled.

Connor leaned back against the instrument panel and surveyed the scene quietly through a window. Kyle and Kate were hugging each other, delighted – 'I told you he'd do it!' Kyle exclaimed over and over – but Connor's mood was pensive, thoughtful.

The hangar outside the main Command Room was filled with jubilant Resistance fighters, cheering and whooping. They hugged and thumped each other on the back. The atmosphere was electric with excitement. And hope.

He knew this was a very different scenario than the night Skynet Central fell. That massive victory had largely been overshadowed by the simultaneous decimation of Command. All across the land, people had been stunned into grieved, helpless silence before hunkering down in even greater fear than before.

And, for a large proportion of the population, he knew, the silence on the airwaves had just served to heighten their sense of isolation. John Connor had been silenced. News that their prophesied leader was on the brink of death had spread like wildfire, Connor had been told later, causing panic and desperation. More people had lost their lives, some trying to escape foolishly, making easy targets of themselves; others, trying to go out in a blaze of glory, believing the end was upon them anyway.

Now, for the first time since that dark night, there was a real victory to celebrate. John drew a deep, labored breath and said a silent prayer of thanks… to whatever power was helping them. I wish you could see this, Mom, he couldn't help thinking.

He turned to Chang, who couldn't stop beaming. 'Chang, where's the chopper? Status.'

Giddy with excitement, Chang fumbled with his glasses and checked the coordinates on his screen. 'Uh…They're on route, ETA ten minutes.'

'Get me Barnes.'

'Roger that.'

As the two medics worked to quickly cut away the fabric of his trouser leg to expose the wound, Barnes wondered just how effectively they were equipped to deal with the situation.

They pulled away the shredded remains of Marcus's clothing and the extent of the damage became clear. The T-800's claws had ripped effortlessly right through the flesh and muscle of his leg from well above his knee all the way down his calf to his ankle, yanking his boot off in the process. They'd seen worse injuries of course, but this was a surreal sight.

With Wright's machine cortex no longer restricting blood supply to the site of the injuries, there was blood everywhere. It dripped from torn flesh and muscle as if from freshly slaughtered meat in a butcher's shop. The precision-engineered mechanical parts underneath gleamed bright red, stained with blood. The blood made the whole sight twice as sinister, an obvious metaphor for the paradox that was this creature in front of them.

The two men were obviously shocked. The younger of the two medics paled, pressing his forearm to his mouth for a second, almost as if he were about to be sick. He recovered almost instantly though, his training kicking into play.

He turned his attention to monitoring the patient's vitals. 'He's lost consciousness,' the medic told them, feeling for his pulse.

Barnes slapped Marcus on the cheek lightly, 'Wright, open your eyes,' he called. 'Come on, don't fuck around…' There was no response.

The other man, Johnson, was examining the wound, his jaw tightly clenched as he probed the ripped flesh.

'Can you stop the bleeding?' Barnes demanded.

'I don't know, I'm trying,' he snapped back. He was wadding up gauze, stuffing it into the wounds, but he shook his head as he did this. 'This isn't gonna work. How can I apply pressure when there's nothing under here but metal…'

There was no time to think. 'Move. Let me.' Barnes grabbed more gauze. 'We gotta improvise,' he muttered.

Clenching his jaw, Barnes inserted his hand carefully into the main entry wound. His fingers scraped unyielding metal slick with blood and he was surprised to feel his gut churn. There were times on the battlefield when he'd literally been up to his elbows in some poor sucker's guts – he wasn't squeamish. But this was different.

It had been easy, he realized in a flash of understanding, when Wright was securely chained up, to stand glaring at the exposed metal under his skin from a safe distance. It had been a bit like staring at a deadly, snarling animal locked in a cage, the divide between them assuring him of its otherness.

Now, bending over Wright as he bled out on the floor of the chopper, kneeling in his warm blood, the illusion dissolved into something much more complicated. The metal was there, an absolute reality, cold and hard and slippery with blood under his fingers. But it wasn't all there was.

Gritting his teeth he carefully pushed his hand deeper, further upward, feeling for the source of all that blood – 'Here, I got it,' he called out, as a hot spurt of blood gushed over his hand. 'It's a ruptured artery or something…'

This was something familiar. Suddenly Johnson was spurred into action. 'Right there? Could be the femoral... If it is, he only has a few minutes. Keep the pressure on,' he instructed Barnes. 'We need a tourniquet.' Barnes pressed down as hard as he could, glancing at Marcus's face. There was no sign of life.

The younger medic had a blood pressure cuff wrapped around his arm, and was monitoring his pulse. He shook his head at Barnes. 'Pressure's low, pulse weakening,' he reported. 'He's losing too much blood.'

'Hang on,' Johnson muttered, wrestling the tourniquet around his thigh, 'This should help.'

He tied the tourniquet with considerable effort, twisting to clamp down hard.

'Radio Connor,' Barnes called over his shoulder to the pilots. 'Tell him we need Kate and her team ready on the ground.'

Chang quickly spoke into his headset then turned to Connor.

'Uh, sir?'

'What.'

'I've got Samuels. Says Barnes is… busy. He's requesting a med team onsite asap sir.'

Kate was already on her feet.

Connor frowned. 'How many casualties?'

'Just one sir. It's Marcus Wright.