So why couldn’t Command get that through their thick skulls?
“Not going to be easy, Molly.” Towering over her, Geir draped an arm around her, sharing some of his body warmth, for which she was silently grateful. He stared out at the bridge below. “You’re talking several hundred tons of rolling Terminator, with air support and back-up.” He whistled in anticipation of the fight the train and its escort could put up. “Minor raids are one thing, but this would be the biggest operation we’ve ever attempted.... by far.”
A worried look came over his rugged face.
“You really think we can pull it off?”
Molly thought of all the T-600s and Hunter-Killers Skynet could power with the uranium each train carried, all the new surveillance and tracking systems it could set up. Who knew how many people would die because of the weekly supply runs? Who knew the cost to the very planet itself?
She had been a U.S. park ranger before the bombs fell. It killed her to see the land raped by Skynet.
“If we don’t, who will?”
CHAPTER THREE
2003
It is a perfect summer afternoon. A clear blue sky unfolds above the skyscrapers. Warm sunlight bathes the bustling city streets and sidewalks.
Pedestrians crowd the pavement. Office workers fetch coffee from a sidewalk vendor. Giggling teenagers hurry home from school. A beautiful young mother pushes a stroller. Infant twins gurgle happily. An old man walks a bulldog. Vendors hawk frozen treats from carts. Cars, trucks, and taxis honk impatiently. Flowers sprout from window boxes. Pigeons flutter and coo as they perch upon the granite facades of the downtown buildings. A gentle breeze blows down the street. A mouth-watering aroma spills from the open doorway of a busy bakery.
Losenko smiles. He is glad to be alive.
The sudden blare of an air-raid siren drowns out the everyday hubbub. Frightened eyes turn upward. People scatter and run. Her eyes wide with fear, the young mother places her body protectively over her babies, glancing around frantically to locate the source of the danger. The old man tugs on the bulldog’s leash, but the dog stubbornly refuses to hurry. Panicked birds take flight.
No, Losenko thinks. Not now. Not again!
A blinding white flash lights up the sky. He shields his eyes with his arm, but it’s too late. A fireball rises from the heart of the city, many blocks away. A shock wave knocks him from his feet. A scorching wind flays the flesh from his bones. His skin and clothing burst into flames.
A mushroom cloud swallows up his screams....
Losenko woke with a start, his body drenched in sweat. His bunk enclosed him like a coffin. The violet glow of the tactical display screen revealed the dimly lit contours of his cabin aboard the Gorshkov. He lay still, waiting for his racing heart to settle.
A weary sigh escaped his lips.
“Again,” he whispered hoarsely. He had no trouble recalling the details of the apocalyptic nightmare, and the sensations it left had become all too familiar to him. He had suffered through the same dream, or variations thereof, every night since that horrible day some four weeks ago when K-115 had unleashed its missiles. Sometimes he woke thinking the entire war was just a bad dream. Then the awful reality came crashing back down again.
Thanks to its nuclear engines, the Gorshkov could stay submerged indefinitely, limited only by its food supplies. A distilling plant in the engine provided a steady supply of fresh water for the men and batteries. The sub had been hiding from the enemy for a month now without word from Fleet Command. Losenko rather suspected there was no one left in Moscow to issue any new orders, so he clung to the ocean floor and waited for the conflagration to die out overhead. Radioactive fallout decayed at an exponential rate; in theory, it might finally be safe to breach the surface again.
He shuddered to think what they might find. The Americans had possessed enough bombs to reduce the Motherland to a cinder.
For a moment he flirted with the notion of trying to get back to sleep, but decided against it. A glance at the plasma screen display revealed that the next watch was due to begin in less than an hour anyway. Moreover, he was in no hurry to experience his nightmare once more, at least not so soon.
If he closed his eyes, he could still see the horrified face of the young mother as she tried in vain to shield her children from the coming holocaust. That she bore a distinct resemblance to his ex-wife, back when they were still young and in love, was surely no coincidence. His subconscious mind had a cruel streak.
Forcing the troubling images from his mind as much as was possible, he rose and dressed. Now, more than ever, he considered it important to take care in his appearance, in order to provide a strong and reassuring example for the crew. Maintaining morale and discipline—even after the end of the world—was crucial. He couldn’t allow the men to sink into apathy and despair. He could not allow himself to falter, not even for a moment. An abyss, deeper than any ocean, would suck them all down if they surrendered to the full horror of their situation.
He owed it to his crew not to let them see any cracks in his resolve.
Yet, as he took a razor to his chin, shaving in front of the small mirror in his private washroom, he couldn’t help but notice the haunted look in his bloodshot eyes. Dark purple pouches testified to long, sleepless nights.
Under the circumstances, he consoled himself, it’s a wonder that I don’t look more wretched. With that he resumed his assault on the encroaching stubble.
Once he was satisfied that he looked like a proper captain, Losenko made his way to the control room. A defeated-looking seaman squeezed past him en route to Engineering. The sailor failed to meet his captain’s eyes. His grimy coveralls smelled as though they had not been laundered in days. He stumbled over a fire bucket that someone had carelessly left sitting in the passageway.
“Look lively, sailor!” Losenko said sternly. “And stow that pail where it belongs.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the man muttered in response. Even with his captain looking over his shoulder, however, the seaman moved as though in a daze. He trudged away listlessly, bearing the offending bucket with him. The rubber soles of his sneakers barely lifted from the floor.
Losenko watched as the zombie-like figure disappeared into the stern of the boat. How many more are there like that? he pondered grimly. Even on the most uneventful of patrols, the crew started to get a little stir crazy after several weeks cooped up in a cramped metal tube. Now, with nothing to look forward to but the aftermath of a nuclear war, nerves had to be at breaking point. How long before discipline breaks down entirely?
The situation in the control room did little to reassure him. Even as he stepped foot into the nerve center, he heard Ivanov harshly upbraiding an unlucky subordinate.
“Five minutes to load a torpedo?” The XO stared in disgust at the stopwatch he held in his hand. He and the captain had been running frequent drills, in part to keep the crew’s mind off the holocaust that had engulfed their homes. “What’s wrong with those slugs down there? Have they got lead in their sneakers?”
Weapons Officer Pavlinko gulped.
“No, sir. Not that I’m aware of, sir. We’ll do better next time!”
“And suppose there had been a real American sub hunting us?” Ivanov retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Had that been the case, do you think there would have been a next time?”