Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire

by Timothy Zahn

  Contemptuously, Lajard turned away from her, swiveling toward Blair. His right hand darted under his jacket and emerged with a small pistol. Blair skidded to a halt, snapping up her gun toward him.

  Frantically, Hope pulled back on the bowstring, knowing full well that her arrow would never make it to Lajard’s back in time. The two guns were nearly homed in on their respective targets, and in less than a heartbeat Blair or Lajard—or both of them—would be dead.

  And then, the thundercrack of a shot boomed across the clearing. Not from Lajard or Blair, but from somewhere to Hope’s right.

  The impact slammed Lajard into Susan, his head exploding with blood that sprayed across her face and onto the rear cockpit wall. He bounced off her immobile body even as Hope’s arrow belatedly dug itself into his back. His knees gave way, and he fell to the deck.

  Shaking like a windblown leaf, Hope stepped from her hiding place and peered across the clearing.

  Halverson was limping toward them, his face rigid with pain, his shirt wet with perspiration, his rifle still pressed to his shoulder. His gaze flicked to Hope, then to Blair, then back to the helicopter.

  “You two okay?” he called gruffly.

  “Yes,” Blair said for both of them as she climbed up into the cockpit. Crouching over Lajard, she twisted the pistol out of his hand.

  She was peering down at the body when Susan gave a long, hissing sigh and collapsed.

  Blair was saying something about staying back as Hope raced to the helicopter. Hope ignored her, brushing past and dropping onto her knees at Susan’s side.

  “Susan?” she called, wincing at her friend’s blood-spattered face and her closed eyes. “Can you hear me? Susan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Shh,” Susan murmured, her eyes flicking half open. “I’m the one who’s sorry, not you. I’m the one... I didn’t want to hurt you, Hope. I never wanted to hurt you. But I couldn’t... I couldn’t.”

  “But you did,” Hope assured her, her throat aching. “You broke Skynet’s programming. You stopped him.”

  Susan shook her head wearily.

  “You stopped him, Hope. Not me. You stopped him with this.” She started to reach for the broken arrow shaft still embedded in the back of her head.

  Her hand never got there. It flopped weakly back down onto the deck and lay still.

  She was gone.

  For a long minute Hope just knelt there, gripping the woman’s hand, memories swirling through her mind like the bittersweet smoke from a cooking fire. Behind her, she could hear Blair and Halverson murmuring together, but she had no attention to spare for whatever they were talking about. Hope’s friend was dead.

  She had killed her.

  “Hope?” Blair murmured quietly. “We have to go.”

  Hope tried to blink away her tears. She couldn’t.

  “Can we—we can bury them, can’t we?” she asked, her voice shaking. “We have to bury them.”

  “We will,” Blair promised. “But not now. Your father’s in danger.”

  And with that, all the pain and sorrow abruptly flowed back into the far corners of Hope’s mind, still there but no longer overwhelming her. Her father was in trouble. The grief and guilt would have to wait.

  “Where?” she said.

  “Bear Commons,” Halverson replied. He had hold of Lajard’s arms and was dragging him out of the helicopter, his face contorted with pain and determination. “We think that’s where Skynet’s base is.”

  “Go over there,” Blair ordered, pointing Hope across the cockpit toward the door-mounted gun on the helicopter’s right-hand side. “There’s a safety harness attached to the wall. Strap yourself in.”

  Hope stood up, forcing herself not to look back as Blair dealt with Susan’s body. She hadn’t noticed before just how big and fearsome the gun looked. Especially up close.

  The gun that Susan had been preparing to use when Hope shot her in the back.

  But she wouldn’t think about that. Not right now.

  Backing into the safety harness, she began fastening it around her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The first T-700 had nearly made it through to the surface now, and for a brief moment Kyle allowed himself the hope that the rest of the machines might have been buried so deeply underground that they wouldn’t be able to claw their way out. That would leave just a single T-700 for them to face. Surely Connor’s guards could stop a single T-700?

  But then the machine reached the surface and stepped to the side, and Kyle’s heart sank as he saw a second skeletal metal hand reach up from underground.

  There were more of them down there, ready to come up and kill. Maybe even the entire tunneling contingent.

  He looked at the medical recovery tent behind them. One of Connor’s guards had a whistle to his mouth, and through the ringing that the underground explosion had left in his ears Kyle could faintly hear the frantic screech of the emergency code signal. Two more seconds, he knew, and everyone within hearing range would come running.

  But it was a useless gesture, because there wasn’t anyone out there. Not at this hour. Not close and well-armed enough. The only thing that stood between Connor and the Terminators were Connor’s guards and their weapons, and Kyle and his shotgun.

  And in that frozen second, as Kyle turned back to the Terminator standing in the fading daylight, he knew what he had to do.

  He took off in a dead run, his shotgun gripped across his chest. The weapon still had three shots, and he would make sure he used those shots to their best advantage.

  Something brushed his sleeve. He turned, and found Callahan and Zac running alongside him. Callahan’s mouth moved, and even though Kyle’s ears were still too paralyzed to hear the other’s words, his lip movements were easy enough to read: What are you doing?

  “Blocking that hole,” Kyle shouted back. He waved his shotgun. “Get back!”

  Callahan’s gaze turned to the Terminators, and out of the corner of his eye Kyle saw his face harden.

  He’d figured it out. Kyle couldn’t hope to stop even one Terminator with his shotgun, not with its remaining three shells, not even at point-blank range. The one, single chance any of them had of slowing down the deadly invasion—

  “Go on, get back!” Kyle shouted.

  Callahan didn’t bother to answer. He turned and said something to Zac, and Kyle saw the younger teen shake his head.

  “Zac!” Kyle shouted. “Get back.”

  And then, to Kyle’s chagrin, Callahan put on a burst of speed, pulling ahead as he charged the Terminators.

  “Callahan!” Kyle shouted.

  But it was no use. Callahan was bigger, older, and faster... and as he’d been willing to sacrifice himself earlier, he was now determined to take this mission on himself.

  Kyle clenched his teeth. Fine. If Callahan wanted to get himself killed, Kyle couldn’t stop him.

  But even if Callahan managed to jump on the half-emerged Terminator, any hope of pinning it down would last only as long as it took the first T-700 to pick him up and toss him off.

  Maybe Kyle could do something about that.

  He would use two of his remaining shells on the Terminator’s arms. Then he would throw himself at full speed against the machine’s torso, with luck knocking it over onto its back. If he was still alive at that point, he would fire his final shell up under the Terminator’s chin, in the direction of its braincase. Maybe a pellet or two would get through the metal and damage one or more of the motor control lines leading to the machine’s limbs.

  Callahan was a good five paces out in front now, and flicking his eyes to the side Kyle saw that Zac was also starting to pull ahead.

  And, to his surprise, Kyle felt a grim smile crease his lips.

  There had been times, back in Los Angeles, when he’d wondered about this far-away Resistance he’d heard so much about. He’d wondered whether he and Star would ever link up with it, and if they did if it would be worth his allegiance.

&
nbsp; Now he knew. If Connor and the others could inspire men like Callahan and Zac to make the ultimate sacrifice, this Resistance was indeed worth Kyle’s allegiance.

  His allegiance, and his life.

  The T-700’s red eyes glittered as it contemplated the three reckless humans bearing down on it. At least it wasn’t armed, Kyle thought with an odd sort of emotional detachment. That was something, anyway. His thoughts flicked to Star, and he wished briefly that he’d had a chance to say good-bye to her. But the others would take care of her, he knew now. The Resistance took care of its own.

  And then, five meters in front of him, Callahan suddenly slowed, his head turning up and sideways. He snapped his arms out to both sides.

  Kyle was just starting to wonder if Callahan’s courage and determination had somehow failed him when the T-700 standing in front of them abruptly disintegrated in a burst of dimly heard automatic gunfire.

  Kyle twisted his head around. There, swooping in on them like an avenging angel, was a Resistance helicopter, its door-mounted machineguns blazing away as it spat destruction at the two Terminators.

  A second later, Kyle stumbled into Callahan’s outstretched arm. A second after that, he found that same arm wrapped around his shoulders as Callahan gripped the two of them, Kyle on one side, Zac on the other, with the released tension of a man who has just faced certain death and then had that doom snatched from him.

  Kyle had cheated death too many times, him and Star, to go all sentimental that way. Still, his knees were suddenly feeling a little weak. Probably because he hadn’t had anything much to eat since breakfast.

  The chopper set down near the demolished Terminators. A half-dozen men armed with heavy weapons jumped out and headed to the machines’ rat hole to see what else might be lurking down there.

  And waiting behind them in the chopper, her face bright with relief, was Star. She raised her hand toward Kyle and the others and waved.

  Kyle waved back... and as he did so, the tension of the day started to fade away, leaving only fatigue, hunger and thirst.

  But that was all right. Because they’d made it through, and John Connor was safe.

  And all was finally right with the world.

  * * *

  The area around Bear Commons wasn’t the best battlefield position Barnes had ever seen. Even so, there were a good half-dozen places in and around the clearing’s rim that should work well enough as defensible positions.

  Skynet had other ideas. Barnes and Preston had just reached a big rock outcropping right at the edge of the clearing, when Preston spotted the broken T-700 dragging itself determinedly through the grass toward them. They stumbled from behind the rock to a wide tree trunk, only to have the Terminator change direction and again launch itself into a slow-motion charge.

  Three moves later, the damn thing was still chasing them.

  It would be easy enough to simply blow the machine back into its component parts and be done with it. Barnes had no doubt that Skynet was hoping he would do exactly that.

  But Barnes knew better than to give in to that temptation. They had Barnes’s rifle and the Terminator G11, with only around forty-five rounds left between the two weapons. Barnes had no intention of spending any more of them on a T-700 that was already half broken and of no serious threat. Not with Jik still skulking around somewhere out there in the woods.

  Barnes frowned into the gathering darkness. Back when they were by the wrecked cabin and had been distracted by the T-700’s attempted sneak attack, Jik had tried one of his own, running toward them across the clearing. He’d backed off when his ploy failed, but the fact remained that Skynet had sent him into enemy fire without hesitation.

  And why not? He was a Theta, very tough, very hard to kill. He’d already taken on Halverson’s hunting force, after all, and killed all of them.

  So why was he still hanging back instead of going on the offensive? Had Skynet actually calculated that Barnes could take him out with forty-five rounds before he could kill the two of them?

  Or could something have happened that had suddenly made Jik’s survival more important than it had been earlier?

  That question was obviously on Preston’s mind, too.

  “You think he went back to where he killed everyone to look for a better weapon?” he murmured.

  Barnes shook his head. “If there’d been any working guns back there, he would already have them.”

  “What about bows?” Preston countered. “Maybe he went back to get one of those.”

  Barnes grimaced. That one hadn’t even occurred to him.

  “Yeah, good point,” Barnes grunted. “Well, whatever he’s got, my guess is that he’s waiting for full dark. You’re the expert hunter—how close could he get to us without us hearing him?”

  “Probably not too close,” Preston said. “But if he’s got a bow and some arrows, he can probably get close enough.”

  And then, faintly in the distance, Barnes heard a familiar sound.

  “We may not have to find out the hard way,” he said. “Hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “That,” Barnes said, nodding his head to the southeast and the sound of a Blackhawk’s rotors. “That’s Williams in our chopper.”

  “It may be your chopper,” Preston said ominously. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean Williams is the one flying it.”

  Barnes scowled, a flicker of doubt darkening his new confidence. Could Preston be right? Could that be Lajard and Valentine in there, coming in to pick up Jik and head off on whatever new killing spree Skynet had planned?

  The moment passed. Williams had gone to get the chopper, and she was better than that.

  “Don’t worry, it’s her,” he assured Preston, looking upward at the camouflage canopy. It had been starting to open before the H-K wrecked the cabin, but it was still mostly in place above the clearing. “The big question is whether she’s going to be able to find us.”

  “Yes,” Preston said thoughtfully. “You suppose that thing’s flammable?”

  “No idea.”

  “Let’s find out. You still have any of that aviation fuel on your boots?”

  Barnes reached down and touched his boot.

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Give me a piece,” Preston ordered, slipping the bow he’d taken from Halverson off his shoulder.

  Barnes pulled out his knife.

  “How big?”

  “The biggest you can get without cutting off any toes.”

  Barnes nodded and set to work. A few seconds later, he had freed most of the upper toe section.

  “Got it.”

  “Stick it on here.” Preston handed Barnes one of his arrows and dug into his pocket. “Run it down to just below the arrowhead.”

  Barnes did so. Preston took the arrow back and handed him a small object.

  “My lighter,” he identified it as he set the arrow into the bowstring and drew it back until the wet leather was almost touching the fingers of his bow hand. “Gasoline fueled, so watch out for your fingers.”

  Barnes wasn’t expecting much of the aviation fuel to still be left in the leather. He was wrong. At the first touch of the lighter’s fire the piece of leather blazed into bright blue-yellow flame.

  Preston angled the bow upward.

  “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he murmured, and let it fly.

  The arrow shot up, tracing a flaming arc up toward the camo netting. It hit, jamming itself into the mesh.

  For a long moment nothing happened. The fire smoldered and faltered, looking on the verge of going out. Then the fire began to gain new life. It caught, brightened—

  And abruptly roared back to life, burning and spreading across the net. A minute later, the whole circle was ablaze, the flickering flames lighting up the clearing below.

  “Perfect,” Barnes said, picking up the G11 and returning his attention to the forest around them. “If she doesn’t see that, she’s gone blind and stupid.”

  �
��Now what?” Preston asked.

  “We wait for her to get here,” Barnes said grimly. “And we expect Skynet to make one last shot at taking us down before she does.”

  Blair had the Blackhawk in the air when she spotted the first glimmer of light amid the forest gloom. Frowning, she started to turn to Halverson, strapped in at the portside M240, to ask what it might be.

  And then, abruptly, the glow flared and spread out. By the time the Blackhawk reached the river, it had become a complete circle of blazing fire.

  “That’s the place!” she heard Halverson shout over the wind buffeting her through the broken windshield. “That’s Bear Commons.”

  Mentally, Blair threw Barnes a salute. “Get ready!” she shouted. “Hope?”

  “I’m ready,” the girl at the starboard gun called.

  Blair pitched the Blackhawk forward, sending the aircraft racing toward the circle of flame. Hope might say she was ready, but Blair knew better. She’d seen the look on the girl’s face after what had happened with Valentine and Lajard, and she was anything but ready to do that again.

  Blair could hardly blame her. Shooting red-eyed metal Terminators was one thing. Shooting Terminators with human faces looking back at you was something else entirely.

  They were nearly to the fiery circle now. Barnes and Preston were somewhere down there, Blair knew, hopefully still alive. Jik, another Terminator with a human face, would also be down there.

  Blair would have to make sure that, when the time came to open fire, Jik was on Halverson’s side of the Blackhawk.

  The fire was fading as Blair eased them into a hover directly above it. Much of the camo mesh itself had already burned away, revealing a network of slender cables anchoring the mesh to the treetops around the edge of the clearing.

  “What now?” Halverson called.

  Blair settled her hands on the controls.

  “Hang on,” she advised.

  Shoving the throttle forward, she sent the helo into a stomach-lurching drop straight onto the mesh.

  Open-area camouflage nets were designed to support their own weight, the additional pressure of an occasional curious bird, and very little else. The mesh held the helo’s weight for maybe half a second before collapsing in a flurry of displaced sparks and snapped treetops. Blair was ready, hauling back on the throttle to kill the Blackhawk’s drop and bring it back up to treetop height again.