Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes ts-2

by Timothy Zahn

  Sure enough, as she finished her roll and leveled off, she found the HK hovering a hundred meters directly in front of her.

  And as its Gatlings opened up, Blair squeezed her GAU-8’s trigger.

  The HK had no chance to even try to dodge away from the utterly unexpected attack. It disintegrated into a huge fireball right where it was, sending pieces of itself flying in all directions.

  Blair twisted her stick again, guiding the A-10 around the worst of the explosion.

  “Hickabick: one down,” she called into her radio as she curved back toward the main combat zone. “Number two in my sights.”

  Or maybe not, she amended to herself. In the distance ahead, the last HK suddenly poured power into its turbo-fans and headed south. Trying to get to the relative safety of the Skynet forces at Capistrano, or else hoping Blair would chase it within range of those forces.

  Which was pretty much what Blair had expected Skynet’s response to be. It was willing enough to send one of its two remaining HKs to take her down when it thought she was out of ammo and an easy target. But now that it realized it had no idea what her weapons status really was, it wasn’t willing to risk losing its last eye in the sky. Especially in the midst of a battle that was obviously not going the way Skynet had expected it to.

  But whether or not that last HK survived was no longer Skynet’s decision. If Blair put on a burst of speed, she ought to be able to get to the fleeing aircraft before it got anywhere near safety.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” she said softly into her radio.

  “Hickabick, I need a Tonto,” Connor’s voice came.

  Blair swore under her breath. She had been looking forward to sending that last HK into the dirt.

  But business before pleasure.

  “Hickabick: check,” she said, veering reluctantly away from her pursuit.

  Blair found some of Connor’s code-talk to be obscure in the extreme. But this particular one was something for which she at least had a vague memory: Tonto, wingman to the Lone Ranger, who always got sent on ahead to scout the territory.

  But he did it carefully and subtly, she reminded herself. She wasn’t sure what was happening on the ground, but if Skynet still didn’t know that they’d spotted its staging area, it wasn’t going to be Blair who gave the show away. She swung her A-10 around, tracking out a wide circle that would take her back toward the combat area and only coincidentally bring her within sight of the warehouse.

  That single glimpse was enough to show that Connor had been right to send her in for a look.

  Four T-600s had left the warehouse and were in the process of climbing the south edge of the ring of rubble.

  “Location?” she called.

  “Tee four,” Connor’s voice came back, barely audible over the noise of intense automatic weapons fire.

  Most likely the weapons fire Blair could see lighting up one of the streets ahead. Adjusting her vector again, she headed over for a closer look.

  It was Connor, all right, hunkered down about two blocks west of the Moldavia. His team was currently in the process of blowing the stuffing out of three T-600s, who were fighting back from among the blackened pieces of at least two more of the machines. Another line of fire was coming from the building across from the Moldavia, trapping the T-600s in a crossfire.

  Blair frowned. Given their basically hopeless situation, why hadn’t the surviving Terminators tried to make a run for it? Skynet was usually reluctant to simply waste its machines these days, and it could send the T-600s in practically any direction right now without exposing them to more fire than they already were receiving.

  Unless Skynet wanted them there for a reason.

  She swung the A-10 around again, ostensibly for another look at the battle, in fact for a second look at the four T-600s that had just Left the warehouse.

  That second look was all she needed. She’d been right: the three Terminators in the crossfire weren’t just standing around waiting to be demolished. They were standing around waiting for the four newcomers to sneak up behind Connor and catch him in a crossfire of their own.

  “Hole four: crab,” she called urgently into her mike.

  “Hole four: crab,” Blair’s voice came through Connor’s earphone.

  He frowned even as he lined up another shot on the T-600s he and McFarland were currently keeping off balance. Crab was the code for one to four Terminators moving in on a pincer.

  But only four? Surely his attack on this six-machine group was serious enough to warrant a bigger force than that.

  Unless it was the biggest force Skynet was still able to send.

  “Timing?” he called into the mike curving around his cheek.

  “Two minutes,” Blair reported. “Maybe less.”

  “Check,” Connor acknowledged. “David: go. Tunney: stand ready. Barnes: boil lobster.”

  “Check,” Barnes’ voice came, and there was a sudden intensification of fire from the other end of their shooting gallery as he and his squad settled down to the serious task of destroying the remnants of the six-Terminator force.

  Leaving Connor and the others free to handle the four T-600s currently trying to sneak up behind them.

  “All right, people, we have a crab coming,” he called. “McFarland, you’re ghost. The rest of you, follow me.”

  Connor had already picked out a good rear-guard position across the street. He headed off toward it with Bishop and the Tantillo brothers on his heels. McFarland stayed behind, trying to lay down enough fire by himself to keep Skynet from realizing that the rest of the group had just disappeared.

  The position turned out to be not quite as good as it had looked. But it was good enough.

  “Grenades,” he ordered Joey Tantillo as the others deployed for cover fire. Connor hadn’t wanted to risk using the squad’s two C4 grenades so close to Barnes and the Moldavia defenders, but lofting them into a group of Terminators coming in from the opposite direction shouldn’t be a problem.

  He peered in the direction of the cross street where the four T-600s should soon be appearing.

  The staging area warehouse was hopefully emptied of Terminators and minutes away from a breach, while the machines here on the streets were pinned down or ripe for destruction. Skynet’s only remaining HK was in no position to observe and report on any of it until it was too late. The operation was going very well.

  It was going too well.

  He looked around, half expecting to see a group of Terminators they hadn’t yet tagged bearing down on them from the rear. But there was nothing. All the evidence pointed to a quick and complete victory.

  He didn’t believe it for a minute.

  “Everyone keep a sharp eye,” he called into his mike. “Skynet’s up to something.” He grimaced.

  “I just don’t know yet what it is.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Orozco’s first warning was the sound of a distant double blast coming from somewhere behind him, a pair of hammerfalls loud enough to penetrate even the heavy gunfire he and his teams were pouring into the two Terminators still fighting to reach the archway.

  “Grimaldi!” he shouted.

  “I heard it,” Grimaldi shouted back, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “I’ll go check.”

  He rose up into a crouch, paused for a moment, then took off in a broken run that got him safely across the lobby and into the main corridor heading back through the building.

  Orozco turned back to the archway, a fresh wave of tightness knotting his stomach as he continued to pour fire against the attacking machines. Grimaldi and his men had sealed off the rear of the building years ago, and several teams had worked for hours earlier that day to inspect and reinforce those barriers. The building was as secure as they could make it, and Orozco himself had added a few booby traps to help keep out any unwelcome visitors.

  But those explosions a minute ago had sounded a lot like two of his home-made pipe bombs.

  The quest
ion was, had one of the guards back there accidentally set them off, probably killing him or herself in the process?

  Or had Skynet created a way inside?

  The Terminators in the street were starting to pull back, their rubber flesh tattered, their appearance now more akin to mummies than human beings. Orozco watched warily as they backed out of view and out of range, then shifted his attention to the street leading past the sniper’s nest.

  There were two or three more Terminators down there, slowly disintegrating under an outpouring of fire from the rear of the nest. Barnes and Kate and their team, protecting all of them from what had obviously been Skynet’s idea of a flanking maneuver.

  Meanwhile, the fire coming from the Ashes’ own defenders had stopped now that their primary targets had retreated.

  “Right flank: new target,” Orozco called, pointing down the street at the other Terminators.

  Rather than just sitting around, he and his people might as well give Barnes’ squad a hand. “All marksmen move to this side of the barricade.”

  It was amazing, he reflected, what an hour and a couple of small victories could accomplish. The same men and women who’d been quaking in their shoes earlier now nearly fell over each other getting to the right-hand side of the barrier just for the chance to target a few more of their attackers.

  They were firing away when Grimaldi skidded to Orozco’s side, his face white.

  “They’re coming in!” he gasped, panting for breath.

  “Where?” Orozco snapped, shooting a look over the other’s shoulder. The hallways, at least as far down as he could see, were still clear.

  “Ventilation shaft beside the loading dock,” Grimaldi said. “They breached the wall back there and are working their way in.”

  Orozco cursed. The two explosions he’d heard must have been the two pipe bombs he’d set inside that shaft, the first designed to blow up the intruder, the second to blow up the wall over the shaft and hopefully seal the gap.

  “Did the bombs stop them?” he asked.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Grimaldi demanded. “I said they’re working their way in. I could see their eyes in the ducts. And not just the ducts—they’re hammering at the whole wall back there.”

  “Damn.” Orozco spun around. With a ductwork breach, at least the machines would have to come in one at a time. But if they managed to take down the wall, the whole back of the building would be open to them. “Cease fire!” he shouted. “All teams, cease fire! We have a breach.”

  The guns instantly stopped.

  “Where?” Wadleigh demanded.

  “Loading dock vent shaft and duct, and they’re working on the wall,” Grimaldi said. “Everyone, back there, on the double.”

  He broke off, looking with sudden uncertainty at Orozco. “Everyone?” he repeated, making it a question.

  “Yes, everyone,” Orozco confirmed, looking up at the fire teams on the balcony and gesturing them down to the lobby.

  “Right,” Grimaldi said. “Come on.”

  He sprinted back toward the hallway, his rifle bouncing across his back, the rest of the fire teams right behind him.

  Orozco looked out through the archway, wondering belatedly if this was really the right decision. If the attack on the building’s rear was a feint, leaving the main entrance undefended this way could be the last mistake any of them ever made.

  But he had no choice. If Skynet was hitting them in the rear with any significant force, it would take every gun and gunner Orozco had simply to stand against it. He would just have to hope that Barnes and his people could cover them up here.

  The fire teams from the balcony were streaming down the stairway now, looking at Orozco for orders. Pointing them toward the building’s rear, he slung his Ml 6 over his shoulder, grabbed his last two pipe bombs, and hurried to join them.

  Something was wrong.

  Kate gazed out on the street below, trying to figure out what it was that had suddenly set off alarms in the back of her head. The two Terminators to the north were still retreating from their latest attack on the Moldavia, their miniguns silent and possibly dry. Simmons was encouraging their departure with deliberately placed shots, his rounds slamming into their heads and hip joints. A couple of T-600s a block farther north of the retreating machines were offering some cover fire, but their shots were sporadic and ineffective.

  The gunfire coming from behind Kate, off to the west, was still going strong as Barnes and the others hammered the first wave of reserve T-600s that Skynet had sent into the battle. In contrast, the Terminators in the bus to the south hadn’t moved at all, and were only firing occasional shots, as if content with making sure there was no traffic on the street.

  And then, suddenly, Kate had it. The Terminators to the west and north were firing, Barnes and Simmons were firing, and even farther to the west John and his squad were firing. Everyone who had a target to shoot at was doing so.

  Except the people in the Moldavia.

  And up until a minute ago they’d been firing down the street at Barnes’ target T-600s.

  Why had they suddenly stopped?

  “Hickabick, I need a sitrep at tee two and hole nine,” she said into her mike.

  “Check,” Blair’s voice came back. “On my way.”

  At the other end of the room, Simmons turned around, reaching up a hand to cover his mike.

  “Trouble?” he asked.

  “Orozco’s people have stopped firing,” Kate told him.

  Simmons turned back to his peephole.

  “Huh,” he said. “You’re right. I hadn’t even noticed.”

  Overhead, the roar of an A-10 briefly drowned out the chattering of gunfire as Blair shot over the Moldavia.

  “Tee two looks clear,” the pilot reported crisply. “Turning to hole nine.”

  “Maybe they just ran out of ammo,” Simmons offered as he squeezed off a couple more rounds at the retreating T-600s.

  “Maybe,” Kate said.

  The front of the building looked all right, at least as far as Blair could see from the air. There were a couple of T-600s to the north firing at the building and Barnes’ squad, with two more retreating in that direction, plus the remnants of another group to the west that Barnes and Connor were hammering.

  She also caught a glimpse of the foursome still hoping to sneak up on Connor from even farther to the west.

  There was other movement, too, beside the staging area warehouse’s south wall. Shadowy figures—David and his demolition team—had come out of the drainage tunnel and were busily setting their explosives in preparation for the squad’s breach. From what Blair could see, it looked like Connor had decided to bring the whole wall down, and Blair made a mental note to try to get back in time for the show.

  Massive explosions were always entertaining to watch, especially explosions involving Skynet property.

  For another moment she held her course, studying the area. So far, the only T-600s that Skynet had sent against the Moldavia had been that first wave plus some reinforcements from the area around it, followed by the groups of six and four from the warehouse.

  But that couldn’t be all of the T-600s that Skynet had in the area. Were the rest of them still on border patrol?

  Blair hoped so. As long as Skynet held to the assumption that it could contain the area, Connor’s team would be able to take out the machines in twos and fours and sixes instead of having to face all of them at once in a single massed attack.

  Of course, once Skynet realized its staging area had been breached, its strategy would undoubtedly change. And quickly.

  Giving the area around the warehouse one final check, she swung back around the block, clearing the broken structures around the Moldavia and coming in along the service alley that ran behind the building.

  And as she came within sight of the building’s rear, she felt her jaw drop in stunned disbelief.

  Skynet’s reserve of Terminators weren’t standing idly by along the neighborhood’
s borders, trying to keep everyone inside the kill zone. They were right here—twenty of them at least—single-mindedly pounding at the building’s back wall and ventilation structures, breaking their way inside.

  “Hickabick,” she called tautly into her mike. “Double lobster at hole nine. Repeat: double lobster at hole nine.

  “And they’re going in.”

  “Oh, hell,” Tony Tantillo said.

  “And then some,” Connor agreed grimly. A double lobster—ten to twenty T-600s—about to breach the Moldavia. And from the tone of Blair’s voice, he guessed the number was probably closer to twenty than ten. Skynet was throwing an incredible number of resources at the beleaguered building.

  “Hickabick, are there any tee times still available?” he called into his mike.

  There was a brief silence.

  “Yes, but I was hoping to save the last one of the day for Curly,” she replied.

  Connor’s eyes flicked toward the south. The last HK had fled several minutes ago and was nowhere in sight, but it would be back the minute Blair ran out of ammo. She couldn’t afford to be caught in that position. Neither could Connor and the breach teams, for that matter.

  But the option was for them all to sit back and do nothing, and let Orozco and his people die.

  “Tee time at hole nine,” he ordered. “Bring the whole set of clubs.”

  “Check,” Blair said.

  And with that, the die was cast.

  “Barnes?” Connor called.

  “I heard,” Barnes said. “Soon as we’re finished here, we’ll see about giving them some support.”

  Connor frowned. Getting into the building from Barnes’ position would mean crossing a street that he’d thought Skynet was holding. Had the Terminators abandoned their positions there?

  “What about Gulliver?”

  “No change,” Kate’s voice put in.

  “Yeah, but they gotta be running low on ammo,” Barnes said. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it.”