Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

“Suppose I do,” Grimaldi said. “How do we get all the food and plants and equipment out? More importantly, where do we all go?”

“South,” Orozco told him. “Fewer people that direction, which means we should be able to find shelter without having to fight for it.”

“And the food?”

“We take everything we can carry,” Orozco said. “After the Terminators leave, we may be able to come back and retrieve anything we had to leave behind.”

“Just abandon everything?” Grimaldi shook his head. “No.”

Orozco squeezed the grip on his Beretta. “Give the order,” he bit out.

Grimaldi gazed unblinkingly into his eyes. “And if I don’t?” he countered. “Are you going to shoot me?”

For a few seconds Orozco glared at him. But the chief was right. Orozco couldn’t just shoot him down. Not in cold blood. Not for this.

“In that case,” Grimaldi said calmly into the tense silence, “you’re invited to leave.”

Orozco hesitated another few heartbeats. Then, without a word, he turned and strode out of the room.

Wadleigh and Killough were still loitering outside the office. Wadleigh started to say something, got a look at Orozco’s face, and instead stepped back out of his way.

Only not far enough. As Orozco passed, he grabbed Wadleigh’s arm and half pulled, half dragged the man across the lobby, ignoring his protests until they were nearly to the fountain. Then, bringing them to a sudden halt, he swung Wadleigh around to face him.

“That drainage tunnel Kate Connor mentioned,” Orozco ground out. “Did you find it?”

Wadleigh’s eyes flicked to the office door, where Killough was standing slack-jawed as he watched their little drama.

“Yeah, we found it,” he said, lowering his voice. “And no, we didn’t seal it. Just covered it with a few bricks, like you said.”

“Good.” Orozco let go of his arm, giving him a little push as he did so. “Show me.”

Wadleigh gulped and shot one more look toward the office. Grimaldi, Orozco knew, wouldn’t be happy with either of them if word of this got back to him.

Orozco didn’t give a damn.

“Sure,” Wadleigh said. “Follow me.”

Kyle and Star had made it to within a block of the line of rusting cars that marked the northern edge of Death’s-Head territory when one of Kyle’s backward glances finally spotted the Terminator striding down the street toward them.

“It’s coming,” he panted to Star, gripping her hand tighter and trying to push a little more speed out of his legs. The Terminator still hadn’t opened fire, but it wouldn’t be long now. Not with the lead they had on it.

Unless it was counting on the Death’s-Head Gang not to let them through.

Kyle eyed the barrier looming ahead of them: ten cars turned up on their sides with their undersides facing him. They mostly formed a single solid line, but they’d been offset enough to create a single zigzag gap near the center, just big enough for one person at a time to get through.

There were no sentries on guard, or at least none that Kyle could see as he steered Star toward the gap. If the Terminator behind them was going to open fire, he knew tensely, this would be the time for it. They reached the car, and with a quick sideways two-step Kyle ducked around the hood of the front vehicle and then around the trunk of the rear one, pulling Star along behind him.

They skidded to a sudden stop. Facing them ten feet away was a line of men with rifles and shotguns, all of them pointed squarely at Kyle and Star.

“Freeze it!” one of the men snapped.

“Terminators!” Kyle gasped, fighting to catch his breath. “Terminators—coming.”

“He’s right, Rats,” someone called from his right. Kyle turned and saw another man with a shoulder-slung rifle peering up over the cars with a slender periscope. “Got one heading straight toward us.”

“Ah, hell,” Rats bit out, glaring at Kyle. “What the friggin’ hell did you do? Huh?” He stepped up to Kyle and pressed the barrel of his rifle into the center of his chest. “Huh? What the hell did you do?”

“We didn’t do anything,” Kyle protested. “It’s just after us, that’s all. Look, just let us go through and we’ll be gone.”

“Friggin’ hell with that,” Rats snarled. He shoved on the rifle, and Kyle winced as the muzzle dug into his skin. “Back out the way you came. Now.”

Kyle stared at him.

“But—you can’t. Please.”

“Back out on your own feet, or we shoot you and toss your carcasses out to the machine,” Rats said tightly. “Your choice.”

Kyle looked down at Star. She was watching him closely, her face calm with the assurance that he had some plan.

Only he didn’t.

“Can’t we at least talk about it?” he pleaded, looking back at Rats.

“Yeah, that’s a smart idea,” Rats said sarcastically. “You go out there and talk.” He jabbed with his rifle again. “Last chance to do it breathing.”

Kyle took a deep breath. It was clearly no use.

“Come on, Star—”

He broke off as a screech of metal on pavement came from behind Rats, from the upended cars that formed the compound’s southern barrier a hundred feet away. Rats and his men spun around at the noise, their weapons tracking in that direction. One of the cars near the middle of the barrier teetered and then toppled over, slamming to the pavement with a teeth-rattling crash.

And through the gap in the barrier strode three T-600s.

Rats’ men were nothing if not fast on the uptake. The Terminators had barely come into sight before a thunder of gunfire erupted from all across the compound, including the buildings on both sides of the blocked-off street. The Terminators twitched violently as round after round slammed into them.

But they kept coming.

Something arced across and down from one of the upper windows on the eastern building, and the machines were abruptly engulfed in a blazing wash of fire.

And then Star was tugging on Kyle’s arm, pulling him urgently backward toward the upended car they were standing in front of. Kyle glanced at the car, noting for the first time that all of the vehicle’s glass was gone. She tugged again, pointing toward the open gap where the windshield had once been.

They had just slipped inside the car when across the way there was a violent triple explosion.

Star turned wide-eyed to Kyle as they pressed themselves back into the wide cavity where the car’s seats had once been. Their guns? she signed.

Kyle nodded. The Ere must have blown their ammo, he signed back.

But if the Terminators’ miniguns were gone, it was clear from the intensity of the gunfire still hammering across the compound that the Terminators themselves were far from defeated. Putting his arm around Star’s shoulders, Kyle eased them both down into sitting positions, trying to make them as small and invisible as possible.

Star took off the jacket Kyle had given her, handing it to him. Kyle nodded his thanks and draped it across their torsos, then changed his mind and pulled it up over their faces as well, covering them from head to chest. The more they could look like a pile of discarded rags, the better the chance that the Terminators and Rats’ own people would miss them in all the confusion out there.

He’d barely gotten the jacket arranged, and his eye pressed against a small rip in the material, when the Terminator who’d been behind them strode through the gap between the cars. It passed them and headed in to join the battle.

Kyle grimaced. So that was why the machine hadn’t shot them in the back. It had known the other three T- 600s were coming up on the compound from the south, and had merely been herding its prey toward this new group