“Fine,” he said, pointing to the middle of the bus. “There’s your station, right below mine and Simmons’. You’ll be on reload and backup duty.”
“Got it.” Giving a brisk nod, Kate stepped past him and headed for the pile of ammo bags.
Barnes glanced around at the others. None of them looked particularly happy that Kate had crashed the party. But somehow, none of them looked all that surprised, either. “What are you all staring at?” he growled. “Get to your stations. We’ve got some Terminators to kill.”
There was another burst of minigun fire, this one much closer than the last few had been. Orozco peered over the fountain wall toward the archway, resettling his grip on his M16.
It wouldn’t be long now.
He took a moment to look to his left, across the line of men and a few women who were crouching with him along the back side of the fountain’s wall. Half turning, he scanned the balcony, where the rest of the teams were lined up. With the building’s rear and sides blocked and booby-trapped, the main entrance was now the only way for the Terminators to get in.
This was where the war for Moldering Lost Ashes would take place.
Everyone else knew that, too. And they were scared. Some of them were scared enough to be well on the way to being terrified.
But they were still there. None of them had dropped his or her weapon and scurried away to try to find somewhere to hide.
They were good people Orozco knew as he let his eyes drift across each of their faces. It had been a privilege to live here among such people for the past two years.
It would be an honor to die among them.
A figure moved in the shadows at the very edge of the archway, and Orozco turned back to see Grimaldi hurrying across the lobby toward them. The chief rounded the fountain and dropped into cover beside Orozco.
“They’re coming,” he said as he snatched up his rifle, his own fear under tight control. “Five Terminators, heading down the street straight toward us.”
Orozco peered through the archway. He could see them now, too, dark figures moving against a slightly lighter background, striding through the shadow of the sniper nest building toward them.
“Five targets,” Orozco confirmed, resting the barrel of his M16 on the fountain wall. By all rights, he knew, he should have been the one up there at the archway, exposing himself to danger as he watched for the enemy to make its appearance. But Grimaldi had insisted that Orozco was too valuable to their defense, and had taken that duty himself.
“Remember: aim for the heads and necks,” he called softly to the rest of the fire team. “As they get closer, shift fire to hips and knees and try to cripple them. They’ll be firing, too, very hard and very fast, so keep yourselves as much under cover as you can. Grenadiers, stay under cover until they trigger the traps and I call for you. And do
“Everyone understand what you’re supposed to do?”
There was a flurry of tense acknowledgments.
“Good,” Orozco said, thumbing off the M16’s safety. “Hold your fire until they’re past the building and start across the street—we might as well take advantage of what little light is out there.”
He watched as the figures approached, lining up his sights on the head of the one in the center.
The Terminators reached the edge of the building’s shadow and stepped out into the pale moonlight, their rubber faces impassive, their right arms crooked at the elbow, their terrible miniguns pointed straight down the Ashes throat.
Holding his breath, Orozco tightened his finger on his trigger—
And without warning, a brilliant flash of light erupted in the very center of the Terminators’
formation. Two of the machines were instantly slammed flat on the ground by the impact. The other three staggered but managed to stay on their feet.
And as the shockwave from the blast echoed through the lobby, all hell broke loose outside.
For the first few seconds all Orozco could do was stare in disbelief as the Terminators lurched and jerked under the withering fire coming at them from somewhere to the south. The two that had gone down attempted to get back up, but their efforts were stymied as they came under the same pummeling attack. All five Terminators were firing back now, their miniguns stuttering with an angry bull-hornet buzz, but the return fire didn’t seem to be having any effect on their attackers.
The hail of lead continued unabated, tearing away the machines’ rubber skin and sending clouds of metal splinters into the air. Another grenade exploded in their midst, and one of the Terminators twisted violently as its right arm was blown completely off its body.
And with that, Orozco abruptly unfroze.
“Grenadiers: follow me,” he shouted over the gunfire. Dropping the butt of his M16 onto the floor beside the fountain, he snatched up his lighter and two of the pipe bombs from beside him and sprinted for the archway.
His squad of bomb throwers were clearly even more befuddled by the sudden change in the situation than Orozco himself had been, and only two of them managed to unfuddle themselves fast enough to take him up on his invitation. But two were enough. With their full attention on the other attack, the beleaguered Terminators probably never even saw the three figures running toward them through the gloom.
Orozco lit one of his fuses as he ran, his peripheral vision confirming that his two companions were doing likewise. As he reached the archway he came to a halt and carefully lobbed his bomb directly beneath the feet of one of the machines. The others’ bombs were right behind his.
Shouting a warning, Orozco turned his back and threw himself flat on the floor.
The three bombs went off nearly simultaneously, the multiple shock waves lifting Orozco a couple of centimeters and slamming him back down again. Rolling over, he looked behind him.
The barrage and the bombs had done the trick. All five Terminators were down, with severed metallic body parts strewn every which way across the pavement.
Through the ringing in his ears, Orozco suddenly realized the other gunfire had ceased. Focusing hard, he was just able to hear some running footsteps coming toward the archway.
He shifted his second bomb to his left hand and got a grip on his holstered Beretta. Better to be cautious, even though he was pretty sure he already knew who it was who had just saved their bacon for them.
Sure enough, a few seconds later the running footsteps slowed to a more cautious walk, and Barnes and two other men came into view.
For a moment the big black man and the Hispanic Marine locked eyes in the mutual look of men who knew what had just gone down, and therefore had no need to actually mention it. Then Barnes jerked his head toward the mass of metallic body parts that had recently been five of Skynet’s killing machines.
“Don’t just stand there,” he growled to Orozco. “Split up the pieces before they try to put themselves back together.”
“Right,” Orozco said. Looking back at the fountain, he gestured to Grimaldi and the others to stay put, repeated the gesture to the two grenadiers beside him, then made a wide circle through the very northern edge of the archway and out into the street. A moment later he had joined Barnes and the others in their task of throwing chunks of smoking metal to the four winds.
He did note, though, that Barnes made a point of examining the Terminators’ five miniguns, putting aside the two that still seemed functional.
“I guess that’ll have to do,” Barnes said as he surveyed their handiwork. “Nice little bombs you got there.”
“They’re not bad,” Orozco said. “All things being equal, I’d rather have a few bricks of C4.
Thanks for the assist.”
“Glad to help,” Barnes said, his face hardening. “Yeah, a little C4 or thermite and we could do a
“Does Skynet even bother with retrieval?” Orozco asked. “I thought it had automated factories putting these things out.”
“And we’re doing every damn thing we can to put those out of business, too,” Barnes said with grim
