satisfaction. “Yeah, it’s been picking up wrecked Terminators wherever it can. Especially these T-600s.”
“Nice to know Skynet has to scrabble for resources just like the rest of us,” Orozco said with a grunt. “Maybe we can keep it too busy to bother with this particular batch of parts.”
“We’ll get the busy part, anyway,” Barnes said, cocking his head to the side. “Hear that?”
Orozco frowned. As far as his still only half-functional ears could tell, the streets around them were completely silent.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“You got it,” Barnes agreed. “All the T-600s that were out killing people have stopped.”
Orozco’s stomach tightened. “And have all been retasked to us.”
“Yeah,” Barnes said. “Fact, that’s kind of what we had in mind.”
“Wonderful,” Orozco growled. “Does the bait get to hear more about this plan? Or do we just get to be bait?”
“Hey, pal, you were already dead,” Barnes pointed out. “If this batch hadn’t taken you out, the next wave would have.”
Orozco glared at him. But the man was right.
“Point taken,” he acknowledged reluctantly. “Let’s try it again: you mind sharing the plan with the rest of the class?”
“Better,” Barnes said, lowering his voice. “Here’s the deal. We think we know where Skynet’s staging area is for this operation. Most of our people have moved in and are ready to attack it.”
“Only you need to make sure no one’s home to spoil the surprise,” Orozco said, nodding as it all became clear. “So we make noise and trouble out here so that all the machines will come out to play.”
“Yeah, but don’t worry—we’ll be doing everything we can to help you,” Barnes promised.
“Thing is, if we can clear the staging area and then hold it so that the T-600s can’t get back in to reload, we should have enough breathing space to take them out permanently.”
“Until Skynet sends in more, anyway,” Orozco said.
“Shouldn’t be any,” Barnes said. “That’s what a staging area’s for. Skynet moves a bunch of Terminators in so it can mass them for a major op—”
He broke off as, without warning, a Hunter-Killer abruptly shot into view around the corner, its Gatling guns roaring.
Orozco dived for cover beneath the edge of the archway’s overhang, Barnes and the other two men right behind him. The HK angled itself upward, braking to a hovering halt in front of the building. It swiveled around, bringing its weapons to bear on the four sitting ducks.
And made a hard skid to the side as a shredding volley of automatic fire slammed up into it from down the street. The HK spun around, its quarry suddenly forgotten as it clawed madly for altitude and distance. It reached the end of the block and disappeared from sight, fire hammering it the whole way.
“Damn,” Barnes muttered as he and Orozco got cautiously to their feet again. “Thought we had that one for sure. Skynet’s usually smart enough not to send them down into city streets where someone with a high-power weapon can—”
“Barnes!” one of the other Resistance men snapped. He was kneeling over the other man, and in the dim starlight Orozco could see a dark stain spreading across the downed soldier’s chest.
Barnes stepped over to them, grabbing at his combo earphone/wire-mike. “One down,” he snapped. “Kate, Pavlova—get over here.”
Orozco looked south as two women appeared from the overturned bus and headed toward the Ashes at a dead run. “What can I do?” he asked.
“If you’ve got a medic handy, send him over,” Barnes said, squatting down beside the injured man. “If not, we got it covered.”
The two women arrived and deftly shouldered the men aside as they broke out medical kits.
Orozco watched them work, and it was only as one of them turned briefly into the glow of a small flashlight that he realized it was Kate Connor, the woman who’d made that dramatic appearance earlier on the Ashes’ balcony.
“Snap it up,” Barnes said, looking around them. “We need to get under cover.”
“You’re not going to try to use that bus again, I hope,” Orozco said. “Skynet knows you were in there. It’s probably already got a T-600 or two on the way.”
“You got any suggestions?”
“Right there,” Orozco said, pointing to the building across the street. “We’ve got a sniper’s nest up on the second floor overlooking our entrance. We knocked out the walls so that it runs all the way along the building’s eastern side, including the two corner apartments. We also put in a bunch of extra shielding, mostly scavenged stone and brick.”
“Sounds good,” Barnes said, running a quick eye over the building. “We’ll take it.”
Turning toward the bus, he waved. A moment later, a man loaded with heavy machineguns and ammo boxes slipped out of the front and headed toward them, staggering under his load. A grunted order from Barnes, and the other uninjured Resistance man headed back to help him.
Orozco looked down at the wounded man. The two women had finished with him, at least for now, and were packing up their gear. “Is he going to make it?” he asked.
“He should,” Kate said. “He’s stable, at least for now.”
“You need any help carrying him inside?” Orozco asked.
“We got it,” Barnes said.
“Okay,” Orozco said. “Oh—very important. If you decide you need to come in here for any reason, stick to the edges of the archway, the places where it’s too low for a Terminator to get through without ducking.”
Kate’s eyes flicked upward to the archway.
“Understood,” she said.
The two men arrived, puffing under their load of munitions. At Barnes’ hand signal, they headed across the street and disappeared into the sniper nest building. “I guess this is it,” he said, nodding to Orozco.
Orozco nodded back. “See you on the other side.”
Barnes slung the two captured T-600 miniguns over his shoulders with his other weapons. Then, stooping down, he carefully lifted the injured man in his arms.
Orozco must have looked as astonished as he felt, because Kate chuckled. “Clean living,” she explained dryly. “Good luck, Sergeant.”
“And to you, Ma’am.”
She and Barnes headed across the street. Orozco checked both directions, then made his way carefully back through the archway and returned to the fountain.
“Who were they?” Grimaldi asked. “It was too dark to see.”
“Nobody special,” Orozco said. “Just the people you drew down on this morning.”
He had the minor satisfaction of seeing Grimaldi’s eyes widen.
“Oh, hell,” the chief muttered.
“Yeah, well, don’t panic,” Orozco advised him. “They’re here to help.”
Grimaldi looked over at the building across the street…and for the first time, Orozco saw some actual hope creeping into the other’s eyes.
“I hope you thanked them,” he said.
“I did,” Orozco said. “You’ll get a chance later to do that yourself.”
“I hope so,” Grimaldi said. “You want me back on watch?”
Orozco shook his head.
“No need. When the next batch gets here, we’ll know it.”
There had been a couple of bad moments along the way, the worst being when Fido made it through the Death’s-Head barrier before Kyle and Star had quite reached the building they were heading for.
The Terminator managed to unload a couple of bursts of fire before they could get inside, but the distance and piles of rubble protected them.
And then they were through the sagging doorway, Kyle pulling Star to the side as the machine behind them
