Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

“Funny,” McFarland murmured in his ear. “I’d have thought Skynet would have had to lose at least one more round before sending in the reserves.”

“And then send more than just two of them,” Connor agreed. “Maybe those two are on some different errand.”

McFarland grunted. “My condolences to whoever’s at the other end.”

Connor nodded. “Agreed.”

The last of the HKs spun around, its starboard engine sending up clouds of thick smoke, and crashed to the ground, bursting into flames on impact.

Blair checked the rest of the sky around her, just to be sure, then once again turned her A-10

back toward the beleaguered neighborhood where she was supposed to be helping out.

Still, all things considered, it had been a remarkably quick battle. She’d dealt very efficiently with the first two Capistrano HKs, destroying both before the four in the follow-up wave were close enough to join in. The sheer number of opponents had made that second dogfight trickier, but whatever Skynet’s knowledge of aerial tactics, the HKs’ physical limitations simply didn’t give the computer much to work with.

In the end, Blair had turned all four machines into blazing scrap metal, and Skynet had apparently decided it had taken enough losses for one night.

But the victory had been costly. Her single Sidewinder missile was gone, and the counter on her GAU-8 showed only five rounds left.

Which, thanks to Wince, meant she actually had 155 rounds. Enough to deliver one good sucker punch, maybe two, before Skynet woke up to the fact that its own count was seriously off.

That ought to be enough for Yoshi and me to take out the final two HKs and give Connor the clear air space that he needs—

Blair’s train of thought froze. The two HKs were still there, still meandering their watch over Skynet’s mass slaughter.

But in the distance to the north another HK had appeared from somewhere and was engaged in a savage dogfight with Yoshi’s plane.

And Yoshi’s A-10 was on fire.

“Hang on, Jinkrat,” she snapped as she twisted her fighter toward them. “I’m on my way.”

“Stay there,” Yoshi ordered, his voice nearly inaudible over the staccato beat of the shells slamming into his cockpit and the roar of the flames blazing around him. “You’ve got a job to do.

Do it.”

“Damn it all, Jinkrat—”

“So long, Hickabick,” Yoshi interrupted her, his voice calm with the quiet serenity of someone who sees death approaching. “Kill a few for me, will you?”

“I will,” Blair promised, her stomach twisted into a hard, nauseated knot. “Good-bye, Yoshi.”

“Good-bye, Blair.”

And with that, Yoshi spun his crippled fighter around in an impossibly tight turn and rammed its nose full speed into the HK’s side.

The vehicles were still locked together in their death embrace as they tumbled in a blazing fireball to the earth.

Blair blinked sudden tears from her eyes, her throat aching. The odds had finally caught up to Yoshi…and Blair had lost yet another friend.

But at least this time she’d been able to say good-bye.

She turned her eyes back to the two hovering HKs, forcing down the pain and grief and fury.

Allowing those emotions to control her would only get her killed, too. Yoshi wouldn’t want that, nor would any of the rest of the long line of ghosts of her late comrades, a line forever haunting the back of her mind. They would all want her to live, and to keep fighting, and to send Skynet and its damned killing machines to hell.

“Skynet, this is Hickabick,” Blair said softly into her radio. “Ready or not, here I come.”

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

The first attack had been, in Orozco’s opinion, arrogantly casual, almost to the point of carelessness.

Skynet had learned from its mistake. It had learned all too well.

The second attack was brutal. There were at least ten of the hulking T-600s involved this time, their miniguns blasting away in a brute-force approach that tore at least three centimeters off the stone of the archway, pockmarked every one of the lobby walls, and destroyed most of the fountain wall that the first-line defenders were using as cover.

When the dust finally settled, five of those first-line defenders were dead.

“Damn every one of them to hell,” Grimaldi snarled as he and Orozco stood next to what was left of the archway, peering cautiously outside as the frantic clatter of barricade rebuilding went on behind them. The street looked even worse than the building itself, Orozco noted, with fragments of at least five more Terminators lying among the bullet scorings and grenade pits.

Some of those pieces were already trying to pull themselves back together.

“Damn it—look,” Grimaldi snapped, jabbing a finger toward one of the quivering pieces. “It’s—”

Snatching the chief’s arm, Orozco yanked him back under cover just as a burst of minigun fire burned through the air where his hand had been.

“Careful,” Orozco warned mildly. “You may need that hand later.”

“Not likely, the way things are going,” Grimaldi muttered. “But thanks.” He nodded toward the Terminator parts. “How many of them do you think will reform?”

“No idea,” Orozco said. “They’ve certainly got plenty of raw material to work with, though.

Especially since all the parts from that first assault are also still there.”

“I hadn’t thought about those,” Grimaldi admitted, shaking his head. “Damn it. You can’t kill them; and even when you do, they don’t stay dead.”

“They die permanently enough if you blow up their skulls or cook their electronics,” Orozco said. “Otherwise, no, they don’t go easy.”

The chief ducked his head to peer out at the building across the street, which looked in worse shape than the street and the Ashes’ lobby combined.

“You suppose any of those folks survived?”

“If I had to bet on any of us getting through this, I’d bet on them,” Orozco said candidly. “The real question is whether they’ll be able to do anything more to help us, what with those Terminators that seem to have moved into the bus down there. Between that bunch and the ones to the north, Skynet pretty well owns the street right now.”

Grimaldi grunted. “Damned stupid bus,” he said sourly. “We should have blown the thing up years ago.”

“You’re right, we should have,” Orozco agreed. “A little too late now.”

Grimaldi sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’m not blaming you, you know.”

“I know,” Orozco assured him. Some men dealt with danger by swearing, or praying, or clamming up completely. Others, like Grimaldi, opened their mouths and babbled.

“Wait a second—maybe it isn’t too late,” Grimaldi said suddenly, leaning a little farther out toward the edge of the archway, though not far enough to draw any fire. “We’ve still got some of your pipe bombs left, right? Could we toss one into the bus from the southwest sentry post?”

Orozco shook his head. “The second-floor overhang would block the toss. Ditto for anywhere else we can get to in the building.”

“Damn,” Grimaldi muttered. “So what do we do?”

Orozco looked back into the lobby, where Wadleigh and Killough and the others had nearly completed the