Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

replacement barricade.

“We finish getting the barricade set up, make sure our guns are loaded, and wait for the next wave,” he said.

“Yeah.” Grimaldi looked up at the archway. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll actually make it through the archway this time.”

“It could happen,” Orozco said.

“Tee two: second swing eagle,” Barnes’ voice came again in Connor’s ear. “Lobster remains, green eight, Gulliver, maybe hole four. Estimate all other greens cleared.”

Connor shook his head, in relief and amazement both. Judging by the level of gunfire he and the others had heard coming from that direction, Skynet had cleared out the area, all right. It had cleared all its Terminators out of the other buildings and alleys and sent them straight at Barnes and the people in the Moldavia.

And it was almost for certain that the six T-600s that had just emerged from the staging area warehouse were heading out to join in the next wave.

The big question was whether those six were everything Skynet had kept in reserve, or whether there were more of them in there. Unfortunately, there was no way to know other than to walk inside and do a head count.

Meanwhile, some of the Terminators that had been wrecked would be pulling themselves back together, and those that were still whole would be running short of ammunition. Sooner or later, the machines would start coming back for reloading and field maintenance.

Connor and his men had to be inside and in control of the warehouse before that happened.

He watched the six Terminators as they climbed the wall of rubble, an idea niggling at the back of his brain. It would be risky, but it might be the way to force Skynet’s hand.

He motioned McFarland close.

“Pass the word,” he whispered in the man’s ear. “As soon as those Terminators are clear, we’re following them.”

McFarland threw him a quick look.

“How far?” he asked.

“All the way,” Connor told him. “Skynet probably thinks it’s got Barnes pinned down, at least on a north-south line. I’m guessing this bunch is going to come in from the west, which means that if we come up behind them we’ll be able to pin them down.”

“Okay,” McFarland said slowly, clearly still working through this sudden change in plans.

“What do we do about the warehouse?”

“We don’t do anything,” Connor said. “If we can help force Skynet to clear it out, David and Tunney should be able to take and hold it without us.”

McFarland still looked doubtful, but nevertheless gave a brisk nod.

“Right,” he said. Moving over to Joey Tantillo and his brother Tony, he began whispering the new orders.

Connor looked upward. Nothing was visible, but from the low rumble vibrating across the city he could tell that at least one HK was still moving around on spotter duty. Possibly more than one.

Resolutely, he looked away from the sky. Every leader faced the temptation of getting bogged down with all the details of an operation, and giving in to that urge was a sure way for the operation to end in disaster. The HKs were Blair’s assignment, just as demolition was David’s and decoy was Barnes’.

And all of them were damn good at what they needed to do. Connor had given the orders, assigned the best people to the tasks at hand, and now he had to sit back and let them do their jobs while he concentrated on doing his.

McFarland eased back up to his side.

“Ready,” he murmured.

Connor nodded. “Nice and easy, and don’t let them spot us,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The HKs didn’t change position as Blair drove in on them, but continued to hover over the battle zone, dark and silent, like a pair of overconfident street toughs inviting her to take her best shot.

But she wasn’t fooled. There was no bravado in Skynet’s programming—only cold, hard calculation. It knew Blair’s GAU-8 was down to its last few rounds, and it was deliberately holding its HKs steady, probably hoping they could shoot her down into the neighborhood that she and the others were trying so hard to save.

She held her vector steady, once again playing chicken with the HKs. Unlike the last time they’d done this, though, Skynet apparently decided there was no point in sacrificing any of its killing machines by attempting to ram. She had barely reached the edge of their range when both HKs opened up with their Gatling guns, filling the air around her with lead.

Blair maintained her vector, wincing with the thud that came each time one of the rounds found its target. The single impacts became pairs and then triads as Blair closed the distance and the HKs fine-tuned their aim.

And as the triads became quads and suddenly blossomed into a hailstorm of impacts, Blair twisted the stick hard to the right, curving out of their line of fire and heading east.

“I’m hit!” she shouted into her mike. “I can’t stay with you.”

“Get clear, Hickabick,” a voice came promptly in her headset. “You can’t do any more back there.”

Blair frowned. It was indeed the correct coded response to her coded fake distress announcement.

But that had been Connor giving the reply, not Barnes. Connor, who was supposed to be maintaining radio silence, lest Skynet figure out there was trouble lurking in its private little paradise. Could he have launched the warehouse attack already?

It seemed way too early for that. But then, the ground operation wasn’t Blair’s concern. Her concern was clearing out the sky over Connor’s head.

She was still in the middle of her evasive turn when one of the two HKs broke formation, revved its turbofans to full power, and turned onto an intercept vector.

Blair smiled grimly. Skynet had taken the bait.

Time to make it regret that decision.

It was one of those times, and there had been many in their life together, when John had done something Kate wasn’t sure whether to be proud of, stunned at, or furious over.

“Hole four probable; forward bad lobster fifty; clear lobster duo,” John’s situation report ran through her earphone, the field jargon nearly as opaque to her as it hopefully was to Skynet.

“Check,” Barnes replied crisply. “Tee two; Gulliver hole three; dogleg tee nine.”

“Check,” John said. “Clear lobster duo.”

“Check.”

The radio went silent again, and Barnes looked at Kate.

“You get all that?” he asked.

“Most of it,” Kate told him, still struggling through the translation amid her swirling emotions.

“I know he’s left his position to come help us, or he wouldn’t have used the radio.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just for us,” Barnes said. “Lobster means five to ten T-600s coming in on a pincer.”

“From the west,” Kate added, visualizing the holes of the imaginary golf course that John had created for their position reports.

“Probably along that north cross street,” Barnes said. “With T-600s north of us, and the damned busload to the south pinning us down—”

“That was the Gulliver reference,” Pavlova put in helpfully.

“Yes, I got that,” Kate told her.

“—the only retreat we had was out the back of the building,” Barnes continued, throwing a brief scowl at Pavlova. “So now Skynet’s trying to close that one off, too.”

“Which then puts it into position to hit us from three sides,” Kate said, her annoyance fading. As long as he’s concerned for the whole squad’s safety, and not just mine.