Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

Connor peered down the street to the west. The first of the four T-600s had rounded the corner and were starting to move toward McFarland, who was still pelting the remnants of Barnes’ set of targets.

“Easy,” he warned Joey quietly. “Make sure they’re all in view, with nowhere to go.”

“Don’t worry,” Joey murmured back, his hand hovering over the grenade launcher’s trigger.

“The only place they’re going is hell.”

Blair hadn’t been in either of the groups who had scouted the neighborhood earlier that day. She’d never met any of the people of the Moldavia. She also knew that with an HK still armed and flying, spending the last of her ammo on that crowd of T-600s would probably be the last thing she accomplished before her own death.

But it would be worth it. It would very much be worth it.

She roared down the service alley at full speed, ignoring the clatter of minigun fire slamming suddenly into her A-10’s belly. At point-blank range she opened up with her GAU-8, spending her last eighty rounds in a single glorious burst that went through the T-600s like a mowing machine, shattering them into shards of twisted metal and scattering heads and limbs and torsos across the pavement. The roar of her fire abruptly cut off as the gun went dry, and she pulled up and out, circling back around for a visual assessment of the carnage.

She’d accomplished a lot with that strafing run. But not enough. Eight Terminators were still on their feet… and even as she watched, the first of them broke through the wall and disappeared into the building.

“Hickabick,” she said with a sigh. “Tee time over. Lobster going in at hole nine.”

“Check, Hickabick,” Connor’s voice came back, glacially calm as the man always was in combat. “We’ll deal with it. Get clear.”

“Check,” she said.

But she wouldn’t be clear for long, she knew. She’d blown the last of her ammo, and if the surviving Terminators had spotted that half second of dry shooting before she could let up on her trigger, Skynet knew she was empty.

Far to the south, she could see the last remaining HK rising from the refuge where it had gone to ground. No longer cowering from its attacker, it was coming now for vengeance.

Blair took a deep breath, the line of ghosts in the back of her mind shivering with anticipation.

She had cheated death far longer than she’d had any right to, and the bill had finally come due.

But if she was going out, she was going out with flair. One way or another, she was going to keep that HK off Connor’s back. She owed the man that much. The machine was going down.

Even if Blair went down with it.

The Terminator in the ventilation duct had stopped moving and was starting to disintegrate under the withering fire from Orozco’s team when the wall twenty meters away sudden exploded inward.

Orozco had just enough time to see a pair of glowing red eyes before the machine shoving its way through the remaining sheetrock opened fire.

Five men died in that first blast, men who with bitter irony had only been over there in the first place so that they would be out of the way while they reloaded their guns. The next salvo took out three more, mostly those who were quick enough to turn their guns against this new threat. More guns turned toward the Terminator and opened fire, rattling it with multiple impacts but not seeming to cause any serious damage.

And then, behind the Terminator, Orozco saw more red eyes moving in from behind.

“Fall back!” he shouted. “Teams one and two, regroup at the corridor fire stations. Mover The men and women scrambled to obey. But for many it was already too late. The minigun bursts became a roar as the Terminator held down the trigger, filling the area with flesh and blood and bodies. Beside Orozco, Wadleigh gave a sudden agonized cough and started to fall. Orozco grabbed his arm and hauled him bodily around the corner into a corridor filled with fleeing people.

Behind him, the fire ceased as the Terminators temporarily ran out of targets, and Orozco could hear the sound of more tearing sheetrock.

And with that, he knew it was over. With the Terminators still held at bay outside the Ashes, there had still been a chance. With them inside the building, there wasn’t a hope in hell of stopping them.

But that didn’t mean they should just give up. If he and the others were going to die, they were going to make Skynet pay as dearly for its victory as they could.

Only two of the men of Team One had made it to the fall-back positions when Orozco arrived, and only Bauman of Team Two was at the second. Orozco dropped beside the latter, swinging Wadleigh around behind the barrier and taking a moment to lower him as carefully as he could into a sitting position with his back to the wall.

Only then did he see that Wadleigh’s shirt was drenched in blood.

“Hang in there,” Orozco urged him. “As soon as we get a few more people here to help, we’ll get you back to the medics.”

“Never mind that,” Wadleigh said, his voice gurgling a little, bubbles of blood flecking the corners of his mouth. “Where’s my rifle? What happened to my rifle?”

“Here, take this,” Orozco said, drawing his Beretta and pressing it into the other’s hand.

Wadleigh smiled weakly in thanks, and Orozco turned back to the barrier.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked Bauman.

“Run out or dead,” Bauman said, his voice sounding more weary than bitter. “Not here, anyway.” He looked sideways at Orozco. “So why are we here?”

“Because someone needs to slow them down while everyone who’s left gets back to the lobby and regroups,” Orozco told him.

Bauman snorted.

“Why? So they can die up there instead of back here?”

“So they can have the best possible chance to live,” Orozco told him brusquely. “Because protecting them is our job right now.” He looked Bauman squarely in the eye. “Because if we’re going to die, that’s how men die.”

Bauman took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he said. He took another deep breath. “Okay. As long as there’s a good reason.”

Behind Orozco came a sudden gasp, and then silence, and he turned to find that Wadleigh was dead. Reaching down, he closed the man’s eyes, then gently retrieved the Beretta from his limp hand.

“But we’re not doing a Little Bighorn here, either,” he told Bauman as he holstered the pistol and pulled out one of his two remaining pipe bombs. “As soon as the first metal bastard sticks his nose around that corner, you and the others are going to lay down enough fire to hold him back while I blow the floor out from under him.”

“Okay,” Bauman said. “Sure. Let’s give it a try.”

The sound of breaking sheetrock faded away. They must all be inside, Orozco guessed.

“Steady,” he told his men as he got out his lighter. If this was a Western, the thought whispered through his mind, this would be the time Barnes would lead a cavalry charge to the rescue.

But this wasn’t a movie. And no one came charging to the rescue anymore.

But this was still bow men died.

Through the floor he felt the faint vibrations as heavy footsteps approached. Flicking the cap on his lighter, he held the bomb ready and waited.

Connor had noticed the bus that morning as Barnes’ group was having their confrontation at the Moldavia. Had not only noticed it, but had gauged its usefulness as a bunker, and had also done a quick mental inventory of all the possible ways it could be successfully taken out.

Which was why he and his squad were currently making their approach along the street just north of the bus instead of taking the time to go an extra block south and come up behind it. Just ahead, on the southwest corner of the street, was the burned-out remnant of what had once been a corner store, with glassless windows that looked out onto both the bus’ north-south street and Connor’s own east-west street.

Once the squad reached the store, it would be a straightforward matter of slipping through the windows on