Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

halfway up the tunnel he’d sent Star to, then returned to the main chamber.

Dropping the bag in the steadily deepening pool, he headed up the third tunnel, the one facing the Ashes. He reached the entrance and carefully looked out.

And quickly ducked back in again as the two Terminators who’d been trying to flank them from the east spotted him.

At least, Kyle hoped they’d spotted him. Hurrying down the tunnel, making just enough noise to let them confirm where he’d gone, he splashed through the pool of gasoline and ran up the tunnel he and Star had entered by.

Again moving carefully, he looked out.

The single Terminator was actually farther back than the other two Terminators had been. But unlike them, it wasn’t just standing there trying to reacquire its target. It had already heard from the other two, and was striding toward Kyle at full Terminator speed. He held his position just long enough to make sure the machine had spotted the hidden entrance, then again ducked back inside.

Again he ran to the chamber and splashed through the pool of gasoline. But this time, he turned to the side and headed up the third tunnel, the one with the trail of gasoline soaking into the dirt and Star waiting for him at the far end. He reached the end of the trail, crouched down, and pulled out his lighter.

The wait wasn’t very long. Short enough, in fact, for him to realize just how close he’d cut this one. Less than fifteen seconds after he’d gotten the lighter into his hand, he felt the thud of heavy footsteps as the Terminators entered the hidden tunnels. Counting off the seconds, trying to visualize their progress, Kyle waited for just the right moment.

And as the first Terminator reached the chamber Kyle ignited the lighter, threw it onto the gasoline trail, and turned around for a mad dash to the end of the tunnel. He’d gotten maybe two steps when there was a deceptively soft whoosh from behind him—

And suddenly he was blown nearly off his feet as a shockwave of wind and fire slammed into his back.

Desperately, he tried to get his feet under him again. But the burning air was swirling like a dust storm all around him, twisting him around, keeping him off balance as he staggered his way onward.

He gasped in a breath of air that seemed to itself be on fire—

Behind him came a thunderous explosion, and the swirling air became a huge flaming hand that picked him up and threw him straight down the tunnel.

An instant later, the world went black.

Blair was still a kilometer out from the Moldavia when she began to see the individual muzzle flashes from the T-600s’ miniguns on the street half a block north of the besieged building.

There were a lot of flashes, too. Skynet was definitely turning up the heat down there. Either the civilians were trying to escape, or else Barnes had launched a sortie against the machines.

Either way, it was the sort of situation that begged for air support.

Only Blair was out of ammo, and everyone down there knew it. Including the man who’d given her the order to come back here in the first place.

Was Connor hoping the Terminators would raise their fire toward her A-10 as she overflew them, temporarily easing some of the pressure on the ground troops? If so, he was going to be disappointed. The T-600s didn’t need to shoot at her. Skynet’s last HK was still on her tail, and apparently had gotten a reload for its Gatlings while it was hiding out at Skynet’s Capistrano tower.

So far its fire hadn’t connected with her in any serious way, but even Blair’s luck couldn’t hold out forever against this much firepower.

The radio crackled, and she cocked an ear, wondering if Connor had reconsidered and had new orders for her. And the voice that came through her headset was definitely John Connor’s.

But it was nor the cool, calm set of new orders she had expected.

Connor was singing.

“Dum dum, dum dum de-da-dum,” he said, his voice falling and rising and falling again.

“Coming for to carry me home. Dum dum, dum dum de-da-dum. Coming for to carry me home.”

Blair stared at the landscape stretched out in front of her. Had the man gone insane?

“Dum dum—” he launched into the song again.

Blair opened her mouth…

Closed it again. Men like Connor didn’t go insane.

Not like this. Whatever he was doing, it was for a reason. Something about the song itself? The tune, or maybe the words that he wasn’t saying? She searched her memory, listening with half an ear, trying to chase down the song’s name.

And then, suddenly, it clicked.

It was an old, old song, one she could remember her mother singing to her as a lullaby on warm summer nights. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

Swing low…

It still didn’t make sense. But at least now it was an order she could understand.

“Check,” she murmured, and shoved her stick forward.

She’d had a faint hope that the screaming power dive might take the pursuing HK by surprise.

But no, the damn machine was sticking to her like one of Wince’s noxious glue concoctions.

Was Connor expecting her to do a sudden pull-up and try to smash the HK all over the landscape? It was worth a try, anyway. Waiting until the last second, Blair pulled out of her dive, leveling off at barely fifty meters above the street.

But again, her shadow matched the maneuver perfectly. Worse, with Blair’s maneuverability now constricted by the buildings rising up on both sides, the HK was taking the opportunity to pour some serious fire into her tail. Ahead, Blair could see the bus lying on its side in the middle of the street south of the Moldavia building—

She caught just a glimpse of the two miniguns opening up from atop the bus as she flashed past, their twin lines of destruction focused behind her.

The HK never had a chance. It tried to dodge, but the same canyon of buildings that was hemming in Blair was doing the same to it. The streams of lead caught the machine in its nose, belly, and turbofans, and as Blair watched in her mirrors the HK exploded in midair.

“Pull up!” Connor snapped.

That was an order Blair didn’t need to hear twice. She hauled back on her stick, pulling her fighter out of the path of the flaming debris now arrowing toward the ground from behind her. She reached building-top height and turned west, looking down out of her cockpit in time to see what was left of the HK crash onto the street and sweep across the line of T-600s that had been firing at Barnes and the Moldavia.

“We have breach!” David’s voice came suddenly in Blair’s ear. “Repeat, we have breach. We’re going in —”

“Watch it!” Tunney’s voice cut him off. “T-1 on guard! Make that two T-1s.”

“I got east,” David snapped over the crackle of machinegun fire. “Fire in the hole!”

“Fire in the hole!” Tunney echoed.

There was a violent thud in Blair’s ear, followed half a second later by a second one.

“T-l neutralized,” David reported, his voice tight. “Two men down.”

“T-l neutralized,” Tunney said. “No casualties. Moving in to assist.”

Blair swung her fighter around toward the warehouse. The wall she’d seen David’s people mining was all but gone, the roof sagging badly over neat stacks of equipment and on top of what was left of the two T-l watchdogs that the C4 grenades had just finished off.

Blair sighed. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath.

She’d really wanted to be there to see that wall come down.