Trial By Fire

had maybe five seconds to put the generators out of commission before the canopy opened far enough to let the H-K escape into the darkening sky. He pointed the minigun into the demolished cabin—

“No!” Preston said, grabbing at his arm and pointing toward the edge of the clearing near the H-K. “There. Shoot over there.”

Barnes frowned as he searched that section of forest with his eyes. Had Jik arrived? But he couldn’t see anything.

“That one—right there,” Preston persisted.

Barnes frowned harder. There was nothing there except—

Swinging the minigun around, aiming carefully, he squeezed off his last thirty rounds in a half-second of blistering fire.

And with a crackling groan, the tree whose lower trunk the hail of lead had disintegrated toppled ponderously over and landed with a deafening crash.

Squarely across the top of the H-K.

The echoes faded away, and a new silence filled the clearing. Cautiously, Barnes lifted his head.

The tree’s impact had crushed the entire top of the H-K, burying the machine’s nose in the ground and jamming the muzzles of its Gatling guns deep into the dirt.

“Nice call,” he said, turning back to Preston. “How’s the head?”

“I’m okay,” Preston said, looking a little shaky as he got to his feet. “What now?”

“We get some fresh firepower,” Barnes said, sniffing the air as he dropped the empty minigun on the ground. Now that the stink of the Gatling rounds’ propellant was dissipating he could smell the equally pungent aroma of aviation fuel. The falling tree must have ruptured the H-K’s fuel tank. Glancing around the clearing, he got up and went over to the wreckage of the cabin.

The equipment inside had indeed included a set of the T-700s’ preferred G11 submachineguns. Unfortunately, the weapons had been racked or wall-mounted in the upper part of the cabin—which had just been obliterated by the H-K’s firestorm. Barnes could see several of the weapons lying amid the debris, all of them badly damaged. He climbed up onto the broken wall and dropped over to the other side.

And jerked in surprise as his feet landed with an audible splash.

“What was that?” Preston asked, coming up and peering over the wall.

“Aviation fuel,” Barnes said, wrinkling his nose. So it wasn’t the H-K that was leaking, but the reserve tank he could now see peeking out from beneath a broken slab of metal along one of the other walls. “Stay there—if I find something in decent shape I’ll pass it to you.”

But, to his frustration, nearly every gun he spotted had been damaged beyond safe use. Midway through the search he found a single functional weapon, but everything else was useless.

He’d seen plenty of Terminators wreck their own G11s rather than let them fall into Resistance hands. Clearly, H-Ks were even better at it than T-700s were.

“Come on, come on,” Preston urged, his voice low and strained. “Jik could be here any time now.”

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying,” Barnes responded. Across the cabin, beneath a section of broken ceiling, was what looked like an operating table with a collection of surgical gear scattered around it. Sloshing through the pool of aviation fuel, he crossed over to it and crouched down to look beneath the broken ceiling.

And felt his whole body go rigid. It was an operating table, all right. And lying half buried beneath it...

“Anything?” Preston asked.

“No,” Barnes said quickly. Too quickly, but Preston didn’t know him well enough to catch it. Straightening up, he headed back to where the older man was waiting. “Here,” he said, handing Preston the G11. “I’ll see if I can find some more ammo—”

“Barnes?” a voice called from across the clearing.

Barnes spun around, snatching back the G11 and turning it in the direction of the voice.

“Jik?”

“The name’s Connor,” Jik said sternly.

“Whatever,” Barnes said, eyes straining to pierce the gloom. “Welcome home. You like what we’ve done with the place?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jik said. “I’ve never been here before in my life.”

“You’ve just forgotten,” Barnes said. “Come have a look. Maybe it’ll come back to you.”

“What are you doing?” Preston asked quietly. “Shouldn’t we find some cover?”

“Don’t worry, he’s not armed,” Barnes murmured back. “If he had a gun he’d be shooting, not talking.”

“So why are we talking?”

“Because I can’t shoot what I can’t see,” Barnes growled. “And because there’s a chance we can break Skynet’s programming.”

“Don’t give me that,” Jik admonished him. “It’s a trick. I told you I’ve never been here.”

“Sure you have,” Barnes said. He took a couple of steps farther into the cabin and pointed to the operating table. “Here—right here—is where you were created.”

“You’re insane,” Jik bit out. “My name is John Connor. I was born in—”

“You’re a Terminator hybrid that’s been code-named Jik,” Barnes interrupted him. “Right here is where your memories were loaded into your brain chip and your voice was changed to match Connor’s.”

There was a pause.

“My voice was changed?” Jik asked, his tone suddenly odd.

“Of course,” Barnes said. “Everyone on the continent with a radio knows what Connor sounds like. Skynet had to do some work before it could send you out to play.”

“You’re talking about throat surgery,” Jik said tightly. “And a pain in... I thought a tree branch had hit my throat. I remember a tree branch hitting it.”

“Another false memory,” Barnes told him, feeling a stirring of hope. It was working. It was actually working. “I can see what’s left of a big transmitter in here, too. This is where your little radio was sending to. Probably where all your future messages were going to go out of, as well. Come take a look —”

“Behind you!” Preston snapped.

With a curse, Barnes spun around. The oldest trick in the book, and he’d been so focused on breaking Jik’s programming that he’d nearly fallen for it.

Not that the T-700 crossing the clearing toward them was breaking any speed records. It was limping badly, its left leg dragging through the leaves and undergrowth. The rest of its body wasn’t in much better shape, with large dents at its shoulders and hips, and one arm twisted visibly off.

Still, it was a Terminator, and it was targeting them, and it needed to be dealt with. Lowering the muzzle of his G11, Barnes fired a short burst into the machine’s left knee.

With a screech of shattered metal, the knee disintegrated, sending the T-700 tumbling to the ground.

“Barnes—” Preston snapped.

“I know,” Barnes said, turning around again. Across the clearing, Jik had broken concealment and was sprinting toward them, Williams’s Mossberg gripped in its hands, its face and body torn and bloodied.

Barnes grinned humorlessly. So Jik did have a weapon. Unfortunately for him, it was a big clearing, and shotguns didn’t have nearly the range of rifles or even handguns. Hence the T-700’s distraction, and Jik’s own suicidal dash across open ground to try to get into range.

And it had nearly worked. Another ten paces, and the shotgun might do some actual damage.

Barnes let him get three of those paces, then put a three-round burst squarely into his torso.

The Theta staggered back with the impact, the rounds ripping clothing and flesh and ricocheting off the metal torso beneath. Before Barnes could line up for another burst, Jik reversed direction, turning and sprinting across the edge of the clearing and disappearing again into the darkening woods.

“Watch it—the other one’s still coming,” Preston warned.

Barnes looked back at the T-700. With half of its left leg gone, the machine had been reduced to crawling, its skeletal hands gripping the grass as it pulled itself toward them.

“What do we do?” Preston asked.

Barnes looked back to where Jik had again gone to ground. The forest, especially at night, was no place to