Trial By Fire

“You stopped him, Hope. Not me. You stopped him with this.” She started to reach for the broken arrow shaft still embedded in the back of her head.

Her hand never got there. It flopped weakly back down onto the deck and lay still.

She was gone.

For a long minute Hope just knelt there, gripping the woman’s hand, memories swirling through her mind like the bittersweet smoke from a cooking fire. Behind her, she could hear Blair and Halverson murmuring together, but she had no attention to spare for whatever they were talking about. Hope’s friend was dead.

She had killed her.

“Hope?” Blair murmured quietly. “We have to go.”

Hope tried to blink away her tears. She couldn’t.

“Can we—we can bury them, can’t we?” she asked, her voice shaking. “We have to bury them.”

“We will,” Blair promised. “But not now. Your father’s in danger.”

And with that, all the pain and sorrow abruptly flowed back into the far corners of Hope’s mind, still there but no longer overwhelming her. Her father was in trouble. The grief and guilt would have to wait.

“Where?” she said.

“Bear Commons,” Halverson replied. He had hold of Lajard’s arms and was dragging him out of the helicopter, his face contorted with pain and determination. “We think that’s where Skynet’s base is.”

“Go over there,” Blair ordered, pointing Hope across the cockpit toward the door-mounted gun on the helicopter’s right-hand side. “There’s a safety harness attached to the wall. Strap yourself in.”

Hope stood up, forcing herself not to look back as Blair dealt with Susan’s body. She hadn’t noticed before just how big and fearsome the gun looked. Especially up close.

The gun that Susan had been preparing to use when Hope shot her in the back.

But she wouldn’t think about that. Not right now.

Backing into the safety harness, she began fastening it around her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The first T-700 had nearly made it through to the surface now, and for a brief moment Kyle allowed himself the hope that the rest of the machines might have been buried so deeply underground that they wouldn’t be able to claw their way out. That would leave just a single T-700 for them to face. Surely Connor’s guards could stop a single T-700?

But then the machine reached the surface and stepped to the side, and Kyle’s heart sank as he saw a second skeletal metal hand reach up from underground.

There were more of them down there, ready to come up and kill. Maybe even the entire tunneling contingent.

He looked at the medical recovery tent behind them. One of Connor’s guards had a whistle to his mouth, and through the ringing that the underground explosion had left in his ears Kyle could faintly hear the frantic screech of the emergency code signal. Two more seconds, he knew, and everyone within hearing range would come running.

But it was a useless gesture, because there wasn’t anyone out there. Not at this hour. Not close and well- armed enough. The only thing that stood between Connor and the Terminators were Connor’s guards and their weapons, and Kyle and his shotgun.

And in that frozen second, as Kyle turned back to the Terminator standing in the fading daylight, he knew what he had to do.

He took off in a dead run, his shotgun gripped across his chest. The weapon still had three shots, and he would make sure he used those shots to their best advantage.

Something brushed his sleeve. He turned, and found Callahan and Zac running alongside him. Callahan’s mouth moved, and even though Kyle’s ears were still too paralyzed to hear the other’s words, his lip movements were easy enough to read: What are you doing?

“Blocking that hole,” Kyle shouted back. He waved his shotgun. “Get back!”

Callahan’s gaze turned to the Terminators, and out of the corner of his eye Kyle saw his face harden.

He’d figured it out. Kyle couldn’t hope to stop even one Terminator with his shotgun, not with its remaining three shells, not even at point-blank range. The one, single chance any of them had of slowing down the deadly invasion—

“Go on, get back!” Kyle shouted.

Callahan didn’t bother to answer. He turned and said something to Zac, and Kyle saw the younger teen shake his head.

“Zac!” Kyle shouted. “Get back.”

And then, to Kyle’s chagrin, Callahan put on a burst of speed, pulling ahead as he charged the Terminators.

“Callahan!” Kyle shouted.

But it was no use. Callahan was bigger, older, and faster... and as he’d been willing to sacrifice himself earlier, he was now determined to take this mission on himself.

Kyle clenched his teeth. Fine. If Callahan wanted to get himself killed, Kyle couldn’t stop him.

But even if Callahan managed to jump on the half-emerged Terminator, any hope of pinning it down would last only as long as it took the first T-700 to pick him up and toss him off.

Maybe Kyle could do something about that.

He would use two of his remaining shells on the Terminator’s arms. Then he would throw himself at full speed against the machine’s torso, with luck knocking it over onto its back. If he was still alive at that point, he would fire his final shell up under the Terminator’s chin, in the direction of its braincase. Maybe a pellet or two would get through the metal and damage one or more of the motor control lines leading to the machine’s limbs.

Callahan was a good five paces out in front now, and flicking his eyes to the side Kyle saw that Zac was also starting to pull ahead.

And, to his surprise, Kyle felt a grim smile crease his lips.

There had been times, back in Los Angeles, when he’d wondered about this far-away Resistance he’d heard so much about. He’d wondered whether he and Star would ever link up with it, and if they did if it would be worth his allegiance.

Now he knew. If Connor and the others could inspire men like Callahan and Zac to make the ultimate sacrifice, this Resistance was indeed worth Kyle’s allegiance.

His allegiance, and his life.

The T-700’s red eyes glittered as it contemplated the three reckless humans bearing down on it. At least it wasn’t armed, Kyle thought with an odd sort of emotional detachment. That was something, anyway. His thoughts flicked to Star, and he wished briefly that he’d had a chance to say good-bye to her. But the others would take care of her, he knew now. The Resistance took care of its own.

And then, five meters in front of him, Callahan suddenly slowed, his head turning up and sideways. He snapped his arms out to both sides.

Kyle was just starting to wonder if Callahan’s courage and determination had somehow failed him when the T-700 standing in front of them abruptly disintegrated in a burst of dimly heard automatic gunfire.

Kyle twisted his head around. There, swooping in on them like an avenging angel, was a Resistance helicopter, its door-mounted machineguns blazing away as it spat destruction at the two Terminators.

A second later, Kyle stumbled into Callahan’s outstretched arm. A second after that, he found that same arm wrapped around his shoulders as Callahan gripped the two of them, Kyle on one side, Zac on the other, with the released tension of a man who has just faced certain death and then had that doom snatched from him.

Kyle had cheated death too many times, him and Star, to go all sentimental that way. Still, his knees were suddenly feeling a little weak. Probably because he hadn’t had anything much to eat since breakfast.

The chopper set down near the demolished Terminators. A half-dozen men armed with heavy weapons