Trial By Fire

effective immediately, the three of you are being transferred to Barnes’s shock force. You’ll be trained as a fireteam, with the goal of eventually being integrated into Echo platoon.”

Kyle felt his eyes widen. A fireteam assignment? Already?

“I—yes, sir,” Callahan said, sounding as surprised as Kyle felt. “But I thought...” He stopped.

“You thought there was a longer evaluation period,” Connor finished for him. “Normally, there is. But yesterday the three of you went through the fire together. Some people don’t survive that kind of challenge. Those who do come out stronger.”

Connor gestured toward them. “I said a minute ago that Skynet’s determination was one of the two things you could count on in this world. The other is the courage and trustworthiness of your teammates. You’ve already become that kind of team. All we’re going to do is make it better.”

“Thank you, sir,” Callahan said. “We won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t.” Connor smiled. “Now, go get some more rest. Barnes could be back at any time. And as I’m sure Reese will tell you, he can be a very demanding man to work for.”

It had been a long day, with a short and tense night before it, and by the time Blair finally woke up she found she’d slept for nearly nine hours.

Barnes hadn’t slept as long, she discovered as she emerged from Preston’s house. Neither, apparently, had anyone else in town. Aside from Preston and Hope, the rest of Baker’s Hollow had already gathered their most vital belongings and disappeared, melting into the woods, heading God only knew where as quickly as they could.

Preston and Hope had stayed behind to say good-bye. So, to Blair’s surprise, had Halverson.

And as they all said their farewells, Blair noted the subtle but real change had taken place in the three of them and their relationships.

Preston had gained an edge of quiet steel, his leadership no longer based solely on compromise and cooperation but now with a dose of confidence and gut-level belief in himself and his decisions. Halverson, in contrast, had toned down some of his brashness, with perhaps a grudging new respect for Preston.

And both men were just a little bit afraid of Hope.

The walk back to the Blackhawk was very quiet. Barnes never said a word along the way, and for her part Blair was still too tired and drained to feel like talking.

Certainly not with a man who still hated her.

They were in the air, heading over the mountains toward San Francisco, when Barnes finally spoke.

“You figure they blame us for what happened?” he asked.

Blair nodded. “Probably.”

“Yeah,” Barnes said. “‘Course, there wouldn’t be anyone left to do any blaming if we hadn’t showed up. Sooner or later, Jik and the others would have killed them.”

“I know,” Blair said. “I think Preston and the others do too, down deep.”

“Maybe.”

For a moment Barnes was silent.

“You made a fool of me, you know.”

Blair frowned at the sudden change of subject. “What?”

“Back at the camp, before the San Francisco attack,” he said. “When you gave me that phony order from Connor so that you could help Wright escape.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Blair replied carefully. Even to her own ears it sounded pretty weak.

It obviously did to Barnes, too.

“Doesn’t matter whether you meant it or not,” he said. “You still made me look like a fool.” He paused again. “But you were right.”

Blair threw a frown at him.

“About what?”

“Wright,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and about the Thetas here. Valentine didn’t want to do what Skynet wanted, but she still did it. Oxley seemed to really like the power he had. Jik—I don’t know what the hell Jik was thinking.”

“I think he really believed he was John Connor,” Blair said.

“Could be,” Barnes said. “You see what I’m saying. None of them, not even Valentine, could break the programming. Not without an arrow in the back of the head.”

“They couldn’t break from Skynet,” Blair murmured as she saw where Barnes was going with this. “But Marcus did.”

“Marcus did,” Barnes acknowledged. “He broke his programming, saved Connor’s life, and helped us get all those prisoners out so we could blow the place.”

“Yes, he did all that,” Blair said, a fresh lump forming in her throat. “But that was all him. What did you mean that I was right?”

Barnes snorted. “You were right about him,” he growled. “You saw something— damned if I know what—that told you he could be trusted. If you hadn’t seen that and done something about it—” He shook his head. “I don’t know how it would have turned out. But probably a hell of a lot worse.”

He waved a hand. “So anyway, there it is,” he went on. “You wanted to know why I was mad at you. Now you do.” He shrugged. “And I guess if he was worth your trust, he was worth mine. I guess.”

“Yes, he was,” Blair agreed. “As it turned out. And I am sorry about making you look... you know.”

“Forget it,” Barnes said. “I asked Preston why he put up with Halverson. He said keeping his town running was worth a little wounded pride. I figure if he can do it, so can I.”

“I think sometimes we forget what’s really important,” Blair said. “Right now, the important thing is that taking out all three of the Baker’s Hollow Thetas may persuade Skynet to abandon the project.”

“Just in time, too,” Barnes muttered.

“What do you mean?”

He hissed out a sigh. “I mean we were wrong,” he said heavily. “You and me, when we were trying to figure out the test sequence for the Thetas. We got the part about Lajard and the others infiltrating a bunch of humans, and the part about Jik coming in with a whole set of false memories. But we missed something.”

“What?”

“The bit where Skynet snatches someone from town—someone everyone already knows—and puts in a replacement,” Barnes said. “You didn’t see it, but there was a brand-new Theta half buried inside the cabin that the H-K wrecked. I don’t think it was ready to go yet, but it looked damn close. The body they were using wasn’t perfect, but they’d done a lot of work on the face.”

“Who was it supposed to be?” Blair asked. “Could you tell?”

“Oh, yeah,” Barnes said, an edge of cold darkness to his voice. “It was going to be Hope Preston.”

A hard knot settled into Blair’s stomach.

“We’ve got to win this thing, Barnes,” she said quietly. “We’ve got to beat Skynet back, and we’ve got to break it and every single one of its Terminators into scrap metal.”

“No argument here,” Barnes agreed. “I wonder what it’ll come up with next.”

Blair took a deep breath. She and Barnes would probably never be friends, she knew.

But now that the barrier she’d unwittingly built between them was gone, they could once again be comrades in arms.

And she could settle for that. In the midst of the fires of war, she could settle for that.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure we’ll find out.”

The End

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TIMOTHY ZAHN has been writing science fiction for over thirty years. In that time he has published thirty- nine novels, nearly ninety short stories and novelettes, and four collections of short fiction. Best known for his eight Star Wars novels, he is also the author of the Quadrail series, the Cobra series, and the young-adult Dragonback series. He is