Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

Orozco’s first warning was the sound of a distant double blast coming from somewhere behind him, a pair of hammerfalls loud enough to penetrate even the heavy gunfire he and his teams were pouring into the two Terminators still fighting to reach the archway.

“Grimaldi!” he shouted.

“I heard it,” Grimaldi shouted back, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “I’ll go check.”

He rose up into a crouch, paused for a moment, then took off in a broken run that got him safely across the lobby and into the main corridor heading back through the building.

Orozco turned back to the archway, a fresh wave of tightness knotting his stomach as he continued to pour fire against the attacking machines. Grimaldi and his men had sealed off the rear of the building years ago, and several teams had worked for hours earlier that day to inspect and reinforce those barriers. The building was as secure as they could make it, and Orozco himself had added a few booby traps to help keep out any unwelcome visitors.

But those explosions a minute ago had sounded a lot like two of his home-made pipe bombs.

The question was, had one of the guards back there accidentally set them off, probably killing him or herself in the process?

Or had Skynet created a way inside?

The Terminators in the street were starting to pull back, their rubber flesh tattered, their appearance now more akin to mummies than human beings. Orozco watched warily as they backed out of view and out of range, then shifted his attention to the street leading past the sniper’s nest.

There were two or three more Terminators down there, slowly disintegrating under an outpouring of fire from the rear of the nest. Barnes and Kate and their team, protecting all of them from what had obviously been Skynet’s idea of a flanking maneuver.

Meanwhile, the fire coming from the Ashes’ own defenders had stopped now that their primary targets had retreated.

“Right flank: new target,” Orozco called, pointing down the street at the other Terminators.

Rather than just sitting around, he and his people might as well give Barnes’ squad a hand. “All marksmen move to this side of the barricade.”

It was amazing, he reflected, what an hour and a couple of small victories could accomplish. The same men and women who’d been quaking in their shoes earlier now nearly fell over each other getting to the right-hand side of the barrier just for the chance to target a few more of their attackers.

They were firing away when Grimaldi skidded to Orozco’s side, his face white.

“They’re coming in!” he gasped, panting for breath.

“Where?” Orozco snapped, shooting a look over the other’s shoulder. The hallways, at least as far down as he could see, were still clear.

“Ventilation shaft beside the loading dock,” Grimaldi said. “They breached the wall back there and are working their way in.”

Orozco cursed. The two explosions he’d heard must have been the two pipe bombs he’d set inside that shaft, the first designed to blow up the intruder, the second to blow up the wall over the shaft and hopefully seal the gap.

“Did the bombs stop them?” he asked.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Grimaldi demanded. “I said they’re working their way in. I could see their eyes in the ducts. And not just the ducts—they’re hammering at the whole wall back there.”

“Damn.” Orozco spun around. With a ductwork breach, at least the machines would have to come in one at a time. But if they managed to take down the wall, the whole back of the building would be open to them. “Cease fire!” he shouted. “All teams, cease fire! We have a breach.”

The guns instantly stopped.

“Where?” Wadleigh demanded.

“Loading dock vent shaft and duct, and they’re working on the wall,” Grimaldi said. “Everyone, back there, on the double.”

He broke off, looking with sudden uncertainty at Orozco. “Everyone?” he repeated, making it a question.

“Yes, everyone,” Orozco confirmed, looking up at the fire teams on the balcony and gesturing them down to the lobby.

“Right,” Grimaldi said. “Come on.”

He sprinted back toward the hallway, his rifle bouncing across his back, the rest of the fire teams right behind him.

Orozco looked out through the archway, wondering belatedly if this was really the right decision. If the attack on the building’s rear was a feint, leaving the main entrance undefended this way could be the last mistake any of them ever made.

But he had no choice. If Skynet was hitting them in the rear with any significant force, it would take every gun and gunner Orozco had simply to stand against it. He would just have to hope that Barnes and his people could cover them up here.

The fire teams from the balcony were streaming down the stairway now, looking at Orozco for orders. Pointing them toward the building’s rear, he slung his Ml 6 over his shoulder, grabbed his last two pipe bombs, and hurried to join them.

Something was wrong.

Kate gazed out on the street below, trying to figure out what it was that had suddenly set off alarms in the back of her head. The two Terminators to the north were still retreating from their latest attack on the Moldavia, their miniguns silent and possibly dry. Simmons was encouraging their departure with deliberately placed shots, his rounds slamming into their heads and hip joints. A couple of T-600s a block farther north of the retreating machines were offering some cover fire, but their shots were sporadic and ineffective.

The gunfire coming from behind Kate, off to the west, was still going strong as Barnes and the others hammered the first wave of reserve T-600s that Skynet had sent into the battle. In contrast, the Terminators in the bus to the south hadn’t moved at all, and were only firing occasional shots, as if content with making sure there was no traffic on the street.

And then, suddenly, Kate had it. The Terminators to the west and north were firing, Barnes and Simmons were firing, and even farther to the west John and his squad were firing. Everyone who had a target to shoot at was doing so.

Except the people in the Moldavia.

And up until a minute ago they’d been firing down the street at Barnes’ target T-600s.

Why had they suddenly stopped?

“Hickabick, I need a sitrep at tee two and hole nine,” she said into her mike.

“Check,” Blair’s voice came back. “On my way.”

At the other end of the room, Simmons turned around, reaching up a hand to cover his mike.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“Orozco’s people have stopped firing,” Kate told him.

Simmons turned back to his peephole.

“Huh,” he said. “You’re right. I hadn’t even noticed.”

Overhead, the roar of an A-10 briefly drowned out the chattering of gunfire as Blair shot over the Moldavia.

“Tee two looks clear,” the pilot reported crisply. “Turning to hole nine.”

“Maybe they just ran out of ammo,” Simmons offered as he squeezed off a couple more rounds at the retreating T-600s.

“Maybe,” Kate said.

The front of the building looked all right, at least as far as Blair could see from the air. There were a couple of T-600s to the north firing at the building and Barnes’ squad, with two more retreating in that direction, plus the remnants of another group to the west that Barnes and Connor were hammering.

She also caught a glimpse of the foursome still hoping to sneak up on Connor from even farther to the west.

There was other movement, too, beside the staging area warehouse’s south wall. Shadowy figures—David and his demolition team—had come out of the drainage tunnel and were busily setting their explosives in preparation for the squad’s breach. From what Blair could see, it looked like Connor had decided to bring the whole wall down, and Blair made a mental note to try to get back in time for the show.

Massive explosions were always entertaining to watch, especially explosions involving Skynet property.

For another moment she held her course, studying the area. So far, the only T-600s that Skynet had sent against the Moldavia had been that first wave plus some reinforcements from the area around it, followed by the groups of six and four from the warehouse.

But that couldn’t be all of the T-600s that Skynet had in the area. Were the rest of them still on border patrol?

Blair hoped so. As long as Skynet held to the assumption that it could contain the area, Connor’s team would be able to take out the machines in twos and fours and sixes instead of having to face all of them at once in a single massed attack.

Of course, once Skynet realized its staging area had been breached, its strategy would undoubtedly change. And quickly.

Giving the area around the warehouse one final check, she swung back around the block, clearing the broken structures around the Moldavia and coming in along the service alley that ran behind the building.

And as she came within sight of the building’s rear, she felt her jaw drop in stunned disbelief.

Skynet’s reserve of Terminators weren’t standing idly by along the neighborhood’s borders, trying to keep everyone inside the kill zone. They were right here—twenty of them at least—single-mindedly pounding at the building’s back wall and ventilation structures, breaking their way inside.

“Hickabick,” she called tautly into her mike. “Double lobster at hole nine. Repeat: double lobster at hole nine.

“And they’re going in.”

“Oh, hell,” Tony Tantillo said.

“And then some,” Connor agreed grimly. A double lobster—ten to twenty T-600s—about to breach the Moldavia. And from the tone of Blair’s voice, he guessed the number was probably closer to twenty than ten. Skynet was throwing an incredible number of resources at the beleaguered building.

“Hickabick, are there any tee times still available?” he called into his mike.

There was a brief silence.

“Yes, but I was hoping to save the last one of the day for Curly,” she replied.

Connor’s eyes flicked toward the south. The last HK had fled several minutes ago and was nowhere in sight, but it would be back the minute Blair ran out of ammo. She couldn’t afford to be caught in that position. Neither could Connor and the breach teams, for that matter.

But the option was for them all to sit back and do nothing, and let Orozco and his people die.

“Tee time at hole nine,” he ordered. “Bring the whole set of clubs.”

“Check,” Blair said.

And with that, the die was cast.

“Barnes?” Connor called.

“I heard,” Barnes said. “Soon as we’re finished here, we’ll see about giving them some support.”

Connor frowned. Getting into the building from Barnes’ position would mean crossing a street that he’d thought Skynet was holding. Had the Terminators abandoned their positions there?

“What about Gulliver?”

“No change,” Kate’s voice put in.

“Yeah, but they gotta be running low on ammo,” Barnes said. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it.”

“Not until Gulliver’s neutralized,” Connor told him firmly. “There’s still that group at green eight, and I don’t want you running through a crossfire. As soon as we’re finished here, we’ll deal with it.”

Barnes muttered something.

“Make it snappy,” he said.

“Here they come,” Joey Tantillo murmured.

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 their side, crossing under cover to the other side, and sending their last C4 grenade directly into the bus.

At which point Barnes and his squad should be able to duck through the more distant and less effective fire from the north end of the street and go to Orozco’s aid.

Connor just hoped they would be in time to do something useful.

They were nearly to the store when some instinct made Connor glance over his shoulder. There, striding silently toward them along the far side of the street, were a brand new set of four T-600s.

Before Connor could even open his mouth to shout a warning, they opened fire.

McFarland took the brunt of that first salvo, his body all but disintegrating under the hail of bullets, dead long before he hit the pavement. Connor swung his MP5 around, flicking the selector to full auto and opening fire, striking the Terminators and sending their next salvo wide.

“Through the window!” he shouted at the rest of his squad.

Peripherally, he saw them charging toward the corner store as he continued to fire. His clip ran dry, and he slammed in a fresh one, ignoring the bullets hammering into the wall behind him.

“Clear!” he heard Tony’s shout as a hail of cover fire opened up at the Terminators from behind him. “Connor!”

He turned and sprinted toward the store. Bishop and Tony were crouched by the window, their rifles blazing as he dived headlong through the opening. He hit the floor and rolled onto his shoulder and back, coming awkwardly up into a crouch.

“Everyone okay?” he called.

“For now,” Joey said grimly. “But that may not last much longer.”

And only then did Connor’s brain catch up with his combat reflexes, and he recognized the trap Skynet had maneuvered them into.

Because if those ambushing T-600s had attacked while Connor’s squad was still in the middle of the block, they would have stopped right there, hammering the machines with enough gunfire to keep them off balance long enough for Joey to take them out with their last C4 grenade.

Instead, by waiting until the squad had this convenient bunker to retreat to, Skynet had put them within range of both the T-600s on the street and those in the bus.

Two targets. Only one grenade.

It wasn’t really a choice, Connor knew with a sinking heart. Tactically, the only viable move would be to ignore the bus, use the grenade against the group to their west, and then slip out that way. Taking out the bus wouldn’t be of any help, since Skynet could still pull in the Terminators from the north end of the street to block any exit in that direction, leaving Connor and his squad still pinned.

But if Connor did it that way, if he left the bus alone, Skynet would maintain its control of the street, blocking all access to the Moldavia.

And the people in there would all die.

Joey was crouching beside him, the grenade launcher in his hands, his eyes steady on Connor’s face. Probably he’d run through the same train of logic, and knew that the people in the Moldavia were doomed.

“Get the launcher ready,” Connor told him evenly. “We’re taking out the bus.”

The hallways were filled with smoke and the thunder of machinegun fire, the screams of the wounded, and the bodies of the dead.

Orozco continued backing slowly down the hall, firing at every pair of red eyes he could make out through the drifting smoke. There were a lot of them, at least five sets he could see at the moment. The Terminators were working their way toward him, pausing at each doorway along the hall to check for potential victims.

Sometimes the room was empty, and the Terminators would continue their march forward. Far too often, though, there was someone hiding in there. Then there would be yet another burst of minigun fire, and another person would join the ranks of the dead.

Orozco was alone now. All those who’d once stood with him had either been killed or had turned and fled. He still nursed some frail tendrils of hope that at least some of those who’d run hadn’t actually deserted, but had instead headed back to the lobby to regroup for a counterattack.

He wasn’t really expecting that. But he also didn’t blame them. The Terminators had brought a living, pulsating hell to their home, and men and women who’d never before been through such sound and fury and death could hardly be expected to stand against it for long.

In fact, Orozco hoped that some of them had made it out of the building alive, and would find a way to slip through Skynet’s cordon and escape. Sending a few survivors back to the world would at least give his death some meaning.

A death that wouldn’t be much longer in coming. His left arm was wet with blood, and he knew he’d taken a round somewhere up there. He couldn’t feel any pain, thanks to the adrenaline pumping through his system. But all the adrenaline in the world couldn’t plug leaking skin. Even if he managed to avoid taking any more damage, he would eventually collapse from loss of blood.

But not yet. Not yet. Not as long as there was hope for any of his people.

A pair of glowing red eyes loomed up through the smoke in front of him. Orozco squeezed his M16’s trigger, the impact of the round sending the head bouncing backward.

Clenching his teeth, firing again and again, Orozco continued his slow, steady, lonely retreat.

The exit from the sagging building led through a maze of back alleys and ruins. Kyle and Star moved through them, staying in shadow as much as they could, both of them alert to the probability that there were other Terminators somewhere in the area.

But though the night was filled with the thunder of gunfire, and the broken clouds above reflected an eerie glow from the multiple fires going on across the city, Kyle didn’t spot a single one of the red-eyed killing machines.

His plan had been to head due west, then turn north when they got to the street that passed by the building’s main entrance. They were nearly to the service alley that ran along the rear of the Ashes building when a much louder hammering of nearby gunfire suddenly rolled across him.

Reflexively, he pulled Star down beside him into the partial shelter of a ragged waist-high wall, wincing at the sheer thundering power of the blasts. He’d heard similar barrages on and off throughout the long night, but they’d always been coming from somewhere in the distance, and up in the sky. To hear it up close like this was brain-rattlingly terrifying.

But it was over quickly. Wishing he knew whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he started to stand up—

And dropped back down as a jet aircraft shot straight out of the alley in front of him, followed by a blast of hot air that knocked both him and Star flat on their backs. He caught a glimpse of an angry red-yellow glow blazing from the inside of the plane as it climbed sharply back into the sky.

The roar faded as the plane headed somewhere else.

“You okay?” Kyle asked as he took Star’s arm and got the two of them back on their feet.

She gave him a quick nod, her eyes tense, her hand gripping his tightly.

“Yeah, I know,” Kyle agreed, peering ahead down the street. It looked clear. “Okay, here’s the plan. We cross the alley and go one more block, then turn north and head back to the Ashes. Right?

Let’s go.”

Somewhat to Kyle’s surprise, they made it to the next street without incident. Stepping up to the corner of a small makeshift shanty that someone had long ago built out of scrap wood and brick, and then abandoned, he looked carefully around it.

His worst fears had envisioned a dozen Terminators marching on the building. But again to his surprise, he found that the street stretching out in front of him was completely deserted.

Mostly deserted, anyway. Four or five blocks to the north he could make out a couple of figures in the middle of the street, figures too distant for him to tell whether they were human or machine.

But otherwise the path looked clear.

“Okay, here we go,” he whispered to Star. Taking her hand, he started to ease around the corner.

As the shanty wall above his head exploded in a shattering hail of gunfire.

He took the rest of the corner in a dive, pulling Star with him as the stream of lead raked down the wall of the shanty from somewhere behind them, raining bits of wood and brick across his back and legs.

Kyle winced, squinting against the dust as the rounds began tracking back and forth, methodically perforating the walls of the makeshift structure. He risked a quick look, and through the disintegrating walls spotted two T-600s marching stolidly toward them, miniguns blazing.

Their only chance now was an all-or-nothing run for the archway. Getting a fresh grip on Star’s hand, Kyle prepared himself.

And then, to his stunned surprise, a head and torso rose into view through one of the upper windows of the overturned bus half a block away.

It was another Terminator. Only this one was between them and the Ashes.

Kyle froze, the roar of the miniguns in his ears drowning out the painful thudding of his heart.

So that was it. He and Star were caught in the open between two groups of killing machines.

They were dead.

Unbidden, tears welled up in his eyes. Not tears of fear or anger, but of frustration and shame.

He’d failed. He’d failed himself, and he’d failed Orozco.

Worst of all, he’d failed Star.

He frowned, blinking away the tears as something strange caught his attention. The Terminator in the bus wasn’t looking at him and Star. In fact, it was looking in almost exactly the opposite direction.

He studied the machine, his flash of shame fading as he tried to figure out what was happening.

Orozco had told him all the Terminators were linked together through Skynet, so that what one Terminator saw or heard could be passed on to any of the others.

The Terminators shooting up the shanty beside him knew that he and Star were here. So how could the machine in the bus not know it?

And then the Terminator in the bus opened fire, its minigun raking the side of the old corner store half a block further north.

And abruptly, Kyle understood. The Terminator knew he and Star were there, all right. It just didn’t care. All it cared about right now was trying to kill the people he could see cowering inside the store.

And when it had accomplished that, then it might have the time to deal with these two annoying kids who had refused to simply lie down and die.

Kyle hissed out a breath, a surge of anger driving out the last remnants of his momentary panic.

He didn’t know who the people in the store were, whether they were a fire team Orozco had sent or just a group of civilian refugees running from Skynet’s slaughter.

But who they were didn’t matter.

What mattered was that Kyle still had two bombs left, and a good throwing arm.

“You think we were annoying before?” he muttered as he reached into his shoulder bag. “Let me show you what annoying really is.”