Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“They hate me, don’t they?” Susan asked quietly as Hope led the way along the path toward Crescent Rock.

“What?” Hope asked, most of her mind on the forest around her. They hadn’t hunted this area for a while, which meant there was a chance that some of the bigger game might have returned.

“The people in town,” Susan said. “I saw the way they looked at me when they came back from the battle with those T-700s.”

“I think everyone’s mostly just tired,” Hope assured her. “They’ll get over it.”

“I’m not so sure,” Susan said. “You heard what Connor said earlier, back at your house. If Nathan, Remy, and I had died instead of letting Skynet pick our brains, maybe there wouldn’t even be T-700s for them to have to deal with.”

“I didn’t think you ever worked on the T-700s.”

“You know what I mean.” Behind her, Hope heard Susan sigh. “I wish to God I was you, Hope,” she said. “With my whole life still ahead of me. Instead of—” She broke off. “I’m sorry, Hope. I’m so very sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Hope said. She looked back over her shoulder.

And froze. Susan was staring straight ahead, her face suddenly cold and rigid and agonized. Hope threw a quick look in the direction the older woman was staring, wondering if she’d spotted a bear or another Terminator. But there was nothing there.

“Susan?” Hope asked carefully, looking back at her.

Slowly, the cold eyes turned to focus on Hope.

“I’m sorry, Hope,” Susan said again as she started forward. “I have to kill you now.”

For a moment Hope just stared at her, the words buzzing around her ears like angry hornets.

“What are you talking about?” she asked as she started to back away.

But it was too late. Susan didn’t seem to be hurrying, but her stride was longer than Hope’s, she was walking forward instead of backward, and she was rapidly closing the distance between them.

“Susan, please,” Hope said, trying desperately to think. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t you understand?” Susan asked, a quiet horror filling her voice. “I’m one of them. God help me. I’m one of them.”

“One of what?” Hope asked, trying to keep her talking. To her left, her hand brushed against the branches and leaves of a sapling. “I don’t understand,” she continued, pressing her palm against the slender trunk and bending the young tree over as she continued backing up.

“I’m a Theta,” Susan said, her voice shaking now. “I didn’t know. God, I had no idea. But I am. I’m a Terminator. I’m a Terminator.”

“You don’t have to be,” Hope told her, slowing her backward pace as she felt her hand nearing the top of the sapling, holding it down with every bit of her strength and weight. “You can fight it. You don’t have to do what Skynet tells you.”

“But I do,” Susan said sadly. “You don’t understand. I’m so very sorry.” She reached out a hand toward Hope’s throat.

And jerked backward as Hope released her hold on the bent tree, sending it snapping up to slap against Susan’s chest and face.

An instant later, Hope was dashing through the trees, running as fast as she could. The horror of Susan’s revelation hovered at the edges of her mind, but she pressed it back into the shadows. There was no time to think about that now. No time to think about anything except survival.

There was a crash behind her, and she spared a quick look over her shoulder. Susan was coming after her, her expression ice cold, her face crisscrossed with small red lines where the sapling’s branches had cut into her skin.

Human skin. Not metal. Human skin.

It was a small chance, Hope knew. But at the moment she didn’t have anything better.

Watching her footing with one eye, looking for the right spot with the other, she drew an arrow and nocked it to her bowstring. This was going to take careful timing.

Ahead and to the right she spotted a large, thick-boled oak. Shifting direction, she headed toward it.

Susan was maybe ten paces behind her when Hope reached the oak. She ducked around it, ran another five paces, then jerked to a halt. Spinning around, she raised the bow and pulled the arrow back to her cheek.

And as Susan came around the tree she sent the arrow whistling into the woman’s right arm. The arrowhead punched through the leather of Susan’s jacket and the human flesh beneath it, skittered its way around the unyielding metal beneath the skin, and reemerged through flesh and leather to bury itself solidly in the oak.

Susan gasped, a sharp, eerily inhuman sound as the arrow pinning her to the tree brought her to a sudden halt. She tried to tug her arm free, her face contorting with pain and anger as the movement dragged more of the arrow through her skin. Half turning, she got a grip on the arrow shaft with her left hand.

And gasped again as Hope’s second arrow flashed through her left thigh and pinned her leg to the tree.

A second later Hope was again sprinting through the trees, heading back toward town as fast as she could. The arrows wouldn’t hold Susan for long, and she’d heard enough stories about Terminators—many of them from Susan herself—to know she wasn’t going to take one down with nothing but a quiver of arrows.

But her father was in town, and Barnes, and Blair. They would know what to do. Please, God, she thought desperately. Let them know what to do.

She was nearly to the edge of town when she heard the first sounds of gunfire.

In a single flick of his eyelids, Jik abruptly saw the awful truth.

The men and women trudging through the forest around him weren’t his friends or his allies. They were his enemies. People who had sworn to destroy him and the Resistance.

People who had lured him out here into the wilderness to kill him.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Not if John Connor had anything to say about it.

Halverson was the closest, striding along beside Jik a few feet away. Casually, Jik angled his own stride in that direction, watching the other out of the corner of his eye. He was within reach when the big man finally seemed to notice Jik’s presence.

“Trouble?” Halverson asked quietly.

Reaching over, Jik wrenched Halverson’s rifle from his hands and slammed the weapon’s shoulder stock into the other’s rib cage.

With a choked gasp, the man folded around himself and collapsed to the ground. Rotating the rifle into firing position at his hip, Jik spun around to face the rest of the traitors marching along behind him and opened fire.

The first four went down without so much as a yelp. Jik was taking down the fifth when the rest finally burst into action, dropping the pieces of broken Terminator they were carrying and either returning fire or scattering madly for cover like ants from a poked anthill.

Jik strode back through the cowering ranks, coolly squeezing off shot after shot until Halverson’s rifle was empty. Dropping it, he picked up two more weapons from men who no longer needed them and kept going. When those were empty, he dropped them and found two more.

The bullets were beginning to fly now as the would-be assassins finally got their own weapons up and set their murderous plan into action. Most of the shots buzzed harmless past Jik’s head and body before one actually found its target, slamming into his chest and sending a jolt of agony through him.

A blow like that would have killed a lesser man. But John Connor was made of stronger stuff. Regaining his balance, he put a round into the offending shooter and continued on his way.

Those who remained had now gone to ground behind trees, rocks, and bushes. Steadily, methodically, he went to each hiding place in turn.

The traitor called Pepper pleaded with him, calling his name over and over as if it was a magic spell that would drain him of his will and purpose. The one called Singer died with a curse on his lips, uselessly calling down the wrath of God. The one called Half-pint simply stared silently at Jik with fear and agony in his eyes.

But Jik knew better than to listen to any of it. He was John Connor, and these were his enemies and the enemies of humanity. They deserved to die.

So he killed them.

By the time he lowered his last rifle a total of seven rounds had found him, each slug adding a new splash of throbbing pain. But none of the blows was powerful enough or accurate enough to kill him.

Dropping his last empty weapon, ignoring the agony burning through his body, he did a quick but careful survey of the bodies scattered across the blood-stained greenery around him. It had been close, but once again he’d managed to cheat death. Skynet’s agents, all of them, were dead.

All except one. He’d only disabled Halverson at the beginning of his preemptive counterattack, knowing that the wounded man could wait until Jik had finished dealing with the others. Time now for that final loose end to be tied off.

He’d paid close attention to the firefight, and had already concluded that all the rifles and pistols scattered across the ground around him were empty. But he still had Williams’s Mossberg M500 slung over his shoulder, and the shotgun had one round left. Giving the dead assassins one final look, he turned and headed back to the front of the line.

To find that Halverson was gone.

So were the bow and quiver that one of the dead men nearby had been carrying.

Jik gave a contemptuous snort as he looked around. Did Halverson seriously think he could take down John Connor with nothing but a bow and a few arrows?

Apparently not. There was no sign anywhere of the injured hunter. Instead of staying to fight, he’d taken advantage of Jik’s preoccupation with the others to run like a rabbit.

Jik snorted again. Let him run, because there really wasn’t anywhere for him to run to. Now that Jik had finished his own defense, he could hear the sounds of fresh gunfire coming from the town itself.

That would be Oxley, also refusing to simply roll over before the Resistance-hating assassins. Jik had no doubt that he would carry the day there, just as Jik had done here in the forest.

In the meantime, some of the townspeople had probably escaped into the trees. They would have to be tracked down and eliminated.

He shook his head. It would be a long and wearisome task, but it had to be done. All of Baker’s Hollow had heard the false accusations Barnes and Williams had brought against him, and those treasonous thoughts could not be permitted to survive. The reputation of John Connor had to stay clear and clean if he was to lead the people of the Resistance to victory over Skynet.

And toward that end Jik would need to leave soon. The Eugene group had been one of those who had defied Command’s order to activate their transmitters during the climax of Skynet’s grand scheme to destroy its enemies. As a result, they’d been one of the few Resistance groups to have survived. They deserved recognition for that.

They deserved a visit from John Connor himself.

Unfortunately, that meant Jik couldn’t be here to help Oxley and Valentine with their task of cleansing the area around Baker’s Hollow.

But as he’d reminded his colleagues so many times, there were always options. If Jik couldn’t help personally with the hunt, he could at least arrange for a substitute.

The wreckage from the T-700s was scattered around the forest where the traitors had dropped or thrown them. Slinging the shotgun over his shoulder again, Jik began gathering those pieces back together.

“Come on, Oxley,” Preston shouted, slapping the barrel of his rifle against the top of the hedge for emphasis. “Oxley?”

Blair peeked out around her end of the hedge, gripping her Desert Eagle tightly. Oxley had to know that Preston’s invitation was a trap. The question was, would he—or rather, the massive Skynet computer that had programmed him—be arrogant enough to take them up on it?

And then, from somewhere in the near distance came the muffled sound of a woman’s scream.

“Damn,” Preston snarled. Jumping to his feet, he dodged around Blair and took off toward the gap between the buildings that they’d come through less than three minutes ago.

“Wait!” Blair snapped. She’d seen Marcus Wright in action, and running around randomly out there was an invitation to get killed. “Preston!”

“I have to warn them,” Preston called back over his shoulder. “They don’t even know what they’re facing.”

“He’ll kill you!” Blair bit out.

“Then you kill him back.” Preston ducked between the buildings and disappeared.

Straightening out of her crouch, Blair headed after him.

She made it around the hedge and about four steps toward the gap Preston had used when Barnes caught up with her.

“No—there,” he grunted, pointing instead toward a different opening off to the left. Without waiting for a reply, he angled away, heading for a space to their right.

Blair swore under her breath. But he was right. She veered to her left. That scream might have been Oxley’s idea of bait, a way of drawing them back into town. If the Theta was waiting for them to return along that same route, Preston was about to die.

But it could also be that Oxley had simply decided to get on with the task of slaughtering Baker’s Hollow’s civilians, figuring that he could deal with Preston whenever and wherever he chose to surface. In that case, Barnes’s plan for the three of them to hit the town from different directions was the right move. If one of them could spot Oxley and open fire, the others would know where he was.

Blair felt her throat tighten. No, not him. It. Oxley wasn’t Marcus Wright, who’d protected Blair and gone on to sacrifice himself for Connor. Oxley had given up what was left of his humanity when he murdered Trounce and Smith.

He—it—was a Terminator.

There were two more screams before Blair finished weaving her way through the outlying houses to the main part of town. A dozen people had spilled out of the buildings, a couple of them with guns, a few with bows, most neither. All of them were looking around nervously.

“Go!” Blair snapped at them. “Oxley’s a Theta—a Terminator that looks human. He’s already killed at least two people. If you don’t have a gun, get out of town right now and find a place to hide.”

“Look out!” someone shouted, jabbing a finger past Blair’s shoulder.

Blair spun around. Oxley had slipped out of the house directly behind her and was headed in her direction, his arms pumping as he ran, his hands flinging off droplets of bright red blood. His eyes were shining with maniacal energy, his lips curled back in a death’s-head smile in anticipation of his next kill.

Desperately, Blair tried to bring her Desert Eagle up and around. But Oxley was too close, and the heavy gun had too much inertia, and she knew she would never get it lined up in time.

She tried to get out of his way, to dodge clear of those bloodied hands. But she’d been caught flatfooted, and there was no time for that, either. She threw herself sideways toward the ground, still trying to get her gun lined up.

He was nearly on her when a stutter of rifle shots rang out, blowing off bits of cloth and skin from Oxley’s chest and face and bringing him to a sudden and surprised-looking halt.

And as a second volley staggered him a step backward, Blair finally got her Desert Eagle in line and fired point-blank up under his chin.

The force of the blow snapped Oxley’s head back and sent him tumbling onto his back. He hit the ground hard, throwing a spray of red mist from the gaping wound. The shot had disintegrated a fist-sized patch of skin, some of it coming off the chin, the rest coming off the throat, revealing the blood-dulled metal beneath it.

But it took more than that to stop a Theta. Oxley had barely slammed to the ground when he was starting to sit up again. His maniacal smile was gone now, replaced by an expression of cold fury.

But getting to his feet was suddenly proving difficult. The air filled with the sound of gunfire as more and more of the townspeople joined the battle. The rounds hammered relentlessly into Oxley’s body, the heavier slugs knocking him over, the lighter ones digging fresh wounds into his skin.

Blair pressed herself closer to the ground, not daring to try to get up through the fury of the attack. She squeezed off round after round, mostly targeting Oxley’s face, wondering distantly whether she would have time to get clear when all the guns thundering away out there ran dry.

It wasn’t an idle concern. What was left of Oxley’s skin was bleeding profusely, the multiple trickles soaking his clothing and the grass and leaves around him. But he had a Terminator’s single-minded doggedness, and even as the trappings of humanity were stripped away he was still struggling to get up and continue his mission. The volley slowed for a moment, and he managed to lurch to his knees. Behind the last scraps of forehead skin his glowing red eyes locked on to Blair.

Then, to her surprise, he fell onto his side and lay still.

And as the gunfire resumed its hammering at the bloodied metal body, she finally understood.

Lajard had told them that Theta organs were specially bioengineered to avoid rejection problems. She also knew from Kate Connor’s work on Marcus that Theta skin regenerated quickly. The Skynet scientists had undoubtedly also fiddled with the hybrids’ blood chemistry, giving it extra oxygen-carrying capacity and super-quick coagulation.

But there were limits to how fast even bioengineered blood could clot. No matter how fast Oxley’s broken veins and capillaries sealed themselves off, the sheer number of bleeders had finally taken their toll.

Skynet’s T-600s were slow and obvious, but they had to be physically destroyed before they could be stopped.

Skynet’s Thetas, the ultimate infiltration units, could simply bleed to death.

The barrage faltered, and as the noise faded away Blair could hear someone shouting for the remaining shooters to cease fire.

Eventually, they did.

“Williams?” Barnes called.

Blair looked back to see him and Preston hurrying toward her. Beside Preston, to Blair’s surprise and relief, was Preston’s daughter.

“I’m all right,” Blair called back as she got to her feet and went over to what was left of Oxley.

No movement of limbs or head. Blood still trickling from the wounds. No pulsing or even quivering from the carotid artery, partially visible behind the metal mesh shielding around the Theta’s neck.

“Well?” Barnes asked as the others came up beside her.

“It’s dead,” Blair confirmed, looking at Hope. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” the girl said, her voice shaking a little.

“Not from lack of trying on Valentine’s part,” Preston growled, looking apprehensively behind them. “Hope was able to get the drop on her and pin her to a tree with a couple of arrows.”

“Nice,” Barnes commented. “Not going to hold her long, though. You need to get these people out of here before she makes it back.”

“No argument there.” Preston beckoned to one of the women nearby. “Jessie, get everyone out of town, right now.”

“Where do we go?” Jessie asked.

“Head for the old Glaumann cabin,” Preston told her. “It’s as good a meeting place as any, and I don’t think Lajard or Valentine has ever been there.”

Jessie nodded. “What about you?”

Preston looked in the direction of the river. “Someone needs to go see what happened to the people who were with Jik,” he said. “That should probably be me.”

“I’ll go with you,” Barnes said. “Let me stop by Halverson’s first and get the minigun.”

“You still have ammo for it?” Preston asked.

Barnes nodded, patting the strap of his backpack.

“About thirty rounds. Should be enough to take down a Theta.”

Blair grimaced. That was true enough.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t just one Theta on the loose out there. There were two of them.

“You’ll need more than that,” she said. “I’ll get the Blackhawk. Where should I meet you?”

“How about the ford?” Preston suggested. “Jik has to come that way if he’s going to link up with Valentine.”

“Sounds good,” Barnes confirmed. “There should be room enough on the riverbank for you to put down to let me aboard.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you want me to go back to the chopper with you.”

Blair focused on Preston’s expression. He knew what he was going to find out there, all right. Not just a killer Terminator, but the bodies of his friends and neighbors.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“What about Susan?” Hope asked. “You’ll need a route to your helicopter that she doesn’t know about.”

“No,” Preston said flatly. “You’re going with Jessie and the others.”

“She’ll never find the snaky on her own,” Hope said, just as bluntly.

“What’s the snaky?” Blair asked.

“It’s a route through some of the thickest undergrowth in the area,” Hope told her. “We sometimes go there to hunt rabbits and quail. Susan and Lajard don’t know about it, and they probably couldn’t get through it even if they did.”

“We don’t know that they don’t know about it,” Preston warned darkly. “And there’s nowhere for you to go once you’re inside. If they catch you in the middle, you’ll be sitting ducks.”

“If we don’t destroy them, we’re all dead anyway,” Hope said, fear and anger and determination swirling together in her voice and face. “We need Blair and her helicopter, and she needs me to get to it.”

Preston muttered something. “Williams?”

“She’s right,” Blair said. “For whatever it’s worth, she’ll be as safe with me as she’d be with Jessie. Or with you.”

“And we don’t have time to argue about it,” Barnes put in, digging around in his backpack.

Preston sighed, then nodded. “Be careful,” he said, giving his daughter a quick hug. “Both of you,” he added, looking at Blair.

“We will,” Blair promised.

“Here,” Barnes said, holding out his hand.

Blair blinked in surprise. Clutched in the man’s hand were two spare magazines for her Desert Eagle.

“Where’s you get those?” she asked.

“I always bring extra ammo for all the guns on a mission,” he said, an almost embarrassed gruffness in his voice.

“Good idea.” Taking the magazines, Blair slipped them into her pockets. “Thanks.”

“Watch yourselves, and good luck,” Preston said. “Come on, Barnes. Let’s go get your minigun.” The T-700 convoys had made four more round trips to the tunnel face before Callahan finally decided it was safe enough to risk a quick recon.