Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire (31 page)

But hanging around a wide-open area with a semifunctional T-700 crawling around wasn’t any better.

“We find ourselves some cover,” he replied, climbing back over the wall out of the cabin. “You know of any defensible places nearby?”

“I don’t know,” Preston said. “That’s not something we usually think about.”

“Then it’s time you started,” Barnes said grimly. “Let’s go take a look.”

The conversation between the helicopter and the woods went back and forth, back and forth. Blair continued to probe for information from behind a tree across the clearing, while Lajard crouched out of sight beneath the control board and bragged about how clever he and Skynet had been.

Through it all, Hope stood silently behind her own chosen tree, her hands gripping her bow and her nocked arrow, her heart thudding with anticipation and dread.

Her soul aching as it never had before.

She, Hope Preston, was about to shoot another human being.

Not accidentally, the way beginner hunters sometimes did. This wouldn’t be any accident, a careless slip of the finger. It would be deliberate, direct, and premeditated.

It would be like murder.

They’re not human
, she tried to remind herself, as she’d been trying ever since Blair first suggested this plan.
Not anymore. They’re machines. They’re Terminators
.

But no matter how many times she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. Not completely.

Because they
were
human. Real, living, thinking people. People Hope had lived with for three long months. She’d hunted with them, eaten with them, laughed with them. Once, six weeks ago when whooping cough had taken two of the town’s children, she’d cried with them.

And now, she was going to shoot one of them. Maybe both of them.

Even worse, she was going to shoot them from behind.

And then, without warning, a sudden gunshot shattered the calm.

She jumped, her body twitching so hard that it jerked the arrow off the bowstring. Had Blair given up on her and decided to take matters into her own hands?

Hastily, Hope nocked the arrow into place again. Carefully, tensely, she looked around the side of her tree.

She was still trying to figure it out when a second shot hammered into her ears.

Only this time she spotted the flash from across the clearing and caught a glimpse of sparks as Blair’s shot ricocheted off the helicopter’s roof, beside the shaft that connected the helicopter to the big overhead rotor.

Blair wasn’t even shooting at Lajard and Susan. Was she trying to wreck the helicopter?

And then, she got it. Blair was only pretending to shoot at the rotor, pretending that she’d given up hope of taking the aircraft back.

She was trying to lure the others into a counterattack. An attack that would turn Susan’s attention toward Blair, and her back toward Hope.

With a conscious effort, Hope relaxed her clenched teeth. It had to be done. Drawing back the bowstring, she waited.

A third shot caromed off the roof... and with that, Susan finally rose from the pilot’s seat and stepped past Lajard’s half-concealed form to the far side of the cockpit. Taking hold of the door-mounted machine gun, she swung it toward Blair’s position.

And as Hope’s eyes blurred with sudden tears, she sent her arrow flying into the back of her friend’s head.

She had expected a gasp, or a scream, or at the very least a violent spasm in response. But there was nothing. Susan’s head snapped forward with the impact, but she made no sound. She regained her balance and again took hold of the machinegun.

Blinking back her tears, Hope drew another arrow from her quiver and set it into the bowstring. Maybe she’d missed the spot.

Or maybe Blair had been wrong about there being a vulnerable point there. In that case, Blair was already dead.

So, probably, was Hope.

And then, Susan froze.

Hope stared at the woman’s back, her heart pounding even harder as she drew back the bowstring. Slowly, Susan turned around, and even in the fading light Hope could see the pain, confusion, and disbelief on her face.

And with a huffing gasp that Hope could hear all the way across the clearing, the woman stepped away from the gun and bent over, her hands jabbing into the space beneath the control board like a pair of striking rattlesnakes. There was a strangled gasp, and she straightened up, hauling Lajard up out of his hiding place by his upper arms.

“No!” Lajard gasped. His grabbed at her wrists, trying to pry her hands away.

But those were Terminator hands, and no mere human had a prayer of breaking their hold. Lajard tried to pull back, then tried to rock or squirm his way out of her grip. None of it worked.

“No,” he snarled. “Valentine—listen to me. Attack Williams, not me.
Williams
, not me.”

“No,” Susan breathed, her voice dark and husky. “Traitor.” Still holding onto his arm with her left hand, she let go with her right and shifted her grip to his throat.
“Traitor!”

Through the far door, Hope saw Blair emerge from cover and run toward the helicopter, her gun ready in her hand.

“Traitor?” Lajard echoed. He jabbed his finger against Susan’s chest. “Fool.” He raised his voice. “You like kill switches, Williams? Try this one.
Dies irae
.”

Abruptly, Susan’s shoulders sagged, her hands slipping from Lajard’s arm and throat and dropping like broken tree branches to her sides. Her mouth dropped open and she gave a strangled gasp.

Contemptuously, Lajard turned away from her, swiveling toward Blair. His right hand darted under his jacket and emerged with a small pistol. Blair skidded to a halt, snapping up her gun toward him.

Frantically, Hope pulled back on the bowstring, knowing full well that her arrow would never make it to Lajard’s back in time. The two guns were nearly homed in on their respective targets, and in less than a heartbeat Blair or Lajard—or both of them—would be dead.

And then, the thundercrack of a shot boomed across the clearing. Not from Lajard or Blair, but from somewhere to Hope’s right.

The impact slammed Lajard into Susan, his head exploding with blood that sprayed across her face and onto the rear cockpit wall. He bounced off her immobile body even as Hope’s arrow belatedly dug itself into his back. His knees gave way, and he fell to the deck.

Shaking like a windblown leaf, Hope stepped from her hiding place and peered across the clearing.

Halverson was limping toward them, his face rigid with pain, his shirt wet with perspiration, his rifle still pressed to his shoulder. His gaze flicked to Hope, then to Blair, then back to the helicopter.

“You two okay?” he called gruffly.

“Yes,” Blair said for both of them as she climbed up into the cockpit. Crouching over Lajard, she twisted the pistol out of his hand.

She was peering down at the body when Susan gave a long, hissing sigh and collapsed.

Blair was saying something about staying back as Hope raced to the helicopter. Hope ignored her, brushing past and dropping onto her knees at Susan’s side.

“Susan?” she called, wincing at her friend’s blood-spattered face and her closed eyes. “Can you hear me? Susan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh,” Susan murmured, her eyes flicking half open. “I’m the one who’s sorry, not you. I’m the one... I didn’t want to hurt you, Hope. I never wanted to hurt you. But I couldn’t... I couldn’t.”

“But you did,” Hope assured her, her throat aching. “You broke Skynet’s programming. You stopped him.”

Susan shook her head wearily.

“
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.

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.