Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes (21 page)

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?”

121

“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.

122

“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.

123

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.