Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes (9 page)

Lying on the floor, the plate had looked much bigger than its intended hole. Once held up to the gap, though, it turned out to be precisely the correct size.

“Now what?” Blair asked as she and Wince pressed it into place.

“We need to hold it here for a minimum of fifteen minutes,” Wince said. “I hope you didn’t have anything else you wanted to do just now.”

“I think I can spare a bit from my busy schedule,” Blair said. “Especially given that it’s
my
plane you’re putting back together.”

The minutes dragged slowly by. Blair pressed against her end of the plate, feeling the warmth of Wince’s shoulder nearby. The silence of the hangar and the city beyond it settled in around her, the smell of oil and metal and adhesive tingling at her nostrils. Her stomach grumbled once, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the plate began to feel increasingly heavy as her arm and shoulder muscles started to fatigue.

On the theory that the glue must surely be ready to take some of the strain, she shifted to pressing against the plate with only one hand at a time. It seemed to help.

“Why ‘Hickabick’?” Wince asked suddenly.

Blair frowned sideways at him.

“What?”

“Your call sign,” Wince said. “I’ve wondered about it for months, only I never think about it when you’re actually around to ask.”

“It’s an acronym,” Blair told him. “HKBK—Hunter-Killer Butt Kicker. Throw in some vowels so you can actually pronounce it and it comes out Hickabick.”

“Cute,” Wince said. “A little mild, though, isn’t it? I mean, why not go with ‘Hunter-Killer Ass Kicker’? Let’s see—HKAK—Hikak. Works even better.”

Blair turned her eyes back to the plate, a hard lump forming in her throat.

“It’s already taken,” she said, trying to keep the old pain out of her voice. “A friend of mine had it. Pete Teague. He was killed by the HKs a month before I joined Connor’s group.”

“Oh,” Wince said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Blair said. “But like I said, that was his call sign. It’s—I can’t use it.”

“Because it’s his memorial?”

“Something like that,” Blair said. “Probably sounds silly.”

“No, not at all,” Wince assured her. “Thank you for sharing that.”

The room fell silent again. Blair found herself staring at Wince’s hands as they pressed against the plate beside hers, images of Pete flashing with bittersweet clarity across her mind. She’d watched his plane go down in flames even as what was left of their group fled yet another Terminator attack.

Blair hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to him, or to give him a final kiss. She hadn’t even been able to give him a proper burial.

But she could make sure his call sign remained
his.

That much she could do.

That, and do her absolute damnedest to make sure his death ultimately counted for something.

“Okay, that should be enough,” Wince said, breaking into her thoughts. “Let’s let ’er go and see if she stays put. Keep your toes out of the way, though, just in case.”

Carefully, they eased their hands off the plate. Blair watched it closely, but it showed no sign that it was even thinking about coming off.

“Perfect,” Wince said after a minute. “It should survive the night just fine. Thanks.”

50

“No problem,” Blair said, peering at her plane’s underside. The missile pylons, she noted, were still empty. “You’ll be rearming me once you get all the holes fixed?”

“You mean the holes, the hydraulics,
and
the left aileron?” Wince asked.

Blair grimaced. “I
thought
the aileron was acting a little funny.”

“It’s not just funny, it’s hilarious,” Wince said dryly. “But I think I’ll be able to sober it up a little.”

“I know you will,” Blair said. “You can do anything.”

“But…?” Wince asked.

Blair frowned. “But what?”

“Come on, Blair,” Wince said with a knowing look. “Flattery is always followed by an insane request. Go ahead, but do bear in mind that I’ve only got three Sidewinders left, and even I can’t make new ones out of cheese and ten-year-old Army MREs.”

“I wasn’t going to ask for more Sidewinders,” Blair protested, mentally scratching them off her list. “I was just going to ask if you could give me a few extra rounds for my GAU-8 this time.”

“And how would you suggest I do that?” Wince asked. “Those ammo drums only come in one size.”

“I know,” Blair said. “But we just agreed that you can do anything.”

“
You
agreed I could do anything,” Wince said. “I’m not sure my vote was even asked for, let alone counted. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just lighten up on the trigger a little?”

“It’s not that I’m spending them too fast,” Blair said. “It’s that Skynet always seems to know when I’m dry. I swear the damn computer’s counting every round as it comes out.”

“Actually, it probably is,” Wince conceded. “No, really, it’s a fine idea. I just don’t know if I can—”

“Shh!”
Blair cut him off, snapping up her hand for silence. A familiar hum had appeared at the edge of her consciousness, the low-pitched vibration of an HK’s turbofans working its way through the hangar’s walls.

Wince had heard it, too. He nodded understanding, his face drawn and tense. The hum was getting louder…

And suddenly, the hangar’s boarded-up west wall exploded into a hundred fiery spots and slashes of light as the HK’s searchlights found their way through the cracks and gaps.

Wince twitched, but remained silent. Blair found her hand again gripping her holstered gun.

Pure reflex—it would be a lucky shot indeed that would let even the Eagle’s .44 caliber rounds do anything against one of Skynet’s flying horrors.

The angle of the lights shifted as the HK passed overhead, and for a few seconds it was the ceiling, not the wall, that was leaking intense beams of light.

Abruptly, the lights went out. Blair held her breath, peering into the darkness, trying to figure out if the HK’s rumble was moving away or circling back for a second look.

And then, the light reappeared, coming through the series of cracks and gaps in the east wall.

But this time it wasn’t the eye-burning, full-power glare of the HK’s searchlights. It was the softer glow of that same blaze as it was reflected from the ground and rubble and distant buildings.

Blair and Wince looked at each other, and Wince puffed out his cheeks in a pantomimed puffy sigh. Blair nodded, then lifted a finger to her lips to remind him not to make any actual noise until the HK had left the area. Wince nodded in turn, and together they waited as the growl turned again to a distant hum, then faded out completely.

“That’s the sort of nonsense we’ve had to put up with all day,” Wince murmured, making a face as he stretched muscles and joints that had been frozen too long in the same position. “God, but we’re vulnerable here. The sooner Connor gets us out of L.A., the better.”

51

Blair ran her fingers gently over the jagged rims of the bullet holes in her plane. He was right, of course. Skynet had way too good a bead on them here, and the noose was only going to get tighter each time they were forced to run from one rat hole to the next.

But where could they go? L.A. surrounded them for dozens of kilometers in every direction, a hell of a long walk when you had to carry everything on your own back. The team itself had no vehicles, and even if they could find a truck that still worked there was no gasoline to put into it.

But that was Connor’s problem, not hers. He would figure something out.

He always did.

“At least until then we’ve got this nice building to keep the rain off,” she said.

“Actually, a little rain would be nice,” Wince said, almost wistfully. “Might clear the air a little.”

He shook his head. “Anyway, you’d probably better get back to the bunker. Get some food, and then get to bed.”

“Don’t worry about me—I had almost six hours last night,” Blair said. “I was just thinking you probably need sleep more than I do.” She cocked her head. “And food, too.”

“I’ve got some lunch over there I never got around to eating,” Wince said, nodding toward the back of the hangar. “We could split it if you’d like.”

“No, that’s okay,” Blair said. Wince was famous for trying to foist food off on people he suspected were hungrier than he was. Blair had fallen for that trick five times in a row before she’d finally caught on. “I’m not hungry.”

“That
was
your stomach sending out audible distress signals, wasn’t it?” he reminded her dryly.

“Come on, there’s plenty for both of us.”

“In which case we can deduce that you missed at least
two
meals, not just one,” Blair countered.

“So go eat, then get some sleep. That’s an order.”

Wince shook his head sadly.

“You young people,” he said, mock-mournfully. “Always ordering around your elders.”

“Call it enlightened self-interest,” Blair told him. She had a few tricks of her own, after all. “I don’t want someone tired and hungry working on my plane.”

“Ah,” Wince said. “Well, when you put it
that way…”

“I do,” Blair said. “Now go. I’ll stay here until Yoshi gets back.”

“Okay,” Wince said. “Thanks, Blair.” He touched her shoulder, almost shyly. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to get you those extra rounds.”

“Thanks,” Blair said. “You pull it off, and I guarantee they won’t go to waste.”

“I know they won’t,” Wince said. “See you later.”

He headed off toward the back, where the hangar’s compact housekeeping corner had been set up. Blair waited until he was digging ravenously into his neglected food pack, then took a few minutes to wander around the hangar, checking on the security of walls and boarded-up windows and doors. By the time she’d finished her tour, Wince was stretched out on one of the hangar’s two sleeping mats, sound asleep.

Blair shook her head. A meal that disappeared that quickly had definitely not been enough to share. Just as well she hadn’t let him talk her into it.

Her stomach rumbled again. Ignoring the emptiness down there, she picked up the other sleeping mat and moved it to a spot where she could keep a simultaneous eye on the door, both of the planes, and Wince.

Drawing her gun, she sat down on the mat, laying the weapon beside her. Nearly out of fuel, nearly out of spare parts, nearly out of ammo, nearly out of food. Life, she reflected, was definitely not looking good for the good guys. All the more reason to be glad this mess was in Connor’s hands, not hers.

She just hoped he could still find a trick or two up his sleeve.

52

CHAPTER

EIGHT

For Orozco, the day began as so many of them did: with a fight over food.

“But it’s
mine,”
Candace Tomlinson insisted, her plaintive five-year-old’s whine especially jarring coming from a seventeen-year-old’s mouth. “I found it. It’s
mine.”

“But it was
my
stuff she found it in,” Sumae Chin, the twenty-two-year-old complainant snapped back.

“And where exactly was this private cache of yours?” Grimaldi asked, his eyes steady on Sumae as he stared at the two girls across his scarred office desk. “In your room?”

“She can’t just steal my stuff,” Sumae insisted, glaring at Candace.

“Where was the cache?” Grimaldi asked again, his voice going a few degrees sterner. “Sumae?”

Sumae sent Orozco a hooded look.

“In the lower storage room,” she said reluctantly. “Under some cracked drywall.”

Orozco sighed to himself. All the residents had their own rooms, as well as lockers Grimaldi’s men had lugged all the way from the remains of a high school, almost a mile away. In theory, everyone had all the room they needed for their personal items.

But too many of them had gone the squirrel route, hiding stuff around the building. Some did it because they didn’t want anyone else even knowing how much they’d managed to accumulate, while others were out-and-out paranoid about the Board swooping down someday and confiscating everybody’s private treasures.

The problem, of course, was that one battered can of processed lunchmeat looked pretty much like any other. Once it was outside anyone’s official storage, it was well-nigh impossible to establish ownership. Especially since—even after all this time—it
was
still possible to occasionally find food items everyone else had missed buried in the building’s rubble.

Which left Grimaldi with really only one possible ruling.

“I’m sorry, Sumae,” the chief said, his voice regretful but firm. “If you choose to hide items outside your designated areas—if the pickles Candace found were, in fact, yours to begin with—”

“But they
were,”
Sumae protested. “I told you where I’d—”

Grimaldi stopped her with an upraised hand.

“Even if they
were
yours to begin with, you forfeited all claims when you left the jar unattended outside your area. You know that. I’m sorry, but Candace owns them now.”

Sumae flashed the younger girl a look of pure hatred.

“Just wait,” she said, her voice low and menacing. “Someday you’ll drop something—”

“Sumae,” Grimaldi warned.

“—and I’ll be right there to pick it up,” Sumae finished.

“And if and when that happens, I suspect I’ll be seeing the two of you again,” Grimaldi said wearily. “You may return to your rooms or your work now. And you, Sumae, had best collect anything else you might have hidden around the building.”

Sumae held her glare on Candace for another heartbeat, then tried to transfer it to Grimaldi. But Grimaldi wasn’t sixteen, and he’d no doubt been glared at by experts. Sumae’s expression faltered as her glower bounced harmlessly off the stone that his face had become.

53

“Yes, sir,” she muttered, and slunk away out of the room. Candace triumphantly snatched up the dusty jar of pickles and followed.

“And so begins another glorious day in Moldavia Los Angeles,” Grimaldi said with a sigh.

“So it does,” Orozco agreed. He and Grimaldi had their differences, God knew, but Orozco had always respected Grimaldi’s insistence on handling these disputes personally, instead of hiding behind his desk and title and foisting the unpleasant duty off onto someone else. “Let’s hope things go uphill from here.”

“I don’t think they will,” Grimaldi said. “I talked to Evans and Kemper last night. They’re pretty sure they’ve seen your empty-revolver gang before.”

“Over on the far southern edge of the neighborhood,” Orozco said, nodding. “Yes, I got the same thing from Hamm.”

“Which means those kids were not, in fact, the new gang Nguyen and his buddies spotted on their way in yesterday afternoon,” Grimaldi said. “Which means that group is still out there, and we’re eventually going to run into each other.”

“I’ve already doubled the sentry shifts and put two of the fire teams on quick-response,” Orozco told him. “Unless you want to go out hunting, there’s not much more we can do.”

“We definitely don’t want to go looking for them,” Grimaldi said firmly. “The lower the profile we can keep, the better.”

“Agreed,” Orozco said. “Unfortunately, we’re about five years past the low profile stage.

Everyone for ten or twelve blocks around at least knows we’re here somewhere, even if they don’t know exactly which building we’re in. We have to assume our newcomers will try to pick up as much intel as they can on the territory they’re trying to move into.”

“Fortunately, everyone who knows we’re here also knows that everyone who’s tried taking us on has lost,” Grimaldi said. “Maybe they’ll be smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others.”

“We can hope,” Orozco agreed. “But in case they don’t—”

He broke off as the door was suddenly thrown open, and Mick the Binocular-Breaker ran into the room.

“Sentry signal,” he said, panting. “Four and one.”

“Damn,” Orozco snarled as he rose quickly from his chair. Four and one was a positive threat coming from the north. Ten to one it was Nguyen’s gang. “Chief—”

“I got it,” Grimaldi interrupted. He was on his feet, checking the chambers of the shotgun he kept under his desk. “Get to the entrance—I’ll roust the fire teams.”

Ninety seconds later Orozco was back at the archway. Kyle and Star were already there, Kyle with Orozco’s M16 gripped in his hands.

“They’re coming,” he reported tightly.

“I know,” Orozco said, stepping to the arms locker and pulling out their one true sniper rifle, a Remington 700 with a Leupold VX-1 scope “Are they visible?”

Kyle stepped beneath the archway, leaning cautiously out from behind the building’s broken facade.

“Not yet,” he said. “They may be on the other side of that broken truck three blocks up.”

“Take this,” Orozco said, taking the M16 from Kyle and handing him the Remington in exchange. “Go to the sniper nest.”

Kyle’s forehead creased uncertainly as he fingered the Remington.

“Evan’s a better shot than I am,” he said.

“Evan’s not here,” Orozco said. “You are. Get going.”

With a grimace, Kyle nodded and headed across the street, Star right on his heels.

Orozco waited until the two kids had disappeared into the sniper’s nest. Then, checking the M16’s clip and chamber, he settled in to wait for their visitors.

54

He had received one follow-up report from the sentry, and was waiting for a second, when they arrived.

In impressively sophisticated military fashion, too. The sentry had said there were ten of them, but only four came striding into Orozco’s view along the street, spaced far enough apart that they couldn’t be taken down in a quick four-shot. The other six weren’t visible, but Orozco suspected they could see
him,
or at least they could see the building’s archway. Backup forces, ready to provide covering fire or a second attack wave, whichever was needed.

Not that the first group wasn’t a wave and a half all by itself. Orozco counted ten heavy weapons among the four men, plus holstered sidearms and whatever hidden grenades or knives they might be carrying.

They were well-armed, well-trained, and at least slightly better-fed than the average L.A. citizen.

If they had been a new gang trying to move into the area, Orozco would have been worried.

But they weren’t a gang. The red sashes tied around their sleeves showed that. They were, in fact, Resistance.

Which made it even worse.

“Morning,” Orozco called courteously, keeping the muzzle of his M16 moving gently back and forth between them. “Just passing through?”

“Mostly,” one of them said. He was a big black man with a fringe of a beard and a totally bald head. Along with his guns he was also carrying a couple of ammo packs, but he didn’t even seem to notice all the weight. His eyes flicked once to the M16, then came back to Orozco’s face. “You must be the Orozco everyone talks about.”

“Sergeant
Orozco, actually,” Orozco said. “Formerly of the U.S. Marine Corps.”

The other gave a snort that seemed to double as a laugh.

“That supposed to impress me?”

“Just want to make it clear I know how to use this,” Orozco said, hefting the M16 a bit. “You have a name?”

“Barnes,” the man said. He nodded toward the red armband. “This is
my
unit.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Orozco said. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

“It should,” Barnes growled. “We’re the ones keeping Skynet off your back.”

“Or you’re the ones drawing Skynet’s fire onto everyone else,” Orozco countered. “That’s the way a lot of people around here see it.”

Barnes gave him a long, measuring look.

“You can’t be that stupid,” he said at last. “Not if you were really a soldier.”

“Marine,” Orozco corrected automatically.

“Whatever.” Barnes nodded past Orozco’s shoulder.

“Mind if we come in? We’ve got some snacks to share out with your people in there.”

Orozco suppressed a grimace. He’d called it, all right, straight from the top, the minute he’d seen those red armbands. These guys were here to recruit.

Grimaldi, if he were here instead of up on the balcony, would absolutely forbid them to pass the archway. He saw the people of Moldering Lost Ashes the same way he’d seen his inventory list back in the day, and he took it badly—and personally—when any of them chose to leave. The best thing Orozco could do right now would be to send Barnes and his team away.

And then, Orozco’s eyes fell on all the weaponry the men were carrying.

A hard knot settled into his stomach. Recruiters didn’t lug that much stuff around. Not if all they were doing was looking for fresh faces and able bodies.

Something was about to go down. Something bad.

And if Barnes’ recruitment pitch meant even a couple of the people here got out before it was too late…

55

“If you’re here to sign folks up, you’re going to be disappointed,” he warned. Some people, he knew, worked better and harder if you told them something couldn’t be done. Barnes looked like that type. “But if you want to try, it’s your time to waste.”

“Thanks,” Barnes said. He lifted his left hand above his head—

“But you’ll have to leave your weapons here at the archway,” Orozco added. Grimaldi, he knew, would insist on that.

Barnes froze, his arm still lifted.

“You thinking about trading up?” he asked, looking pointedly at Orozco’s M16.

“Not at all,” Orozco assured him. “You’re welcome to leave a guard with the gear. Two or three of your six backstops should be enough.”

Barnes grinned suddenly, bright white teeth against his dark skin.

“I guess maybe you
were
a Marine,” he said. He flashed a couple of hand signals, then lowered his arm again to his weapon, swiveling the muzzle to point it at the ground. “That’s okay—the rest of the crowd can stay out here,” he added. “Don’t want to make your people nervous.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Orozco said dryly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just call ’em in and line ’em up,” Barnes said as he and the other three men walked in under the archway. “Tell ’em we’re springing for breakfast.”

Orozco nodded. “I’ll pass the word.”

This whole “Breakfast with the Resistance” thing had been one hundred percent Connor’s brainstorm, and Barnes had disliked it right from the start.

He’d argued vigorously against it, in fact, the minute he’d been able to get Connor alone. The group barely had enough food for its own, and the idea of handing out freebies to a hunch of civilian parasites had struck him as complete and utter insanity.

But he had to admit that the scheme had gotten them into a lot more places over the past two days than they probably could have managed without it.

Not that they’d actually gotten any new recruits out of all that time and effort. Most of the people they’d talked to were small, close-knit family groups that you couldn’t break up if you lobbed in a brick of C4.

But for once, Barnes didn’t mind the lack of results. When you were in the process of infiltrating a Skynet staging area, every hour spent off the street and out of sight was a good hour. Even if all the civilians did was eat your food, listen to your sales pitch, and then throw you out.

This place was the last one on Connor’s list, and it was looking to be more of the same. Barnes couldn’t tell about Orozco—the man had a poker face like a T-600. But the boss man who’d showed up as soon as the team had cached their weapons had been as easy to read as a Terminator’s footprint.

Grimaldi didn’t like Barnes, he didn’t like the Resistance, and he especially didn’t like these intruders breathing his nice, clean non-violent head-in-the-sand civilian air. He’d been picking restlessly at the strap of his shotgun ever since slinging it, and Barnes could tell the man would like nothing better than to swing that gun back up to firing position and order Barnes and the others back onto the street.

But the man also knew better than to buck the crowd, and the swarm of children, teens, and adults that had come out of the woodwork at the mention of free food was definitely a crowd and a half.

“So what exactly are you offering my people?” Grimaldi asked as he stood beside Barnes, watching as the team passed out snack bars to the eager residents.

“Mostly, the chance to fight back,” Barnes told him.

“And to die while they’re doing it?” Grimaldi countered, raising his volume a little. A few nearby heads turned toward them in response. “Very heroic, I suppose, if you buy into all that 56

glorious epic hero nonsense. But what I meant was what can you offer in the way of safety or community compared to what we have here already?”