“Oh.”
“It’s worse than just ‘oh’,” Wince said grimly. “Another round like last night and you and Connor can say goodbye to any hope of continuing air support. My inventory of spare parts and armor is going fast, and as for jet fuel, we’re down to a single fill-up each.” He glanced over at her.
“Just between us, I’m starting to get a bit concerned.”
“Join the club,” Blair said. “I just hope we’ll find some useful stuff in that depot.”
“The Skynet staging area,” Wince said, nodding. “Yes, Yoshi told me about that. Sounds perfectly insane, if you ask me.”
“No argument there,” Blair agreed. “But it’s better than going out with a whimper. Besides, in theory all the Terminators will be out making trouble when Connor hits it.”
Wince snorted. “In theory. Right. Famous last words if I’ve ever heard ’em.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Blair said. “You ever hear that bumblebees can’t fly?”
“Unscientific urban legend,” Wince scoffed, studying his new layer of glue and reaching the brush in to touch up a few spots. “There’s not enough wing surface if the bumblebee functioned like a fixed-wing aircraft, but its wings actually work more like reverse-pitch semi-rotary helicopter blades. You get a lot more lift that way, obviously more than enough for a bumblebee to tootle along just fine.”
“That’s my point,” Blair said. “Skynet’s got its rules and logic, and if we play by them it’ll eventually grind us down. So we have to find new ways and new logic.”
“Such as hitting a staging area?”
“Exactly.”
Wince shook his head.
“I’m just a simple country mechanic. Okay, I think we’re ready. You get that end of the plate, and I’ll take this end.”
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.”
“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.