Allowing those emotions to control her would only get her killed, too. Yoshi wouldn’t want that, nor would any of the rest of the long line of ghosts of her late comrades, a line forever haunting the back of her mind. They would all want her to live, and to keep fighting, and to send Skynet and its damned killing machines to hell.
“Skynet, this is Hickabick,” Blair said softly into her radio. “Ready or not, here I come.”
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
The first attack had been, in Orozco’s opinion, arrogantly casual, almost to the point of carelessness.
Skynet had learned from its mistake. It had learned all too well.
The second attack was brutal. There were at least ten of the hulking T-600s involved this time, their miniguns blasting away in a brute-force approach that tore at least three centimeters off the stone of the archway, pockmarked every one of the lobby walls, and destroyed most of the fountain wall that the first-line defenders were using as cover.
When the dust finally settled, five of those first-line defenders were dead.
“Damn every one of them to hell,” Grimaldi snarled as he and Orozco stood next to what was left of the archway, peering cautiously outside as the frantic clatter of barricade rebuilding went on behind them. The street looked even worse than the building itself, Orozco noted, with fragments of at least five more Terminators lying among the bullet scorings and grenade pits.
Some of those pieces were already trying to pull themselves back together.
“Damn it—look,” Grimaldi snapped, jabbing a finger toward one of the quivering pieces. “It’s—”
Snatching the chief’s arm, Orozco yanked him back under cover just as a burst of minigun fire burned through the air where his hand had been.
“Careful,” Orozco warned mildly. “You may need that hand later.”
“Not likely, the way things are going,” Grimaldi muttered. “But thanks.” He nodded toward the Terminator parts. “How many of them do you think will reform?”
“No idea,” Orozco said. “They’ve certainly got plenty of raw material to work with, though.
Especially since all the parts from that first assault are also still there.”
“I hadn’t thought about those,” Grimaldi admitted, shaking his head. “Damn it. You can’t kill them; and even when you do, they don’t stay dead.”
“They die permanently enough if you blow up their skulls or cook their electronics,” Orozco said. “Otherwise, no, they don’t go easy.”
The chief ducked his head to peer out at the building across the street, which looked in worse shape than the street and the Ashes’ lobby combined.
“You suppose any of those folks survived?”
“If I had to bet on any of us getting through this, I’d bet on them,” Orozco said candidly. “The real question is whether they’ll be able to do anything more to help us, what with those Terminators that seem to have moved into the bus down there. Between that bunch and the ones to the north, Skynet pretty well owns the street right now.”
Grimaldi grunted. “Damned stupid bus,” he said sourly. “We should have blown the thing up years ago.”
“You’re right, we should have,” Orozco agreed. “A little too late now.”
Grimaldi sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’m not blaming you, you know.”
“I know,” Orozco assured him. Some men dealt with danger by swearing, or praying, or clamming up completely. Others, like Grimaldi, opened their mouths and babbled.
“Wait a second—maybe it isn’t too late,” Grimaldi said suddenly, leaning a little farther out toward the edge of the archway, though not far enough to draw any fire. “We’ve still got some of your pipe bombs left, right? Could we toss one into the bus from the southwest sentry post?”
Orozco shook his head. “The second-floor overhang would block the toss. Ditto for anywhere else we can get to in the building.”
“Damn,” Grimaldi muttered. “So what do we do?”
Orozco looked back into the lobby, where Wadleigh and Killough and the others had nearly completed the replacement barricade.
“We finish getting the barricade set up, make sure our guns are loaded, and wait for the next wave,” he said.
“Yeah.” Grimaldi looked up at the archway. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll actually make it through the archway this time.”
“It could happen,” Orozco said.
“Tee two: second swing eagle,” Barnes’ voice came again in Connor’s ear. “Lobster remains, green eight, Gulliver, maybe hole four. Estimate all other greens cleared.”
Connor shook his head, in relief and amazement both. Judging by the level of gunfire he and the others had heard coming from that direction, Skynet had cleared out the area, all right. It had cleared all its Terminators out of the other buildings and alleys and sent them straight at Barnes and the people in the Moldavia.
And it was almost for certain that the six T-600s that had just emerged from the staging area warehouse were heading out to join in the next wave.
The big question was whether those six were everything Skynet had kept in reserve, or whether there were more of them in there. Unfortunately, there was no way to know other than to walk inside and do a head count.
Meanwhile, some of the Terminators that had been wrecked would be pulling themselves back together, and those that were still whole would be running short of ammunition. Sooner or later, the machines would start coming back for reloading and field maintenance.
Connor and his men had to be inside and in control of the warehouse before that happened.
He watched the six Terminators as they climbed the wall of rubble, an idea niggling at the back of his brain. It would be risky, but it might be the way to force Skynet’s hand.
He motioned McFarland close.
“Pass the word,” he whispered in the man’s ear. “As soon as those Terminators are clear, we’re following them.”
McFarland threw him a quick look.
“How far?” he asked.
“All the way,” Connor told him. “Skynet probably thinks it’s got Barnes pinned down, at least on a north-south line. I’m guessing this bunch is going to come in from the west, which means that if we come up behind them we’ll be able to pin them down.”
“Okay,” McFarland said slowly, clearly still working through this sudden change in plans.
“What do we do about the warehouse?”
“We don’t do anything,” Connor said. “If we can help force Skynet to clear it out, David and Tunney should be able to take and hold it without us.”
McFarland still looked doubtful, but nevertheless gave a brisk nod.
“Right,” he said. Moving over to Joey Tantillo and his brother Tony, he began whispering the new orders.
Connor looked upward. Nothing was visible, but from the low rumble vibrating across the city he could tell that at least one HK was still moving around on spotter duty. Possibly more than one.
Resolutely, he looked away from the sky. Every leader faced the temptation of getting bogged down with all the details of an operation, and giving in to that urge was a sure way for the operation to end in disaster. The HKs were Blair’s assignment, just as demolition was David’s and decoy was Barnes’.
And all of them were damn good at what they needed to do. Connor had given the orders, assigned the best people to the tasks at hand, and now he had to sit back and let them do their jobs while he concentrated on doing his.
McFarland eased back up to his side.
“Ready,” he murmured.
Connor nodded. “Nice and easy, and don’t let them spot us,” he said. “Let’s go.”