She pulled back on her stick, guiding her fighter up and over into yet another of the Immelmann turns that Skynet probably had memorized by now. But that was fine, because she knew that the quickest and most straightforward way for the pursuing HK to counter the maneuver would be to simply lift straight up, wait for Blair to turn toward it, and then pour point-blank fire down her throat.
Sure enough, as she finished her roll and leveled off, she found the HK hovering a hundred meters directly in front of her.
And as its Gatlings opened up, Blair squeezed her GAU-8’s trigger.
The HK had no chance to even try to dodge away from the utterly unexpected attack. It disintegrated into a huge fireball right where it was, sending pieces of itself flying in all directions.
Blair twisted her stick again, guiding the A-10 around the worst of the explosion.
“Hickabick: one down,” she called into her radio as she curved back toward the main combat zone. “Number two in my sights.”
Or maybe not, she amended to herself. In the distance ahead, the last HK suddenly poured power into its turbo-fans and headed south. Trying to get to the relative safety of the Skynet forces at Capistrano, or else hoping Blair would chase it within range of those forces.
Which was pretty much what Blair had expected Skynet’s response to be. It was willing enough to send one of its two remaining HKs to take her down when it thought she was out of ammo and an easy target. But now that it realized it had no idea what her weapons status really was, it wasn’t willing to risk losing its last eye in the sky. Especially in the midst of a battle that was obviously not going the way Skynet had expected it to.
But whether or not that last HK survived was no longer Skynet’s decision. If Blair put on a burst of speed, she ought to be able to get to the fleeing aircraft before it got anywhere near safety.
“Ready or not, here I come,” she said softly into her radio.
“Hickabick, I need a Tonto,” Connor’s voice came.
Blair swore under her breath. She had been looking forward to sending that last HK into the dirt.
But business before pleasure.
“Hickabick: check,” she said, veering reluctantly away from her pursuit.
Blair found some of Connor’s code-talk to be obscure in the extreme. But this particular one was something for which she at least had a vague memory: Tonto, wingman to the Lone Ranger, who always got sent on ahead to scout the territory.
But he did it carefully and subtly, she reminded herself. She wasn’t sure what was happening on the ground, but if Skynet still didn’t know that they’d spotted its staging area, it wasn’t going to be Blair who gave the show away. She swung her A-10 around, tracking out a wide circle that would take her back toward the combat area and only coincidentally bring her within sight of the warehouse.
That single glimpse was enough to show that Connor had been right to send her in for a look.
Four T-600s had left the warehouse and were in the process of climbing the south edge of the ring of rubble.
“Location?” she called.
“Tee four,” Connor’s voice came back, barely audible over the noise of intense automatic weapons fire.
Most likely the weapons fire Blair could see lighting up one of the streets ahead. Adjusting her vector again, she headed over for a closer look.
It was Connor, all right, hunkered down about two blocks west of the Moldavia. His team was currently in the process of blowing the stuffing out of three T-600s, who were fighting back from among the blackened pieces of at least two more of the machines. Another line of fire was coming from the building across from the Moldavia, trapping the T-600s in a crossfire.
Blair frowned. Given their basically hopeless situation, why hadn’t the surviving Terminators tried to make a run for it? Skynet was usually reluctant to simply waste its machines these days, and it could send the T-600s in practically any direction right now without exposing them to more fire than they already were receiving.
Unless Skynet wanted them there for a reason.
She swung the A-10 around again, ostensibly for another look at the battle, in fact for a second look at the four T-600s that had just Left the warehouse.
That second look was all she needed. She’d been right: the three Terminators in the crossfire weren’t just standing around waiting to be demolished. They were standing around waiting for the four newcomers to sneak up behind Connor and catch him in a crossfire of their own.
“Hole four: crab,” she called urgently into her mike.
“Hole four: crab,” Blair’s voice came through Connor’s earphone.
He frowned even as he lined up another shot on the T-600s he and McFarland were currently keeping off balance. Crab was the code for one to four Terminators moving in on a pincer.
But only four? Surely his attack on this six-machine group was serious enough to warrant a bigger force than that.
Unless it was the biggest force Skynet was still able to send.
“Timing?” he called into the mike curving around his cheek.
“Two minutes,” Blair reported. “Maybe less.”
“Check,” Connor acknowledged. “David: go. Tunney: stand ready. Barnes: boil lobster.”
“Check,” Barnes’ voice came, and there was a sudden intensification of fire from the other end of their shooting gallery as he and his squad settled down to the serious task of destroying the remnants of the six-Terminator force.
Leaving Connor and the others free to handle the four T-600s currently trying to sneak up behind them.
“All right, people, we have a crab coming,” he called. “McFarland, you’re ghost. The rest of you, follow me.”
Connor had already picked out a good rear-guard position across the street. He headed off toward it with Bishop and the Tantillo brothers on his heels. McFarland stayed behind, trying to lay down enough fire by himself to keep Skynet from realizing that the rest of the group had just disappeared.
The position turned out to be not quite as good as it had looked. But it was good enough.
“Grenades,” he ordered Joey Tantillo as the others deployed for cover fire. Connor hadn’t wanted to risk using the squad’s two C4 grenades so close to Barnes and the Moldavia defenders, but lofting them into a group of Terminators coming in from the opposite direction shouldn’t be a problem.
He peered in the direction of the cross street where the four T-600s should soon be appearing.
The staging area warehouse was hopefully emptied of Terminators and minutes away from a breach, while the machines here on the streets were pinned down or ripe for destruction. Skynet’s only remaining HK was in no position to observe and report on any of it until it was too late. The operation was going very well.
It was going too well.
He looked around, half expecting to see a group of Terminators they hadn’t yet tagged bearing down on them from the rear. But there was nothing. All the evidence pointed to a quick and complete victory.
He didn’t believe it for a minute.
“Everyone keep a sharp eye,” he called into his mike. “Skynet’s up to something.” He grimaced.
“I just don’t know yet what it is.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Orozco’s first warning was the sound of a distant double blast coming from somewhere behind him, a pair of hammerfalls loud enough to penetrate even the heavy gunfire he and his teams were pouring into the two Terminators still fighting to reach the archway.
“Grimaldi!” he shouted.
“I heard it,” Grimaldi shouted back, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “I’ll go check.”
He rose up into a crouch, paused for a moment, then took off in a broken run that got him safely across the lobby and into the main corridor heading back through the building.