Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online

still trying to overrun them.
    “Barnes, we have to run,” Blair shouted over the noise. “I’m not sure we can get away as it is.”
    “A hundred fifty meters,” Barnes insisted. “ Do it.”
    Swearing under her breath, Blair fed power to the engines and leaped the helo into the air. Swiveling its nose, she headed in the direction Barnes had indicated.
    “Behind you!”
    Blair spun around. Another T-700 segment was hanging off the helo’s portside door-jamb with one hand while it other clawed for purchase on the deck itself with the other. Blair snatched up her gun, but before she could bring it to bear Barnes took a couple of rapid steps across the cabin and kicked hard at the arm gripping the door. The impact dislodged its grip, and the Terminator disappeared into the night.
    “There,” Barnes called over the engine noise, pointing out the windshield. “Another twenty meters, then put ‘er down.”
    Blair nodded and threw a quick look to her left. She could see a faint red glow in the distance now, the telltale lights of a rapidly approaching H-K.
    “Barnes—”
    “That little mound,” he cut her off, pointing again. “Put us down next to it.”
    Blair grimaced. The H-K was coming in fast, and even in the air the Blackhawk would be a painfully easy target. On the ground, it would be a sitting duck.
    But it was already too late for them to get a real head start. Whatever Barnes had up his sleeve, Blair could only hope it was good. Braking beside the mound, she dropped the helo onto the ground.
    It hit with a crunch of metal from beneath the wheels that made her wince. Barnes was already moving, dropping out the side door and disappearing to the helo’s rear. A few seconds later he reappeared and climbed back inside.
    With a Terminator minigun cradled in his arms, the ammo belt triple looped over his arm and disappearing out the door behind him.
    “Go!” he ordered, dumping the gun onto the deck and yanking hard on the ammo belt’s trailing end. It came free, and Barnes grabbed for the safety harness by the M240. “Go!”
    Blair pulled on the throttle and once again took the Blackhawk into the air. She should have known Barnes would have taken note of where all the abandoned miniguns and other weapons were while the two of them were out searching for his brother.
    But even with their newly acquired firepower, this was going to be seriously problematic. Fleetingly, Blair wished she was back in her preferred A-10 fighter, or that the Blackhawk at least had a couple of pylon-mounted Hydra 70 missile clusters.
    But she wasn’t, and it didn’t, and they would have to make do with what they had. Climbing as fast as the Blackhawk could manage, she looked back toward the incoming H-K.
    Only to find that it wasn’t there.
    “Where’d it go?” she shouted, looking frantically around. It couldn’t have overflown them already—it hadn’t been that close. “Barnes?”
    “There—left,” he shouted back.
    Blair looked out the portside door. There it was, all right, speeding toward them with its searchlights off and its turbofans angled for maximum forward velocity. It must have swung around to that side while the helo was on the ground and she was distracted by Barnes’s weapons hunt.
    Only that didn’t make any tactical sense. Why waste time circling around to a new vector when it could have maintained its course and charged straight down the Blackhawk’s throat?
    Unless one of the broken Terminators down there had spotted Barnes loading his new minigun into the helo’s starboard door and Skynet had brought the H-K around to keep it away from that side.
    If so, the time the H-K had lost in that maneuver might just be the breathing space they needed. Blair twisted the stick around, sending the Blackhawk into a tight turn. If she could get Barnes and his minigun into range before the H-K could line up a clear shot...
    The helo had barely started into its turn when a burst from the H-K’s Gatling guns