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

Blair brought the Blackhawk’s wheels down on top of its spine, forcing the crippled aircraft into a sand-billowing impact with the ground.
    “See?” she muttered toward it under her breath. “I can do that, too.”
    The H-K was bucking weakly, trying to throw off six thousand kilos of dead weight, as Blair crossed to the portside M240, flipped the selector to full auto, and fired a long burst into the remaining turbofan.
    The bucking had stopped, and Blair was back in her seat, when Barnes reappeared.
    “Dead?” he grunted as he heaved the minigun in through the door and clambered in behind it.
    “Close enough,” Blair said, frowning as she eyed the weapon. Surely Barnes must have emptied the thing in the past two minutes. “Bringing home souvenirs?”
    “‘Course not—this is a new one,” he said, pulling the rest of the new minigun’s ammo belt inside and taking hold of the harness. “We getting out of here, or what?”
    Glowering, Blair turned back and fed power to the engines. Seconds later, they were far above the crawling Terminators and burning their way through the night sky.
    “Any preferences as to where we go?” she asked, squinting through the cold wind hammering against her face as Barnes dropped into the copilot’s seat.
    “Yeah. Somewhere else.”
    Blair nodded, and settled in to the task of flying.
    Ten minutes later, she set the helo back onto the ground.
    “What are we stopping for?” Barnes asked as she ran the engines back down.
    “You wanted to go somewhere else,” she reminded him. “This is it.”
    “Funny,” he muttered, leaning forward and giving the area around them a careful look.
    “More specifically, we’re a long ways from anything that might still be moving back at the lab,” Blair continued. “Too far away for anything to get here before daybreak, but not so far that we waste fuel. We may need that tomorrow.”
    “Or we could just head back to San Francisco right now,” Barnes said.
    “And give up on that cable we saw?” Blair asked. “After all that?”
    “After all what?” he retorted. “So they tried to kill us. They’re Terminators. That’s what they do. Doesn’t mean there’s anything out there worth looking at.”
    “Then why did that H-K try to force me down instead of just destroying us?” Blair demanded. “And why didn’t the T-700s attack until nightfall, which was after we’d talked about following the cable to the other end? If they’d just wanted to kill us, they should have tried it during the afternoon, when we wouldn’t have had a hope of getting back to the Blackhawk.”
    Barnes glared out at the desert landscape.
    “Yeah, I suppose that’s a little strange,” he conceded.
    “More than just a little,” Blair persisted. “Look at the timing. The machines didn’t move until after sundown, which is when shortwave transmissions open up again and they can communicate with the eastern hubs. Skynet finds out we’re interested in the buried cable, and suddenly all the machines have orders to take us out.”
    “Yeah,” Barnes said. “Maybe.”
    “Maybe, like hell,” Blair growled. “Something’s going on here, Barnes. We need to find out what. And it’s going to take both of us to do that.”
    He eyed her suspiciously. “Yeah. Convenient, huh?”
    Blair frowned. “Meaning?”
    “Meaning this looks a lot like one of Connor’s little trial by fire learning experiences,” he said. “You two set this up together?
    Blair shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “Sure you don’t,” Barnes said scornfully. “Connor says we need to clear the air between us, and suddenly here we are in the middle of a firefight. Which he also says is the way you forge good combat teams.”
    Blair stared at him. “Are you suggesting Connor knew all those Terminators were going to come back to life and try to kill us?” she asked. “Hoping that if we lived through it we’d be good friends afterward?”
    “Why