Terminator 3--Terminator Hunt Read online

  In response, a set of tiny red lights, blinking at the same rate but not at the same time, appeared in the sky. They descended toward her. She waited until they touched down, five or six steps from her, and then dashed over to stand by them. She grinned. Dr. Bowen had kindly attached small, battery-powered LEDs to the carry rigs to make them easier to find. She switched the LEDs off; it wouldn’t do for pursuit to see the red blinks from across the water.

  She heard rapid breathing and looked up to see Mark and Ten approaching. They were huffing with exertion, carrying the stretcher between them. On the stretcher rode the T-X. Kyla couldn’t see her eyes moving.

  When the two men reached her, Mark said, “Next time you carry the stretcher.” He and Ten set it down.

  “Yeah, right. Any word from the others?”

  “None.” With Ten’s help, Mark forced the T-X to a sitting position and held her upright with his braced leg, straining with the effort. He took one cable from Kyla and wrapped its carry rig around Eliza, making doubly sure it was secure and would put no undue pressure on the CPU insulator keeping her helpless, before snapping all its closures in place.

  When Mark was done, Ten said, “Everybody, get set to go up.” He suited action to words, shrugging into a second carry rig.

  “I’ll wait here,” Kyla said.

  “No. We want Bowen to have as much time as possible to compensate for everybody’s weight. We go up now.”

  Kyla shook her head, not a refusal but an expression of disapproval, and did as she was told.

  Ten held up a hand, first showing one finger, then two, then three, then four—a code that had been worked out beforehand with Dr. Bowen. The sign language meant “Lift cables one through four.”

  All four cables tightened. The three humans were raised off their feet by a foot or two, then slowly sank to earth again.

  They waited. From briefings on the Blowfish’s capabilities, Kyla knew that Dr. Bowen was releasing more hydrogen into the ballonets, venting ordinary air from the main envelope, increasing the blimp’s lifting power. He could have simply dumped a few hundred kilograms of ballast water, but that would make more noise and deprive them of the ballast in case they needed it later.

  Eventually they began bobbing on tiptoe, and then the winches engaged, hauling all of them into the sky. As she rose, Kyla looked for distant IR traces, any sign of the arrival of Earl or Paul, but there was none.

  * * *

  Paul lay down where he was, reducing his infrared profile, and set up for a shot.

  In the distance, the T-800 turned and began moving in his direction. Its walk was unhurried.

  In Paul’s goggle vision, the machine was a distinct humanlike outline, enough warmer, owing to its mechanical processes, than the surrounding air that he got a clear image of it.

  Of its head.

  Sighting in along the rifle’s iron sights, Paul forced his breathing to slow. He estimated the distance as sixty yards. Even with his plasma rifle, there should be no ballistic drop-off at this range.

  He breathed out, let air and tension flow from his body, and squeezed the trigger.

  Everything disappeared in a blinding flash, and the sound of his rifle’s report deafened him. For a few moments, it was almost like being back in the sen-dep tank.

  Then his vision began to recover. The Terminator was gone.

  No, it was merely down. There was still a brighter glow up ahead; it took him a few moments to interpret it as the Terminator lying on its back.

  He’d done it. He started to rise.

  Kyla whispered to him. He could feel her breath on his ear, as he had many times the day she began to teach him about shooting. It can be reliably counted on to put damage onto a Terminator or assault robot, but it usually takes several shots to put one down.

  He lay back down and set up for another shot.

  As his hearing returned, he could make out the sounds of the oncoming assault robots. They sounded louder, closer, but their rate of approach did not seem to have increased.

  They felt no urgency. They were still under the impression that Paul was trapped. Either they were unaware that the Terminator was destroyed …

  Or it wasn’t. It might simply have broadcast to them that the situation was under control.

  He waited, concentrated on his breathing.

  The Terminator sat up again. Its head was a bright yellow, superheated from the shot it had taken.

  Paul pulled the trigger. Again the universe went to brilliant blindness, to deafening noise.

  In the moments while he was still blind, he reached down to his waist, pulled up the flap on his handgun, and drew the weapon. By touch, he switched it over from safe to ready to fire, then replaced it.

  Now it would take him just a second to draw and fire. If he became aware that the assault robots were upon him, he could make sure that he would never fall into Skynet’s hands again.

  And he waited.

  The soul of the sniper is patience, Kyla whispered to him.

  As his vision returned, he could see the Terminator even better than before. Heat radiated up, a brilliant and diffuse conical display, from its head. He imagined that the two shots had to have burned away every square inch of its artificially grown skin.

  Two good head shots. It had to have been destroyed.

  His hearing began to return once more. Now the assault robots behind him were more distinct.

  Now they were hurrying.

  They had to know that the Terminator was destroyed.

  They would be on him in less than a minute. Maybe half that. As battered as his eardrums were, he couldn’t begin to estimate distance reliably.

  He waited.

  Dammit, the Terminator had to be dead. It would not play possum this long. He shifted, prepared to rise.

  Kyla whispered, To become something, you have to define it, then understand it, then simulate it until it becomes second nature.

  No, she’d been talking about her father, about what he went through. Still, her words could apply here. He was already part machine. For just a few moments, he could stand to become the Terminator.

  The soul of the Terminator was patience.

  The Terminator was waiting for him.

  Paul waited for it.

  The steps behind him grew louder.

  The Terminator sat up. The right side of its face was gone, blasted and melted away.

  Paul fired.

  Blind and deaf for a third time, he leaped up and trotted forward, running his left hand along the tunnel wall to be sure that he remained upright and pointed in the correct direction.

  His vision cleared as he reached the Terminator. Its body had no head. A few steps on, he found what was left of its head, a seared metal mess the size of a twentieth-century bicyclist’s helmet, still rocking where it lay.

  He ran.

  * * *

  Muttering and cursing, Mark and Ten hauled the T-X’s body out of the aft compartment. Kyla waited, standing beside the winch controls, her heart pounding.

  Earl moved into her line of sight. She activated a winch and sent a cable down to him. A minute later, he was up in the compartment with her. “Assault robots,” he said. “Not moving this way, not yet, but they’re close. They’re in vehicles on the street in front of that school.”

  Kyla swore. “Any sign of Glitch and Paul?”

  Earl shook his head. “Gotta report.” He moved forward into the companionway.

  An eternity later, Ten rejoined her. “The package is secure.” He pulled his sleeve back from his wristwatch, pushed a button to cause its LED display to glow. “And we’re five minutes from departure.”

  She knew better than to argue. When policy was bad, it was some idiot’s attempt to substitute an inferior product for common sense. When policy was good, it served to keep people alive despite their emotional reactions. And on-time departure on special operations was always good policy.

  Policy sometimes meant consigning a friend to death.
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  “There’s Glitch,” Ten said.

  Kyla put her hand on the winch controls, then froze. The heat source below was the correct intensity for Glitch, but the angles of the body, the way it walked, were not.

  It was an assault robot. It walked slowly, directly below them, its head swiveling back and forth.

  It had to be seeing the heat traces they’d left on the grass, recognizing that they did not continue past this point.

  If the mission operatives were lucky, the robot would conclude that whoever had moved out to this point had turned around and gone back the way they’d come. It would follow.

  Kyla believed in luck but didn’t count on it. She braced herself in a corner of the compartment and drew careful aim on the assault robot.

  Careful aim might not be enough. Even at this close range, it was a devilish shot. As with the robots in the hotel lobby, it was looking down, its eye sockets protected by the supraorbital ridges of its humanlike skull. Even if it looked up, the blimp’s drift, the slow way the gondola rocked in the wind, were causing her to adjust and could make her miss the shot.

  And if she didn’t destroy it with her first shot, a single bit of return fire from the machine’s plasma rifle would turn the Blowfish into a burning ruin.

  The assault robot looked up.

  Kyla brought her rifle into line.

  Another figure, moving at a high rate from Kyla’s right, slammed into the robot, knocking it to the earth. The impact sounded like an automobile collision.

  Before the assault robot could recover, Glitch leaped, coming down with his leading foot on its neck, driving it into the soil once again. Kyla saw the neck deform. Glitch knelt beside his enemy, hammering at the damaged spot. The neck bent at a ninety-degree angle and the light faded from the assault robot’s eyes.

  Glitch looked up. Breathing a little easier, Kyla relaxed. Ten sent a cable down for the Terminator.

  As Glitch was hauled into the compartment, Kyla asked, “Paul?”

  The T-850 shook his head. “We were separated,” he said. “I believe that Paul determined that he was the focus of the machines’ search and left to draw off pursuit. I was neither able to rejoin him nor terminate him.”

  Ten checked his watch again. Then he hit the intercom button. “Bowen, close down and cast off. We’re out of here.”

  Someone said, “No!”—a wail—and Kyla realized that it was her voice. Ten gave her a sympathetic look but shook his head.

  Below them, the hatch slid closed, shutting off their view of the destroyed robot.

  * * *

  In the cramped one-man cockpit, Dr. Bowen hit a second switch. At the blimp’s bow, a winch silently unrolled cable until it reached its end. Then the cable dropped down into the darkness. Bowen disliked surrendering any components of his baby, but the alternative was having someone go down and free the other end of the cable, free the anchor there from the tree trunk it had bitten into.

  Blowfish began a slow, silent rise.

  In a few minutes, when they were a thousand feet or more above Pueblo’s south side, Bowen would engage the engines. For now, he was content to drift away, noiseless and unseen.

  c.23

  November 2029

  Home Plate

  When Kyla and her dogs entered the room, the poker game was already fully under way. The biggest pile of assault rifle batteries and slug-thrower ammunition rested in front of Sato, who had his back to the door. Ten wore a disgusted look. J. L., his right forearm still in a cast, looked hopelessly lost. Beside him, Lana had the second-largest pile of winnings and wore a big, superior grin. Between her and Sato sat Eliza, watching but not playing.

  They all looked over as Kyla entered. The humans waved. Eliza said, “Is it another test?”

  Kyla nodded. “Yes.” She tried to keep her voice neutral. Eliza would never care that Kyla hated her mechanical guts for being the focus of the operation that had cost Paul Keeley’s life. The irony of it, the part that really stung, was the fact that Eliza’s own memory had turned out to include files that would have allowed the Resistance to remotely reprogram Paul’s implant, making it a tool for him to use rather than a beacon for Skynet to home in on. If they’d managed to keep Eliza after the Santa Fe capture, Paul would still be alive, at home, in possession of the world’s most convenient radio.

  Kyla took hold of her dogs’ collars. Normally they didn’t wear such restraints, but this was a special situation.

  She led them up to Eliza, who dutifully held her hands out toward the dogs. But before Ginger and Ripper got close enough to give her a good sniff, their ears went back.

  Both animals lunged forward, barking, growling savagely. Kyla hauled back on their leashes. “Good!” she shouted. “Back!”

  Still growling, they obeyed. She took them to a corner and commanded them to sit. They did, their attention still on the T-X. Their tails did not wag. Ginger offered an unhappy whine.

  “Not bad,” Ten said. “What is it they’re detecting?”

  “I’ve taught them to react to faint sounds from her internal servos,” Kyla said. “Too high and too quiet for us. But we’re getting about a ninety-five percent recognition rate on this, no matter what she smells like and no matter what form she takes. I’ve written a report to be distributed to all the other dog handlers in the Resistance.” She joined the others at the table, looked over the winnings and losings. “The boss goes on a shooting spree.”

  Sato grinned. “If only I’d been born back when mass murderers were in vogue, huh?” Then, his face going to professional neutrality, he stood and saluted. The others rose and all but Lana followed suit.

  Kyla turned. Her parents were entering the door. She saluted.

  Her father smiled at her. “At ease. We’re off-duty, too. We just wanted to read you a transmission we just received. It was attached to routine reports and updates from Big Bear. It’s private, but I’m going to invoke presidential powers and have it read to everyone here.”

  Big Bear Compound was situated near what had been Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was well-known as a habitat that bred good hunters and trackers.

  Kate pulled a printout from a shirt pocket, unfolded it, and read: “‘Special to H-H-Two.’”

  Kyla felt everyone’s eyes on her. She’d never received a piece of personal mail over a high-priority transmission link before.

  Kate, grinning, continued, “‘Tired from a long walk, but looking forward to getting home soon. Thanks for everything you taught me. It was a real life-saver. And tell the Greek that I found an engraver. Signed, Sleeps-With-Toasters.’”

  Kyla didn’t feel herself sag, but suddenly Sato had his arm around her, was settling her down in his chair. She managed to say, “That’s for real?” Her voice emerged as a squeak.

  John nodded. “Confirmed by the honcho at Big Bear.”

  Kyla heard whistles and applause from behind her. She didn’t have the energy to turn. She just concentrated on her breathing. She felt nearly a month’s worth of worry and sorrow begin to leave her.

  Eliza asked, “Was that Paul?”

  Kyla glanced at her. “Yeah.”

  Eliza turned toward John and Kate. She smiled. “Tell him I said hi.”

  Books by Aaron Allston

  DOUBLE AGENT

  Web of Danger

  Galatea in 2-D

  CAR WARRIORS

  Double Jeopardy*

  DOC SIDHE

  Doc Sidhe

  Sidhe-Devil

  BARD’S TALE (WITH HOLLY LISLE)

  Thunder of the Captains

  Wrath of the Princes

  STAR WARS™: X-WING

  Wraith Squadron

  Iron Fist

  Solo Command

  Starfighters of Adumar

  STAR WARS™: THE NEW JEDI ORDER

  Rebel Dream

  Rebel Strand

  TERMINATOR 3 ®: RISE OF THE MACHINES™*

  Terminator® Dreams*

  Terminator® Hunt*

  *de
notes a Tor Book

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Aaron Allston is the author of several science fiction and fantasy novels, including Terminator® Dreams, the Doc Sidhe books, the Star Wars™ New Jedi Order novels Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand, and a number of other novels, both originals and series tie-ins. An award-winning game designer as well, Aaron Allston lives near Austin, Texas.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  TERMINATOR® HUNT: A NOVEL BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED IN TERMINATOR® 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES

  ® used under license. ™ and text copyright © 2004 by IMF Internationale Medien und Film GmbH & Co. 3 Produktions KG.

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN 0-765-35093-9

  EAN 978-0-765-35093-0

  First edition: December 2004

  First mass market edition: December 2005

  eISBN 9781466856462

  First eBook edition: September 2013