Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes: The Official Prequel Novelization by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: End of the World, Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Adventure, Robots, Media Tie-In, Cyborgs, Los Angeles (Calif.), Film Novelizations
ISBN: 9781848560864
Google: hPtssC2bmpEC
Amazon: 1848560869
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TWELVE

Connor was going over the approach plan with David’s group when he heard the faint sound of gunfire.

“Quiet!” he snapped.

The room went instantly silent. Everyone froze, all ears tuned toward the distant noise. It was coming from a single weapon, Connor decided, probably a large-caliber handgun. There was a pause, just long enough for the shooter to change clips, then more shots, then another pause.

And then, abruptly, the first gun’s reports were buried beneath a cacophony of new gunfire.

Connor listened intently, trying to sort out the types of weapons being fired. Most were handguns, but he could also hear the deeper roar of rifle fire in the mix, along with the distinctive boom of shotguns. Across the room, the sentry opened the door a few centimeters, bringing the sounds more sharply into focus.

And then, briefly overwhelming even the noise from the guns, came the thud of an explosion.

Connor looked at Kate, seeing his own tension mirrored in the tightness of her face. Gunfire—

even this much gunfire—could be gang warfare or even ordinary residents defending their property and lives.

But very few people, gangs included, threw bombs at each other these days. The people who knew how to make such devices usually saved them to use against the Terminators.

“Could they have started already?” Kate murmured tautly.

“God, I hope not,” David murmured back. “We’re not ready yet.”

The echoes of the explosion faded away, and as they did so the gunfire itself abruptly ceased.

Connor strained his ears, even though he knew that the brief battle had been too far away for them to hear any moans or screams from the wounded. If there were, in fact, any wounded still left to scream. Into the silence came the sound of a second explosion, followed a few seconds later by a third, this one louder than the first two had been.

And then, silence again returned.

“Anyone get a direction on that?” Connor asked, looking over at the sentry. “Vincennes?”

The other shook his head.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it was somewhere to the east,” he said. “But there’s so much echo off the buildings I couldn’t tell for sure.”

Connor looked back at Kate, then turned to David.

“Opinions?” he invited.

“It wasn’t Terminators,” Barnes put in before David could speak. “They weren’t the ones shooting, anyway.”

“I agree,” David said. “You can pick those miniguns of theirs out of a crowd any day of the week.”

“True,” Connor said. “But not shooting doesn’t necessarily mean not there.”

“It was a sentry line,” Kate said quietly, a look of understanding appearing on her face. “Skynet has closed off the neighborhood.”

Connor nodded heavily. Someone, maybe that group of men and burros who had passed them awhile back, had tried to get out of the neighborhood and had been stopped.

83

“Which means we don’t have until tomorrow night, like we’ve been assuming,” he said. “We have until tonight.”

He looked around the room, watching as their expressions went from stunned to overwhelmed, and then to hard and cold and determined. They were a good team, and a tough team.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.