Read Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire for Free Online

Dr. Nathan Oxley lowered his binoculars.
    “It’s a Terminator, all right,” he murmured back grimly. “T-700, probably. It’s not bulky enough to be a T-500, and it seems to be reflecting more starlight than a T-600 would.”
    “Alive, I assume?”
    “You mean active?” Oxley shrugged. “Probably. It’s facing the other way, so I can’t see its eyes. But it would be rather too much to hope for that a T-700 would get all the way out here in the forest and then just happen to break down half a mile from town.”
    Preston grunted. “Probably also too much to hope that the river’s going to stop it.”
    “Well, it’s not going to rust, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Oxley shook his head. “Beats me why you never put a bridge there.”
    “Before Judgment Day everything over there was private property,” Preston said, eyeing the Terminator. “The owner didn’t want us walking on his land and absolutely wouldn’t allow anything like a bridge. Afterward, we kind of liked the idea of having a barrier between us and any predators that might want to wander this direction. So the water won’t hurt it at all?”
    “Not at all,” Oxley confirmed. “There’s a ferrous component to their construction—that’s why they can pull their limbs back together if they get blown apart. But—”
    “Wait a second,” Preston interrupted. “They can put themselves back together ?”
    “Of course.” Oxley waved a hand. “Sorry. I forget sometimes that you never worked with the damn things staring over your shoulder. Yeah, they can pull themselves back together. They can also stand up to anything but big-caliber, high-power bullets, and keep going pretty near forever.”
    Preston squeezed his left hand into a fist. Terrific .
    “So what’s it waiting for? I assume it’s not afraid of the dark.”
    “No, of course not,” Oxley said thoughtfully. “And you’re right, that’s the part that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, aside from the question of what the hell it’s doing out here in the first place.”
    “Any thoughts? On either point?”
    Oxley shrugged. “You’ll recall I said I couldn’t tell if it was active because it’s not facing this direction. Not facing this direction may imply that it’s not interested in Baker’s Hollow, but is waiting for something to happen over on that side of the river.”
    “Like what?” Preston asked.
    “How should I know?” Oxley growled. “You want to go ask it, be my guest. But it’s definitely not standing there because it’s afraid of the river. Even if it was worried about the depth or the current, the ford’s right there in front of it.”
    Belatedly it struck him. Of course . “It’s not waiting for something,” Preston said. “It’s waiting for some one . Someone who’s trying to get to Baker’s Hollow.”
    “Someone trying to get here ?”
    “Why else guard the ford?” Preston replied.
    “But who in the world would want to come here?” Oxley protested. “Who out there even knows Baker’s Hollow still exists?”
    “I don’t know.” Preston nodded toward the Terminator. “And from the looks of things, odds are we never will.”
    Oxley sighed. “You’re probably right. Poor devil.”
    Preston nodded. Poor devil indeed .
    But right now, he had more urgent things on his mind than some random migrant who might be wandering this way.
    “Let’s assume for a minute it gets whoever it’s here for,” he said. “Will it just leave? Or would it decide to take out the town as long as it’s here anyway?”
    “For starters, T-700s don’t decide anything,” Oxley said. “They’re wholly controlled by Skynet, and I have no idea what that means now that the lab is gone.”
    Despite the seriousness of the situation, Preston had to smile at that. Gone . Like the massive explosion that had rattled buildings in Baker’s Hollow and lit up the entire sky to the southeast qualified as just being gone . Sometimes Oxley showed an awesome