gunfire from his left burned through the air above him.
He twisted his head to look in that direction, swinging his shoulder-slung SIG 542 into firing position. A third T-700 had appeared from the trees, this one fifty meters south, also moving along the riverbank toward the ford.
But unlike the one coming down from the north, this Terminator was ready for battle. Its G11 submachinegun was pointed and ready, its metal skull swinging back and forth as its glowing eyes tracked the human defenders scrambling madly for cover.
Sinking a little deeper into his crouch, Barnes swiveled as far around as he could at hips and waist and fired off a three-round burst from the 542. At this range the shots did little but stagger the Terminator back, but it was enough to give the rest of the men time to get to cover.
“Never mind the one to the north,” someone shouted over the renewed gunfire. “The south one. Focus your fire on the south one.”
As if to underline the urgency of the order, the southernmost of the two T-700s fired again, this burst digging gouges into the side of a wide tree two of the riflemen were huddled behind. Barnes sent another burst bouncing off the Terminator’s torso, then checked the T-700 coming from the north. Its gun hand was still hanging at its side as it strode toward the ford, with no indication that it was preparing to open fire.
That would change soon enough, Barnes knew. But for the moment, whoever had called out that order had the situation properly nailed. The second Terminator was the one doing all the shooting, so that was the one they needed to deal with.
From Barnes’s left came a familiar thunderclap as Williams opened fire with her Desert Eagle.
“I need to get closer,” she shouted to Barnes as her shot staggered the Terminator back. “Cover me?”
Barnes gave a curt nod.
“Go.”
He flicked his rifle’s selector to single-shot as Williams ducked around behind Preston and his men and sprinted in a broken-field charge for the river. Deliberately, methodically, he pumped slug after slug into the T-700, spacing his shots so as to conserve ammo while still keeping the Terminator off balance and unable to get a clear shoot at the woman running toward it. A few of the other men, Preston among them, caught onto the plan and added their fire to Barnes’s, their shots alternating with his.
Ten seconds later, Williams reached the river, her Desert Eagle now holstered and the Mossberg shotgun unslung and clutched in front of her. She was just closing the weapon’s action, which told Barnes that she’d exchanged the shotgun round that had already been in place for one of the solid slugs from her ammo pack. The machine turned its G11 toward her, its burst going over her head as she threw herself into a feet-first baserunner slide that carried her to the very edge of the riverbank. The Terminator fired again, this burst also going wide as Barnes and Preston simultaneously hammered it.
And as the machine once again staggered back, Williams’s slug blasted at point-blank range into its gun.
Terminators were made of incredibly strong, incredibly hard alloy. The G11s, on the other hand, were not only not as strong, but also had a couple of critical weak points. The gun’s receiver was one such weakness, a spot where a heavy rifle or shotgun slug could jam the action and possibly ignite the chambered round. The magazine with the exposed explosive of its caseless rounds was another.
And if you were really, really lucky, those two weaknesses intersected. Williams’s round slammed into the gun—
And suddenly the entire magazine went up in a sputtering, multiple flash as the close-packed ammo blew up, each round triggering the one next to it. The T-700 staggered back as the exploding rounds lit up its torso.
“Look out—here it comes!” someone shouted.
Barnes looked away from the sputtering fireworks display. The northern T-700, the one that the earlier voice had ordered everyone
He twisted his head to look in that direction, swinging his shoulder-slung SIG 542 into firing position. A third T-700 had appeared from the trees, this one fifty meters south, also moving along the riverbank toward the ford.
But unlike the one coming down from the north, this Terminator was ready for battle. Its G11 submachinegun was pointed and ready, its metal skull swinging back and forth as its glowing eyes tracked the human defenders scrambling madly for cover.
Sinking a little deeper into his crouch, Barnes swiveled as far around as he could at hips and waist and fired off a three-round burst from the 542. At this range the shots did little but stagger the Terminator back, but it was enough to give the rest of the men time to get to cover.
“Never mind the one to the north,” someone shouted over the renewed gunfire. “The south one. Focus your fire on the south one.”
As if to underline the urgency of the order, the southernmost of the two T-700s fired again, this burst digging gouges into the side of a wide tree two of the riflemen were huddled behind. Barnes sent another burst bouncing off the Terminator’s torso, then checked the T-700 coming from the north. Its gun hand was still hanging at its side as it strode toward the ford, with no indication that it was preparing to open fire.
That would change soon enough, Barnes knew. But for the moment, whoever had called out that order had the situation properly nailed. The second Terminator was the one doing all the shooting, so that was the one they needed to deal with.
From Barnes’s left came a familiar thunderclap as Williams opened fire with her Desert Eagle.
“I need to get closer,” she shouted to Barnes as her shot staggered the Terminator back. “Cover me?”
Barnes gave a curt nod.
“Go.”
He flicked his rifle’s selector to single-shot as Williams ducked around behind Preston and his men and sprinted in a broken-field charge for the river. Deliberately, methodically, he pumped slug after slug into the T-700, spacing his shots so as to conserve ammo while still keeping the Terminator off balance and unable to get a clear shoot at the woman running toward it. A few of the other men, Preston among them, caught onto the plan and added their fire to Barnes’s, their shots alternating with his.
Ten seconds later, Williams reached the river, her Desert Eagle now holstered and the Mossberg shotgun unslung and clutched in front of her. She was just closing the weapon’s action, which told Barnes that she’d exchanged the shotgun round that had already been in place for one of the solid slugs from her ammo pack. The machine turned its G11 toward her, its burst going over her head as she threw herself into a feet-first baserunner slide that carried her to the very edge of the riverbank. The Terminator fired again, this burst also going wide as Barnes and Preston simultaneously hammered it.
And as the machine once again staggered back, Williams’s slug blasted at point-blank range into its gun.
Terminators were made of incredibly strong, incredibly hard alloy. The G11s, on the other hand, were not only not as strong, but also had a couple of critical weak points. The gun’s receiver was one such weakness, a spot where a heavy rifle or shotgun slug could jam the action and possibly ignite the chambered round. The magazine with the exposed explosive of its caseless rounds was another.
And if you were really, really lucky, those two weaknesses intersected. Williams’s round slammed into the gun—
And suddenly the entire magazine went up in a sputtering, multiple flash as the close-packed ammo blew up, each round triggering the one next to it. The T-700 staggered back as the exploding rounds lit up its torso.
“Look out—here it comes!” someone shouted.
Barnes looked away from the sputtering fireworks display. The northern T-700, the one that the earlier voice had ordered everyone
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