Read Online Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes by Timothy Zahn - Free Book Online Page B

private,” Kate assured him, feeling some of her tension fade away as she sensed his change from solid refusal to reluctant consent. “And I don’t have to actually lead anyone, not this time. That part can wait until later. I just need them to see me fighting alongside them.”
    John didn’t answer. Kate waited silently, her mental fingers crossed, letting him work it through.
    “Compromise,” he said at last. “You can come with the infiltration teams and help with the recruitment part of the trip. Actually, you can probably take point on that—you’re much better at talking to people than Barnes or even Tunney.”
    “I’m better than Barnes, anyway,” Kate said. “I think Tunney ought to handle the actual recruitment speech, though. I’d rather watch him this first time, and maybe just answer a few questions.”
    “Well, you can sort out the duties however you want,”
    John said. “But once the actual attack starts, you’ll stay put in whatever temp base we’ve set up in the neighborhood.”
    “At least until you need a medic?”
    “Until we need work that our junior medics can’t handle,” John corrected firmly. “Is it a deal?”
    For a moment Kate considered pointing out that sitting alone in the middle of a fire zone wouldn’t be a lot safer than being out in the middle of the action. But bringing that up would probably get her summarily left here at the bunker instead. “Okay,” she said. “So I can recruit, hide, and maybe bandage.”
    “You just can’t shoot,” John said, nodding.
    “Well, I can shoot,” Kate said in the prim voice a couple of her mother’s upper-crust friends had always used. “I’m a woman of many talents, you know.”
    John squeezed her shoulder, pulling her closer.
    “Definitely,” he said. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”
    32

CHAPTER
    FIVE
    Breakfast at Moldering Lost Ashes that morning consisted of a handful of dried seed pods from one of the wild plants that had popped up around the city over the past few years, plus a slice of three-day-old coyote.
    Kyle and Star ate quickly, which was usually the best way to get three-day-old coyote down, and then made their way up the untrustworthy stairways to the highest inhabitable part of the rickety building.
    Kyle didn’t really like sentry duty. Not so much because it was boring, but because if Skynet ever launched an attack he and Star would be stuck up here, instead of downstairs where they could help.
    Chief Grimaldi, the man running the building, didn’t think that would happen as long as the people here minded their own business. But Orozco said it would, and that was good enough for Kyle.
    The southeast sentry post had once been the outside corner of a fancy apartment’s living room. It wasn’t so fancy now, though. The firestorm that had swept the city on Judgment Day had blown off one of the living room’s outer walls, along with half of the other wall and most of the ceiling. The result was a roughly three-meter-square section of floor that gave a clear view of that part of the city, but which was largely open to the elements.
    Today, those elements consisted of a sporadic southwest wind that grabbed at the collar of Kyle’s thin coat as he and Star stepped off the stairway onto the platform. He pulled the collar back into place as he went to the equipment alcove set into the sentry post’s inner wall. There was supposed to be a spare blanket up here, but a quick check of the alcove showed no sign of it.
    Apparently, whoever had been on duty during the night had taken it with him when he left.
    That, or else someone had sneaked up between shifts and stolen it. Chief Grimaldi said things like that didn’t happen here, but Kyle knew they sometimes did.
    Orozco didn’t much like Grimaldi. He’d never actually said anything, but Kyle could tell.
    Grimaldi had run some sort of group before Judgment Day, something called a corporation, which had made him think he could run anything. Some of