Terminator Salvation_ The Official Movie Novelization - Alan Dean Foster [36]
Meeting the older man’s gaze, Reese shook his head and used both hands to diagram a mushroom shape in the air while blowing out his cheeks. While Wright knew he might not be the brightest man on the planet, neither was he stupid. The teen’s meaning was as clear as it was correct: based on the action they had just observed and had barely managed to avoid, climbing into a car and attempting to speed away might not be the best strategy for avoiding the Harvester’s attention.
Then what? he thought furiously.
The big machine saved him the pain of having to think. Short bursts from its secondary weapon began to collapse the walls of the service bay. Years of dust and accumulated grime blossomed out to form impenetrable clouds as the Harvester pondered how best to remove them from the truck.
Glancing sharply at Reese, Wright mouthed the words, “Trust me” and brought wires together beneath the truck’s dash. The engine growled, stalled, growled again, and rumbled to life. Throwing himself into the driver’s seat as Reese slid in on the other side and shielded Star, Wright slammed the truck in gear—into reverse.
Ramming the tanker, the heavy truck strained for traction. Looking back, with one hand on the wheel and a foot jamming the accelerator into the floor, Wright saw that two-thirds of his plan was working. Pushing back the tanker had slammed it into the legs of the Harvester and brought the collecting machine to a temporary stop. As a result of being smashed by the tow truck, the tanker was spilling gasoline from several ruptures in its steel body.
It might as well have been spilling milk. In the absence of the hoped-for sparks, the pungent fuel was simply pooling up on the floor of the service bay. The angle at which the Harvester had been pinned prevented it from bringing its weapons to bear, but that was unlikely to last forever. As he was trying to decide what to do next, a hand tapped him on the arm. A small hand.
Now awake, a silent Star was proffering an emergency highway flare.
Taking it, he ignited the warning device, took aim, tossed it back and out the door of the truck, and floored the accelerator. As the tow truck streaked out of the service bay, the flare landed in the nearest stream of gas and flared back in the direction of the tanker. Seeing the truck flee, the Harvester raised the muzzle of its main cannon and took aim.
The result when the line of fire reached the immobilized tanker was most satisfying.
The explosion was even bigger than Wright had hoped. As flames balled skyward behind him, he gunned the tow truck away from the mini-mart and headed for the highway. He didn’t smile at Reese, and the teen did not smile back, but the feeling of appreciation was clearly mutual.
Then the Harvester plowed through the wall of flames that had engulfed the service bay and started after them.
It fired—and missed. Since the beginning of the assault on the mini-mart this was the first shot unleashed from its primary weapon that had failed to strike its intended target. The failing might have been due to the machine having suffered some slight damage from the tanker explosion and the resulting flames. Or it could have been due to the hasty evasive action taken by Wright. More likely the miss was due to the fact that the Harvester’s legs were still locked, entwined, and in several spots melted to the remnants of the tanker.
But while the machine’s mobility and ability to follow were seriously compromised, that of its component parts were not.
Reese had seen them in action on the streets of greater Los Angeles, and for his new friend’s benefit he identified the two-wheeled machines that dropped clear of the larger machine’s body as Moto-Terminators.