“Get him, dammit!” he heard Stone yell, and then he ducked around the stair post and snapped off another shot, dropping the man who’d fired the first two plasma rounds.
“They’re in, Geordy!” he shouted. “Watch it!”
He started running up the stairs. One bullet left. And no time to reload.
“Delaney! ”
Cooper was above him on the landing. He tossed down the disruptor. Finn dropped the Colt and caught it, then heard the boom of Cooper’s Desert Eagle. He felt something whoosh past his ear and then there was an explosion behind him as the round struck one of the S. 0. G. commandos in the chest and ignited. spattering the walls with blood and mangled flesh.
Downstairs, at the back entrance, Georgeson was knocked off his feet as the door exploded inward and the S.O.G. commandos came rushing through. He fired both his lasers from the floor and dropped the first man through the door, then was struck twice by laser fire from the men behind him. He fired again. dropping one more assailant, took another laser hit, but kept on firing, killing the last man through the door. He staggered to his feet, badly wounded, a hole through the side of his face, and several more through his chest and shoulder. He gasped for breath and fell to his knees as one lung collapsed, then looked up and saw Ben Stone coming through the smoke and flames. He raised his lasers, but he wasn’t quick enough. Stone fired. The heavy 45 caliber slug smashed into Georgeson’s forehead and exited through the other side, taking a bloody lump of bone and br ain wi t h it. The Ranger w as hurled backwards by the impact, and he was dead before he hit the floor.
Upstairs. Tilley was engaged in a furious crossfire with the men on the roof across the way. He couldn’t use his plasma rifle, for fear of setting the building across the street on fire. The desk clerk, oblivious to the laser beams flashing back and forth above him, ran out into the street, screaming. “Fire! Fire!” Boarders in the morning house were dashing down the stairs and out the back, paying no attention to the bodies they tripped over as they stumbled out through the smoke and flames on the first floor. Cooper came out onto the roof just as two of the S.O.G. commandos materialized behind Tilley. He fired twice, the explosive rounds slamming into his targets and making bloody salsa out of them, then dropped to the roof as Tilley spun around and yelled, “ DOWN!”
Tilley fired over him, taking out one more commando who had clocked in behind Cooper, but not before he took a laser hit in the chest. He cried out and slumped over, grimacing with pain. Cooper started to get up, but a laser beam coming from across the street grazed his temple and he cried out, dropping back down, a smoking furrow in his hair.
“Son of a bitch! Tilley, you okay’?”
“Don’t know… damn, it hurts…”
“Hang on, I’ll get those bastards!”
Cooper quickly programmed his disc for the leap to the roof across the street. He could only guess wildly at the distance and the height, but there was no other choice. He programmed in his estimate and clocked.
He appeared about three feet above them… over the edge of the roof, with nothing but empty space below him.
“ Aw, fuck!” he shouted.
As he fell, he fired five times in rapid succession, saw the bullets strike their targets and explode on impact, then the ground came up and he fell the bone-jarring impact and heard a loud snap as he struck.
The stairwell was full of smoke. Ben Stone coughed and squinted, trying to see through it. He heard something and fired at the sound. A man cried out and Stone saw a disruptor come clattering down the stairs. He grinned.
“Got you, you bastard!” he said, triumphantly.
He bent down to pick up the weapon and then suddenly a figure came flying through the air, directly at him. Delaney hit him and both men tumbled down the stairs. Delaney scrambled to his feet, trying to ignore the pain of the smashed bone in his elbow. He pulled his knife out its sheath and raised it, then saw that Stone was lying motionless on the smoke-filled landing, his neck at a crazy angle. He was dead.
Delaney bent over him and found his warp disc. Coughing from the smoke and grunting with pain, he programmed it for non-specific time and clocked Stone’s body to the dead zone. Then he retrieved his disruptor and moved back to the first floor.
Tilley crawled to the edge of the roof and looked over. There was no more laser fire coming from the other side. He heard someone groaning in the street below and looked down to see Cooper lying there, sprawled on his back, his weapon on the ground beside him. He heard movement behind him and spun around-
“Easy. Tilley!” said Delaney.
With a sigh of relief. Tilley lowered his weapon. “We get ’em all?”
“I think so,” said Delaney. “I clocked out the bodies. Geordy didn’t make it.”
“Shit…” said Tilley.
“How bad are you hit?”
“Don’t know…
“Where’s Cooper?”
“Down there.” said Tilley, jerking his head toward the street below.
Delaney looked over the side. There was shouting in the street and the distant sound of bells as the fire brigade approached. Cooper was trying to crawl toward where his gun lay in the street.
“Damn,” Delaney swore, “Tilley get out of here. Clock back to Plus Time.”
“What about-”
“Forget it. We’ve lost our transition point. Tell the strike force to stand by. Nobody moves till we send word. Now go!”
“Got it.”
Tilley reached for his warp disc and clocked out. Delaney ran back down the stairs and tumbled through the smoke and out the back door. He ran down the alleyway out to the street. People were converging on the rooming house, carrying buckets of water. Delaney ran over to Cooper, who’d just managed to retrieve his gun.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” grimaced Cooper, groaning through his teeth. “Misjudged the distance slightly… Peter Pan I ain’t. Broke both my damn legs
…”
“Come on, we’re clocking you out…”
“What about Tilley?”
“He’s clocked out already. I think he’ll make it.”
“Geordy?”
“Dead,” said Finn. “But he got ’em all.”
“Son of a bitch.” said Cooper, gasping.
Delaney fumbled for Cooper’s warp disc.
“It’s okay, I got it,” Cooper said, “The bodies?”
“I clocked ’em out.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get your legs fixed. Everything’s on hold until we get a new transition point. Meanwhile, I’ve got to find the others. Now get out of here!”
“But we got the bastards, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, you got ’em. Now go!”
“Give ’em hell, Delaney…”
Cooper activated his disc and clocked out.
Delaney got his feet and suddenly noticed that it was daylight. Startled, he turned back towards the rooming house. A second earlier, it had been dark and smoke was pouring from the windows. Men were shouting and running in the street, bells were clanging… Now, suddenly, it was broad daylight and the fire had been put out. There were several people standing in the street, looking at the damage. A wagon passed him going one way, two riders walking their horses passed heading in the opposite direction. The sun was high in the sky.
“God damn…” Delaney said. “What the hell…?”
Suddenly, it hit him.
“ Timewave!”
He checked the readout on his warp disc. It was a little after two o’clock. The date was October 26, 1881. And to his right, just turning the corner of Fourth and Fremont Streets, were Virgil, Wyatt and Morgan Earp, together with Doc Holliday.
Nikolai Drakov appeared in the alley between Fly’s Boarding House and the Assay Office. He had a small case in his left hand. He turned right down the short passageway leading to the porch between Fly’s Photo Studio and the boarding house. So far, everything was going according to plan From the porch, he could look out into the vacant lot between Fly’s establishment and the Harwood house. Standing together in the empty lot were Ike Clanton, his brother, Billy, Tom and Frank McLaury and, slightly behind them, their friend. Billy Claiborne. And, just turning the corner of the boarding house were Virgil and Wyatt Earp, followed by Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday. Virgil was carrying a cane in his right hand. Morgan had his gun out. Holliday was carrying a shotgun in one hand and his pistol in the other.