“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.

Drakov opened the case and took out a scoped, stainless steel Colt Python with an eight-inch barrel and black neoprene combat grips. Not as sophisticated as a laser or a plasma gun, but just as effective and, in some ways, more reliable. He kneeled and took a rest position, sighting through the pistol scope. He smiled in anticipation.

Amazing that after everything that happened, it would all come down to just one shot. A mere one hundred and fifty-eight grain, copper-jacketed, hollow-point bullet, no bigger than a dime, would accomplish what even nuclear weapons had failed to do. And he would have his revenge at last

The future would cease to be. Just one shot, its report masked by the gunfire that would shortly erupt in what was no more than an insignificant blood feud, and everything would change. Universes would shift, setting off a timewave that would travel down the timestream, building in intensity. altering events… and in the course of those events that would be altered, Moses Forrester would never be horn. He would never live to meet and fall in love with the Russian gypsy girl named Vanna Drak

ova. She would be spared the torment she had suffered and he, Nikolai Drakov, would never have lived. Sweet oblivion awaited him.

He wondered what would happen the moment he fired the fatal shot. Would he immediately cease to exist? Would there be pain? Or would he suddenly just be gone… because from the moment of his action, he would never have existed in the first place?

He would be gone but his enemies who survived would suffer the knowledge of their failure. They would return to a future that had changed, a time that was unraveling, to find that their commander. Moses Forrester, had never lived. would they remember? Drakov sincerely hoped so. For if they did, there would be nothing they could do about it. Once the act was done, any attempt on their part to change it would only change the future once again, with consequences that could be even worse in their own time. Further down the timestream, long after they were dead, the cataclysm would occur. They wouldn’t be around to see it, nor would he. But it didn’t really matter. He would have won. He would have destroyed his father, beaten his enemies, wiped out his own tortured existence and brought about an end to all of time with no more than a slight motion of his finger on the trigger. One shot. The ultimate solution.

He felt an almost sexual thrill of anticipation surge through him. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. His palms were sweating. He wiped them on his trousers. Just one more moment…

Scott came running around the corner of Fourth and Fremont and came to a dead stop. Suddenly, it was daylight. For a moment, he was totally disoriented. And then, just ahead of him, he saw Wyatt Earp, his brothers, Virgil and Morgan. and Doc Holliday walking down the street, heading for the vacant lot between Fly’s Boarding House and Harwood’s place. Just beyond them, he could see Ike Clanton, Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury lined up in a row and facing them.

The famous shoot-out.

As if mesmerized, he started to move forward.

He heard Virgil Earp call out, “Boys, throw up your hands! I want your guns!”

The two parties were perhaps six feet apart.

Young Billy Clanton yelled out, “Don’t shoot me! I don’t want to fight!”

Tom McLaury said. “I haven’t got anything, boys. I am disarmed.” He moved his hands up to his coat and started to open it.

Virgil called out sharply, “Hold on! I don’t mean that!”

And as Virgil shouted, Jenny came running around the corner, saw Scott moving toward the men as if hypnotized and..

Tags: Simon Hawke TimeWars Science Fiction
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