"I do what the contract calls for, Reger," Bernhard told him coldly. "No more, no less. Right now my job is to tell you our client thinks you're eating too much of the black-market business in this territory."

"Your 'client,' eh? Sartan, I suppose? Again?"

Bernhard ignored the question. "So now I've told you. I suggest you do something about it." His hand curved in signal and both black-clad men began moving back.

A cautious frown creased Reger's forehead. "You mean... that's it?"

"I was told to cut back your ambitions," Bernhard said quietly. "How I do that is my choice. Though if I have to come back the results are likely to be more permanent."

"Ah. In other words, Sartan doesn't feel up to a full-scale war yet, is that it?" The older man snorted.

"Well, let me return his favor with a little advice. No one's succeeded in fencing Denver up as his own private preserve for over two hundred years. Not in peacetime, not during the war, not in thirty years of Ryqril occupation. If Sartan thinks he can do it he's going to get himself buried—and if you get too closely tied to his muzzle you'll go the same way." He glanced at Kanai, and even across the room Kanai could see the aura of age around those eyes. With regular Idunine doses, Reger's middleaged appearance meant nothing, of course, any more than Kanai's lithe body showed its own six decades. How old was Reger, anyway? Old enough to have been trying for control of Denver's underworld himself in the days before the Ryqril threat? Possibly. Maybe even probably.

Not that it mattered. The world had changed thirty years back, and it was Bernhard and Kanai who knew how to operate in it now. Reger and his kind were the dinosaurs, doomed to ultimate extinction.

"I'll give Sartan your words of wisdom," Bernhard told the older man, his tone lightly sarcastic. "Just don't make us come back."

Another hand signal passed, and Kanai headed back the way he'd come, ready to clear out any new threats Reger's men might have set up. But whatever firepower still existed in the mansion was apparently still too shaken to offer fresh resistance. The three black-clad men made their way back outside and into the woods surrounding Reger's now slightly damaged property. Kanai sensed, rather than saw, the four backups withdrawing with them, and all seven men arrived at their hidden cars at the same time.

"Well?" one of the backups asked.

"He'll fall into line," Bernhard said tiredly, pulling goggles and battle-hood off and massaging the bridge of his nose. "And once he does, all the little quarter-mark operations on this side of Denver should follow."

"At which point," someone else commented, "we'll have something real to play with."

"Or Sartan will," Bernhard said with just a hint of reproval. "Sartan's in charge of this, not us. Never forget that."

A minute later they were all heading toward the sprawling metropolis of Denver to the southeast. In the back seat, leaning against the right-hand door, Kanai stared moodily out the windshield as the first drops of rain began to fall. So the big consolidation scheme was working. The promise of a better future... and all they had to do to achieve it was continue to be the most elite strong-arm force the criminal world had ever known.

What a level, he thought, for blackcollars to sink to.

The universe seemed to agree with his assessment. Outside, the sky rained down bucketfuls of tears against the car. Tears for the shamed warriors.

Chapter 1

"The blackcollar forces are the elite warriors of this upcoming conflict of ours—the best chance the Terran Democratic Empire has of surviving the Ryqril war machine being launched against us."

For no particular reason the words flashed through Allen Caine's mind as he stood alone in the darkness. Words of hope, spoken originally by the TDE's chief military head at the first Special Forces Training Center commencement in 2416. The hope had been short-lived, of course. Two years later the war had begun: thirteen more and Earth itself had finally surrendered to the humiliation of Ryqril occupation troops and puppet governments.

And as for himself, Caine wasn't feeling especially elite at the moment. Nor, for that matter, much like a warrior.

So much for the wisdom of the past.

A faint scraping noise reached his ears, snapping his mind back to the immediate problem at hand.

Somewhere between four and ten men—seven, he thought, from the sounds—were out there in the sparse woods, closing in on him with lasers and flechette guns at the ready. Against such firepower Caine's own shuriken, nunchaku, and slingshot didn't seem like a hell of a lot.

Especially considering his opponents weren't blind.

Automatically, before he could relax them, his eyes strained against the opaque goggles. Damn you, Lathe, this is ridiculous, he thought once. Taking a quiet breath, he forced his mind to relax and concentrate.

He had four of his opponents firmly placed: two ahead and to the right, one behind and also on his right, one dead ahead. The other three weren't so certain, but he at least knew they were somewhere to his left. Whether they knew exactly where he was or not wasn't clear; but it was clear some of them were getting too close for safety.

And blinded as he was, Caine's only hope was to take the initiative before they tripped over him.

Carefully, making no sound, he dipped his left hand into his thigh shuriken pouch and drew out a stack of five stars. He shifted one to his right hand, took a deep breath... and rose suddenly to his knees, hurling four of the stars rapid-fire at his known targets.

All four stars were away before the shout of discovery came from his left. Caine sent his fifth shuriken in the direction of that voice and dived into a forward roll just as a flechette gun opened up.

The darts missed him completely, and the gun's sound gave him yet another target. Ending his roll on his knees, he scrabbled a shuriken from his belt pouch and threw it. Someone gurgled and Caine again hit the ground.

And froze, listening. The woods had gone silent. Had there in fact been only six, not seven, attackers?

Abruptly, Caine's tingler came on: Bandit bearing twenty-five degrees, under cover.

So there was a seventh man... but for the information to help him, Caine now needed to remember which way was north. Kinesthetic memory would have that, if he could relax his mind enough for the proper psychor technique to draw it out. There?... there. Twenty-five degrees east of that... there.

Ten degrees left of dead-on. Sliding a finger under his right sleeve, Caine tapped out his own tingler message: Specify bandit's cover.

No response. Probably a small bush, Caine decided. Large trees seemed to be rare in this area, and a bush would at least provide the visual protection a sapling wouldn't.

Visual protection from a blind man. Though a thick enough bush would also provide some protection against the throwing stars, too. Caine was just reaching for the release strap of his slingshot when a sudden sound barely a meter away threw him into instant, violent reaction.

Ducking his head, he shoved off the forest mat into a flat somersault, rolling on his shoulders and kicking straight out at the unseen figure his ears had said was in front of him. His heels caught something solid, knocked it backward. He leaped after it, snatching his nunchaku from its hip sheath and swinging it toward the sound of the crash. The thirty-centimeter hardwood stick, swinging like a buzz saw from its plastic chain, connected with a hollow thud... and as Caine drew a three-pointed shuriken into a push-knife grip, a shrill whistle split the air. Caine slid off his goggles, blinking in the sudden sunlight, and looked down at his opponent as he got to his feet.