Blackcollar: The Blackcollar

It hit just in front of the prison's main entrance, and suddenly there was a cloud of thick white smoke expanding in all directions. Lathe reset the launcher's aim as the dull phuff of the impact reached him and picked up his second missile. "Spotter one: direct hit," Skyler's voice crackled in his ear. "Correct four degrees for second shot."

"Acknowledged," Vale's voice came back. "Second shot away." Obeying the cue, Lathe fired again, and a second cloud erupted directly between the sentry boxes flanking the gate.

"Leader two: preparing Ram," Kwon's voice said.

Lathe touched his mike control. "Leader one: squad ready."

"Acknowledged."

Smiling tightly, Lathe loaded the blue-and-white missile and carefully adjusted the aim. Kwon and Vale weren't anywhere within ten klicks of Henslowe at the moment, but with a simple disk recording plus Skyler's skillful hand on the playback selector any eavesdropping collies should be convinced a major attack was in progress.

The missile arched from its tube, trailing silver line behind it, and Lathe watched its path with some anxiety. The concern was wasted; the missile smacked cleanly onto the prison roof and he could clearly see the brown fluid leaking from the nosecone. Checking his watch, Lathe loaded his last missile and again adjusted aim. "Leader one: starting our run."

"Acknowledged," said Kwon's voice. "Ram away."

Lathe fired the missile, and was fitting a forearm band with attached pulley onto his left wrist when the roar of the explosion reached him. The blast punched a temporary hole in the white cloud surrounding the fence, and through it Lathe could see that the gate had been apparently undamaged by the high-explosive. "Leader one," he said. "Ram ineffective."

"Spotter one: confirmed," Skyler said. There was a brief pause, and Lathe wondered if the other had prepared for this contingency.

He had. "Leader two: we'll just have to go over, then," Kwon said.

"Acknowledged," Lathe said. "Go when ready." Checking his watch, he touched a switch on the launcher and started reeling in the slack in the line. He had to get over to the prison roof while they were busy watching for a ground-level attack. Chances were good they wouldn't see him come in—smoke screens had been militarily obsolete for centuries, but prison guards usually didn't carry fancy sca

The trip down the line took nearly a minute, and in that time Lathe glimpsed three Security cars racing for the prison from different directions. More evidence of Security's quick reflexes, he thought, hoping he hadn't jumped the gun with this operation. If Security reacted too quickly... but it was too late to worry about that now.

He hit the roof ru

They weren't expecting to find anyone—that much was instantly clear from their startled expressions and the mad scramble to bring their rifles to bear. Lathe's shuriken took the lead man in the forehead, knocking him down for his comrades to stumble over. Half a second later Lathe was among them, and two seconds after that it was all over. Scooping up one of the rifles, he stepped over the bodies and headed down the shed steps. Chances were good that the guards had come from the two administrative floors at the top of the prison, sent to the roof to try to see past the smokescreen hampering the defenders below—and since the top two floors were where Lathe was headed, the more guards he could quickly put out of action, the safer he would be. Theoretically.

The stairs dead-ended at a heavy door one flight down. Cracking it open, Lathe glimpsed a brightly lit corridor and heard the sound of muted alarms and ru

About a dozen civilian men and women were already in the corridor when he entered, their faces frozen with shock at the unexpected invasion. "You!" Lathe called, gesturing to the nearest man. "Where are the records kept?"

The other opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Lathe took a step toward him—and suddenly the alarms doubled in volume. "Intruder on fifteen!" a hidden loudspeaker bawled. "Defensive procedures, all perso

Any action, or so the old rule went, was better than doing nothing. A dozen meters in either direction the hallway hit T-junctions; flipping a mental coin the blackcollar ran to his left. The people in that direction scattered as he approached, prudently offering no resistance.

The far corridor, like the one he was in, was lined with what appeared to be office doors. It was possible, of course, that the records section was off in the other direction; but the quality of the hall carpets suggested this floor was occupied by the prison's top management. The next level down, he decided, was a more likely place to look. To the left he spotted a bank of elevators and a stairway door, and he was turning to go in that direction when a white-hot pain erupted in his left shoulder.

Combat reflexes took over, sending Lathe dividing for the corner, his torso twisting to keep the laser beam from resting too long on a single spot. The burning point slid up toward his neck before it disappeared, and as he hit the floor of the corridor he got just a glimpse of a uniformed figure back at the far T-junction.

His landing and roll weren't too bad, given the circumstances, and as he came back into a crouch he discovered he still had a grip on his captured laser. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, he hooked an eye back around the corner, rifle at the ready. His assailant wasn't charging, but had taken up a similar defensive position around the far corner. Either very cautious or expecting reinforcements... and Lathe suddenly decided he didn't like having an elevator bank behind him. Firing a long burst down the center hall to make sure the guard stayed put, Lathe turned and hurried toward the elevators.

He reached them, paused a fraction of a second, and headed instead for the stairway door. All three elevator motors were operating, and the implications of that were all too obvious. There was a chance that the stairs were still free of enemies, though. Slipping through the door, he discovered the landing itself was empty. Senses alert, he started down.

A faint humming from his captured laser was all the warning he got, but he acted on it instantly. Hurling the weapon away from him, he flattened himself against the wall just as the laser exploded, sending bits of metal ricocheting from the walls and Lathe's flexarmor. He turned around cautiously, sca

The hallway, resembling the one he'd just left, was similarly deserted. Stepping from the stairwell, Lathe glanced both directions and headed down the hall to his right, an uneasy feeling seeping into him. Certainly the hall should be clear of civilians—they'd had ample time to lock themselves in their offices by now—but surely all the guards hadn't gone chasing upstairs after him. The loudspeaker, which had a