Lewis Manetti stared at the bodies of his men.

He had been second-in-command of the Damini for the last three years. Three years of stabilizing it, both as a business and as a base for the Grunters. Him and his brother Ferrett.

Now, Ferett lay dead at the hands of a rampaging ultra.

He turned to Mrs. McConnell. McConnell was one of the few survivors of the attack who had actually gotten a good look at the raider.

“Tell me again,” he commanded.

McConnell gulped. “He wore all black, sir. Big massive brute….. Carried a huge hammer. He walked straight into Mr. Barnaby’s office and started beating on him.”

“Anything else you noticed? Think. It could be vitally important.”

“I…. I couldn’t see more, sir. It was dark. Only Mr. Barnaby’s office had that lamp he likes, so I could see….” She coughed. “He could glow, sir. Shone golden for a second.”

“Like a flashlight?”

“He…. sorta had a golden glowing outline. Only for a couple of seconds.”

Lewis nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. McConnell.”

She slunk away.

His aide, Dora, walked up to him. “I’ve spoken with our guys in the police,” she said. “The cops won’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Thank you, Dora. The bodies?”

“Removed. Our boys are taking the grunts to the incinerators. Ferett’s going to your family plot. You sure you want him buried right now? Family might want to attend.”

“Public funeral requires a death certificate. That means the cops, an investigation into the Damini.”

Dora nodded in acknowledgement.

“Do we know if he took anything?”

“Some drugs. The box of special pills we were holding on to. Some cash.”

“How much?”

“I’m not sure. There’s half a mill missing - mostly the last week’s take.”

“Crap.”

“Jeff’s awake, though.”

“I’ll go talk to him.”

Barnaby lay on the stretcher, barely hanging on to consciousness.

“His ribs are cracked,” the guard explained. He’d been a medic in the Army before the Grunters had offered him a more lucrative profession. “Multiple lacerations, some internal bleeding.”

“Can he talk?”

“A little. We gave him something for the pain.”

“Will he live?”

“Yeah - but he’ll need physical therapy for a long time. Whoever did this really did a number on him.”

Manetti flinched. On top of all this, Barnaby’s medical bills would be - difficult to manage.

He’d deal with that expense later. Right now he needed to find out as much as he could about their new enemy.

“Boss,” Barnaby groaned.

“I’m here, Jeff.”

“Help me…”

“We will. The Grunters take care of their own.” When they had the money to, Manetti added in the silence of his mind. “Can you tell about the man who did this?”

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“He was… strong,” croaked Barnaby. “Brutal… ruthless. He hit me, then kept hitting me.”

“The armour?”

“I didn’t have it on …. he broke it into little pieces with his sledgehammer.”

Manetti cursed mentally. That suit of armour had been worth millions.

“He… told me …. Tigerstrike. Tigerstrike sends his regards.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s what he said… then he hit me… again … and again… the pain….” Jeff coughed. “First with his hammer…. Then he punched me…. Then he healed me.”

“..... He healed you?”

“... I thought he was done….. Then he hit me again. And again…. I blacked out.” The man winced in pain. “Please… please don’t make me face him again…..”

“You won’t have to, Jeff.” What kind of sick psycho healed a man only to torture him further? “Rest now.”

He watched as the guards took Barnaby to the ambulance. Then he walked to his car and sat in it, thinking.

Dora slid in beside him and began to gently massage his shoulders.

He was tempted to pick her up, take her back to his apartment, and ravish her. The way he’d been doing when that damned phone call came. Or, for that matter, just push back the seat and get back to the ravishing.

“The hell of it,” he muttered, “is that it doesn’t even make sense.”

“Tell me,” said Dora.

“We’ve been talking to Tigerstrike for weeks. Dividing the city between us. And now this? Is he a rogue from a different faction of the Blackhats?”

“The Blackhats don’t have factions,” replied Dora. “There’s only Serpentor, Ultragorilla and Tigerstrike, and the other two don’t have half a brain between them.”

“Then was he trying to pull a con?”

“Likely, but it won’t matter. Dozens of witnesses got out. Dozens of people, crying out that the Blackhats were attacking us.” He sighed. “There’ll be incidents between our people and theirs. Some will believe Tigerstrike broke the truce. And Gravitic will be on our case, frothing at the mouth and convinced that we screwed up.”

“You’ll deal with it,” reassured Dora.

Manetti wished he could. The worst part of the losses weren’t the club or the gambling - those could be rebuilt - but the suits.

Few outside the Grunters knew this, but Grumman wasn’t the true leader of the Grunters. The gang had been founded by Gravitic, who had taken a young inventor under his wing, thinking of creating an army of men with combat battlesuits who could take over a city.

Grumman had proven more than equal to the task. He’d built battlesuit after battlesuit. He’d even taken part in a few raids himself, just to prove he could.

But eventually, he’d settled down into the role of a supplier.

People thought that Grumman gave the Grunters the suits. The truth was vastly different. Grumman rented the suits to them.

In return, the Grunters paid an upfront deposit, plus a monthly fee. And when aliens attacked, they sent their men - in suits provided by Grumman - to fight. Grunter soldiers had taken part in a half dozen battles.

And the fees for the battle went directly to Grumman. Twenty to a hundred thousand per suit deployed.

In the attack on Tanisport, the Grunters had deployed thirty-six suits for almost ten hours. Grumman had sent an invoice to the U.S. Government for thirty million dollars. The Government was trying to argue him down to six.

The Grunters who died fighting the aliens, of course, got nothing.

Grumman had replaced the suits destroyed by the aliens, but….

When the Grunters lost a suit outside of fighting the aliens?

That was carelessness. And Grumman charged you for carelessness.

The total inventory of suits the Grunters had - all put together - had been thirty-six. Three Captain suits. Six Lieutenant suits. Twenty-two Soldier suits. Four Rookie suits, which were actually old suits from Grumman’s first models but which still had significant combat utility. And one Commander suit, reserved for Gravitic.

Now, they were down to twenty-four. Four suits had vanished a few months ago - just vanished, without reason, while on a simple shakedown of an out-of-state contractor. They’d been guessing the contractor might have been a front for another villainous organization, but no information had come forward on that.

Grumman had refused to provide replacements until the Grunters paid off the ten million he claimed those suits were worth.

Now, another eight suits had been destroyed.

Including one of the three rare Captain suits.

The Captain suit was built to meet the alien soldiers one-on-one. It was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with an alien soldier and have a decent chance of surviving. Grumman charged ten million dollars for a single such suit, and two million a month in rent.

The Grunters had been running shakedowns and protection rackets for the last several years to make sure they could pay - and keep paying - the rents.

And now, they would have to run more.

Because a violent, psychotic ultra with more power than he deserved had run amok in their club, killed seven of their people and injured dozens others, and destroyed eight - eight - irreplaceable suits.

The total bill would come to almost thirty million dollars, to replace the suits. Lewis didn’t think he had that kind of money - nor could he raise it.

Replacement suits were also doubtful. Ferrett and Lewis had taken turns to operate the Captain suit, so Lewis knew exactly what it was capable of - and how little that had helped against this Belessar. He also knew that making each Captain suit took Grumman almost a year.

So if they had to fight Belessar again, it would be with the suits they had. Which meant Gravitic’s Commander suit and the two remaining Captains.

Legend had it that there was one more suit - the Overlord suit - which Grumman kept for his personal use. Manetti didn’t know, because no-one had ever seen it - or Grumman in it. However, the inventor was notorious for always keeping something up his sleeve, so Manetti didn’t doubt that the Overlord suit was intended to be able to fight all the other suits put together.

He also doubted that anyone would be able to convince Grumman to take the field.

This was going to be very, very bad.