Marines danced in the gunfire, blood sprayed, and the sound of bullets striking flesh was like a hammer repeatedly smacking raw steak. Arcturus saw Private Shaw hurled backward by the terrible impacts, his chest blown out by a sawing blast of rounds. Other men were hit as well, and Arcturus saw a soldier torn almost in two by a torrent of fire.

Shots sounded from behind Arcturus and he saw one of Juliana's security guards crouched on his knee, his pistol held out in front of him in two hands. One of the gunmen dropped, the back of his head missing, and the guard calmly drew a bead on another.

Before he could shoot again, a burst of rifle fire took him in the chest and he lurched backward, a bloody line of bullet holes tearing him up as though a grenade had gone off inside his rib cage.

Juliana's other guard scooted over to them. "Give me her!" he shouled.

Arcturus nodded and hauled Juliana over to the man.

"Arcturus!' she cried, but he forced himself to ignore her plea as he spotted the fallen guard's pistol on the ground. He scrambled over to the gun and swept it up, twisting onto his back and aiming it toward the bench.

Hordes of people ran in panicked confusion along the boulevard, screaming over the terror that had landed in their midst. The bar was a ruin of shattered timber and glass. Tables had been overturned, chairs scattered, and bloody bodies littered the area in front like multiple victims of a firing squad.

Snake Tattoo and his three comrades continued to rake bullets over the bar's frontage, making the corpses jerk with the impacts. Fury touched Arcturus at the slaughter of his fellow marines. The pistol bucked in his hand and another of the gunmen dropped.

Arcturus rolled to his knees and shifted his aim, putting another enemy on his back, a bloody hole blasted In his chest. His accomplices turned toward the source of this new threat.

Another pistol shot boomed, and Arcturus knew that Juliana's other guard was returning fire. The man's bullet missed, and Snake Tattoo's companion swung his rifle to bear, a look of hatred in his eyes.

Arcturus fired first, but his shot went wide. A bar light that had miraculously survived the initial hall of bullets blew out in a rain of glass. Supersonic slugs ripped toward Juliana's protector and he was punched off his feet in a thudding series of bloody eruptions.

Snake Tattoo opened fire at Arcturus, but a fleeing tourist in a floral-print shirt took the valley. The unfortunate holidaymaker fell as stray slugs tore up the ground next to Arcturus—who didn't give his attacker a second chance. He sighted along the barrel of his pistol and squeezed the trigger.

Snake Tattoo was spun around, his shoulder a pulped mass of shattered bone and geysering blood. He dropped his rifle and toppled backward, screaming in agony.

Arcturus rose to his feel, moving sideways as the last surviving gunman swung his rifle around. Before he could fire, Arcturus put two bullets into his chest. The man toppled, dead before he hit the ground.

Arcturus let out a long, shuddering breath, suddenly realizing how exposed he'd been.

Wearing the heavy plates of combat armor granted a marine almost complete immunity to small-arms fire, but when bullets started flying it was easy to take that immunity for granted and forget that without armor—as Arcturus certainly had been just now—even the lightest handgun was deadly.

He tracked the pistol left and right, keeping on the move. Though he doubted there were other shooters on the boulevard, it didn't pay to be reckless. He ghosted over to the shattered remnants of the bar, crunching on broken glass and through pulverized limber.

Dozens or maybe even scores of bodies filled the bar, torn and mangled by the indiscriminate barrage of gunfire. Soldiers and well-heeled civilians lay together, equal in death if not in life. Arcturus moved through the wreckage until he stood over the architect and sole survivor of this massacre.

Snake Tattoo wept in pain, a gaping, raw crater where his shoulder should have been. He pawed the wound with a glistening red hand, his breath coming in sharp hikes and tortured exhalations. He looked up as Arcturus approached, his flesh waxy and streaked with sweat.

"Confed bastard...." he wheezed between groans of pain.

"What the hell was this?" demanded Arcturus. "What did you think you were going to achieve?"

"I ain't...afraid...to die," spat Snake Tattoo. "And... I ain't gonna talk...You might as well...kill me now..."

"Fine by me," said Arcturus, and then shot him in the face.

Arcturus held Juliana close as she was wracked with sobs, her shoulders heaving with the force of her distress. Her hand gripped his back, and her tears seemed never-ending. Arcturus had been through the aftermath of combat and knew how to deal with the stress and fear of close brushes with death, but this was new to Juliana and he knew he had to let her vent her fear, anger, and grief.

In the wake of the shooting, Arcturus had dropped his weapon and rushed to her side, holding her close until the Tyrador armed forces arrived in screeching, armored vehicles. Howling orbital flyers—brilliant white and emblazoned with the winged caduceus, the universal symbol of healers—landed in billowing clouds of propwash.

Green-clad paramedics spread efficiently through the crowd, treating the wounded and calming the living as enforcement officers secured the dead attackers and gathered up fallen weaponry. Sirens and screams and shouts blended together, rising into the night sky, forever shattering the aura of invincibility the inhabitants of and visitors to Tyrador IX thought they had.

Until now, this had been a planet everyone believed was far from the concerns of politics and warfare, but the fallacy and naivete of that illusion had been cruelly stripped away by this atrocity. Nowhere was safe now: the long reach of violence could extend even here, the playground of the rich and powerful.

Arcturus and Juliana answered a barrage of questions from a variety of officials, but after what seemed like a lifetime they were allowed to leave the scene, though Arcturus agreed to report to the local Confederate militia station in the morning to give a fuller account of his role in the night's bloodshed.

Words like "hero," "commendation," and "medal" were already being bandied around.

A police flyer had taken them to Arcturus's hotel, and no sooner had they crossed the threshold of his room than Juliana broke down in tears. Arcturus guided her to the bed and sat next to her, allowing her to cry and knowing that anything he might say right now would be trite and meaningless.

They sat like that for almost an hour before Juliana's sobs became less frequent and she prised herself from his shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and her makeup ran in black streaks down her face. Her golden hair hung limp: her skin was ashen.

She looked achingly beautiful in her vulnerability.

"I'm sorry...." she said. "I look a mess. I—"

Arcturus ran a hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. "You look far better than anyone would expect after what you've been through tonight."

"Oh God...all those people," she said. "They killed so many people."

Arcturus nodded. "Yes, they did, but they won't hurt anyone else. They're dead now. I killed them."

"Yes," she said, "you did. You were so brave. You saved my life."

"No," said Arcturus, trying to sound modest, but pleased at the thought of being seen as a hero, "I just did what I had to do. Remember, I'm trained for this kind of thing. I just acted without thinking. If I'd thought about it, I'd have stayed on the ground. Going up against five men armed with assault rifles with only a pistol...? Captain Emillian will have my guts for garters when she hears that."