With the geo-survey unit confiscated, Achton Feld turned and made his way to the door.

"Oh, and you'd best tell your friends the game's up."

"My friends?" said Arcturus. "What do you mean?"

"Don't," warned Feld. “Just tell them to go home. It's late and I'm too tired to deal with any more nonsense.”

"Honestly, Feld, I have no idea what you are talking about."

Achton Feld stared hard at the boy, looking past his glib exterior and power to make the unbelievable believable. Arcturus Mengsk could, with a few words, get techs with ten years' experience to give up the specs for a laser net, but Feld knew that what he was hearing now was the unvarnished truth.

Which meant...

"Crap," said Feld, activating the comm unit on his wist. "All units, condition black: I repeat, condition black."

Feld turned back to Arcturus. "Stay here." he said. "And hide."

"What is it?" cried Arcturus as Feld ran for the door.

Feld drew his pistol and said. "Intruders."

Arcturus watched Feld disappear through the door, and it took a moment for the implication of the head of security's words to penetrate. Intruders? Here?

Arcturus now wished he had not thought to try and test himself against the defenses of his father's home: it seemed suddenly foolish and childishly impulsive. Close on the heels of that thought was the idea that his family might actually be in danger, and he felt a knot of warm fear settle in his belly.

The emotion was quickly suppressed, and contrary to Feld's instructions. Arcturus bolted from his room into the corridor. Lights were coming on throughout the house and shouted voices were rousing guards from their posts. As doors slammed, Arcturus was suddenly rooted to the spot with indecision.

The hard bang of a pistol shot echoed in the hallway and a man's scream galvanized him into motion. He set off farther down the corridor and skidded to a halt beside a door hung with paper flowers and a child's drawing of a pony tacked to it.

Colorful paper letters declared that this was "Dorothy's Room," and Arcturus pushed it open. The lights were on, and he pulled up short as he saw his four-year-old sister sitting in bed, her long dark curls spilling messily around her shoulders as she sleepily rubbed her eyes.

Sitting next to her in the bed was a young girl, roughly Arctums's age, whose blonde hair shone like honey and whose face was as beautiful as it was unexpected.

"Who are you?" demanded the girl, putting protective arms around Dorothy.

"I could ask you the same damn thing," said Arcturus. "What are you doing in my sister's room?"

"I'm Juliana Pasteur," said the girl. "Dorothy asked me to stay and read her a story. I guess we must have both fallen asleep. You must be Arcturus, but what's going on? Was that a gunshot?"

"Yes, and I'm not sure exactly what's going on," said Arcturus, rushing over to the bed. "I think we might be under attack."

"Attack? From whom?"

Arcturus ignored the question and knelt beside the bed. "Little Dot," he said, keeping his voice even and using his sister's pet name. "You have to get up."

At the sound of Arcturus's voice, Dorothy looked at him and his anger rose as he saw the tears in her eyes. Arcturus did not care much for his father or his dealings, but he doted on his sister. Her smile was able to melt the hardest of hearts and not even Angus could resist giving in to her every whim.

"Where are we going?" said Doroihy, her voice drowsy.

Before Arcturus could answer, more gunshots boomed. Dorothy squealed in terror. Arcturus looked up at Juliana Pasteur and said. "Look after her. I'll see what's happening."

Juliana nodded and clutched the little girl tightly as the door to the room opened and two people burst in. Arcturus leapt to his feet, but let out a relieved breath as he saw that one of the figures was his mother.

Katherine Mengsk was tall, beautiful, and slender, but she was no shrinking violet who spent all her time at needlepoint or recitals. A core of neosteel ran through her, and with her children threatened, that quality was in the ascendancy. She blinked in surprise to see Arcturus, but overcame that surprise in a heartbeat and quickly gathered her children as the man next to her ran over to Juliana.

"Are you all right?" asked Katherine. "Arcturus? Dorothy?"

"We're fine, Mother," said Arcturus, prizing himself free of her embrace. "Where's Father?"

Katherine lifted Dorothy to her breast. "He's with Achton. Some men are trying to get inside and they've gone to stop them."

More shots sounded from beyond the door, and Dorothy burst into tears.

His mother turned to the man who had entered the room with her and nodded to Juliana. "Is she okay?"

"She's fin," said the man, his voice strong and lyrical.

Arcturus thought the man looked around the same age as his father, which put him in his mid-forties. His concern over Juliana identified him as Ailin Pasteur, and Arcturus thought him an unimpressive man for an ambassador from so important a world as Umoja.

Receding gray hair and a weak chin conspired to make Ailin Pasteur look timid, but from an early age Arcturus's father had warned him that where politicians and men of words were concerned, it was almost always the ones you underestimated who would bring you down.

"What's going on, Mother?" asked Arcturus. "Are we really under attack?"

"Yes," said Katherine, nodding. His mother was never one to sugar the pill—it was one of the things Arcturus loved about her. Ailin Pasteur took his daughter by the hand as Katherine Mengsk said. "Now we need to get to the refuge. Everyone follow me, and no dawdling."

The bark of automatic weapon fire roared from somewhere nearby. The noise was so loud it was impossible to pinpoint the source of it, but Arcturus thought it was coming from this floor.

He heard booted footsteps and more shouts.

Arcturus hauled on his mother's hand as more shooting exploded nearby.

The wooden frame around the bedroom door splintered as gunfire tore through it. Everyone screamed and dropped to the floor. Arcturus covered his ears as a clatter of metal and wood rained down from the shattered door.

A twisted spike of silver rolled across the carpet, a thin cone of metal as thick as the tip of his pinkie.

Arcturus recognized it immediately: ammunition fired from a military-grade assault rifle. A C-14 gauss rifle, to be precise. An Impaler.

He heard thumps from outside and two men spun around the doorway. One was Achton Feld, his slugthrower smoking and blood pouring from wounds in his arm and chest. The other was armed with the Impaler rifle, and Arcturus recognized him as one of his father's security guards, a man named Jaq Dolor.

As Feld's gaze swept the room, he spoke hurriedly into his shoulder mike. "Angus, it's Feld. I've got them. We're in Dot's room."

Arcturus missed the reply as another roar of gunfire sounded. Delor quickly leaned around the door and fired off a couple of shots. The noise of the gun was deafening, especially mixed together with Dorothy's sobbing cries.

"Achton," said Katherine. "Where is my husband?"

"Downstairs organizing the defense, but he's on his way,” said Feld, slamming a fresh magazine into the butt of his pistol and awkwardly racking the slide. "And we have to get out of here. We're too exposed. The refuge is just along the hall."

"We can't go out there!" said Ailin Pasteur. "We'll be killed."

"We'll be killed if we stay here, Ailin," replied Katherine.

"No time to argue," said Feld, his face pale with blood loss. "They have men coming in from both sides. Jaq, how's it looking?"

Jaq Delor raised his rifle and leaned around the door, checking left and right. He fired a burst of Impaler rounds along the length of the corridor, and Arcturus heard a scream of pain.