Manfred slithered on his belly toward me. “You okay, sir?”

“Yes!” There was blood on my hand, but that was nothing. “Get your men back toward the base.”

“Right!”

I lay there on my belly and squinted out into the woods as I yanked my pistol from its holster. Scarcely any shrubbery to hide behind in this parklike forest, but whole divisions of troops could be sheltered behind those massive trees. I wormed my way backward, looking for a depression in the ground that might offer a modicum of protection.

A laser beam singed past me, red as blood. I fired back before realizing that I should turn off the visible adjunct to the beam. The red light made it easy to see where your beam was hitting, but it also made it easy for the enemy to see where it was coming from. Tracers work both ways, I remembered from some ancient military manual.

Sure enough, a flurry of beams lanced out toward me. My senses went into overdrive as they always did in battle, slowing the world around me, but that was of little use against light-beam weapons. One of the laser bolts puffed dirt scant centimeters from my face; my eyes stung and I tasted dirt in my mouth. Another burned my shoulder. I hunkered down flatter, trying to disappear into the ground, spitting pebbles and blinking dust from my eyes.

A trio of grenades were arcing toward me. With my senses in overdrive I saw them wafting lazily through the air like little black grooved toy balloons. I popped each of them with my pistol while they were still far enough away for their explosions to harmlessly pepper the empty ground with shrapnel. Then a rocket grenade whooshed out of the woods; I had barely enough time to hit it.

I inched backward a bit more, still peering into the trees to find a trace of the enemy. Nothing. They were devilishly good at this. I heard a few muted explosions thudding far behind me, then silence. Minutes dragged by. Birds began to sing again, insects to chirrup.