They have to attack tonight, I told myself. They want to knock out the transceiver before we get it operational. It makes no sense for them to wait until—

“Some movement in fourth sector,” I heard a sergeant’s guarded whisper in my earphones.

That was off to my left. I peered across the gully and into the trees out there. I could see nothing.

But when I swung my head back I saw a flicker of movement among the trees directly in front of me. They’re out there, I told myself. Getting ready to hit us.

What if they use nukes? I had pondered that question all day. The transceiver components were shielded; nothing short of a direct hit would damage them. Our body armor could absorb a lot of punishment and protect us from radiation. But a tactical nuclear grenade could kill most of us very quickly and allow the enemy to walk in and dismantle the transceiver by hand, if they wanted to. We had no defense against tactical nukes.

Nor did we have any nukes of our own. Our mission was basically logistical, not attack. If anyone started throwing nukes around, it would be the enemy and we would be fried meat.

I saw more movement out among the trees. Of course, we had the automated antimissile lasers. They had been the first package we had set up. They could track a missile and zap it within microseconds, although how well they could track through the heavy canopy of the trees was a question I wondered about. Could they pick up a grenade at short range and destroy it? I doubted that.

Suddenly half the world lit up and a terrific roar shook the ground. My visor sensors overloaded and turned off. With my unaided eyes I saw that they had fired a barrage of rocket grenades at us, roaring in low to the ground, flat trajectories. Our antimissile lasers fired and blew away several of them in brilliant blossoms of flame.