So I pissed on my rifle and got it working again, feeling slightly embarrassed in the back of my mind but glad to have the rifle functioning once more.

We were being forced back toward the heart of our camp. The Skorpis were evidently willing to spend as many of their warriors as they had to in order to destroy us. This was not a battle of attrition; it was a battle of annihilation. Either we wiped them out or they wiped us out.

Like all battles, though, there came a lull. We had fallen back to a tight little ring around the camp. Most of our bubble tents had been shot to shreds and the antimissile lasers had taken several blasts, but the screens around the transceiver were holding up. So far. The fires that we had started among the trees around our original perimeter had mostly died away now, although the air was still filled with a smoky, woody redolence.

I called my lieutenants together to see how we stood. We met in a muddy crater blown into the ground by a rocket grenade. Casualties were serious, but our weapons were still functioning; we had plenty of spare power packs for them. We were almost out of grenades, though.

“Report our situation to the fleet commander,” I told Lieutenant Vorl. She edged away from the rest of us, opened up the wrist of her armor and started tapping on the keyboard set inside.

“The transceiver’s still intact,” I summed up, “but we can’t afford to retreat any further. They’re almost within hand-grenade range of the equipment now.”

“The screens will still protect the equipment,” said Lieutenant Quint.

“Yeah, but not us,” Frede grumbled.

“It’s only another hour or so until dawn,” Quint said. “According to Intelligence, the Skorpis almost always break off their attacks when daylight comes up.”

“And Intelligence has been a hundred percent on everything so far, haven’t they?” Frede countered.