"What is it, sarge?"
"We're pulling out of here," he said. "Everyone start gathering as much supplies as you can and start heading for the egress points. Creek, you'll be the last to go. Stay on that gun until the rest of us are down."
"Why are we leaving?" Drogan asked, alarmed. "I thought this was the last line of defense."
"There are almost a hundred marines down below now," Walker said. "They're gonna move on us at any time."
"We can fight them off!" Jeff said. "They'll have to move up those narrow staircases in order to flush us out of here! We can't let this position fall!"
"We'll do what we're ordered," Walker said. "And that's that. MPG doctrine is to not allow a position to become enveloped. I'm told this is a standard part of the defense plan. Now hurry the fuck up, people. They want us out of here as quickly as possible."
The troops inside the pillbox picked up as much as they could carry and made their way down the steps, leaving only Jeff and the three other heavy machine gunners to hold the fort. Jeff continued to mow down all he could shoot and the tanks and APCs guarding the flanks continued to do the same. Even so, the number of marines making it across the open ground grew exponentially with the reduction in fire.
"Creek," Walker's voice barked in his ear. "We're down. Get your weapon and get your ass down here too. We're rallying in the ditch just outside the pillbox."
"Right, sarge," Jeff said. "What about the seven millimeter? Do I disable it?"
"Don't worry about it," Walker said. "It's mounted to the wall and would take twenty minutes to dismount. The marines won't have any use for it other than to shoot at their own men."
"Right," Jeff said, taking his hands off it. He picked up his pack and his M-24 and headed for the stairs. The trip down took him less than two minutes. Once in the access trench he began following it east until he caught up with the rest of the troops that had evacuated the pillbox. They were moving rapidly toward the rear.
"Where the fuck are we going?" Drogan asked.
"There are small trenches lined with sandbags two hundred meters further down. We're going to occupy those and make the marines lives a little more miserable."
"Move, marines, move!" Callahan ordered less than a minute later. "They're pulling out of the position."
His make-shift company — which was staffed with only ten people who had originally been assigned to him — moved back up against the wall of the pillbox and began to edge along it, turning the south corner and heading for the access point.
"Hunter," he said, talking to his second-in-command, "keep close to that wall and keep low. The tanks and the APCs shouldn't be able to hit you along that side. Be careful when you get to the east side. The Martians who just left might be in firing positions."
"Right, Captain," Hunter replied, passing that order along to the rest of the men.
"And remember," Callahan said, "we don't know for sure they evacuated that position. This could be a trap. They could be waiting up there to gun us all down as soon as we enter. And be careful even if they did evacuate. The Martians love to booby-trap things."
"Yes, sir," Hunter replied.
He led the men forward, keeping them hugging the wall. They passed around the corner without incident although all of them nervously eyed the Martian tank position located less than one hundred meters away. They could hear the booms as it fired its main gun out at the advancing troops in the open ground, could hear the stuttering of its twenty millimeter gun and its four millimeter commander's gun. It paid them no attention, however. It couldn't fire on them even if it wanted to since it was below their line of sight.
The lead men made it to the southeast corner of the pillbox without incident. As they slipped around this corner, however, intending to drop into the access trench thirty meters away, small arms fire erupted from about two hundred meters east of them. Bullets came flying in, slamming into the concrete wall, dropping several of the men to the ground. Cries of "Get Down!" began to overlap on the net.
"Move forward! Move forward!" Hunter ordered. "Get into that trench!"
The men were now well oriented to what to do when under fire. Most of them had hit the ground the moment the fire had come in. They did not return fire. Instead they crawled forward on hands and knees as quickly as they could. Some got hit and dropped where they were. Most made it through and were able to throw themselves inside.
"What's the situation, Hunter?" Callahan asked as the next group of men turned the corner and started crawling forward.
"We're taking fire from a sandbagged position about three hundred meters behind the pillbox," Hunter replied. "Looks like company strength at least. They opened up as soon as we exposed ourselves over here."
"Can you get some covering fire on them?"
"Not from this position," he answered. "Not that will do any good anyway. We're both at ground level and they're behind sandbags. The men are moving forward on their bellies. Most are making it into the access trench."
"Copy," Callahan said. "I'm sending another platoon sized unit around from the other side of the pillbox. Once you get in there you should be able to return fire on them from a better vantage point."
"My thoughts exactly, sir," Hunter said. "I'm moving in with the next group. I'll give you a report once I'm inside."
"Copy."
Hunter looked at the thirty or so men gathered with him. He took a few deep breaths, bracing himself for the exposure to enemy fire again. "Okay, guys," he said. "Let's do it. Keep low and move fast."
They kept low and moved fast. Eight of them were shot down on the trip. Hunter was not one of them. Moving faster than he would have thought possible he elbowed and kneed his way across the rocky ground and virtually threw himself into the narrow trench. He then made his way back to the west, towards the opening of the pillbox. The entryway was about six meters square and was crowded with the troops that had already made it inside. At the far end was a concrete staircase, leading up to a small landing where it switched back.
"Anyone gone up there yet?" Hunter asked as he made his way forward.
"No one," one of the sergeants replied. "We're kind of wondering about booby traps. Remember how the Martians had their trenches rigged in the gap?"
"I remember," Hunter said. "We still have to get up there though."
"We need to wait for the sappers to come up and clear the position," the sergeant said.
"The sappers can't move forward until we open a corridor to get troops through," Hunter replied. "We can't do that until we clear this position."
"I'm not going up there first," the sergeant said. Most of the men around him nodded their heads, indicating they felt the same.
Hunter sighed, knowing that simply ordering someone up wouldn't work. It would probably only serve to get him fragged, something he'd heard rumor of happening over the past few days when a sergeant or a lieutenant ordered something unpopular. "All right," he said, trying not to show how terrified he was, "I'll go up. If I make it to the top, you all need to follow me. Deal?"
"It's your funeral," the sergeant said. "But yeah, if you make it up there, we'll follow."
He started up, his M-24 held out before him, his feet taking each step with the knowledge that it might really be his last this time. He made it to the landing without incident and then slowly turned the corner, peeking up the next section of stairway. He saw nothing. He started up this section and again made it to the top without incident. Here there was a passageway that led into the lower level of the pillbox. It was empty of Martian troops except for a couple of dead ones. Shell casings and ammo boxes were everywhere. The mounted machine guns that had killed so many of them were still in place.