The platoon settled into their new location and the intensity of their fire increased. Major Collins only wanted to sit still for a few minutes and continue this retrograde bounding towards the rear. They had only a thirteen hundred meter movement to meet up with their air ride to freedom.

Lieutenant Koh offered a suggestion to the Platoon Commander, [i]"sir, permission to do something crazy? I'm pretty damned good at moving like a ghost in this jungle terrain. Our main body leaves too large of a footprint for a stealth retreat, but I can remain out of sight and assist in directing our marksmen along the flanks to slow the Salvesh while evading their fire. If we bleed them enough they might change their minds on stalking us."[/i]

Major Collins listened to the young woman explain her idea. He knew this did not mesh with his plan to keep everyone alive and together. “I’m sorry Lieutenant Koh, but I cannot let you do that. I want to keep the platoon alive and together. I need you to keep eyes on the group in front of us and take a look at what might be behind us. The CO is calling in some birds to air lift us out of this shit hole. We need to make it thirteen hundred meters further south to get out of here. So, far our casualties have been light. I’d like to keep it that way. Keep your eyes up and let me know what you see, ok?”

Major Collins continued shifting mortar fire onto the Salvesh. He then ordered each of the squads to successively bound rearwards a hundred meters at a time in order to keep at least one squad and one General Purpose Machine Gun putting rounds on the enemy at all times. It was a lot of hard work, but the earthling platoon was attriting the enemy and preserving their force by sacrificing terrain for time. The enemy could not bring their entire combat power to bear on his platoon if they continued to move rearward. At best they were attacking the humans in a column formation rather than a linear one.