The surviving mercenaries relied on their instincts formed through long-term training and their desire to survive, helping each other while dragging the wounded, abandoning those outer fortifications that could no longer be defended, retreating en masse like the tide into the relatively sturdy concrete main building.
They used everything they could find to reinforce the doors and windows, then tightly curled up behind load-bearing columns, in corners, or other places they believed to be safest, silently praying that the "allies" with whom they had never truly collaborated would fire their artillery with precision and ferocity.
Time slowly ticked by, each second accompanied by the heavy thump of their hearts.
