"If it's too important, Wolfe won't bite when he gets word of where we are," Russo said. "He'll have to stay there and secure it." The captain's quick mind and ability to tie the ends together with limited information never failed to impress Vadim Kohl. Vincent Russo had a sharp mind and unwavering loyalty. Kohl could not have created a more fitting protégé for himself had he done it in a lab.

"I've got some contacts I can push on, sir," Russo said. "I should know something fairly quickly."

"Be discreet. This is for my eyes only."

"Of course, sir."

* * *

"Holy hell!"

Sergeant Enders was staggered from the force of the last explosion. It had been a deep, powerful blast that shook the base so hard he lost his footing. The lighting in that section winked out, and the red emergency lights kicked on a split second later.

"Are your coms still out?" Sergeant Walker asked.

"Yeah. Not even static, so we're probably being jammed," Enders said.

The pair of NCO's led Walker's squad out away from arboretum once the engineers had arrived and relieved them. They'd been exchanging fire sporadically with small fire teams along the way but had yet to meet any sizable invading force. They'd pushed out in a loop through the large access tunnels that would let them recon up to where the manufacturing hab entrance was, and then back towards the command and control center to meet back up with the rest of their forces.

The Marines securing Exeter Base were at battalion strength, but the facility was simply enormous. Fleet R&D had been bringing in techs and engineers by the shipload to keep up with demand on some of the black projects housed there. In short order, the Marines found themselves vastly outnumbered by civilians who had been cleared by some clerk on the New Sierra Platform. Enders had joked about how the Alliance was probably shipping in an assault force a few people at a time when the first few loaded ships arrived…didn't seem so funny now.

"They're blowing all the main power junctions in this section," Walker said. "Why would they be doing that?"

"No idea," Enders said. "I'm never down here."

"Damnit," Walker said, stopping to look around. "Talk about getting caught flat-footed. We need to get to a hard line and see if we can get word back to Battalion. These sons of bitches are running around lighting bombs off everywhere, and we're barely able to get them cornered to engage. They've got the base—and our responses—mapped out exactly. Corporal Juuvon…get your ass up here!"

A husky corporal with additional tech affixed all over his battle harness jogged up to the pair. He looked Enders over with a bit of distrust before looking at Walker expectantly.

"Our coms are down."

"Well-aware of that, Sarge."

"Can we connect to a hard line somewhere around here?" Walker asked. "And I want the answer without a bunch of lip."

"It's possible to get packet traffic up to C&C through the base's maintenance network. That's a low-bandwidth, low-security system the enemy probably wouldn't waste the time to sabotage," Juuvon said. "I can tap in at any environmental panel like the one up there."