* * *

"How are your people doing?"

"They're fine, Sergeant…"

"Enders, ma'am," he provided. "Other than the obvious casualties, are there any other medical emergencies?"

"No, Sergeant Enders," Dr. Willmore said. She was the chief engineering officer of Project Bluebird and the highest ranking civilian when it came to the ultra-secret communication system. Her office oversaw both R&D on the superluminal technology, as well as the production of paired units to be sent out to the fleet.

"Thanks to your colonel's insistence, we'd been doing regular emergency drills, and most of our people were able to get to the shelters when the first explosions set the alarms off. The production staff suffered the highest casualties since it seems many of the mercenaries you're fighting were among them."

Enders and Walker had come down with three full squads of Marines to do a full recon of the Bluebird production and research areas prior to Colonel Beck attempting another assault on the main control center. During all the confusion of the initial attack, the Marines had been unable to determine who might be the enemy and who was just a contractor working at the base. Thankfully, it was looking like nobody had been killed by friendly fire, but there were still dozens of slain workers who had been killed for apparently being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It seems the enemy has completely pulled back within the C&C hab," Enders said. "But I'd like your people to still exercise caution when moving about."

"Of course."

"Right now, there's a Federation taskforce within the system that's holding off the enemy ships, but from what I understand they're badly outnumbered. Colonel Serra wants to know if the critical components of the Bluebird system can be quickly configured to be moved. They'd need to be loaded onto one of the lifters and set up where one of Admiral Wolfe's starships can pick it up and get it out of the system."

"Tell your colonel we're already packed to go," Dr. Willmore said with a wan smile. "One of our mandates is we're ready to evacuate Exeter within a matter of hours. All of the finished units are palletized and ready to be put on the conveyor to the lifter hangars. Bluebird infrastructure is built into mobile containers we've already secured and configured to move. You're lucky we just started a production run. We'll only need four lifters to take all of our stock, equipment, and personnel up to orbit."

"You have the people to move it now?"

"Yes."

"Then get moving. The lifter hangars are already secured, and your people can stage up there to be ready. If you need more bodies, I can help arrange that," Enders said.

"We will handle it, Sergeant," she said. "Though, I wouldn't mind a few of your Marines staying with us as an armed escort."

"Corporal Tanzer! Get up here!"

"Sergeant?"

"Grab five others out of 1^st Squad. You'll be escorting Dr. Willmore's people from Production Hab Bravo down through the transit conveyors to the lifter hangar complex. She'll tell you what she needs."