Contact [INDEFINITE HOLD]

5. Search

Inye dismounted from the APC, looking around. Although the storm hadn't caused flooding in this area, the houses had been decimated by the wind and rain. Some were little more than "matchsticks," as the general had put it. The ones that weren't demolished were being checked for structural weakness before sending in search crews. The weakest ones were given to Umbra squad. Only they had the armor to withstand a collapse.

Most of the houses on the right side of the street were obliterated, and Inye was saddened by the destruction as she dismounted, looking around to see if anyone besides Umbra squad and the local military forces was visible. It was depressing to know that each house had sheltered a life just like her own, with the same potential for everything that sentience entailed as herself, and that those lives were now shattered, possibly for a very long time, and likely permanently.

The engineers began inspecting the only house left standing on this side of the street, a little one-story place that looked about ready to fall over in any sort of atmospheric disturbance, down to a stiff wind. How it had survived the most violent of atmospheric storms unscathed escaped Inye, yet it was declared safe for inspection by the human soldiers. Of course, because this was a joint operation intended to create goodwill, Sergeant Komoran led a handful of the privates in as well.

The way the house was constructed, it seemed to be rather large for a family, and yet this was supposed to be on the small side for these people. That made sense, once she thought about it. Space was cheap on a planet. It was mind-boggling the amount of area available, coming from a background where she not only could see every point of her personal universe from every other point, but also one that valued that space from a military perspective as well as a comfort one. When she had been growing up there had even been serious debates over whether buildings that were too high presented an unacceptable risk of collapse under fire.

Inye stood outside the APC, thinking and idly flipping through communications channels. The humans had decent encryption, she had to admit. The issue was that her systems could break it in a matter of seconds. Quantum computing gave her such a laughable advantage in terms of cryptography and brute-force processing power that she could tap in to every wireless channel in the city, secure or not. That would have to change if the humans were to have a future, but that could to come later. For now, she listened to the sound of calm, methodical rescue operations on a scale that was truly stunning.

The search crew left the lone house and began walking towards the APCs. Another empty home. At least finding no bodies it was possible that the inhabitants had made it out. Not bothering to load up the vehicles again, they began walking towards the supermarket to see if anyone had holed up there.

Her head snapped back and she fell to the ground, the crack of a sniper rifle combining with the crack of her own reactive armor to shatter the silence.