The following morning, Second Company stopped outside the first survivor enclave on its eastern route.
The surrounding roads had already been cleared the previous afternoon. Scouts checked them again after sunrise before Sabine allowed anyone closer to the barricades.
Most of the company remained several blocks away.
Bringing thirty Guardian APCs and twenty Vanguards to someone's front door was not particularly useful if the objective was to convince them that nobody intended to take the place by force. Not unless that someone was an infected.
Sabine took one Guardian APC forward with a Standard Infantry Squad.
The road narrowed between several residential buildings before ending at a barricade assembled from abandoned vehicles, concrete barriers, fencing, and whatever else the survivors had managed to move into place. People watched from windows and rooftops farther inside.
Several carried rifles, but nobody fired.
