“Die.”

Lieutenant Smith spoke from the driver’s seat as he started the SUV. “I do have some Perception, but I didn’t see Nguyen as he walked back. If someone like us attacked while he was gone, one of us would die. What does it take to see through an ability like that?”

Serenity shook his head. Even here he was acting as a teacher. “Either an ability that counters it - the way I can tell where he is without depending on visible light - or high enough Perception. Generally, you need Perception at the tier of the ability to even have a chance; for a Tier One ability, that means over a hundred. The higher the Perception is, the better your chance is. It’s not going to be easy if it’s your primary sense and you’re just depending on your Perception unless you have several Tiers’ worth of advantage. The thing is, Perception’s useful for a lot of things other than seeing through invisibility. Seeing what your opponent is doing so you can deal with it is also helped by having a better Perception.”

He clearly needed to revise the stats section of the Guide. He’d made it pretty generic when he wrote it, partly because not everyone had the same stats available and partly because he’d thought it was pretty obvious.

Lieutenant Smith spoke quickly, cutting off anything else Serenity might have said. “Useful. Nguyen, any reason to stay here or is this one a bust?”

“No.”

Officer Nguyen was clearly back to his habit of saving words.

Serenity watched Officer Nguyen sneak back from the second house to the SUV. Like the first house, it wasn’t one of the ones he’d figured out a location for with Ita. Unlike the first house, Officer Nguyen was returning much sooner and seemed to be trying to actually sneak instead of depending on his Path Skill. It was clear he had limited experience with actually sneaking; Serenity had the feeling that he could do better, and he’d never been very good at the sneaky stuff.

This time, Serenity turned to the others. “He’s on his way back. Sneaking, not just invisible.” Now that he thought about it, Nguyen hadn’t sneaked like that on the way to the house; he’d simply walked. “I think he may have found something.”

Nguyen climbed into the front passenger seat, closed the door, and became visible before he said anything. “The back door’s smashed. I didn’t check more.”

Lieutenant Smith nodded sharply. “Plenty of reason. They’ll probably go out the back if we hit the front; Nguyen, you’re with me. Jones and Surrey, you’re at the back; capture if you can but deadly force is already authorized on Sterath. Serenity, go with Jones and Surrey. Try to avoid getting killed; I don’t want to explain that.”

“Same to you. Be careful if you see a leader; there’s a good chance he could be Tier Three.” Serenity hopped out of the SUV without waiting for a response. It wasn’t like they could do anything about it if there was a Tier Three, and enchanted guns were actually a huge equalizer for that. A Tier Three was exceedingly unlikely to have a personal shield, and even if they did, it wouldn’t stop a normal bullet, much less an enchanted one.

The others hadn’t moved, so Serenity stuck his head back in through the still-open window. “He should still be vulnerable to being shot, it’ll just be like he’s wearing armor even if he isn’t. Magic will help. If you need help, yell.”

Lieutenant Smith put his hand on the gun on his hip, then forced himself to release it. “As long as guns work, I’ll be fine. How can we tell who the leader is?”

Serenity shrugged. “Same way as anywhere else, he’s the one giving the orders.” Ranks could also be read off the carapace, but Serenity didn’t have time to get into that level of detail. It’d take hours at best - and even then, it was often best to fall back on figuring out who was giving orders. That was the person who needed to be dealt with, even if they weren’t the highest rank.

Serenity wove a small trap spell while he waited for the Sterath to appear. He wanted something to make them trip as they came out the door. There were many different ways to do it; reducing friction using either Solid (excessive smoothness) or Liquid (some sort of grease) was a classic, but Serenity’s Solid and Liquid Affinities were relatively poor. It was probably possible with SpaceTime; after all, gravity was in SpaceTime so even if he couldn’t directly affect friction he could probably make someone trip using a local change in gravity.

Instead of any of those, Serenity had decided he wanted to use Liminality. Not only was it a very high Affinity, it would let him control exactly where it happened. He’d misalign the door, so that someone stepping though would have to step down about a foot to stay at the same level as they crossed from one side of the threshold to the other. That ought to be enough to achieve something, especially if the Sterath came through at speed. They might recover, since their hop was really very stable, but they might not and even a momentary bobble would help.

The door itself hung from the doorframe, damaged. It more or less blocked Serenity’s view into the house, but the fact that it was “open” made a Liminal spell much easier to cast.

Serenity vaguely heard a pounding noise and a voice from the other side of the house. He couldn’t make out any words, but it was definitely Lieutenant Smith. Good enough. He cast the spell, grateful that it wouldn’t cost much until someone actually went through it, then warned the others. “I’ve got a spell on the doorway; it should make anyone who goes through it trip. If you need to get inside, tell me so I can take it down.”

There was a loud BANG from the front of the house. It wasn’t a gunshot; it sounded more wooden than that.

Officer Surrey grinned. “They’re heading in. If the first floor is clear-”

Gunfire interrupted whatever she was going to say next. Serenity couldn’t tell them apart by the sound, but the pattern of the noise made him think that there were at least two guns, one in a much more experienced (or at least faster) hand than the other.

The door in front of the three of them flew open, followed almost immediately by a Sterath flinging himself out of the building. Officer Surrey was the closest; she threw herself at the Sterath, bodychecking him and slamming him into the ground. Serenity was fairly confident she’d actually cracked his outer shell when it slammed into the concrete outside the door. She pulled her baton and started whaling on the Sterath, mostly aiming at his head.

If the Sterath’s expression said anything, it was that he wasn’t going to be a problem for long. He wasn’t going to be conscious for long.

Another Sterath followed the first through the doorway. Instead of being hit by a woman throwing herself at him, this Sterath tried to avoid the tangle partially blocking the door and ended up falling on his chest when he didn’t touch ground as expected; he landed on one of Officer Surrey’s legs and simply tipped over. Serenity supposed he’d count that as a success, since his spell had certainly affected the two Sterath as they went through the doorway.

Serenity got a good look at this Sterath. He was a lowly no-rank, only Tier One, and was clearly terrified. This wasn’t an elite group like the Scout Strike Group Serenity had eliminated.

Serenity stepped forward and hit the Sterath once on the back of the head with the flat of his axeblade. The Sterath collapsed. Serenity hoped he hadn’t hit too hard; that sort of hit could be deadly, especially when someone then collapsed immediately.

Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about that now. He’d needed to stop the Sterath’s struggles, and as long as he didn’t actually die it could be taken care of by a Healer. Probably.

They waited, but no other Sterath came out the door before the gunfire stopped.

The door swung open again, but this time it was Lieutenant Smith. He looked at the two unconscious Sterath then nodded to himself. “Well done. Jones, Stay with them in case they wake up. Nguyen’s watching the survivors in the house and will call for ambulances.” He paused and looked at Serenity. “This was easier than I expected.”

“This one was a no-rank; I think we’d call that a barely-trained recruit, just out of basic training.” He took a good look at the carapace of the one Officer Surrey had just pulled herself off of. “Looks like this one was too. Young and barely trained, not selected for anything other than the simplest tasks. This is as easy as it’s going to get.”

“Will there be anyone stronger? I didn’t see anyone better than terrible.” Lieutenant Smith was visibly watching the rest of the house.

“There should be. I doubt they’d let the recruits be on their own. Not sure what rank they’d have, so I don’t know how tough they’ll be. Maybe Tier Two?” Serenity hoped that would be the case. Tier Two people were common on other worlds, but if that was all they’d assigned to command a subdivision of their forces, it meant they were spread thin. The low number of Sterath they’d seen at this house certainly seemed to support that guess.

“Surrey, Serenity, you’re with me. We’re going to check out upstairs.” Lieutenant Smith led the way into the house.

The back door led into a large living area, with a set of stairs off to the left. The living area seemed to take up nearly the entire first floor; Serenity could see the front door at the opposite end, and there was a bar between the huge open room and the kitchen. The only other doors Serenity saw were open, leading to a pair of closets, the HVAC system, and a bathroom. Lieutenant Smith and Officer Nguyen seemed to have already cleared the first floor.

Upstairs was likely to be a whole new ballgame; Serenity expected the stronger Sterath to be there, since they hadn’t found them downstairs. They were probably counting on the recruits being a distraction.

Why would they be hiding upstairs? That didn’t seem to be very honorable, even if it was smart, and Serenity knew the Sterath tended to value honor over strategy. It was probably in their orders; they’d been told to avoid alerting humans to their presence and to hide if possible; otherwise, it seemed unlikely anyone would hide.

Could he take advantage of that?

Serenity grinned and put a hand on Lieutenant Smith’s shoulder. “Would you prefer to meet a charge at the top of the stairs or the bottom?”

Lieutenant Smith turned his entire body to face Serenity. “The bottom; limited space for them and we can’t be pushed backwards down the stairs. What are you planning?”

However much he wanted to say “you’ll see”, that was a terrible way to work with a team. Serenity’s grin dimmed a bit, then widened. Maybe it would be even better this way. “Sterath are very, very honorable warriors. Hiding has to chafe; I thought I’d insult them until they can’t stand it anymore and come out to face us.”

Lieutenant Smith stared at Serenity for a moment before his grin began to widen. “I’m definitely in favor of shooting them while they charge me with melee weapons.”

Officer Surrey just punched Serenity in the shoulder. Even through the body armor, it hurt.