"Six to eight," Dora answers, skittering sideways to the partial shelter offered by a chunk of fallen masonry. "That's what they said at Lighthouse Point, anyway."

The first of the dropships- there are two- passes overhead and begins to lower itself for a landing. If one were to cross some sort of crab with a massive flying robot, engines glowing blue in the ends of the larger legs, it might look like that. Its smaller legs are clutching a dull black metallic container, which it sets down before landing entirely. The other hovers, awaiting its turn.

As the door opens on the container a pair of scanners drop from the hovering crab-thing's underside, sweeping down the street and beeping furiously.