THEM: RAPTURE (Book Two)

Chapter Three

     Brock entered the office of Willis. He had set up in one of the command rooms and was overseeing all resistance operations. The man was a retired officer before the war brought him back and seemed like the long hours were starting to take their toll on him. Brock stood still, waiting to be spoken to, knowing that the difference between Willis being in a good mood and a bad mood was a razor-sharp margin.

"Brock," Willis began, still sitting at his desk. "Let me tell you a story."

"A story sir?" Brock asked, not sure the relevance of such a thing.

"You know something," Willis began. "I have been a soldier for a hell of a long time. I have more experience than most, and around here, I can confidently say all. I remember fighting in places where we had next to nothing but our guts and our guns. We learned to rely on things like this and we thought that the line between life and death could only be held back as such. 

"But later in my career, a lot of technology started coming at us. Strange devices meant to give us an edge, tech and bells and whistles. My unit thought that this was a waste of time. How could a little gadget replace our instincts and experience? We fought against it, trying to prove that we knew what was what."

"Change is terrifying to many sir," Brock added. "I know that all too well."

"We were sent in to smoke out some enemies in a place we thought we knew well," Willis continued. "We were told to rely on the tech it was what it was built for after all. However, we were stubborn and were sure we knew what was best, so we largely ignored it. We had this idea that we would go in and do things the old school way and when we succeeded, we would prove that our way was best after all. You wanna know what happened?"

"It did not go as you planned it, sir?" Brock guessed.

"No, it most certainly did not," Willis replied. "We were hesitant to use all of the tools and technology available, but you know who wasn't? The enemy. They saw us coming a mile away and laid a trap for us. We were almost all slaughtered and barely made it out with anyone alive. We were betrayed by our pride, our stubbornness and our ignorance."

"We are in an unprecedented time against the aliens and their invasion. And as easy as it is to pretend that our own rules of engagement and tactics will work, they wont. The aliens have stuff we have never seen and tactics that are nonsensical to the way we are used to doing things. We need to think outside the box here and think of tactics that will surprise the aliens like they have surprised us." 

"The only victories we have against them are ones where we did something they could not have expected for us. So as much as command and the lines of protocol dictate it. I want to forget it. Any soldier, any survivor, any civilian that has an idea how to fight these things I want to hear it. We are not exactly winning here, and we got to stop pretending and start thinking!"

     Brock found things were getting more and more cryptic around the bunker. There were a lot of people that wanted to fight the aliens, but it seemed as though they were struggling for ways to do it. Things were tense and hard to reconcile. That is when Rick returned. Brock had heard of a strange man in an alien built suit that had come in from the waste and it was no doubt who it was. Rick ran down and greeted him. 

"I knew you would eventually find your way to us, old man," Brock greeted him.

Nathan laughed. "Part of me wishes you had been kept waiting longer. Though I think it is time for me to rejoin the human race."

"You have great timing," Brock replied with a smile. "We are figuring some things out about the aliens. As the one with the most experience on them, well anywhere, we would love your opinion on it."

"Well I have been alone for a long time so I would love a chance to put my knowledge to work. I already been raining some of your young friends on how to avoid the crafty traps that are out there."

"Well we got a lot for you to do," Brock said with a smile. "Come with me."

     Brock took Rick to the lab where Jason and Willis had set up. They had taken the radio and hooked it to diagnostic equipment while a group of other researchers went over Jason's notes.

"Basically, Jason here found a strange signal hidden on radio channels," Brock explained. "We think it I a recorded alien signal but unlike anything we have heard before."

"Yeah I have heard it," Rick replied. "Figured it was alien but never could make much sense of it."

"It is some sort of mathematical language," Jason added. "As far as we can figure out it is encrypted. We are tying to decipher it, but it seems that it was made this way to hide it from other aliens."

"Well there are a lot of different ones out there," Rick commented. "Not only the different castes and sizes there are distinct alien species. I think these guys have taken other worlds before and some of the resources they took were other alien races. Some of them are probably not so keen on what ha happened."

"I have a theory," Willis chimed in. "What if one of these races who cannot fight for themselves are reaching out to others that might help them?"

"That would make a certain amount of sense as most of the aliens cannot perceive radio," Brock admitted. "That is why we use it."

"So, you are thinking that one of the aliens realized their masters don't use our radio frequencies?" Rick asked. "And they might be using it to talk to us?"

"I think that is exactly it," Jason suggested. "Our languages are not really that common, and according to Brock, only the big ones can even try ours. If one of the other aces wanted to try and communicate with us this might be how they would do it."

"Well that I a very interesting theory," Rick commented. "Though before we go much further with the wild speculation, we need to know one thing. What is it they are trying to tell us."

     After many long hours the group tried to find out what kind of hidden information might be contained in the message. They did not know what they were looking for, but anything would help. Though they were able to fight the aliens, it seemed that for the most part they were infinite and invincible. The main hope that in this message might contain some sort of weakness that could be used against them. There was not much for weeks as they went over all the information that they had but soon Jason made a breakthrough.

"The message seems to be both really simple and yet very complex," Jason admitted. "I was able to glean much information from it."

"Well we need to find something we can use," Harris commented. "The resistance grows weaker by the day and they get stronger seemingly by the minute. We need to find something we can use against them."

"Well I will give you what I have so far," Jason commented. "The message seems to state that there are those who have fought the aliens already. And they did so in times when humanity was still trying to figure out how to cross the oceans. They have a ship apparently, one that was captured by the aliens. There is some kind of weakness, but they did not have the resources or opportunity to use it against the aliens."

"Does it say what the weakness is?" Brock asked. "Maybe it is a thing that we can use against them?"

"No," Jason admitted. "I would imagine that would be far to obvious a thing to be left where we could find it. They were risking much letting us know what we do already."

"Then we gotta find the ship," Brock commented. "We need to know how to fight these things and if there is some kind of interstellar civilization that has fought them and almost won before that is something we need to know. They have all but decided they have won, and we are on the very verge of becoming extinct."

"You think that I don't know that?" Jason retorted. "I have lost as much as any when those things came down here."

"Then how do we do it?" Harris asked. "How do we find that ship?"

"We search," Jason replied. "Because if we find it, we find how we can retake the earth."