THEM: RAPTURE (Book Two)

Chapter Eleven

     The group paused to rest for a moment and Brock looked at the others. He could see the not only mental but physical fatigue on the others show themselves. "I know things seem pretty bleak. I know that. I have seen pretty optimistic people face what we are facing, and it overwhelmed them. So many of us have been slaughtered and it seems that even our most powerful technology does little to them and when it does more just replace them."

"This is a crappy speech," Thomas commented.

"I'm not done," Brock replied, shooting him a side look. "The aliens did a lot of damage, killed a lot of us and then hunkered down. But you notice that they only attack us in small groups now? This is because there are things, they don't want us to know. Rick and I have seen it, the people back at home base know it and it encourages me."

"I don't understand," Thomas admitted. "To me it seems like the planet is pretty much theirs."

"I know I am young and not as experienced as other people fighting these things, but I am great at recognizing patterns," Brock explained. "To many it seemed that the tactic of the aliens is impossible to gauge. However, I have figured it out. The aliens knew that there was not enough of them to take on our species head on. They used all of their big offensive weapons, all their detonators and mass destruction devices first. They took out as much as they could in a surprise attack, damaging us and making us think they were invincible."

"We went into hiding, thinking that they were invincible and fought among ourselves. The aliens have not used any of these weapons since, not because we are beaten because they have none left. They are not infinite, but there is a lot of them. There is also a lot of earth for them to cover and a lot of spread out pockets of humans. We are survivors and once we get into survival mode, we are harder to fight."

"The aliens are stretched thin and they are trying to hide that fact. If we manage to find a way to turn the tides it will be like a domino effect. We can push back and we can fight back. We just have to find that advantage, get that win and it will go from there. We are the underdogs here, but we can win this."

"That is a pretty decent pep talk," Melissa admitted. "You like the leader where you come from, elite soldier second generation?"

"Not at all," Brock said with a laugh. "I am just some kid that lost everything but gained some really useful skills fast. Turned out it took the need of the world for me to figure out what I was good at."

"Well you are a leader," Rick said as he patted Brock on the back. "We will need men like you."

"Well I hope that we can find what we need in here," Rick commented. "Because we need something to instill hope."

Melissa nodded. "Yes, I am a person who like you has not much waiting for me out there. I had resigned myself to thinking about how to get by today and how to figure out how this forest worked. But I realize that is short sighted and eventually I will need to return"

"Makes sense to me" Rick commented. "Though I am very good at hiding I think were I to have kept hiding I would surely have been destroyed eventually."

"My previous group was like that as well," Thomas continued. "They could not think two steps ahead and could not focus on anything other than the right now. There is a bigger picture and if we just do our own things it might mean the end of humanity."

"We are on the brink of it," Rick commented. "I think the aliens assume that we are so badly broken that we will eventually just collapse in on ourselves. It has been hard to get people to work together."

"I could not make them see," Brock said with a sigh, remembering his long journey before he found the survivors bunker.

"We all want to pretend that the world that used to be, the lives we used to have were not gone," Thomas added. "But it is gone, it is all gone forever. The first step is realizing that."