THEM: ARMAGEDDON (Book Three)

Chapter Two

     Brock found Rick by the edge of the forest by their hidden base. He was up on a hill that could oversee the whole area.

"Rick, I need to talk to you," Brock said as he approached.

"We got a situation," Rick commented as he looked out over the area with a high-powered scope on his rifle. "Something potentially very, very bad."

"What is it?" Brock asked as he looked out. He could see an alien installation nearby at the closest edge of the forest. There appeared to be a human vehicle parked outside. "Is someone robbing that alien post?"

"Looks like it," Rick commented. "I was thinking about shooting their truck and disabling their engine."

"Why would you do that?" Brock asked n shock. "They are resistance like us?"

"The aliens maintain that area with tech and weapons but have not noticed we are hiding here," Rick commented. "They are on their way to the alarm set off by the scavengers. If the scavengers get away with the parts, they are going to start a comprehensive search of the area and they will find us."

"We can't throw them under the bus for our own sake!" Brock argued. "Maybe they won't notice."

"The aliens will notice," Rick commented. "The only thing protecting us here is the fact that they think there is nothing going on here. They start looking they will find them really quick."

"But can we really make us or them decisions?" Brock asked. "They are just survivors like us and they re trying to do what is right for them. Are we any more important than they are."

"Well that is a question you have to ask of yourself," Rick suggested, lining up the shot so if it was decided to shoot that he could take it. "We have a real shot of getting some stuff don here and we have to protect our own. They know that the aliens will come down on all the people in this area hard for what they are taking. Whether it is right or not is moot, for it is right for them and not us. There are three of them and more of us and we have more to lose."

"I never like these tough decisions," Brock admitted. "No one ever could think that they would be faced with them but here we are, surrounded by hostile aliens and we face them almost daily. I would think that they would get easier, but they don't. This is still hard and I don't know how I can make it."

"Well let me put it this way," Rick suggested. "You are letting your heart weigh into it when this is a situation that can be looked at using simple logic. When you break down things into logic they can easily be decided."

Brock nodded. "That makes a lot of sense. A lot of things are like that lately. What do you got?"

"Well imagine if you will that our places were flipped," Rick began. "Those three down there had a shot on us and it was us or them. Do you imagine that they would think any better or else it would come down to the same thing? Ultimately it is us or them, one of us can be undone and the other survive, or it can be all of us. Those are the only things to be thinking of."

     Brock turned his back to the valley and took a breath. He knew that Rick would have no issue taking the shot and the ramifications of doing so. He was leaving it to Brock out of respect and this was his mission. Brock wanted to debate the details but Rick was right. No matter the morality of it, no matter ow right what the people was doing there was far more to it than that. Brock knew that some day he might have the luxury of debating the choices he made but, in the moment, he had to take them ad could not afford to second guess. 

"Take the shot."

     The shot rang off and even at the distance, Brock could hear the car get struck, the bullet damaging the engine. The human thieves came out of the complex, their arms filled with alien tech. There was an alien patrol craft coming toward them and they had precious time. They tried desperately to start their vehicle and make their escape, but it would not start.