THEM: ARMAGEDDON (Book Three)

Chapter Eight

     She lay back down and thought back to that moment, the moment that the world changed. She wondered what ever happened to Lesko and the others, all set together to play the lottery of who would love and who would die. She was lucky and proved to have the skills to do what needed to be done. She could only wonder if they did but she did not think so.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Jason came to the door. "Harris, we established communication with Brock. We have a lot of work to do."

     In the briefing room Harris, David and Willis stood and looked at a makeshift screen. On the screen was Brock and Melissa. They had used an old satellite that was till in orbit and connected using a frequency that even if the aliens somehow accepted they would be unable to unscramble.

"We think we have a weapon that we can use against the aliens," Brock explained. "But it is kinda a doozy."

"Explain," Willis requested. "At this point even unorthodox tactics are on the table."

"Well, that is what we need to use," Melissa added. "The aliens are an army like nothing humanity has ever produced or faced. We are a group of individuals who though we work well at teamwork we have our own minds and are able to make choices. The aliens are very much not like that and that is their weakness."

"The aliens may be more complicated and sophisticated than machines, but they work in a network," Brock explained. "There are some aliens that control the others. I have taken one out before."

"We have been trying to find the others like this controller you faced," Willis commented. "They seem to be very rare and well defended."

"We do not imagine there is very many of them," Harris added. "Less than one percent of all the aliens are the ones that are in control."

"It makes sense," David chimed up. "To limit the aunt of power shared they have the smallest amount of sentient queens controlling all the other levels of their war machine. They have been building this up for who knows how long and everything they have done, everything they have taken is part of this."

"This is all very fascinating," Willis commented, looking like the long hours were finally catching up to the old man. "Does this weapon allow us to find the controller aliens?"

"No," Brock admitted. "But it will make it, so someone does that very job for us."

"I don't understand," Willis commented. "What allies can we count on in this?"

"The aliens themselves," Brock said with a grin. "Harris tested out a device that would cause the aliens to freeze and cause them interference. We thought this was because of a frequency they didn't like but it is not that at all. The signal just happens to interfere with the aliens ability to connect to the hive consciousness sent to them by the controllers."

"Think of it like their minds are all existing on a cloud server," Melissa added. "The drones and others have no real minds for themselves other than basic consciousness. We have seen many shut down or stunted when the connection is not present. There are many that can operate outside for a time on orders but they have to connect to this hive consciousness to make choices and get orders. The weapon that we have here is nothing short of the ability to hack that signal."

"You can shut the aliens down?" Willis asked, his busy grey eyebrows perking. "For how long?"

"Well that is the challenge," Melissa responded. "Though they have never been attacked like this and are likely unaware of the weaknesses it is not unreasonable to think they might have a way to overcome it if given the time. We cannot guarantee how long they would stay frozen."