Dear Diary: It’s Me, Jessica: Chapter 9 (Book 3)

By the author of Dear Diary: It’s Me, Jessica; The Second Year

In case you missed the last chapter, you can find it here.

Dear Diary,

It’s me, Jessica.

“They look like bugs,” I noted, looking at the three ‘bug’-looking ground drones on the far side of the bridge through Jack’s monocular. They had six legs, but the way the front and rear ones were attached, they reminded me of a spider. “Looks like they have eyes too. Three of them.” On the front, top of what I thought of as the ‘bug’ head were three dark glass half-orbs about the size of a softball. One in the middle directly facing forward. The other two on either side, pointing halfway away from the middle one.

“Jessica,” HAM Guy said, looking through Carlos’s binoculars, “That is a brilliant observation.”

“It is?”

“Yes. Rather than building a turret or gimbal-like swivel for a single ‘eye’ to look around, they mounted three fixed ‘eyes,’ each with a sixty-degree view. The ones on the left and right field of view is mostly to the sides and some forward. The center one can see everything in front of it. The side ones’ field of view will slightly overlap the center one, giving whoever is controlling the drones a 180-degree field of view at all times. Cheaper to produce and a lot less taxing on the battery with no moving parts. The machine gun also appears to be hard-mounted to the middle body of the ‘bug.’ They must use the legs to aim it. Again, cheaper to produce and less taxing on the battery.”

“They gave up capability for production speed and cost,” Jack added.

“Warfare 101,” Carlos added.

“Not following you,” HAM Guy said, looking at Carlos.

“Warfare is a question of economics and logistics,” Jack answered.

“The side that can produce the most war material at the lowest cost and get it to the battlefield the fastest, generally, wins,” Carlos finished.

“I thought it was maneuver warfare that wins?” HAM Guy asked.

“Cannot maneuver if you have nothing to maneuver with. Even includes troops,” Jack responded.

“Why do I feel I’m missing something here,” HAM Guy asked.

“It is something that could be significant but for later. Need to focus on our bug friends. Jessica, the monocular if you please.”

After I handed the monocular back, Jack and HAM Guy resumed looking at the bugs.

“The front one, its front legs extended, the middle and rear legs lowered. I think someone is looking up at us,” Jack quipped.

“I see they have some kind of metal flap on top shielding the ‘eyes.’ Either to protect the optics from an attack from above or to shield it from rain. Probably both, but limits the upward field of view,” HAM Guy observed.

“Might be able to use that to our advantage,” Carlos noted.

“Might give me an idea,” Jacked added. “There. The rectangular box on top of the machine gun, I think that is what they are using to aim it. Either an electro-optical sight, a laser, or both. Then tied into the video feed the controller sees and aims with.”

“I see two whip-style antennas, one on each side, between the side and rear legs,” HAM Guy lowered the binoculars and looked over the drones at the road, the trees, and beyond.

“The hills. The trees. The curvature of the earth. There is no way the drones could send and receive signals to and from the aerostat.” HAM Guy looked over at Jack. “As you put it, Jack, someone is in the neighborhood. Some kind of command and control vehicle is nearby.”

“What about GPS?” Carlos asked.

HAM Guy looked up at the sky.

“GPS went down shortly after the power went out. Once in awhile I will get a GPS signal but it is erratic and only a single satellite. Not enough for ground navigation of a major city, let alone military accuracy.”

Jack looked at the bugs, his eyes thoughtful.

Entry two

“Why two radios?” Carlos asked.

“One to control the movement and fire the machine gun. The other is for the video feed from the eyes and if that is in fact an electro-optical sight on the machine gun. Like the internet, radios can transmit data. But also like the internet, if the bandwidth is limited or try to send too much data across, data gets dropped. There could be breaks in the video feed or dropped commands to move the drone. Separating them only makes sense. And gives me an idea. How much of Four Corners have they seen with the aerial drone?”

“It made two passes,” I answered.

“Even from what little I have seen, Four Corners looks like a medieval village. How many weapons did they see?”

“Only what people out in the open were carrying. Since then, Sean ordered everyone to keep weapons hidden.”

“Good. Need to keep the medieval village look going. Next time the aerial drone comes, toss a virgin off the bridge to the river below to appease the rain gods or something.”

“You volunteering to be the ‘virgin’ we toss off the bridge to appease the rain gods?” I asked HAM Guy with a raised eyebrow.

“Ah, yeah,” he coughed into his hand. “Good point, Jessica. I will have to rethink that. Anyways, moving on, if they think we don’t have any electronics, I can bring my radios and batteries, hide them up on that hill, and see if I can find what frequencies they are operating at. If they are not running radio encryption or frequency hopping, I can jam or spoof their signals. Mess up the commands to the drones or the video feed. Encryption overhead eats up a lot of bandwidth. The more we can get them to buy into the medieval look, the less likely they would run radio encryption or frequency hopping.”

Entry three

The middle drone approached the barricade and the chute. The others remained where they were. One raised its front end to ‘look’ at us. Or, maybe to aim the machine gun at us. The other moved its legs to point more at the entrance of the chute.

It was creepy to see the legs move. The only sound was of what would be the feet touching the metal grating of the bridge with a slight thud. It moved at walking speed.

“They are conducting recon,” Carlos said.

“Jessica, go and pass the word to the others manning the barricade in the chute to keep out of sight,” Jack ordered.

“On it.”

Jack, Carlos, and the others in the Four Corners militia built up a barricade back from the chute angle. It was slightly elevated but not as high as the main barricade. It had three gun ports, two at ground level, and one elevated. Three armed men could man each port.

After I passed the word, I peered over the edge to see the drone come to the turn in the chute. It stopped still facing the direction it came, but did not turn toward the barricade. If HAM Guy was right, the left side eye could see the barricade. After a minute, it turned around and went back the way it came. It was even creepier to watch it turn around in place like a spider, without moving forward or backward.

I returned to where Jack, HAM Guy, and Carlos were lying down on the barricade overlooking the bridge and the drones.

“It got just past the angle in the chute. I think it got a decent look at the new barricade,” I reported.

“They are leaving,” Carlos said.

The other two bugs turned around and all three went back down the road to the West.

Entry four

“So, what do you think?” Sean asked us, sitting outside of his shack on his log.

“We need to see what we are dealing with,” Jack added.

“Recon mission,” Carlos said.

“Right,” Jack nodded.

“Tonight,” Carlos said.

Diary, it was weird as if Jack and Carlos were sharing the same mind. Must be a military thing.

“No, Jessica.” Jack turned to look at me. “You are staying here.”

How the heck did Jack know what I was thinking?

“Take HAM Guy back to get his radio gear as soon as we are done here. He will need the pull-behind cart to move all that gear. Bring him and his gear back to Four Corners and hump it all up the hill tonight.”

“On it.”

Entry five

HAM Guy had all his gear in protective, gray, plastic cases. The good news they had handles. The bad news some of them were heavy and awkward to carry up the hill. It was slow going in the dark. Even with Sean, Yellowteeth Bob, Nate, and several others, we were all winded and tired by the time we got to the top of the hill.

I offered to give HAM Guy a hand setting up, but he said he would be fine. He had volunteered to provide radio communications for special events and trained for weather-related emergencies so many times, he could set up in the dark. He just needed help putting up a big camp tent under the cover of some pine trees. If the aerial drone came back, he didn’t think it would see the tent.

When we got back down the hill, Jack and Carlos were back from their recon mission, sitting next to a small fire. They were not gone long.

“They are set up about two or three miles down the road,” Jack reported.

“We couldn’t get close,” Carlos added. “They had several floodlights and roaming armed guards.”

“What could you see?” Sean asked.

“Two armored personnel carriers with heavy machine guns, a communications vehicle with six antennas mounted on the top, backed up to what looked like a small DRASH tent. That is the command post. A few other support vehicles, a pull-behind fuel tanker, a pull-behind generator, and what looked like a double-stack car carrier.”

“Car carrier?” Sean repeated, looking puzzled.

“Yeah,” Carlos said gravely. “It was loaded with ground drones.”

About 1stMarineJarHead

1^stMarineJarHead is not only a former Marine, but also a former EMT-B, Wilderness EMT (courtesy of NOLS), and volunteer firefighter.

He currently resides in the great white (i.e. snowy) Northeast with his wife and dogs. He raises chickens, rabbits, goats, occasionally hogs, cows and sometimes ducks. He grows various veggies and has a weird fondness for rutabagas. He enjoys reading, writing, cooking from scratch, making charcuterie, target shooting, and is currently expanding his woodworking skills.