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. “I think our medieval ruse has worked,” HAM Guy said in between bites of his breakfast sausage, biscuits, and gravy. After Jack and Carlos reported what they saw on their RECON mission, we pitched our tents and turned in. Hauling all of HAM Guy’s radio gear up the hill, I was ready for bed. I even slept well past pre-dawn twilight, which was unusual for me now. “They are not running encryption or frequency hopping. I can definitely jam them until they roll over to another frequency, assuming the drones are pre-programmed to do the same in case of some kind of interference. It is what I would do. If I can find that frequency, I can jam again. But it might be better to spoof them.” “Spoof?” I asked as I dug into my own bowl of sausage, biscuits, and gravy. “Sending signals that make the drone think it is receiving commands from its controller. Send it commands that are counter to what the controllers sent, or . . .” he paused, cocked his head to one side and looked into one of the cooking fires. “I can resend the same command,” he almost whispered. “Wouldn’t resending the same command be bad?” Carlos asked as he wrapped a piece of freshly made flatbread around a skewer of spiced sausage, onions, and green peppers and slipped the skewer out. He broke off a piece of the sausage and gave it to an eagerly waiting Kyrie. “If I can figure out the commands, they tell the drone to move right. It moves right. But by resending the command, it will move even further right than they want. They will think of it as an ‘echo.’” “From what we saw of the communications vehicle, couldn’t they pick up your signal and counter it?” Jack asked as he also slipped his own spiced sausage skewer onto flatbread. “Jamming requires overpowering the other guy’s receiver and transmitter or the drone’s receiver and transmitter. Requires a lot of energy. They would pick up on that almost immediately. But, if I receive on an omnidirectional antenna, but transmit on a directional antenna, directed at the bridge, and lower the power so it only affects the drones in the immediate area of the bridge, my signals would never reach them. And I save on battery power.” “Sounds like the beginning of a plan.” Jack grinned before taking a bite of his flatbread. “Well, part of that plan involves me figuring out which frequencies are dedicated to which drone and which command means what. I am pretty good, but it could take time. Time we may not have.” “Okay,” Jack nodded. “How do we get you that time?” Entry two Rae and I were on top of the hill with HAM Guy when things started to happen. Jack thought the drones would not come till afternoon with the sun overhead or slightly behind them. If they came earlier, facing into the sun, they could be blind. Just after noon, HAM Guy started getting signals. “Okay, they are on the move. Jessica, let Jack know.” From our vantage point on top of the hill, we could see Four Corners proper, the whole bridge, and the chute, but not in it. Some of the road on the other side, but overgrown trees along the road block much more. For anyone to see me up on top of the hill, I had to go to the edge in between two trees. I used an old red tee shirt tied to a long stick, raised it up, and waved it back and forth. Jack, Sean, and Carlos were standing just outside of the chute and the bridge, looking in my general direction for the signal. Once they saw me, Jack waved, and they turned towards the bridge. “Okay,” HAM Guy’s fingers raced between a laptop computer with a touch screen and some of the other radio equipment. “I am getting three signal sets, suggesting three drones.” “Why different sets?” Rae asked. “Each one has to have its own frequency bands to transmit and receive. Otherwise, they would be talking over each other. It’s like radio frequencies on your radio dial. 99.1 is the rock radio station, 99.5 is the country radio station, and 100.1 is the pop radio station.” “Oh, I get it, I think,” Rae said to me, but looked puzzled. “I will take his word for it.” I smiled back at her. “Jack saw a communications vehicle with six antennas, so that tracks.” “Wouldn’t that mean six drones?” Rae asked. “Each drone has two radios with two antennas on it, one for movement and the other for the video feed. The communications vehicle has to dedicate two radios to each of the drone radios to transmit and receive. So, two antennas per drone. Okay, the one set is nearly constant. Those must be the video feeds. I will tag and separate them. They are getting closer.” Time seemed to drag on. I found myself actually nervous. HAM Guy repeating, ‘Getting closer,’ did not help. “Any sign of the aerial drone,” HAM guy glanced up from the laptop. I turned the zoom dial on the scope on my rifle up to maximum magnification, lifted my rifle, and pointed it to the West. “Just the aerostat balloon thingy.” “Okay. That is good news. Must be elsewhere. Okay, getting closer. The signal is really strong now. Rae, Jessica, tell me what you see.” Rae brought Jack’s monocular to her eye; I looked through the rifle scope. “Nothin- wait. There they are. Three of them. They are approaching the bridge,” Rae said with some excitement in her voice. I still felt nervous. “What did they just do?” “They stopped.” “Okay, that must be the stop command,” HAM guy rapidly tapped on the lap top screen and then the keyboard, typing rapid fire like. “What just happened?” “The one in the middle is moving forward and it stopped about a quarter way across the bridge,” Rae responded from behind the monocular. “Okay, forward command, middle drone, stop command confirmed.” More typing. “I have no idea what it is doing now,” Rae said. “It is looking up, like it did yesterday,” I answered, looking through the rifle scope. “Looking up.” More typing. “Could they see us up here?” I asked. “Would depend on the resolution and focus of the video cameras. It’s possible.” “Not reassuring,” Rae muttered. “It is now lowering, returning to normal position,” I told him. “Lowering,” HAM Guy repeated as he typed. “The left one is moving now to the left of the middle one. Now the right one, to the right of the middle one,” Rae said. “Good! Left one, right one, left and right commands, forward command is confirmed!” “They are halfway across the bridge. Approaching the entrance to the chute.” That is when we heard Jack shout, “Now!” We could not see what was happening in the chute. But we knew the plan. Entry three “Okay,” Jack nodded. “How do we get you that time?” “And we don’t get shot,” I added, just as I was finishing up my breakfast. “I came through your North gate,” Carlos noted. “The vehicles. They still have fuel?” “Drained. We had to use brute strength to move them to form the Northern barrier,” Jack replied. “What about the oil and the transmission fluid?” Jack stopped in mid-bite of his breakfast. He then cracked a grin. “Carlos, that is brilliant!” “What is brilliant,” Rae asked looking between Jack and Carlos. “I am confused.” “So am I,” I agreed with Rae. Entry four From the hilltop, we could see the drones approaching the chute, but not what was happening in the chute after Jack shouted, “Now!” But we knew the plan. Nine men, in lines of three, rushed past the angle in the chute in full view of the drones with only fifteen or twenty feet separating them. The first line of three threw canning jars, full of a mix of used vehicle oil and transmission fluid at the drones ‘eyes,’ and immediately took a knee. The second line of three men threw their canning jars over the first line, at the drones machine gun and knelt down next to the first line. The third line, lit Molotov cocktails and threw them. Sean asked all of Four Corners citizens who played any kind of throwing sport. Baseball, softball, football, even horse shoes. He had more than nine ready and willing. Carlos had been a pitcher on his high school baseball team. Through my scope, I could see the drones approaching the chute, when canning jars smashed into the head and body of the bugs. Then the flaming Molotov cocktails. Even from the top of the hill, we could hear the oil ignite with a whoosh. The drones were engulfed in flames and oily black smoke. Jack shouted for retreat. The drones stopped at the entrance of the chute on fire. The sounds of gunfire echoed. But the machine guns were not firing. They were mounted above the body, about three feet. The machine guns were belt fed from a payload inside of the mid-body of the drone. The ammunition was what Jack called, “cooking off,” and firing from the heat of the fire. “What are they doing now,” HAM guy demanded. “Uh, they just turned around and now they look like they are heading back West. They are still on fire,” Rae answered. The sound of an occasional round firing could still be heard. “That must have been the return-to-base command,” the HAM guy noted absently as he typed on his laptop. Entry five “Okay. I got some of the commands. Probably not all of them, but enough that I can spoof them to make for massive amounts of confusion. Depending on the damage to their optics or any internal damage from the fire, I may have to re-identify if they send new drones. But now that I know what to look for, that should be easy enough,” HAM Guy said, sitting on a log in front of Sean’s shack with everyone else gathered around. Dinner was still a few hours away. “I am going to need to swap out this set of batteries with some from home. They are mostly spent.” “Understood. Jessica, that is your task as soon as we are done here,” Jack said, looking at me. “On it, Jack.” “What will they do next?” Sean asked. “Well, likely repair the drones. But we saw they had others on that carrier. They could just swap them out and come back later today or tomorrow.” “We still have more used motor oil and transmission fluid, but they will be on to that trick,” Carlos added. Jack glanced at Carlos. “Normally I would say RECON for tonight. But there is still enough hours for a daylight mission. Might see more than a nighttime one.” Carlos agreed. About 1stMarineJarHead 1stMarineJarHead 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. The post Dear Diary: It’s Me, Jessica: Chapter 10 (Book 3) appeared first on The Organic Prepper.