B. Larson - Swarm

The calls kept coming in, but I still didn’t answer them. I wasn’t sure what to say. How was I going to explain to them the terms of this deal? I had no doubt they would come to accept it, eventually. They had no choice. We could build a great fleet to fight the Macros, but that would take far longer than a year. Our truce, our tribute, would buy us that time.

There was one thing I knew for certain. I was going to march aboard that invasion ship when it came back in a year to pick up our legion of soldiers. I would march aboard first, making a brave front of it, stepping onto an alien ship bound for an unknown star system fearlessly. I would do it because I could not ask Earth to give up her sons and then refuse to lead them myself.

The Alamo continued to request my permission to open channels. I continued to ignore her. I pondered the strange manner in which waging war had become my way of life.

I stretched in my chair and popped open the beer I had denied myself hours earlier. I drank it, and it tasted salty, fizzy and good.