Free Swarm by B. V. Larson Page A

At some point, it stopped firing missiles. Still, we kept pounding it.
    “I wonder who is on that ship?” asked Sandra aloud. “Who are we killing? Are we really the good guys, or the bad guys?”
    “Yeah,” I said, slightly troubled. What if this ship had come here to rescue Earth? What if its mission was to get rid of these vulture-ships that had kidnapped us? Maybe the ship was full of angry, righteous centaur people, bent on revenge for what these ships had done to their own world. We had no idea and no way of knowing.
    After a while longer, the ship stopped retreating as well. Still, we rippled and churned around it, like a school of piranhas tearing apart a side of beef. Each of us got our mouthful, then went back for more.
    When it finally blew up, we felt it. The Alamo stuttered. We lurched and drifted. The firing stopped. The other ships stopped moving, too.
    We had lost six ships altogether. But we had won.

-9-

    “Riggs? Hey, Riggs?”
    It was Jack Crow again. He sounded pretty happy.
    “Hello Jack. We lived.”
    “We sure did, my fat-brained friend. You helped out tremendously. I want to make you a lieutenant commander, Riggs. No, forget that. A full commander! How does that sound, Commander Riggs? I want you to know, you would be the only person with such a high rank in my fleet. You would be my second in command.”
    I chuckled. “If I wait another day, will you make me a captain?”
    “Right. Well, right. Laugh it up. Well done. This is all a big joke, isn’t it? But consider, the fact that I put together some sort of organization kept us alive today. That ship might have killed all of us, you know. Think about that. Your ideas saved the day, but without my organization, we wouldn’t have worked together at all and we would have failed.”
    “You have a point there, Jack.”
    “Good. I’m glad to hear you admit it. I’m not just some megalomaniac who wants to call myself a commodore.”
    “What’s a commodore?” I asked.
    “It’s a rank between captain and admiral.”
    “You are a commodore now?”
    “Well, I realized I needed to have more ranks as more ships join us. More of a hierarchy.”
    “I see,” I said, grinning.
    “But that doesn’t matter. What I want you to think about, Riggs, is what that ship would have done if we had lost the battle. What if it had made it down to Earth?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “And what about the next time? What if there are a dozen ships like that, or a hundred?”
    “Next time?” I asked wonderingly. I had honestly not had time to think through the implications of the battle we’d just faced. I felt out of my depth. I had no idea what was going on out here. Was Earth involved in some kind of war? We desperately needed more information. Would there be a next time? Why not? Wars were not usually fought in a single battle. And it did indeed seem like we were involved in a war.
    “Jack—Commodore Crow, I mean. Do you have any more detailed political information? Is Earth in a war? Or did Earth just declare war on whoever was in that ship, by helping our ships destroy it?”
    “Great questions. Join us, and I’ll assign you the task of figuring out the answers. I’ll do recruitment and organization.”
    “What the hell have your people been doing? Do I have to figure out everything?”
    “Look, Jack, most paranoid people who sleep with a gun in their hand aren’t deep thinkers. This organization isn’t made up of a bunch of philosophers, diplomats and techies. We are a fleet of opportunistic killers—survivalists. Unfortunately, running a fleet of alien ships in space combat requires more than reflexes and a killer instinct. I’m coming to realize I need you more than anyone else in my fleet. For the last time, will you join me?”
    I thought hard for about five seconds. I looked over at Sandra, who nodded firmly. I sighed, and realized they were both probably right. I didn’t really like joining some independent, militia-like