Extinction

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I sat in my Nano ship a hundred thousand miles from Earth. Outside the thin, nanite-generated skin of the Alamo was the cold nothing we called space. Sometimes, the universe pressed in on me with its silence and infinite expanse. This was one of those moments. If you want to feel small, try floating around in far orbit and realizing just how close to microscopic humans really are.

Around the Alamo floated hundreds of her clone-like, sister ships. Each was shaped like a horseshoe-crab and hung over the blue swell of the Earth, motionless and silent. They were all as black as the void, with no lights, doors or windows in sight. Only when their beam mounts fired or their engines provided thrust could they be detected by the naked eye. Right now, none of them were moving or firing. Every ship was quiet, patient. They were waiting for a command, but I didn’t know what to tell them.

The enemy battle fleet had withdrawn after the Macros had accepted my accidental terms. Their huge, majestic ships had left us standing here with no one to fight. That was a good thing, as we would have lost the battle anyway. The bad thing was I had promised peace terms to the Macros I had no real way of providing—and which I had no authority to give.

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