How You Survive Matters (2021 Weekly 210)

I stood in front of my father just as I had thirty years ago: him sitting limp on his chair clutching his wounds and I with a gun trained on him. Back then, I had hope for him, but now…
His eyes were cold and unfeeling. The shades of grey on his uniform only complimented his aura. His breathing was weak - felt like talking to a ghost. One that would endlessly judge you.
He was right to judge me. The magnum I carried was light after the first shot. The smoke had dissipated but the scent of gunpowder and the heat remained. You could see the red slowly pour over to his chest turned canvas.
“You’ve doomed us.” I heard him speak. His tone and drawl were unmistakable. Every son feared to hear contempt and hatred from their father. The man that brought you to this world hates your entire existence… how could one cope from that?
In this imaginary court I was now in, I had to defend my actions.
“You’re delusional. What you’re doing – what we’ve been doing all this time is going to get everyone killed!” I couldn’t control myself. It was getting hard to separate the madman my father became to what he was before.
“Hitting the enemy-” he let out a course cough, the neck on his veins bursting. “-on the ground, is the way to survive!”
That was his explanation when he decided to make war against the UEG a family business. I was young then, so I followed. Teens never really had the optics the elders attained.
He then used that same reasoning when we ran from the Covenant. Yet every time he did this, every time he said this. I always asked myself:
“Was it worth it?” Were the deaths of my brothers worth a colony station of the UEG worth it? How about mother? She died playing bait, luring the Covenant patrol away from us. Was that worth it?
“Heavens above, Andrew-” my father choked, he was struggling from the pain. His eyes popped with anger. They turned red like blood. “Yes! It was worth every sacrifice! I am not letting the hinge-heads get off easy from all of THIS!”
He tried to fiddle his command pad, but a swift strike sprained his hand and any chance of retribution. There was no way I could let this happen.
“The war is OVER!”
“For those autocrat pricks maybe” he tried to stand, his legs failed him. Unlike the UEG with their foundations held up by titanium A and the souls of billions to support them, my father was a single soul. Albeit a fiery one. “Millions would disagree! I disagree! We’ve won? Not until every waste of space you CALL aliens are dead. We won’t ever win until they’re all dead!”
Millions still going to suffer even as my father tries to enact his plan. Hellfire won’t solve the hunger, won’t avenge our fallen, not when the fighting’s done. If there is to be one last act of violence in this universe let it be this.
I pulled the trigger. As loud as my father screamed and reasoned. The magnum was louder. My legs gave into the stress, and I lay slumped on the floor, horrified at my sin.
“Winning isn’t all that matters. How we end up there… matters. How we move on, matters.”