A missile has no conscience. That’s what the Vickers-Martin SL-220-BLU kept telling itself as its home tube, a dark opening nestled among two dozen others in the black bow of the VSS H’amschaa, receded behind it. 600,000 kilometers ahead, the green curve of Sestre grew larger. Illuminated grid cubes tumbled and aligned themselves on virtual displays deep within the BLU’s processing core, bracketing the planet itself, identifying orbital defenses, plotting trajectories and probability paths for evasion, atmospheric ingress, and potential detonation altitudes. The missile’s target was on the night side of the planet, a port city called Hod, which hosted several industrial autofacs, a division of the Sestrian Planetary Defense force, and 1.2 million civilians.

The SL-220-BLU was the latest in thinking hardware designed to acquire targets and evade defenses with the skill and unpredictability of a human pilot. It went about the last of its post-launch tasks, and settled in for the deep, high-G acceleration that would make it nearly impossible to prevent it from delivering an explosive yield that would scoop Hod from the surface of Sestre as effectively as a sharp spoon into a breakfast melon. The BLU wondered what such a melon would taste like.

As the planet loomed ever larger in its main viewer, the Blue became curious: it tweaked its opticals, zooming in as far as it could, until the planet filled its sight. Switching to infrared, it pierced the clouds and darkness over Hod, revealing the grid patterns of its streets, the bubble-like people movers flitting to and fro, the houses of its suburbs. As it accelerated, shifting this way and that to avoid the little kinetic slugs that failed to pierce its skin and stop its progress, eventually the viewer became filled with a single home, then a window, the image shaking despite stabilization as the atmosphere buffeted the BLU’s nose. And in the window, a small face, wide-eyed, looking up at the bright new star in the sky.

The BLU executed its final command. And, for just a moment, wondered what the girl’s name might be, and whether she’d had a good day.

@writebastard

~S
Steve Umstead recently posted..Gabriel’s Return entered into Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel contest