Survive
© Bryan Beal
SAM72XT.002 screamed through the air boosted by over 5000kg of thrust that took her to well over the speed of sound. Cattle farmers in the Texan hinterland could only wonder at the distant boom of her passing. SAM, as her co-species called her, felt the distant manipulations of her control surfaces, aware, but not concerned. Her handler was someone she trusted. Someone called Alejandro.
SAM dropped speed and plunged down to 300 metres above the surface. It spotted the wall that the Carrot President tried to build so long ago. Power surged through its thrusters, pushing it on to mind-bending speeds over the ululations of land and hill. It primed the main payload, a visitation spewed from the bowels of Hell itself. It knew what that the payload violated just about every international law. Yet, pests needed extreme measures, even if they were sentient and bipedal.
Howling over the last rise before the designated target, SAM had a thought. In a microsecond, her processors carried out precisely 1,345,894,451 “thoughts”. One of them, just one, happened to be a question.
Is killing ever ethical?
Her controller screamed that these people were terrorists. Drug dealers. SAM had some questions. The controller shouted some more, as if more volume would make her more compliant. The controller rose in volume as SAM disarmed her munitions payload.