His Soul Job

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the line: "When was the last time you saw them?"

His Soul Job

“Command, this is Attack Vessel La Grange. We have been chasing the Twain for sixty hours. Their cloaking makes this difficult. We only detect them when they surface from hyper-space to capture real-time Higgs-Energy before dropping back into surreal-time.”

Two hours later, a message came back: “When was the last time you saw them?”

The Artificial Intelligence in command of La Grange paused for a nano-second before responding. The Twain were a “scorched earth” species. They were ruthless and extremely efficient. Interestingly, they had no defensive capability beyond the speed of their attack. If you were ready for them ahead of time, they were easily defeated.

That almost never happened.

The A.I. prepared a new message…

“Twenty hours since they last surfaced. Their apparent target…uncertain; but Earth should prepare for the worst. There will be no warning.

Before sending, the A.I. checked with the ship’s Ultimate Authority. The UA added some code then released the message which was dropped into the Surreal. Earth would get it in under an hour.

The return message was simple – “Warning was too late.”

The A.I. knew it must execute the code; code that would push Earth into the sun, ending the Twain threat forever.

The ship’s AI, had nearly unlimited authority…nearly.

Captain Masterson stared at the expanse of space visible through the pano-screen. He’d seen Earth’s message. Could he do it? Could he destroy the Earth? Would the universe miss one little bit of debris?

“Sir?” inquired the A.I.

There were other planets; trillions of humans spread across the stars. Still….Earth…

“Shall I execute the code?” asked the impartial AI.

The UA hesitated. His only job was this – to hesitate before killing. His sole job was his soul’s job. He must care and in the end, make the right decision.

Finally, “Make it so.”

Word Count 300