We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 10: Genocide

Book 2: Chapter 10: Genocide

Mario

November 2176

Zeta Tucanae

It took seven years plus change to get from Beta Hydri to Zeta Tucanae, although less than three years ship’s time. I spent almost the entire voyage going over the records from Beta Hydri 4. I didn’t want to believe that someone could have done that. I wanted so much for it to be a natural disaster of some kind.

But the evidence was, if not conclusive, at least pretty damned convincing. Someone had killed off an entire planet and collected all the bodies—literally all the animal life on the planet—then mined all the metals from the entire system. My mind kept playing all the movies where aliens came in and tried to strip the Earth. This was worse. They killed everything, and they left nothing. But how? And why?

I sighed and dismissed the theorizing for perhaps the thousandth time. I couldn’t know without more information. But I wasn’t going to wait. I needed to report this to Bill. The Bobs needed to be warned.

I couldn’t know in advance if Zeta Tucanae would be stripped of metal as well. If so, I would just skip to the next system, and keep doing so until I either found a good star system in which to build a space station or had traveled back close enough to simply transmit a message to Bill with shipboard comms.

I did the usual cautious approach into the star system, watching for Medeiros, aliens, other probes… it would be funny if I wasn’t so nervous.

I didn’t actually know if there were more Medeiros clones out in the galaxy, but since Brazil’s plan had been to keep producing them, it seemed a reasonable concern. Bob had prevailed against him in Epsilon Eridani, but that had been as much luck as anything.

It took a week or so to determine the system layout. The star was a little more luminous than Sol and a bit bigger, but slightly less massive. The metallicity of the system was lower, but not so low as to make things difficult for me—as long as the Others hadn’t already cleaned it out.

I found a single asteroid belt and several inner rocky planets. Actually, this system was similar enough to Earth’s to make me a little homesick. I headed for the asteroid belt, while I continued to scan for any activity.

I went about halfway around the belt before giving up. The Others had already cleaned up here as well. I decided I would get a quick look at the single planet in the habitable zone, then continue on to the next system on my list.

What I found was the worst possible outcome.

Exploring the planet through various drone cameras, I could see that something had caused massive destruction. Based on the ruined structures, entire cities had been taken apart. Concrete pylons indicated where bridges might once have spanned rivers. Huge washouts indicated where dams had been disassembled without regard for the downriver effects. And junk littered what looked like roadways, where presumably the contents of some kind of vehicles had simply been discarded when the metal and the passengers were collected.

“Guppy, I need a full scan of the planet. Set up the drones to do polar orbits, and get the whole surface.”

Guppy nodded without comment and went into command fugue. I sensed the blips as more drones launched. I settled back to wait.

* * *

If I’d been still living, I would have thrown up. As it was, I couldn’t watch for long.

The destruction was total, the devastation worldwide. These, whatever they were, these Others had callously killed billions of sentient beings the way a construction crew would clear the ground before starting to build. And I could think of only one reason for collecting the dead bodies.

When we met them, it would be war.