Solitude's End
She stood on the bridge. A solitary figure, commander of no one. Well that is not true. Her crew the electronics and mechanics of the ship’s AI and the limbs it controlled.
The panoramic window of the bridge letting the reflected light of the planet below cast her shadow on the wall of instruments behind. The only light illuminating the otherwise dark room except for the occasional blinking of some distant light telling of some action or alarm. Even the touchscreens stayed dormant. She had no need of their operation at this time. The AI controlled all. Only her voice was required to send the ship on some new direction. Her companion it’s slightly metallic crisp voice answering or informing only as necessary. A voice which emanated from no one location but always seem to fill the bridge like a ghost.
This her isolation for the simple, only task she had to undertake. Deep space discovery mission cleansing worlds for future colonisation. Devoiding planets in selective xenocide.
Below the planet twisted in its orbit. Clouds scattered across the globe as instruments searched and probed for life. The AI collating the indigenous flora and fauna. Classifying and sorting. Determining the dangers each imposed on future humans venturing out for new beginnings. Like the settlers of the old Wild West millennia ago who will race to the new worlds. Not in horse and covered wagons but in spaceships so technologically advanced but frontiersmen none the less.
She sighed as she watched the vista below. Biting her lip as she exhaled. A faint mist of breath touching the polyglass. So brief before evaporating in the sterile ships air. Nothing for her to do but wait. Wait as the AI collated and considered. Wait until it announced its findings. Only then would she act. Utter words of command. An authorisation to touch the world with potent antidotes. An atmospheric toxification of the chemical stew the AI would concoct. Lethal to those selected targets leaving the life lucky not to be considered a danger free to be later conquered by the following settlers.
How long she did not know. How long before the next humans would arrive at this place. That was not her concern. Not her need to know.
How long had she been out here? Time seemed to pass in jumps. She could count the planets touched by her ship’s toxins, but she could not count the accumulated days between.
All she knew now is her own life was passing. From barely in her twenties she had been chosen, trained prepared, sent forth. Now womanhood starting to decay. Her body becoming old. Thoughts of children she would never bear. Of men she would never love. How much longer?
A question to the AI. A response in its clinical voice. Just two more planets and her tour would be over. A faint smile touched her lips. Another question… “How long before Earth will be reached? Home, my place or origin?”. Then the realisation. She would be dead before the 50 years would pass before Sol shines visibly once more.
Even with the life extending drugs, the clinical air of the ship it became the unbearable last agony. The purity of voice the AI words seeping deeper her mind.
And slowly she kicked away the chair. Her voice would give no more commands.
