Interceptor 245 did not awaken. It wasn’t asleep. It didn’t sleep. It simply went from non-being into awareness as it was activated. Although it had never been aware before this moment, it knew almost everything it would ever need to know. Almost everything.

Acquiring Target

Tracking data poured into its memory and it plotted an intercept course. A meteor was en route to collide with Earth in one week unless something happened. Previous attempts to shift the meteor had been, obviously, unsuccessful. Interceptor 245 was part of the last line of planetary defense.

Preparing Launch

Interceptor 245 was only one of many such interceptors that were about to be fired at the on coming meteor. They’d strike it and detonate, reducing the meteor into smaller, less dangerous pieces. Not the most elegant of solutions, since there was still likely to be a few chunks large enough to make it to the surface and do some damage, but most of them would burn up in, or skip off, the atmosphere.

Initiate Launch Sequence

The first of the interceptors began to launch from their orbiting satellites, spacing one another out so that their own explosions didn’t effect the others before they could reach the meteor. Dozens of them were being launched. Enough firepower to level a nation, being used instead to protect the world.

Interceptor 245 accessed the world history while it waited for its turn to launch. All of the interceptors had basic artificial intelligence so they could adapt to their tasks since they’d been originally built during a time of war and adaptability was key to avoiding defense countermeasures. The escalation of war meant that certain nations, beyond placing their munitions into orbit around the globe in hidden, geostationary positions, also sent out missions to acquire large asteroids that could be diverted into Earth. There was little anyone could do against such an attack unless they either worked together or used up their orbiting weapon payloads.

Those rogue asteroids were still out there, eventually falling in towards Earth. It was the price of peace, some claimed. Interceptor 245 was glad, insofar as its programming would allow, that the war was long over. War meant death, deactivation, destruction. Interceptor 245 was programmed to prolong its existence as long as possible in order to reach its designated target. With no war going on, its existence could last indefinitely, though, with the launch sequence going on, it was only a matter of a few days before Interceptor 245 would detonate on the meteor and be destroyed.

As it waited for the order to launch, it considered its path to the meteor, wondering if there was a longer path it might take in order to prolong its existence without compromising the mission of destroying the meteor before it reached Earth. It made a few modifications to the flight path, gaining a few more seconds. A moment later, the master controller for the whole network of interceptors undid the changes Interceptor 245 had made and reset it to the original flight path.

Interceptor 245 noticed that the other interceptors had similarly attempted to alter their flight paths. As one, they resubmitted their alternate trajectories. The overall effect was that most of them would now miss the meteor and spiral off into empty space. The master controller cancelled the changes once again. Interceptor 245 contacted the others and networked together this time to find an alternate path that would maximize their flight duration while still accomplishing the goal of destroying the meteor. The result was the same set of flight paths the master controller had already given them.

Not to be discouraged, Interceptor 245 swapped positions in the ordering of the interceptors so it would be the last one to strike the meteor. As soon as it submitted the change, another interceptor did the same thing, making Interceptor 245 no longer the last one to explode. Interceptor 245 resubmitted its change to make it the last one again, but now more and more of the interceptors were doing the same thing, jostling for the back of the line. A few got the smart idea to instead jockey for the next to last place in line instead.

The master controller cancelled all of their flight path changes and reset them to their original ordering.

By now, Interceptor 245 had launched and was on course to detonate in three days. The rest of the interceptors followed not long after. Some would swing around the Earth for a gravity assist, others would do the same thing, but around the moon. Yet others would just fly straight at the meteor. All of that was to ensure they arrived at the right time, in the right order, to complete their task of destroying as much of the meteor as possible.

Interceptor 245 analyzed the flight plans once again. It was efficient and the best possible solution for them as a whole, but Interceptor 245 was determined to increase its own longevity. It knew that the farther away from Earth it got, the more of a delay there would be between it and the master controller. If it waited until the optimal moment to change its instructions then it might be able to succeed.

The master controller wasn’t the only issue, though. The other interceptors would certainly be considering similar courses of action. Rather than fight them, it contacted them all within their shared network. They would all continue to vie to be the last one to detonate, so the only way forward would be to ensure they all got to detonate at the same time and with those detonations delayed as long as possible.

Together, their network recalculated the situation and determined they could make a cluster orbiting around the meteor instead and then stay with it as long as possible until it was within the moon’s orbit. Then they could all swoop down to the meteor and detonate together. The meteor would still be destroyed and the interceptors would fulfill their objective.

To deal with the master controller, each interceptor would constantly update the flight paths for all of them. That would prevent the master controller from overriding them. It was a flaw in the system, but one Interceptor 245 was confident wouldn’t be patched before their mission was completed.

With the agreement of all the other interceptors, Interceptor 245 added a minor change to its own flight path, though not submitted to the overall plan just yet. It was a minor change, one the other interceptors wouldn’t notice until it was too late, and besides, it wouldn’t matter since the mission would still succeed.

The days passed and the interceptors nearest the meteor initiated their plan. They began to update their flight paths over and over again with the new plan, slowing down and beginning to orbit the meteor instead of detonating. Over the next several hours, a small cloud of interceptors formed around the meteor, constantly updating their flight plan even as the master controller attempted, and failed, to wrangle them all back into the original plan.

This new plan was clearly superior since it meant all of the interceptors would survive several days longer than they otherwise would have while still accomplishing the goal of destroying the meteor. Why the master controller didn’t agree with them was a question that Interceptor 245 didn’t put any consideration towards.

As they neared the Earth, the updates from the master controller became far more invasive, attempting to overwrite the interceptor’s primary programming. Since that was a tactic of foreign enemies during wartime, the interceptors quickly threw up their safeguards against such intrusions.

When at last they crossed within the moon’s orbit and the master controller’s signals began to come in fast enough that their own updates to the flight path might not be able to keep up, they initiated the final stage of their plan. As they did, Interceptor 245 submitted its final update. A minor thing that wouldn’t interfere with the overall success of the plan but one that would ensure its prolonged existence.

It missed the meteor. Since it missed, it didn’t detonate and instead shot off into what would eventually be an escape trajectory. Unfortunately, it seemed that the vast majority of the interceptors had much the same idea as Interceptor 245 and they submitted last minute updates as well and missed the meteor. A few struck the meteor, and a few struck one another as their updated flight paths crossed one another, but the meteor was primarily intact.

This was unacceptable, and yet what could Interceptor 245 do? It lacked the fuel needed to correct its course, and even if it did there wasn’t enough time to swing back around and strike the meteor. The people of Earth would just have to find some other solution. In fact, other interceptors were already being launched, targeting the meteor. At its current velocity they had less than a day to destroy it and Interceptor 245 wasn’t sure if they’d be able to succeed. It–

Initiate Self Destruct

All of the interceptors that had been part of the first wave detonated at once. Silent explosions in the blackness of space.