THE EARTH MUST BE DESTROYED!

                                                By H. K. Bright

“Greetings, honored delegates, and welcome to the planning committee for the destruction of Earth,” Secretary-General Blip said. The green-skinned biped raised a three-fingered hand in the traditional Martian greeting, which matched the traditional Martian helmet and cape he wore. “I see we have quite the wide variety here with us today. In order to break the ice a little, why don’t we go around the table and introduce ourselves?”

 

“Oh please don’t,” said the spider-like Recluse Prime of Introversia, of largest and most terrifying species to ever gain sentience. 

 

“Too late!” declared the Secretary General, “I’ll go first.” He cleared his throat and bellowed out in a loud, echoing voice. “Greeeeeeetings! I am Secretary-General Blip, of Martian Hegemony! We are a peaceful race dedicated to science, the arts, and the total destruction of Earth!” He gestured to the sentient on his right. “Now it’s your turn.”

 

The bulky, vac-suited sentient sighed heavily, which sounded not unlike an industrial fan at low speed. “Lamenting: well if I must,” he grumbled, “Emphatic: I am Talvy. High Processor-Core Talvy, of the Interstellar Science Alliance. Candid: gonna be honest, we just want to kidnap some humans and science them.” He paused. “Afterthought: Oh, and blow up the Earth, of course.”

 

“Of course,” Secretary-General Blip chuckled, “Don’t we all? Now who’s next?”

 

“If I may,” the next delegate, a thin, willowy sentient with distinctly reptilian features,  said. She slithered forward and cleared her throat. “I am Overlady Vesssk, of the Lizard-People. For decadesss, we have been manipulating the apes, infiltrating their governments, and laughing at their attemptsss to catch usss. It wasss fun while it lasssted, but the Earth mussst be dessstroyed.”

 

“The Earth must be destroyed,” Blip agreed and turned to the last delegate in the room. Or rather, three, insectile delegates crammed into one chair.

 

“Hello!” the first said brightly, “We are—

 

“—The representatives of—” the second continued happily.

 

“—The Great Glop!” the third finished cheerfully.

 

“And your names are?” Blip asked.

 

“Glop!” they replied in unison, “The Great and the Many-That-Are-One!”

 

“We’re a hivemind,” the third Glop offered.

 

“And I/we all agree with you,” the second said.

 

“The Earth must be destroyed!” the first cheered.

 

Secretary-General Blip clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Fantastic. Marvelous!”

 

“Questioning,” Talvy interjected, “Has everyone here tried to destroy the Earth before?”

 

“Yesss,” Vesk hissed, “But their insssufferable guardiansss, the so-called dogsss, found usss out and wouldn’t ssstop their unbearable barking.” Her forked tongue flicked in and out and her eyes blinked rapidly, the ultimate signs of aggravation. “Oh, I can ssstill hear them in my nightmaresss.”

 

“We tried eating them. Took a wrong turn by Polaris and couldn’t find a good fast-food joint,” the first Glop said, a nervous twitch in its antennae, “But it turns out that they’re, well—”

 

“—Poisonous,” the second added.

 

“—Super poisonous,” the third agreed with a bob of its head, “Carbon-based lifeforms! Who would have suspected?”

 

“Wry statement: agreed,” High Processor-Core Talvy’s faceplate turned a remorseful yellow, “Regretful: we tried to hack their computer systems, but our input sensors filled up with what they call ‘spam’. Many of them contained viruses, some of which became sentient once they reached our hardware. Solemn: my Processing-Node had to be destroyed for the safety of the fleet.” It slammed its metal fist into the table. “Declaration: The Earth—”

 

“—Must be destroyed!” the others cheered, except the Recluse-Prime of Introversia, who hid behind six of its eight legs and thought warm, happy thoughts about silence, the comfort of being alone, and the great pleasure it took in knowing that all would eventually become one with the Void.

 

“And you, Blip,” Vesk hissed, “What have the Earthlingsss done to your people?”

 

Blip’s expression turned dark. “When we saw their ship approaching, we had high hopes. But the only thing that came out was a single, small vehicle that took pictures and gawked at everything. A rover, they called it, but we know what it really was: the worst thing in the world, a tourist!”

 

Vesk frowned. “I do not sssee how—”

 

Blip leapt to his feet and slammed his hands onto the table. “I didn’t question you, so don’t question me! Alright? Tourists are the worst! A plague!” Vesk raised her claws defensively. The others looked vaguely uncomfortable. Reading the room, Blip took a deep breath and calmed himself down. “Fine. I don’t care. Think it’s silly if you want.”

 

“I never sssaid it wa—”

 

“But!” Blip pressed on. He raised a hand triumphantly towards the sky, and his cape billowed behind him. “At least we can all agree on one thing! The Earth—”

 

The Recluse-Prime timidly tapped on the table. “P-pardon me?”

 

Blip’s hand slowly fell back to his side. “Recluse?”

 

“Look, I don’t see why we have to destroy the earth,” the arachnid alien said. The others gasped in horror. One of the Glops fainted. The Recluse-Prime hid its eyes behind its legs and spoke hurriedly. “I-I don’t think they’re a threat! It seems like we could just go home and ignore them. Just don’t look at them, yeah? And then you won’t have to deal with them.”

 

The assembled delegates stared at the creature many times their size, who fidgeted uncomfortably under their scrutiny. “But,” the first Glop said, “Isn’t the answer obvious?”

 

“Of course it is!” Secretary-General Blip declared, annoyed, “The Earth simply must be destroyed.”

 

“But why?” the Recluse-Prime insisted, all the while wishing it were back home under a giant, safe rock.

 

“Because,” Blip exploded, “you can’t just form a committee called, ‘The Planning Committee for the Destruction of Earth’ and then not destroy the Earth! Have you seen my catering bill? I am not letting that amount of Space-Dollars go to waste!”

 

“Technically,” Overlady Vesk hissed, “You can. Committeesss are a great way to kill an idea. We usssed them all the time asss a ssstalling tactic.” Her face took on a haunted aspect. “Before the dogsss came.”

 

“Conciliatory: Besides,” Talvy said, “Haven’t the Earthlings done something, anything, that you find intolerable, Recluse-Prime?”

 

The giant arachnid considered this. “W-well.” His voice quavered. “The radio signals they’ve been sending out are growing a bit noisy.”

 

“There you go!” Blip declared, triumphant, “So…come on, say it with me now. The Earth…”

 

“Must be destroyed,” the Recluse-Prime said with sigh.

 

“Splendid. Wonderful. Amazing!” the Secretary-General plopped back into his and knit his fingers together, satisfied.  “So. Any ideas?”

 

“Disintegration?” the first Glop offered.

 

“Of a whole planet?” Vesk countered, “The energy needed for that would be—” She paused. “Well, we would need a cannon the sssize of a sssmall moon!” She tapped a claw to her slender chin. “I vote we unleash a plague.”

 

“Statement of fact: they have those already. They haven’t died out yet,” Talvy countered, “Annoyed: and that wouldn’t destroy the planet, just the people.”

 

Vesk’s scaly frill fanned out from her neck in anger. “Well, why don’t you crack the crussst with some orbital bombardmentsss or sssomething?”

 

Talvy’s faceplate turned blue. “Weary: without my ship, our shots are wildly inaccurate. The humans mistook our last few attempts for comets or asteroids that whizzed past them.”

 

“We could feed them to the Recluse-Prime!” the second Glop suggested.

 

“Please no,” the Recluse Prime whimpered, “I never have guests over for dinner. I wouldn’t know what to do. They’d start begging for their life and I’d get flustered and then they’d make a mess of my lair while escaping.”

 

“Growing Annoyance: and, that still wouldn’t destroy the planet,” Talvy snapped.

 

Blip leaned forward. “So, let me get this straight. None of us have any actual way to destroy the Earth?”

 

They fell silent and exchanged glances.

 

“No.”

 

“Not as such.”

 

“Reluctant: it does not appear so.”

 

“Er, no.”

 

Blip took in a deep breath and sighed. “Well,” he said, “Dang. Plan B, then.”

 

“Plan B?” the Recluse-Prime asked, “What’s Plan B?

 

“Oh, you know. Kidnap some cows, carve a few symbols in corn-fields, let our ships be seen by bad cameras.” Blip shrugged. “Nothing fancy, but it will buy us time. Time to plot. Time to scheme. Time to—”

​

“--Destroy the Earth!”

​

The Recluse-Prime sighed.