" CHARLIE SAT ON a rock in what was once a great city.  Charred towers of steel, cracked concrete, and broken glass reached up to tear at the clouds passing low through the sky.  Fires burned from a thousand places, some close, most far.  Cars, an airplane, trucks—all the machinery of a human economy—lay dead in the streets.  The buildings, too weak to stand against a phased quantum burst, lay in rubble.  Bodies of people and simulants alike lay broken in the ruins. Charlie scanned the gray sky, at least what he could see of it between the buildings and the rising smoke.  Something unseen buzzed up there, or lots of somethings, deep-throated and mean, gargling fuel and choking out smoke.  How many?  He couldn’t guess.  His thoughts weren’t lining up in his head.  Math things weren’t clicking.  Logic was bending wrong. The drones did this to me. Murderous things.  Killers and destroyers. Were more coming? Charlie had some time.  He thought he was sure.  Some moments.  Maybe? "

― , Tales from the Starship Discovery