The drone received the signal sent by its creators.

It did not have any self-awareness, and so no sense of self-preservation. It was not built to survive its mission.

It simply followed its programming.

It changed its broadcasting protocol. Instead of waiting until shielded by the sun from the planet which it constantly spied on to transmit its information, it would transmit everything the moment its mission was about to successfully conclude.

Or was about to spectacularly fail.

The drone had no preference about which outcome its mission had.

But it was programmed, was built for success.

Small chemical jets on the side of the drone hidden from the planet pushed for a few minutes. By the Group Mind’s estimate, the pre-dead would never detect the jets, would think some random cosmic event had redirected the drone. They should not suspect what was happening until too late.

Now, instead of just missing the planet, the drone would hit it.

Another species, far, far away in both space and time, would have called the drone a “dinosaur killer.”