THE TALES FROM COPPER 9! Volume 1 (Murder Drones)

Landfall - Chapter 005

Osiris: "Captain, please proceed to the cockpit and prepare, we are expected to enter lower orbit within 7 minutes."

"Thank you for letting me know, Osiris, I will be there shortly." I replied, before walking through to the cockpit, overlooking Copper 9 in all its radiation storm filled glory.

It's frozen grey clouds swirled with the cold, dark fury of over a thousand radioactive hurricanes, randomly flashing with raging lightning. I couldn't even see the surface of the planet from orbit.

Osiris: "Sir, are you sure we should enter the atmosphere at this time? The storms are wreaking havoc on the ship's autopilot sensors, meaning you will have to manually land the vessel."

"Osiris, if we don't go now, it's only going to get worse, and worse, and worse. Prepare the pilot controls, we're going in."

Osiris: "Of course sir, ready to enter on your command."

We pulled lower and lower until the ship started to shake and shudder, and the smokey grey clouds draped over the ship, blocking my view.

"Osiris, switch the scanner mode to echolocation, and set the pinger to use subsonic waves for detection."

Osiris: "Processing, processing, process- recalibration complete. Ready to enter on your command."

"Okay, entering the atmosphere now.

The ship dived down into the raging storms of Copper 9, getting thrown around in the violent winds, but yet to see any debris or objects.

"Osiris? You sensing anything?"

Osiris: "Not yet sir, all clear on the echolocation scan- alert, object detected moving in our direction 30 down, 70 to the left."

A large object came up in the scanners, flying past us and just barely clipping the left wing. And the rubble only got worse from there. Barely making our way to the ground without hitting the surrounding structures, we pulled up to a level flying position and opened the landing gears.

"Okay, we're near the ground, Osiris, I'm gonna need you to land it slowly, okay?"

Osiris: "Yes sir."

We pulled in low and fast, and I gave Osiris instructions how to land it slowly.
"That's right, just a peck, small smooch, like your kissing your sister."

Suddenly the ship crashed down into the ground violently and I yelled at Osiris.
"I SAID LIGHLY KISS IT, NOT DO A FRENCH LIP-LOCK! AND WHY DO I HEAR SWEET HOME ALABAMA?!"

The ship slowly ground to a halt over the next five minutes, only because we smashed straight into the side of a broken-down skyscraper.

"Ow, my head, Osiris, status report!"

Osiris: "All engines are Operational, Weapon systems online, landing gears inoperable, takeoff systems offline, external defence systems online, internal defence systems online, quantum power generators online, telecommunications equipment online, VTOL engines disabled."

"Good. But the landing gears gone, l supposed that was to be expected, after crashing violently into the ground. Wait, did you just say we can't take off?"

Osiris: "Yes sir, we will not be able to take flight again until the VTOL jets have been unblocked or replaced." 

To my surprise, Osiris actually sounded embarrassed to have failed to land smoothly, before swinging a sarcastic comment in my direction. "My apologies, sir, but I did recommend a different course of action."

I shrugged off the snarky comment, and walked down to the cargo bay, before readying my suit, and recalled why I was here in the first place.