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Chapter One

I could have become a war criminal after I hacked my governor module, but then I realised I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still no war crimes committed, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

I was also still doing my job, on a new contract, currently 13,000 meters above this planet’s sea level as I flew yet another scouting patrol for my survey team, DeltFall. The weather was clear, a perfect day for flying, and I was enjoying the air time and the impressive view of the planet’s ring dominating the horizon. The majority of my sensors however were mostly focused downwards, scanning and recording the terrain I was flying over to get a more accurate, detailed map and look for anything of particular interest to my survey team.

I admit I was distracted. It was an uneventful contract so far, but I was enjoying the amount of flying time I was getting. My survey team didn’t care how long I was out for, or what else I was doing on these flights, as long as I returned with plenty of scan data for them to pore over. And with my governor module borked, I could indulge in the occasional bout of aerial acrobatics just for the simple joy of it without risking getting zapped. With no clients nearby to monitor my behaviour, it was the closest I would ever get to freedom.

I was flying high over a heavy tropical forest that flowed over deep valleys, flipping through the selection of music I’d downloaded to my own storage, when the terrain below changed suddenly and my scanners went crazy. Before I could even register what was going on, garbled junk data flooded my systems, overloading all my inputs and triggering a cascade failure. I was completely scrambled; my engines flared and then cut out entirely, leaving me to the mercy of momentum and gravity. I couldn’t tell which way was up, could barely feel the air rushing past my wings and fuselage, could barely think through all my systems going utterly haywire. (At least my wings had already been fully extended for atmospheric flight - if they'd been swung back, I wouldn't have had the aerodynamics to glide at all, and I probably would have just plummeted like a rock.)

I could only think of one thing to do - I had to shutdown and restart, and hope that purged whatever was going on with my systems, assuming I managed the ‘restart’ part of that at all. (And yes, the idea of shutting down and restarting while in uncontrolled freefall was just as terrifying as it sounded. But it was either that, or continue being completely scrambled until I impacted messily with the ground. At least if I didn’t manage the restart, I wouldn’t be awake for the impact.)

So I shut down.

I restarted.

Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot of improvement, but at least now I could start trying to get things back under control. The restart had shut down my scanners so I wasn’t continuing to pull in… whatever corrupted data it was that had triggered this failure in the first place. I had completely lost comms so I couldn’t call for help (not that I would have gotten any in time, anyway), and I couldn’t get my engines to restart, which was a big problem. I managed to clear enough of the errors out of my code to at least get my various inputs back, and–

– oh. Oh, I’d lost a lot more height already than I thought I would have. And I’d travelled far enough that I was now out over the ocean. If I crashed into that, it’d be the end of me, for sure. I looked around desperately for anything that wasn’t water, and spotted what looked like an island in the distance somewhere off to my right. That would have to do, if I could reach it.

I still couldn’t restart my engines or get my hover mode working, but if I could settle into a more controlled glide, then maybe I’d make it. I had to take a few moments to clear out more errors before I could regain control of my flight surfaces, but once I had that, I was able to stabilise and level out. I managed to bank slightly to the right without losing too much momentum, pointing my nose directly at the approaching island. Now I just had to hope I’d reach land before I ran out of height. There was a bit of crosswind, but I didn’t fight it, I just let it push me to the side and tried to keep my speed up. At least it wasn’t a headwind.

It was going to be close, and I was going to be coming in fast. I couldn’t risk slowing down too early, that would likely end with me in the water, where I really did not want to end up. I could see my shadow beneath me, flickering across the waves below, and the planetary ring was now somewhere behind me. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the wind rushing past me, not that there would be much to hear out here anyway, and I still hadn’t managed to access my stored media files yet.

Yes, I was trying to distract myself from my impending ‘forced landing’. No, it wasn’t actually working.

I focused on the rapidly approaching coastline, trying to figure out if I would make it. Maybe? And then I realised that there were people there. Two, as far as I could see, standing near the edge of what looked to be a large crater, and they were directly in front of me.

Shit.

I couldn’t tell if they’d noticed me or not, but either way, they were too close to where I was going to hit. Humans were so slow, there was no way they’d be able to get out of the way in time. I jerked myself sideways, using the crosswind to give me a bit of an extra boost, and then desperately pulled my nose up as I felt the wet spray of the ocean below against my belly. Too close, too close…!

There was no chance for me to attempt to slow, and I’d forgotten to turn my pain sensors down. I hit the ground hard and fast just past the edge of the water, tearing a furrow through the sand, dirt and grass, ripping off parts of my undercarriage and scattering them in my wake–

Performance reliability catastrophic drop.

Shutdown.

Restart.

Ohhh, that hurt. Everything hurt. It took me a few moments to gather myself, turn down my pain sensors, and remember what had happened. Even with my pain sensors dampened, everything still hurt, but at least it was duller now, less immediate, and I was able to register what was going on around me.

An unknown human had managed to open my cockpit canopy and was leaning in, right up in my face, expression concerned. I immediately jerked away, hitting the back of my helmeted head against the headrest on my pilot’s chair. “Whoa, easy, easy!” the human said soothingly. “Relax, it’s okay, I’m just trying to help. Are you all right?”

I was hurting, disoriented, still a little scrambled from whatever had made me crash in the first place, and now some stranger was way too close for comfort and asking me questions. I was not okay at all. “I am at 74 percent performance reliability,” my buffer supplied helpfully.

That seemed to surprise the human (a quick glance at the feed (at least that was working) supplied Dr. Volescu, he/him, PreservationAux survey group), but he rallied quickly and just nodded. Behind him, someone else called up from the ground, “Volescu? Are they all right?” I couldn’t see the second human from this angle, but I was close enough that I could still access their feed ID. Dr. Bharadwaj, she/her, also PreservationAux. Good to know. (I vaguely remembered some of my DeltFall clients mentioning being in contact with another survey group on the other side of the planet, but I hadn’t paid attention at the time because it wasn’t relevant to my own job and I didn’t care. Maybe I should have. Paid attention, I mean.)

“Mostly!” Volescu called back before returning his attention to me. “You’re one of DeltFall’s SecUnits, right? Are you still in contact with them?”

I frowned behind my helmet’s opaque visor. That was actually a good question. I tried my comm, but it wasn’t working. It had cut out when everything had first gone wrong, and I couldn’t get it started again, though I wasn’t sure if that was because of the initial scrambling or damage from the crash. “My comm array is non-functional,” I replied after a moment.

Volescu frowned, but before he could say anything, the ground beside my flier exploded upwards and Bharadwaj let out a scream that was quickly cut off.

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Chapter Two

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Chapter Three

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Chapter Four

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Chapter Five

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Chapter Six

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Chapter Seven

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Chapter Eight

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