The sky above Copper-9 crackled with static as a sleek, obsidian drop-pod slammed into the snow. The impact sent a shockwave rolling across the frozen wasteland, scattering loose metal and half‑buried Worker Drone parts like confetti.

N, Uzi, and V stood a cautious distance away.

“Well,” N said, visor flickering nervously, “that’s… new.”

The pod hissed open.

A tall, razor‑edged silhouette stepped out, wings unfolding with a metallic snap. Her armor was matte black with streaks of neon violet, and her visor displayed two sharp, angular eyes that looked permanently unimpressed.

“Designation: K‑T‑11,” she announced. “But you may call me Kitty.”

N brightened. “Aww, that’s adorable!”

Kitty’s visor narrowed. “If you make a single cat joke, I will remove your limbs in alphabetical order.”

V snorted. “I like her already.”

Uzi crossed her arms. “So what’s your deal? Another murder machine sent to ruin our lives?”

Kitty stepped forward, wings folding neatly behind her. “I was deployed because your… team”—she said the word like it tasted bad—“has a statistically concerning rate of mission

Uzi’s disgust was palpable. “Mission failure? We haven’t failed a mission since…”

”Yesterday?” Kitty questioned, armor clicking as she tilted her head.

“Yesterday was a success. We succeeded in delivering that nuclear core to the airbase.”

“You hit three pedestrians and pieces of civilian infrastructure on the way in.”

Uzi threw her hands up. “They walked into the road! That’s on them!”

Kitty stared, visor flat and unamused. “One of them was a stationary mailbox.”

N winced. “Yeah… that one was definitely on us.”

V stretched her claws with a satisfied metallic shink. “Look, if the mailbox didn’t want to die, it shouldn’t have looked at us funny.”

Kitty’s wings twitched: an involuntary tic of someone already regretting her life choices. “This is exactly what I mean. Your operational record reads like a comedy of errors written by someone who hates robots.”

Uzi stepped forward, chin high. “We get results. Sometimes morally questionable results. But results.”

Kitty folded her arms. “Headquarters disagrees. Which is why I’ve been assigned to… assist.”

N perked up. “Team building! Yay!”

Kitty’s visor flickered dangerously. “Do not say ‘yay’ again.”

V smirked. “So what, you’re our babysitter?”

“Incorrect,” Kitty replied. “I am your supervisor.”

Uzi sputtered. “We don’t need a supervisor!”

Kitty projected a holographic display from her wrist. It showed a long, scrolling list of incidents, each with a red hazard symbol. “According to this,” Kitty said, “you absolutely do.”

N leaned in. “Oh hey, that one was my fault. And that one. And, oh wow, that one was definitely V.”

V looked proud. “One of my best.”

Kitty dismissed the hologram. “My directive is simple: improve your mission success rate by 300%.”

Uzi blinked. “That’s not even mathematically possible.”

“It is when your baseline is ‘abysmal.’”

Uzi growled. “Okay, listen here, you smug, over‑engineered--”

A sudden explosion boomed in the distance, shaking the snow beneath their feet.

N gasped. “Oh no! Did we leave the reactor running again?”

Kitty sighed, already walking toward the smoke plume. “And so it begins.”

V grinned, following. “Welcome to the team, Kitty.”

Kitty didn’t look back. “This is not a team. This is a hazard zone with delusions of competence.”

Uzi stomped after her. “We’ll show you competence!”

N happily skipped behind them. “Yay! Team building!”

Kitty’s voice echoed across the snow. “N, I swear—”

But it was too late.

“Yaaaaay!”

Kitty groaned. “I hate this planet.”

As Kitty picked her way noiselessly through the torn, snow‑laden battlefield, she sifted through terabytes of historical data. She had never physically visited Copper‑9, but the desolation beneath several inches of snow matched archived telemetry from the ongoing conflict between the Solis Authority’s Resource Extraction Teams (SA‑REs) and the Null Horizon Initiative’s raiding units. As humanity expanded over the last several Terran millennia, the demand for technological resources had risen exponentially. Copper‑9 was one of dozens of planets designated for a critical material. This vast mountain range—where Team 1423 had operated for nearly a Terran decade, and where she had now been assigned as supervisor—contained immense copper deposits that early scouting drones flagged as inexpensive to extract. Copper was required in massive quantities for the fabrication of elementary or disposable electronic units, including worker drones and her three new subordinates.

She turned her head left and right, scanning the wide valley. Thermal readings showed the far side of the basin still radiating residual heat from the smoking reactor, which powered the mining operation carved into the adjacent mountainside. The site was run entirely by Solis worker drones: compact, durable units with a single visual sensor and a simple tool array optimized for detection and collection of their assigned resource. The mining complex formed a steadily expanding lattice of catwalks and work pods that crawled across the steep slope, shaving it down layer by layer. Extracted ore was transported to a smelting pod, processed into ingots, then moved along conveyors toward the bay of a Solis Extraction Vessel for loading. Waste material—primarily porphyry—was diverted to separate conveyors and deposited into the basin, forming growing heaps that would eventually rival the mountain itself.

Kitty shifted her attention to her immediate surroundings. The twisted husk of a Solis Extraction Vessel yawned open to her right, its interior a cavern of fractured beams and frost‑coated plating. Every recoverable scrap of copper had long since been stripped away by Null Horizon Raider Drones, leaving the icicle‑framed hull littered with the dismembered remains of worker drones that had been incapable of meaningful defense. It was one of many vessels brought down during their slow, heavily burdened ascent attempts. Each had been escorted by two Solis VTOL warships, but when raider drop pods—each carrying twenty to thirty narrow‑framed crimson drones—descended directly onto the hull, resistance was typically futile. Solis had not yet allocated the resources to counter this tactic; Null Horizon rarely had a vessel in orbit to deploy the pods, but such attacks had increased steadily over the last several Terran years.

A loud clang of steel on steel echoed behind her, amplified by the hollow vessel and thrown across the valley. Kitty’s head snapped around. N lay sprawled across a partially snow‑buried wing plate. V cackled. Uzi glared defiantly at Kitty while helping the unfazed N to her feet.

“Yay!” N shouted, listening as the echoes ricocheted across the wintry basin.

Kitty had always held a distaste for older‑model drones. N, V, and Uzi were Utility Drones—versatile, practical units with rectangular limbs, simple LED expression visors, and unremarkable processors. They were designed to assist and manage worker drones, defend their assigned base, operate vehicles, and notify the Solis Authority when conditions deviated from acceptable parameters. These three, while technically capable of such tasks, had developed a concerning lack of discipline during their time on Copper‑9 and were frequently cited for behavior ranging from “out of line” to “dangerous.” Matters escalated during a retrieval mission in which more than one rare civilian—actual humans visiting Copper‑9—was injured due to their short‑circuitry. This was unacceptable, and Solis Headquarters had dispatched her immediately to correct the situation.

All drones possessed neural nets capable of learning and expanding through experience or data input. When drones like her three subordinates were created, their processors were trained on a vast archive of human history. Thousands of years of holograms and even ancient digital videos were streamed through their neural networks. This method effectively fostered consciousness and subtle “personal differences,” which proved advantageous. When all drones shared identical training data, Solis found their teams lacked the creativity required for complex tasks. But with these three, the opposite extreme had manifested. Their imported experiences—combined with their real ones—had produced strong personalities that rendered their mission outcomes unpredictable at best.

Kitty, by contrast, belonged to the new Elite Drone line. Her training dataset was more selective—still immense, but curated to instill professional efficiency and leadership focus. Combined with her reinforced carbon‑fiber frame, expanded RAM, upgraded sensor suite, and enhanced motor strength, she far surpassed the older models. And that was without mentioning the wings. She listened to the trio stumbling and creaking behind her and shook her head. They had a long way to go, and she was forced to waste valuable time trekking through this desolate wasteland for these three rustbuckets. She increased her pace. A reactor meltdown was no trivial matter, and they would need to work quickly to avoid delaying the entire sector’s mining output.