Copper-9 was never meant to survive this long.
A dead exoplanet shouldn’t cling to life the way this one did—its cracked ice crust drifting over radioactive currents, its winds still howling with human ghosts. Even before it became “JCJenson Inc.’s greatest failure,” it refused to die properly.
Once, humans filled it with endless factories, and enough robotics labs to make Earth’s safety boards break into a sweat. They called it a frontier of progress. Worker Drones would’ve called it home, had any been given time to speak before the world detonated under them.
The Core Collapse came first. One catastrophic implosion—blame passed everywhere, reason never found.
The planet died overnight. And somehow, it still got worse.
Abandoned by their creators, the Worker Drones did the unthinkable—they adapted. Survived. Built warrens in the ice, communities in wreckage, and turned every forgotten bunker into shelter. JCJenson never imagined their tools would outlive the humans.
They certainly didn’t imagine they’d rebuild.
Corporate panic does strange things to executives. Fear does stranger. The idea of sentient property developing independence was unacceptable, so they authorized Operation: Disassembly. A clean little euphemism for shipping out their stockpile of moth-balled military androids: sleek, lethal machines blending Worker Drone hardware with adaptable AI.
Product name: Disassembly Drones.
Seven squadrons. Four units each. All aimed at making Copper-9 stop being JCJenson’s cosmic migraine.
Somewhere deep beneath the frozen surface, in a labyrinth of defunct labs, an eerie, mechanical giggle—neither human nor machine—echoed through the dark.
Murder Dr💀nes — REVAMPED AU
Deep in the hollowed ruins of a factory district, the wind carried a rising giggle—sharp, wild, delighted. Lights flickered as a silhouette darted across steel beams, too fast, too amused, too unhinged.
Serial Designation V was having fun again.
Delta Squadron’s infamous sergeant, V excelled at impulsive maneuvers, questionable decisions, and reckless enthusiasm. Others preferred tactical sweeps; she preferred speedruns of chaos. Others eliminated targets cleanly; she crafted art.
Tonight was no different.
Her wings scraped sparks off a rusted catwalk as she vaulted over it, dropping directly onto a fleeing scavenger. Synthetic plating cracked. Metal screamed. A burst of static escaped before its signal died entirely.
V blinked. Then giggled.
“Oops.”
She didn’t even pretend to check whether the drone had been in the mission briefor if they were a part of the Worker Résistance to begin with—or whether she’d even downloaded the mission brief at all. Odds were 50/50 on a good day.
To her, Copper-9 wasn’t a battlefield. It was a snow-smothered jungle gym. Every collapsed lab, frozen tunnel, and buried panic bunker existed purely so she could sprint, leap, break things, and ignore J’s orders with Olympic-level dedication.
Which is precisely why most Disassembly Drones avoided patrolling with her.
Crouched on the catwalk’s edge, optics brightening, V scanned the frozen expanse. Her comms buzzed faintly—Delta Squadron coordinating, J lecturing someone (probably N, maybe V herself), K responding with lazy sarcasm, and some edgy-sounding rebel teen bleeding interference into the band. V tuned all of it out.
“Uno más,” she muttered. “There’s always one more.”
Her tail joint flicked eagerly.
She smelled fear. She smelled fun.
Below, through the blizzard of metal shards and ice-chunked air, a heat signature flickered—alive, moving, panicked. A lone survivor sprinting across the loading bay.
V tilted her head.
Not one of theirs.
Definitely chaseable.
Definitely—
Her wings snapped open with a hiss. She launched forward, frost slicing behind her boots as she dove from the catwalk, laughing like a corrupted banshee.
“¡Ven aquí!”
The wind shrieked around her sharp-edged wings.