(Orbit.2)

Roughly half an hour has gone by and Aiden was still sitting on one of the benches in the mess hall, he pulled out a package of corn beef stew with two apples to the side and a metal cup filled with water. He was holding a spoon in one hand slowly consuming his main dish while taking a few bites from his apples, but the feeling of being alone in that room tugs against his heart making his meal less enjoyable.

"I wonder if anyone survives in my reality." In the middle of taking another bite out of the Apple, he mutters to himself a bit.

He stares at the doorway and then the kitchen hoping that someone would randomly appear out from a counter or a corner, making his loneliness less difficult to deal with. He had Laura to talk to but if he ever needs any physical support, she wasn't able to do that for him.

Aiden was usually fine with not talking to people for a long time, one of the things about being an introverted scientist and an archeologist enthusiast. This was a new thing for him instead of a long time, the people he knew before could be long gone, and maybe even dead.

With the final bite, he tosses the Apple core and the empty food package into the trash disposal, and right as he was about to leave the room.

"Sir" Laura was speaking through the intercom built inside the room "The preparations are set, can you please come to the main deck?"

Aiden looked up at the security camera up in the corner of the room and gave her a peace sign. "Will do." Then he left the mess hall.

Arriving at the door to the ship helm, it would slide open and Aiden strolls on in.

"You determine the location best fit to send them Laura?"

She reappears once again along with the map of the world.

"The yellow markings are the places I believe are suitable for early reconnaissance to sweep over first."

A total of 6 yellow marks display on the global map, covering different parts of the world. One was close to a human settlement, and another was on the dragtonic lands, but at this time Aiden has no idea what's going on.

"And you made the necessary preparations to allow them safe entry into the planet's atmosphere?"

"All drones have been loaded up into metal cylinder containers that will break apart releasing 3 of them in the atmosphere below the critical burn reentry point."

"Good, release them on my mark."

He holds up a finger pointed up at the ceiling of the ship, and then sway his hand downward.

"Send out the drones."

Two-cylinder shape shot out from the ship as they were now on course heading over to the planet,

"Time, 30 minutes and counting until drones are fully deployed and capable of performing recon."

A second screen shows up next to the world map one, a timer counting the mili seconds of the 30 minutes duration.

"We will be able to video feedback right?"

"Correct, we will receive camera feedback."

"Good I just wanted to make sure."

The countdown continues to go down from 30 to 20, then to 10, and soon it was down to 5 minutes, Aiden ready himself to hear the status report of the condition the drones would be in when they are within the planet gravitation range, as they make entry into the atmosphere.

"The Seekers are now being dragged down by the planet's gravitational pull." Laura started to give out the information coming from the two containers on their current conditions.

"Velocity, roughly between 2000, and 2500. Altitude approximately 8000 miles above the planet's surface, and descending as of right now 357 meters per second and still increasing in speed."

"2 minutes and 32 seconds until we reach the entry burn stage, and then another 2 minutes after breakthrough."

The 2 minutes went by like they were only 2 seconds, if something went wrong with this procedure then Aiden would have lost some important supplies and equipment if those drones aren't delivered safely down to the planet.

"The seekers have detected an extreme increase of heat on the outer shell of the metal cylinders, and it is still increasing... They have entered the critical entry burn stage."

"Another 2 minutes until they break through and reach the safe point of package release."

"1 minute and 45 seconds, extending aerial breaks to decrease the velocity."

Then those 2 minutes would go by like seconds until Laura had finally spoken the words of the success of the mission.

"The package has arrived at the designated safe level, adjusting the angle of the release chambers."

"All seekers are successfully released into the planet's atmosphere, Altitude 11,000 meters above the surface, activating aerial mode hovering at approximately 9500 to 10,000 meters."

Aiden leans back into the captain's chair and lets out a major sigh of relief, aerospace engineering, and the important factors to make a successful re-entry from a planet orbit was something he doesn't really enjoy dealing with.

"thank god they didn't break apart during the descent." He had one of his hands covering his face, which was showing a cheerful facial expression.

A total of 6 different holographic screens appears near him, the displays were showing different parts of the blue skies of the planet but they were all directly looking at each other at the same time in a circle formation hovering in mid-air.

"Do you want to test the voice recognition to issue out your orders?"

"Huh?- OH right." Aiden sits up straight and moves his eyes between the different screens. He let out a cough to clear his throat and open his mouth.

"Enact AI activation program."

A tiny flash of red lights up a beacon that appears on top of the drones showing the signs of them turning on their rudimentary AI program. In the bottom right corner, a small chat box that was for communication between the human in charge and the drone, all 6 of them sent in a similar text sentence.

"Greetings, Seeker number designation require... input requested."

Aiden quickly inputted a number designation for each 6 of the drones, seeker 1 up to seeker 6.

"Codename establishes, What is the first order?"

"You will be sent an area of the planet to scout around and investigate, standby."

He looks up at Laura who was already sending a transmitted data to the drone's AI.

"coordinates received, moving to the area of operations."

The drones would turn in separate directions facing away from each other, then they angle their thrusters and blasted off to the area they will operate in, gathering intel and show off the land in more detail.

"Phase 1 is now complete..." He would look between the 6 screens to see what was coming back through the visual feed. "Moving onto phase 2 of the plan."

"Time to explore this little blue world, right?" Laura tilts her head to the side and looked down at Aiden.

"Right..."

Aiden pushes himself off the chair and steps up to the window, and places his hand on the coldness of the glass, seeing his reflection come off the window and the blue world ahead of him. He took the quiet moment to intake the view and turn around to look at Laura.

"Let's see what happens in this adventure."