I opened my eyes to a series of punches from a small hand, hitting my mouth, face, and nose. "You need to wake up, inspector!" I heard a shouting voice. With the pain in my face, I swiped hard at the thing on top of me with the back of my hand, smearing it against the wall like a glob of goo.
As the blaring alarm and flashing red lights assaulted my ears and eyes, I saw Hulk slide down the wall and fall to the floor. I had hit the little guy so hard he might have even passed out. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth, and a few of his teeth were broken.
"What's with this alarm? Jose!"
My spaceship, the Falcon, was constantly shaking. Jose, who should normally be floating in the air, was lying unconscious on the floor. I went to Jose with quick steps and started shaking him. He was like a metal box constantly sliding back and forth on the floor, making a metallic scraping sound with every movement. There was no reaction.
"What the hell happened in two seconds?!"
Hulk got up from the floor, holding his waist. He could barely stand due to the shaking.
"Man, you've got a hard hand, inspector!"
"What happened here?"
"How should I know... We were just approaching the planet when Jose said, 'Error: Not Enough Storage Space,' and suddenly collapsed onto the floor."
The spaceship suddenly shook violently, and I was thrown from my spot, hitting my head on the ceiling and falling to the floor. I landed flat on my back.
"You're lying!" I yelled, grabbing Hulk with my hand while still lying on my back on the floor. "What did you do to the robot?"
"What could a tiny creature like me do to a giant robot, are you crazy?!"
I tried to get up, but I could barely do so because of the shaking. As I hugged the chair fastened to the floor, I threw Hulk onto the spaceship's cockpit. Hulk hit a few buttons, rolled, and finally stopped after hitting the window.
"Are we falling?" I asked, clinging to the chair.
"Since there's no up or down in space, I can't say for sure. All I know is we're about to enter the planet's atmosphere, but the ship's orbit is constantly changing," said Hulk, gripping one of the buttons tightly. "Aren't you an inspector? Can't you control this ship?"
"I don't know anything about flying a ship. There's no need to rush, right? Let me think..."
"How hard can it be, really?" Hulk added.
"3 minutes until we enter the atmosphere... Warning: If you don't slow down after entering the atmosphere, it's only a matter of time before you crash into the ground within 2 minutes."
"So we have 6 minutes left?"
"That makes 5 minutes, you idiot inspector!"
"I'm sorry! I can't really think when I'm panicking!"
"So you can normally think?"
"Is this the time for this discussion?"
I glanced at Jose. The robot assistant was lying sideways on the floor. As I prodded him with the tip of my foot, I jumped from my spot once more and this time landed on top of the chair. I lifted my head and started looking at the buttons.
"Pull the lever in front of you!" Hulk shouted.
As I sat down properly in the chair, a seatbelt automatically fastened. Next to the chair's armrest, there was a cluster of buttons and a lever. Trembling, I tried to pull the lever, but a warning appeared on the screen. At that moment, Hulk could no longer hold onto the button he was gripping and hit the wall on the other side of the room. Then, bouncing like a ball, he hit the ceiling, then the bed, and finally the window before stopping in front of me.
"'It's dangerous to change direction when the engines are at full power,' I said, trembling, because the vehicle was vibrating like a phone on silent. 'That's what it says...'"
"What?" Hulk shouted.
"We need to cut power from the engines for me to pull the lever!"
Hulk was trembling on top of the cockpit, accidentally pressing some buttons with his rear. I grabbed him with my hand and squeezed him tight with the chair's seatbelt, sticking him to myself.
"Then start pressing buttons!" Hulk shouted from under my arm.
"Entering the atmosphere!"
"When the hell did that happen?!"
It was such an entry that the entire cockpit was rocked by a huge pressure wave. My head hurt so much I couldn't think straight. I looked at the buttons under my hand. There was a red button with a flame symbol. I pressed it. "Approval is required for missile launch."
"Missiles? What missiles?"
"Shut your trap, you rat-faced creature, I'm canceling it!"
There was an 'x' button next to the red button. I thought pressing it would cancel the missiles, but I heard the voice say, "No target found for missiles." At first, we both sighed in relief. But then, when we heard the sentence, "Missiles are being launched along the orbit," Hulk and I just stared at each other.
No matter how much I tried to stop the missiles—and I was doing it by praying—the missiles had been launched. We were inside the planet's orbit, but we couldn't see where the rockets fell because the planet's atmosphere was surrounded by pitch-black clouds. It would be a lie to say we didn't feel a tremor as if the missile had crashed into the planet and destroyed the surroundings. Maybe it was psychological, but I felt like I was trembling in my place.
"Did you just bomb the planet we're supposed to land on!" Hulk yelled. "Are you crazy?!"
"30 seconds to collision!"
"Oh, just get the fuck away! If it's so easy, you stop the engines! Will you just be quiet?!"
Hulk freed himself from under my arm and, saying, "From now on, anything goes," he threw himself face-first onto all the buttons in the cockpit. He was randomly pressing all the buttons with his whole body. He was rolling, kicking, and headbutting the buttons. "It's better than death."
One of the buttons Hulk pressed played music. One opened the cabinets, one poured wine, one changed the color of the window, one accessed the internet, one shut down the weapons, one opened the landing gear. In the midst of all this chaos, something caught my eye.
"10 seconds to collision!"
There was a rotary knob next to my arm. And on it, the word "Engine" was written in huge letters. "Hulk! It says 'engine' right here!" I shouted and turned the knob from red to green. The engine didn't slow down all at once, but it slowly came to a stop, and we hung in the air.
Now I could easily move the spaceship in the air and look wherever I wanted. Below us was a gigantic science facility. It could be said to be about the size of a Middle Eastern country, because its ends were not visible. The center of the science facility seemed to be hosting another world with four different habitats. The science facility must have been built inside metal walls surrounding these four different habitats.
The planet was surrounded by dark clouds, but due to its purplish sun, the sky looked purple. The entire part of the planet outside the science facility was made of arid valleys, pits, and broken rocks.
When we turned our heads down a little more, we realized that all the security turrets at the science facility were aimed at us. Hulk raised his hands through the window as if they could see him.
"I guess we're in for it now, captain!" said Hulk.
Just then, a voice came from the spaceship's radio. "Captain of KF-15... You have entered the airspace of the Dermovox Xenobiology Science Facility. The missiles launched from your ship are normally a declaration of attack, but your vehicle is registered with the Bioethics Inspection Institution. Would you like to make a statement for this?"
I would have liked to make a statement, but I had no idea what to do it with. Hulk started looking around in a panic. I, too, was looking for a microphone or a headset.
"Please make a statement?"
After looking around a little more, I found a microphone. I pressed the button on the microphone and asked, "Hello, can you hear me?"
"Yes, Captain KF-15. We are listening."
"First of all, thank you very much for your patience. I am Inspector Mehmet from the Bioethics Inspection Institution... This mistake occurred as a result of some problems with my vehicle. On behalf of my team and myself, we are truly sorry. Normally, we were supposed to come here for an inspection."
"We did not give an instruction for an inspection..."
"It would be more appreciated if I discussed this with your boss."
"Please land on the runway and wait for us."
When the microphone went off, I found myself completely relaxed. I looked at Hulk. Hulk seemed even more scared than me. My body, no longer pumping adrenaline, had let go so much that I couldn't hold back my stomach. Holding the bedsheet I had used to sleep on just a few minutes ago like a bag, I vomited as much as I could onto it.