The pod's computer was constantly running. Data was being collected, orbit path trajectories ran and altered, boosters engaged every so often to avoid estimated collisions with everything from planet-like objects to space-trash. He'd wanted to get off the planet and he had. He had ended up leaving the solar system.
His galaxy, too, had been left far, far behind.
His pod, with no coordinates, had defaulted to its base instructions: Avoid colliding with anything until an endpoint had been assigned. It had followed it's procedure admirably up to now. Now, however, now there was a major problem. One of the thrusters had failed and it was heading directly for a planet.
The pod's systems, recognizing he probability of what was going to happen, diverted necessary energy from systems being previously used to systems that would increase the odds of surviving a crash. Shields flickered brighter as they were strengthened; restraints extended in the pod and fastened to keep its passenger from moving too much; systems were prepped to revive him upon impact.
The nose of the pod slowly shifted planet side as the Earth's gravitational field took hold. Entrance heat caused the shields to change from their dormant blue to a blazing white in an attempt to protect the pod, to protect the passenger, from coming to harm. During this brief war with friction, another enemy waited patiently for its turn to crush the newcomer, the alien intruding upon its "peace," its "serenity."
The ground.
Large chunks of dirt were displaced and dozens of trees were destroyed upon impact or shortly thereafter. The aftermath saw a very large hole in the ground; the only noise was the debris settling back down to Earth. No animals stirred. Any that had been nearby were either fled or dead.
Immediately after impact - when movement was registered as having been halted - the pod diverted what power it had left away from the shields and took a reading of its surroundings. After sufficient data had been collected to determine that the environment wouldn't be too hostile to its passenger, the pod's system ran through the programs and procedures necessary to revive the man.
The hatch detached with a hiss of depressurization and slid back. Various tubes automatically disconnected themselves before the passenger finally opened his eyes. He lay there, floating in the soup designed to keep him alive indefinitely, before his brain realized that he was breathing liquid. Base instincts kicked in telling him that liquid was bad for the lungs.
He sat up, gasping. The man spent the next few minutes alternating between coughing up the liquid and gasping more to replace it with air. Once his brain felt it was no longer in peril, he sat there for a bit. He gained feeling in his head, then his neck and torso, then the rest of his body.
He looked up and was greeted with the sight of dirt a little ways out and slanting upward. His gaze traveled farther up until he saw where the dirt seemed to touch the sky. Climbing up there was not something he wanted to do but there was little choice else so, after spending a few moments to gather the willpower to start the climb, he lifted himself out of the thing he had found himself in and started the trek upwards.
