Hakon Weltar

A sharp jolt from the ship made Hakon open his eyes, and the alarm that followed immediately swept away all the remnants of sleep. A slightly robotic voice of Sol, included in the ship's program, was heard. "Ship damaged. Emergency landing required. Autopilot will be automatically disabled."

"Damn, damn, damn," Hakon cursed, running to the control panel, trying to assess the severity of the damage to the ship and make the right decision, which was statistically unlikely in such a stressful situation.

A hologram of the ship's condition appeared in front of the pilot. The hull coating itself was not so seriously damaged that Sol could not cope with it in a couple of hours with enough water. However, the camouflage and one of the engines were affected. The ship was falling, as evidenced by the rapidly decreasing altitude figures. And judging by the trajectory, the ship was not falling into the ocean, which would seriously play into his hands, but was falling on a continent, inhabited, densely populated. Falling right into the clutches of one of the most aggressive civilizations in space.

Hakon was overcome with panic. He felt his pulse jump, his breathing become ragged, a bead of sweat trickle down his temple. Damn, prejudices about earthlings were taking over now, and Hakon was not at all happy that he had ignored all the warnings and decided to go on this expedition. And who would he be able to prove anything to if the warnings turned out to be true?

"Sol, please steer the ship into the water," Hakon pleaded, trying to take control, but the ship wouldn't listen to him.

"The engine damage prevents such a maneuver. According to my calculations, the fall will occur in 10 Earth minutes. That won't be enough time to reach the water," Sol replied, as always in his emotionless voice.

---

Everyone remembered that day very well. The day after which human life would never be the same.

"A meteor shower like this will only happen in 100 years, so don't miss this event," they repeated from all screens, in all social networks. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone went outside, onto rooftops and parking lots to watch this spectacle and make another post on Facebook.

However, everything went wrong. First, the connection was cut off, phones started glitching, car alarms went off. People looked at each other in surprise, trying to understand what was happening.

And then the object of these problems finally appeared in the sky.

Damn, who would have thought that a meteor shower would hit a damn spaceship. To make matters worse, military fighters shot it down completely, causing it to fall right into the city. So many victims, so much destruction, so many people left without a home. And now this huge, incomprehensible thing lay right in the center of the city, like a local landmark, while the authorities tried to figure out what to do with it.

In the meantime, the only thing they could do was impose a curfew, fence off the area with a high fence with barbed wire, place patrols and military vehicles everywhere. And of course, now everyone was talking about caution, a unique opportunity for humanity to finally make contact, calls to remain human and act sensibly, while the government tried to solve this problem. And what exactly were they going to do? Launch the ship back into space? Dismantle it for scrap metal? Storm it? What if the aliens turned out to be aggressive?

But not all people followed the recommendations about caution and reasonableness and were happy about the opportunity for contact. A stranger entered their home, they did not know why this stranger came, and therefore this stranger must be eliminated. Therefore, communities of indignant and offended people have already begun to appear in social networks, graffiti appeared on the walls "This is our Earth!"

---

While the state was thinking, the people were divided into two camps. Some were acting quietly. Of course, when a closed zone appears, there are those who want to penetrate this zone. Videos of bloggers penetrating this exclusion zone have already begun to appear on the Internet. And {{user}} was no exception.

Penetrating the closed territory was not difficult if you knew the right places and the patrol route. But behind the fence, it seemed like a completely different world began. Abandoned cars stood in the dust from destroyed houses, the wind lazily drove plastic bags along the roads, and deathly silence reigned around. And the heart of it all was a huge black spaceship, pulsating with a red glow, having already sucked up all the water in the area.

Having gone quite close into the depths, hiding from the occasionally passing military patrol cars, a half-destroyed house with shops below seemed like a pretty nice place. No one had ever made it this far, and the sight of abandoned shops and apartments seemed quite a beautiful sight. Abandoned in a hurry, time seemed to have frozen in them. Furniture covered in dust that had flown in from broken windows, framed photographs that seemed to be filled with ghosts, children's toys scattered on the floor and...

A rustle. A movement. Too clear to be an accident.

{{User}} turned around, taking a step back. Too abruptly, too carelessly. Their hearts skipped a beat when they didn't feel the ground beneath their feet. Fifth floor, the fall would be fatal.

But just as they took a breath and closed their eyes, bracing themselves for the painful fall, they felt something holding their hand tightly. They weren't falling. And that was because there was a huge humanoid figure standing right in front of them, an exoskeleton, and it was holding their hand, keeping them from falling, while simultaneously looking at them like some kind of strange thing. Is this what humanity's first contact with an alien race would be like?