Pursuit

Part 1 - Arrival

"Instrument error, attitude determination failure; instrument error, attitu-"

"Warning, engine temperature fatal; warning, engine tempera-"

"Secondary generator offline; secondary gen-"

"Stupid warnings are distracting me!!", I say to myself and turn them off one by one. The planet's atmosphere is too thick and it's heating up the rocket. There's not much energy left in the batteries of the secondary power generation system. Meteorites had damaged the solar panels of the primary power generator six Earth days ago.
I can see the hot flames through the window as the rocket passes through the dense atmosphere. Wait what are those? I see tiny flashes of fire flying across the window. Are those sparks? Is something on the rocket surface melting?

"Current altitude 5000 meters, parachute deployment procedure started"

Finally! Hope I land safely, this is the last chance for humanity.

"Parachute deployment successful, initiating touchdown procedure"

Wait, what? Why is the rocket not slowing down if the parachute is deployed?

"Warning vertical speed excessive."

What? Where is the parachute? 
I check the feed from the onboard cameras on the top of the rocket to see if the parachute has deployed successfully.
Shit! Shit, shit, shit!! I can't see the parachute! Where did it go? No time to figure that out. If I don't act fast, I will crash onto the surface. I need to start the thrusters and decelerate. I have to take manual control of the Rocket.
I pull out the control panel and take manual control.

"Warning, manual control not advised during entry"

Override

"Confirm identity"

Aarav Ghosh

"Warning, manual control not advi-"

Override!!

"Warning, vertical speed excessive"

For God's sake! I'm about to crash! Override, override, override!!

Finally, I get the control to turn on the thrusters. I give full thrust on the engines.

"Warning, engine temperature excessive"

God damn it can you please shut up for a moment?

The rocket finally slows down. I start feeling downward G force as the rocket slows down more and the gravity of the planet becomes stronger. Thank Go-

"Attitude error. Lateral acceleration detected"

Oh shit! Now the top of the rocket is tilting to the side! Obviously, this thing was not designed to thrust from the bottom during landing. If this continues I will crash on the surface! I turn off the thrust and again the G force starts decreasing as the rocket accelerates downward. I search for the attitude correction jet controls but as the G force again goes to zero, suddenly a heavy metal rod comes flying from behind and...

I slowly open my eyes. I am alive! My head hurts but thankfully I am not bleeding. I check the screens on the control panel.

Touchdown successful

I don't know how it happened but I thank God for the miracle. I wear my space suit and walk into the airlock.

"Airlock pressure equalized. Welcome to your new home, Aarav and Alex", the doors open with a hissing sound as some air rushes outside from the airlock.

The sky looks deep orange as the star of this planet is setting. Perfect timing? Not really. This planet, named Xorus 12B-3 by Earth scientists, is tidally locked to its star Xorus 12B which is much smaller than our Sun. This means where I am standing, the star is locked at its setting position forever. The ground is red, partially due to the forever setting star and lots of iron oxide on the surface. You can call it Mars 2.0, although the sunset on Mars looks blue.

I can see the parachute lying to the left of the rocket. So that's what saved me. Before I walk down and place my first steps on Xor (it's easier to call it that than the weird long name scientists at NASA thought was reasonable), I bring out a large box made of aluminum. I align the wheels of the box to the stairs perfectly and it smoothly rolls along the side rails and lands on Xor's surface. Then I walk down the stairs and place my foot on the surface of my new home for the first time. I reach for my helmet and release the pressure. Then I lift it off my suit. Not to worry, Xor's atmosphere is similar to Earth with lots of Oxygen and traces of Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Then I reach for the aluminum box and undo the latches on its sides. I open the box and stare at what's inside for a brief moment. I wish Alex stood beside me to admire the excellent view of the setting star behind the far away hills. But there he was, lying lifeless in front of my eyes. Alex, my best friend, died three days ago. So here I am on a possibly lonely planet, all alone to help humanity stay alive with all the knowledge and experiences we have gained over the years of our lives on Earth.

...

Before I go in search of a suitable place to set up my lifepod, I need to rest for a few hours after the tragic entry maneuver. First, I need to finish an important piece of work. I take out a shovel and find a good place to start digging out the soil from the ground. Now I think is a good time to tell you why I am here and what happened to Earth. 

Eighty-seven years ago, in July of 2035, there was big news everywhere. All TV and online news channels had only one news. An asteroid impact on the earth. It was a small asteroid, around 30 meters across, but was still deadly enough to cause local damage to the impact area. The asteroid landed in the African region, but thanks to NASA, the impact region was identified and vacated well before the impact. NASA, EASA, JAXA, Roscosmos, CNSA, and ISRO had sent teams of scientists to the impact area to check for any hazards and collect samples of the asteroid. I was one of the two fortunate scientists from ISRO who were selected for the mission.

The reason behind such an amount of interest from so many space agencies was the peculiar nature of the asteroid. The path of the asteroid never intersected Earth initially. After it crossed Mars, it took a sudden deviation and made it straight to Earth. Mars' gravity could not be blamed, it is not strong enough to cause such a sharp turn. Scientists thought the asteroid might have had gases inside it that were leaking out of pores to the surface causing an attitude control jet effect.

We arrived at the crater and slowly walked towards the asteroid. Initial tests confirmed the absence of any radioactive elements, still, we wore safety gear. Just in case. The asteroid was irregular-shaped. Basically an iron rock. A large one. There were no noticeable gases coming out of it, and nor were there any pores. It was a solid structure, at least visibly.

"Look! Here! There's a crack", one of the scientists called. We walked to the other side to take a look. There was pretty much a crowd. A total of 28 scientists tried hard to have a look at the crack. There were in fact three cracks, intersecting at the ends forming almost a perfect inverted equilateral triangle. One of the scientists from Roscosmos brought his hand forward and touched the cracks. Suddenly there was a faint sound from the asteroid. The crack on the top of the triangle seemed to get wider. He pulled his hand back instantaneously.

Just as I said, "I think it's mov-", the triangular section separated and fell to the ground. Now we could see the inside of the rock. It was made of... glass?

"Holy crap! It's hollow!", one of the scientists from EASA screamed. There was glass. Like a window. In fact, it was a window. Because as we looked closer we could see something inside the glass. A circular object, dark and hairy. What we looked at through the window was the head of an Alien being.