“Code red!”

Drako overrode the autopilot and seized the throttle as the pod continued to lose altitude. No matter how hard he pushed up, the nose of the craft continued to dive down.

“Crute,” he muttered under his breath. “Control, fix it. Now!”

A static noise crackled over the communication system, followed by the voice of Commander Ruwan in Krina. “Your pod doesn’t respond. It seems to be a problem with the Earth’s atmospheric qualities.”

Red lights lit up the control panel, every one of them blaring at him.

“I’m going down.”

Ruwan’s command was calm and controlled. “Abandon the pod.”

“I’ve lost my invisibility.” He didn’t have to elaborate. If he crashed on Earth, Earthlings would discover the pod. The reconnaissance mission was top secret. The Krinar’s existence wasn’t meant to be known. At least, not yet. “I can try to land and fix the problem.”

“Abandon the pod,” Ruwan repeated, this time with a stronger tone.

Drako applied more pressure to the throttle, managing to slow down his descent a fraction. The skyline of Johannesburg, South Africa’s so called City of Gold, became visible. The pod started shaking, clattering his bones in his chair.

“Drako,” Ruwan said, “eject yourself from the craft, or I’ll do it for you.”

Drako gnashed his teeth. He couldn’t disobey a direct command.

“Abandoning ship,” he conceded. “On three.”

“We’re following your coordinates. A rescue mission is on the way.”

“One, two…” Drako dragged in a breath. Damn. He hated jettisoning. “Three!”

He slammed his palm down on the touch button that would enclose him in a capsule and deposit him on the planet he was supposed to spy on. The homing signal on the capsule would give Krina his coordinates.

Nothing.

Zut!

“It’s not working!” he exclaimed unnecessarily. The technical team in Krina had a visual via their comms system.

The controls went haywire. The smoky pollution drifting atop the skyscrapers and mine dumps was dangerously close. There was only one option left.

“Emergency landing!”

“Do not––”

Ruwan’s voice cut at the same time as the communication panel went dead. Damnation. This was bad. He was stuck in a faulty pod, no longer concealed from sight to the inhabitants of a planet who were ignorant about the Krinar’s existence, going down into one of the most dangerous cities of this world, and all electronic functions were dead. So was his palm device. The last coordinates the pod had sent to the control tower in Krina had been several space miles back. He was effectively visible to the Earth people and invisible to his own.

He thanked the stars for his interest in antiques. If not for that passion, he’d never have learned how to manipulate flying crafts manually. He needed every bit of that knowledge to steer the lightweight, sleek pod through the mass of manmade constructions without crashing into one of the gloomy towers.

His heart pummeling in his ribcage, he scanned the environment. The only feasible emergency landing spot where he wouldn’t endanger the lives of any of the Earth species was an arena. His brain did a quick, automatic reference check, filtering through the intelligence he’d studied. Humans referred to it as a sports stadium. He swerved east and tilted thirty degrees, even if his approach was too fast for a landing. This was his only shot. If he missed the field, he’d crash into one of the buildings beyond.

Clutching the throttle between both hands, he pushed down and stepped on the pedals to release the emergency landing wings. If too soon, they’d be ripped off by the force of his speed. Once the wings were safely extended, he applied the flap breaks. Earth dwellings stacked high upon each other––apartment buildings––whizzed past him, blurring in his sight. Three more seconds. The oblong shape of the arena grew in size. Aiming for the green vegetation in the middle, he braced himself.

The pod collided with the planet with a force Drako couldn’t physically foresee despite his intellectual knowledge of Earth’s gravity. The impact threw his body forward. He protected his face with his arms as he slammed into the controls. His body rattled from the shock. The only thing that prevented him from being crushed was the safety harness. The intelligent material that constituted the pod didn’t adapt or give. In this strange airspace with its grave atmospheric qualities, the usually moldable substance remained a hard surface with sharp metal fixtures and combustible gas. However, he was still breathing. Miraculously, so.

Pain lanced at Drako from all sides. The sensation was foreign to him. He stared at his body in surprise. The skin flayed on his shoulder, revealing tendons and bone underneath. Blood trickled from his side. A long gash burned on his shin. The control panel had broken in two, the ridges that pushed up sporting bits of skin. That explained the injuries. Carefully, he rotated his neck and shook his limbs. Except for a few bruised ribs, his other bones seemed to be intact. Extremely fortunate. At the moment, his greatest health risk was the blood loss. Making quick work of it, he unclipped the harness and freed himself. The first aid kit with the nano-healer was stored with the nutrients behind the pilot’s seat.

He didn’t manage to turn before a small explosion on the side of the fuel pocket rocked the pod, ripping a hole in the panel and flinging his body through it. The heat was excruciating, but his fire-resistant pilot jumper suit absorbed most of it and enabled him to put out the flames by rolling on the prickly, green soil before the fabric had completely disintegrated.

Lying naked on the grass, he hardly registered the pain any longer as one, encompassing thought consumed his mind. Put out the fire. If the pod exploded, not only would he have no means of returning home, but the nano-healer would also be gone. He’d be as good as dead. Fighting dizziness––another novel experience––he dragged his upper body forward by his arms. His legs refused to obey his brain’s command to get up and walk. The nanocytes in his body that should’ve aided in his quick healing had to have been damaged in the crash. In another few meters, the blackness became a bigger threat than the flames. If he lost consciousness, all was doomed. He tried to drag himself around to the other side where he could grab hold of the fire extinguisher when he caught a blur of movement in his peripheral vision. Jerking his face in that direction, he assessed the visual input. A bunch of humans were storming toward him.

Zut. He didn’t need this intervention. A new burst of adrenaline allowed his mind to overrule his nervous system. Pushing to his feet, he took a wide stance in front of his craft. The threat of his body language was clear. Even if he’d mastered Earth language in all of its dialects, he didn’t need words to get this message across. The humans slowed, and then paused. For five stifling heartbeats they measured each other, and then the bravest of the pack broke free. The human charged like a rabid dog, tattered clothes flapping around him. Expecting a full-blown attack, Drako was surprised when the human jerked off his patched jacket in the run and started pounding the flames. The rest of the pack followed suit. Arms flailing and clothes waving, they effectively put out the fire.

Maybe there was a way out of this without causing global pandemonium. Maybe he could say he was testing a new secret plane and pay off the witnesses to keep their mouths shut. Judging by the state of their garments, they looked like they could do with the bribe. First, he needed to get that first-aid kit. He took a step toward the smoldering pod, but wobbled on his feet. He had to be losing blood faster than he’d thought, or maybe it was a concussion.

The circle of humans opened when he neared unsteadily, their eyes trained on him warily.

“Thank you,” he said, practicing the smile that was the non-verbal sign for a friendly greeting.

As he held out a hand, as per the Earth custom, his body finally failed him, giving over to the darkest threat of all––unconsciousness––but not before he’d spotted the helicopter with the South African Secret Service emblem lifting above the buildings and noise.