“How did we miss this on the serveys before? It makes no sense how this landed without triggering our scanners.” Looking up at the pile of debris I see nothing familiar to our own tech. Bent metal of a density unlike any we have on Earth, machines that once held a purpose, but are now lumps of burnt material, none of it we could identify.

The first report of it came from our scouting team early this morning, saying there was something huge that we haven’t mapped. How could that be? We mapped just last week and the frost buildup on this ship looks old, creeping into the cracks between the facets and expanding the space between the metal plates. We got a team out there as soon as the sun rose, photographs have been taken of the exterior en masse, but no one has gone further than a step inside. No one said why, they just insisted on waiting for me to arrive.

I stepped up to the gnash in the metal, looking it up and down, having to take a step back to see the entirety of it. Much of it bent inward from impact, looks to have been from the crash landing, mostly. There! At the very bottom… that doesn’t look like impact damage, more of a chemical burn? Something ate away at the material here, not a lot of it, but I can easily picture the corrosion bubbles chewing small, circular holes. I look back at the field scribe and relay this, they scribble it down quickly in their notebook and look back at me with eager eyes. They wan’t me to go in, they all want me to. I hate being the “fearless” captian.

But I am curious myself.

Stepping inside, the air is still, frozen, and quiet. My flashlight illuminates the crooked floor in front of my foot, scanning for a clear path. I feel the cold of the ship creep through the soles of my boots as I take another step in. I make it down what once may have been a narrow corridor, now widened and twisted. To my left are flexible tubes, now shredded, once carrying some sort of liquid through the craft, which is now a solid puddle on the ground nearby. The quiet is deadly in here, the only sound my footstep echoing off the walls and back to me. The path ends abruptly at a ladder leading up, ruined, but climbable. I find myself at what I think is the control room, through a small hatch in the corner of the room. I see rows of panels of unmarked buttons and switches, Suprisingly analog to what I expected. Along the walls are what look to be indicators and status displays, not unlike those of a power plant. I see here, symbols, words? A script unknown to me, made of quick and small strokes, a mix of jagged and circular patterns, not written left to right, but seemingly written _around_ a central point. I make a quick sketch, the scribes are going to have a field day with this.

A shuffling. A sound independent of my own breathing, echoes through the room. I freeze in place. _Could have been the ship settling. A panel shifting. Nothing more._ Seconds pass like minutes, but I hear no further noise. I finally force myself to move and look out into the room… Nothing. As I thought. I relax fully now and decide to retreat back to the team. Back down the hatch and through the service tunnel. The light of day shining through, I get a glimpse of the scribe walking back to the entrance. I move up to greet her, climbing up out of the tunnel, resting my hand on the side of the ship. _What’s this?_ My hand feels slick against the metal, I bring my hand back up. A slippery, green liquid now coats my glove. _I don’t remember this being here when I entered. _I turn to the scribe, “Did you notice this before?”

“Oh, I didn’t! Organic material? A fuel? Oh this is exciting let me get a lab kit!” She runs off down the hill. 

_ How has this not frozen?_ I look back inside the slumbering ship.

I didn’t see any bodies, did I?