Well, come on in!
Kalar's gentle gaze quickly stiffened, then its face reset to a smooth surface. It was time to get to work. It quickly floated to the bridge, taking command position and supplementing the ship subsystems. It was times like these Kalar wished it had more resources. No crew. No drones. No probes. No foundry. No star charts. No Phantom Drive. None of these were reducing it's… anxiety? Well, it couldn't be helped. Kalar would just have to find a way.
Penetrating scans of Planet X-77 from thousands of miles out had revealed an ideal location for splashdown. It was an extremely deep oceanic crevice in an uninhabited geo stable region between the 4 continents Kalar had mapped out. From there, Kalar planned to scout out each continent up-close. Without the standard load out typical for scout ships from the starfaring age of Krypton, Kalar simply couldn't lurk on the edge of the solar system and send an army of probes nor did it have the means to go down on its own and survive atmospheric entry. To make the best choice possible for Tor's home, they'd all have to go down. The ship, fully in stealth, made its slow and gentle approach towards the planet. As the viewport began to fill up with the planet, Kalar spoke out to itself, "All systems are nominal. At this rate, everything will go as antic…"
A wall of yellow light suddenly passed through the ship, registering as a gentle caress to Kalar's sensors. "That's not right". Kalar instantly pulled the last half second of the ships sensor data and found slight anomalies on a few of them. "I didn't imagine it…" Kalar initiated a full system scan as the ship slowly descended. The ships subsystem, designed to interface with a crew soon vocalised "Anomalous acceleration detected". Kalar already knew what the ship was saying before it finished saying it. "That's not right!" Kalar declared again a little louder, adjusting thrusters and the anti gravity drives output to return to the intended descent rate. No sooner was it done before "FWOOM!". Another wall of light scoured the ship, this time a deeper yellow and with enough force to trigger alerts across multiple ship systems! Kalar looked back in the direction of Tors stasis pod, "Was this a mistake?". Kalar's Holographic avatar popped up at the pod and all other critical stations. A few extra instances of Kalar would not be a burden, but distributing tasks so the root instance could focus on finding the source of this new potential threat would be more efficient. A third wave passed through once again, the ship accelerating as all systems protested. "Something is dragging us in!" Kalar realised. "There's higher concentrations of that energy we detected before, but this… I can't afford to risk landing like this!" it thought as a wave powerful enough to invoke the shields shook the craft. Instantly, Kalar commanded the ship to pull up and away from the planet but "FWWWOOOMMM!", a powerful pulse of light dragged the scout ship down again, the superstructure beginning to groan as sparks poured out of multiple consoles on the bridge! Kalar's floating robot form manifested its face as it said sombrely "I see. This is an invitation we can't refuse…"
Kalar had no choice. Resist, and the ship would be torn asunder. Take too long to set down, and the light might knock out all systems, forcing them to crash! For Tor's sake, they'd have to set down, and fast! The ship responded instantly, once again descending but at a frightening rate, leaving a plasma trail across the sky! "So much for stealth!".
___
"Look mother, a shooting star!". The joyous cries of a little child rang out, echoed by many more that saw. On the four continents, billions of people went about their days or nights, blissfully unaware of what was happening above them or staring in wonder at the pretty trail streaking across the sky. Conversely, millions of cultivators felt a slight shift in the Origin Energy that suffused all things in the world, and amongst those millions, only a few looked to the sky or the horizon, eyes sharp and calculating. 'Was it a heavenly treasure being born, an attack on the world barrier or the descent of an Upper Worlder?' Each of these people were legendary existences, storied in the open as the upper echelon of humanity or feared in the dark as terrifying demons whose names you dared not utter. These titans amongst mankind, hamstrung by an accord signed eons ago before the Worlds Will not to battle directly with each other lest they bring about a cataclysm, each sent their elites to investigate the disturbance. Feeling the subtle, distant fluctuations in the consciousness of the world, they understood what many did not. An upheaval was coming, bringing either fortune or calamity.
___
The landing was far from graceful. The scout ship shuddered violently in deceleration after the pulses had stopped. Kalar was well and truly within the atmosphere by then, rapidly adjusting and compensating for damaged systems. "The whole world must have seen that. If those warriors we spotted before move to track us…" . Kalar took a calculated risk and decided to stick to it's original landing site. They had to get out of sight, bring all systems back up to a nominal level and only then consider what to do next. For now, 248 miles below the ocean was the best place to be despite the mega fauna Kalar had occasionally picked up on scanners. They seemed aware of the hulking scout ship despite its continued stealth mode, but apart from one or two curious sea creatures, none of them approached. Any human coming down for them, if they could get that far without imploding, would have their hands full with them. As the ship finally settled in the crevice, burying itself beneath the sediment, Kalar once again returned to the stasis pod, face formed. A metalic tendril gently touched the pod. "I'm sorry. Looks like you'll have to sleep a little longer but don't worry little Tor, I'll have everything as ready as they can be for when you wake up".