At first, Murphy doesn't know what he's looking at. He's lying on his back at the very edge of the field, the crops around him doing a good job of concealing him from any worshipers who might wander by but giving him a perfect view of the sky overhead. In the daylight, the tiny spark looks like nothing more than a meteor breaking through Alpha's atmosphere, and he watches it with heavy-lidded eyes as it makes it descent, expecting it to burn up mid-air.
In less than half a second, as the object grows larger and larger in his sight, he realizes his mistake. By the time he leaps to his feet, it's too late.
The impact sends him flying as it flattens the crops around him and makes splinters of the trees on the other side of Sanctum's shield. The thing must have landed right on top of him, he thinks nonsensically as a tangle of vines break his fall. Eyes squeezed shut, dirt filling his nostrils, he waits to figure out exactly how mutilated the crash has left him.
When the adrenaline doesn't fade to agony, he slowly opens his eyes and realizes, no, he is alive and whole. And whatever that was is now a smoldering wreck buried not in the crop field, but in the woods beyond.
Disentangling himself from the ruined crops, Murphy stumbles forward a few steps, squinting past the cloud of dust and smoke to get a better look at the wreck. It's a ship, he can tell that much, though there's hardly anything left of it. Probably nothing left of whoever was piloting it, either, but he staggers in that direction anyway. There's got to be some marking on the twisted metal that'll tell him where the damn thing came from. And, maybe, whether he ought to be expecting more of them.
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In less than half a second, as the object grows larger and larger in his sight, he realizes his mistake. By the time he leaps to his feet, it's too late.
The impact sends him flying as it flattens the crops around him and makes splinters of the trees on the other side of Sanctum's shield. The thing must have landed right on top of him, he thinks nonsensically as a tangle of vines break his fall. Eyes squeezed shut, dirt filling his nostrils, he waits to figure out exactly how mutilated the crash has left him.
When the adrenaline doesn't fade to agony, he slowly opens his eyes and realizes, no, he is alive and whole. And whatever that was is now a smoldering wreck buried not in the crop field, but in the woods beyond.
Disentangling himself from the ruined crops, Murphy stumbles forward a few steps, squinting past the cloud of dust and smoke to get a better look at the wreck. It's a ship, he can tell that much, though there's hardly anything left of it. Probably nothing left of whoever was piloting it, either, but he staggers in that direction anyway. There's got to be some marking on the twisted metal that'll tell him where the damn thing came from. And, maybe, whether he ought to be expecting more of them.