He was dipping in and out of consciousness, the atmosphere was burning his clothes as he fell. He didn't know how long he'd been out, all he knew was that he was falling, being pulled in by gravity towards the ground at a startling rate. He should've been panicking but for some reason it was calming, the heat was like a blanket surrounding him. Perhaps it was because he knew he'd be fine. He closed his eyes one last time as the ground approached.
When he next opened his eyes all he could see was a yellowish haze. It took a minute to reorient himself, the ground was hot, the air burned his lungs and all he could taste in his mouth was... sand? He pushed himself over onto his back and just saw the black sky, with little dots of light spattered across it. Sitting up he took in his new surroundings, which wasn't much to behold, sand sprawled across the horizon, enveloping his vision completely. He was sitting in the middle of a jagged hole that was slowly being consumed by the desert, eagerly consuming all remnants of his rather hasty entrance. He pulled himself out of the crater and looked down, taking into account his gift from the atmosphere, what were left of his clothes were severely eaten by the sky. He tore the rags off, as they would only impede his movement before the inevitably slid off his body. Taking a singular strand, he tied his hair back, aiding in him truly taking into account his situation. He was stuck and would be for an unknown amount of time, somewhere out there his ship was floating endlessly against the unending canvas of darkness he called home.
He rubbed his eyes and looked at the sky for any sign of movement, he saw some specks of light dancing in the distance, he lined himself up with it and began his trek towards them. His only hope was that whoever or whatever they were, they were friendly.
While he marched he tried to recollect exactly what had happened to him, he was on a rather large metallic transport cruiser, travelling between planets when it was struck by... something before it could wrap itself in space to cut down travel time. It was ripped in half and he was thrown into the cosmos, losing consciousness. He could've been traveling at a constant velocity for months before he ascended onto this planet. It didn't help that he was out for most of his journey.
...
Eventually, after what felt like days, or at least what he perceived as days, he began to see fields of black dots littering the sand, their count was in the thousands. After reaching the nearest black 'dot' he began to realize they were a lot larger up close, he was not short in stature, on Earth his measurement would be about six foot three, and it easily tripled him. It was a large, cylindrical solar battery, that also had an application of turning heat into energy, it was slowly pulsating in the sand, cause a slight ripple to form around it. After looking at it for a few minutes, he began circling it, hoping for some sort of a monitor, or at least some indication of it's charge. These batteries were archaic, and were incapable of transmitting the power they collected towards a hovering ship, so they were usually collected, drained, and then returned to their original places in the sand. If he found out the charge in the battery, he could decide if he needed to continue further into the fields or just wait there for a ship to come collect the power trapped within the cylinder. After circling the machine twice it became clear their was no such indicator on the device, perhaps to make it harder for thieves to steal the harnessed energy, as they would not be able to do what he was trying to do. He did however see a panel along the side, poorly soldered onto the sleek device, it was about half his size and began at the lower part of his ankle, it was the one imperfection on the machine that he intended to take advantage of.
He reached forward and dug his fingers into the metal and took a deep breath, ripping the panel from its home, revealing all sorts of wiring and electronics far beyond his expertise, as they were of foreign origin. He was no fool as to what he was doing and was not throwing a desperate tantrum. He knew for a fact that the ship that collected these cylinders, or at least the governing entity presiding over them had to have some sort of way to keep track of them, presumably a geographical locator, and a way to tell when the charge was full and ready for collection. So he began disassembling the device, not randomly of course, while rather alien to him, there were rather universal ways to build electronics, as it was a solar battery presumably transmitting both it's charge and location. If he could find the battery within the large device, he could disconnect some of the wiring on it, leading to it being unable to do... well something. The parts weren't labelled, at least not in any recognizable way and he would feel guilty about destroying these devices, as they were some of the most humane way to collect energy across the cosmos. Some governments out there used people as batteries, turning lifetimes into mere moments.
After taking a moment, he turned around and grabbed the panel he had haphazardly discarded onto the sand and slid it inside, not before climbing in himself, after some more poking around it became clear their wasn't anything he could recognize as a battery, so he began unplugging some, hopefully, less important wires. After a couple minutes of disconnecting the metallic cylinders internals, the machine stopped vibrating, indicating that it had stopped functioning, and he sat down. He had no idea how long it would take for a ship to appear. He closed his eyes and began to dream.
...
He slid over and woke up, the ground was shaking, the small particles of sand were dancing amongst themselves. He poked his head out of his metallic coffin and looked around, he saw a massive ship approaching the dunes of sand, flattening them like blades of grass beneath feet. He crawled out and pulled his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun while they adjusted to the sudden burst of light, the ship landed a little ways away and the bay doors slowly opened, revealing a small alien which began walking towards him, noticeably frustrated at his actions.
It was maybe three feet tall, and wore an orange jumpsuit, it had one eye in the middle of its skull and its skin was a light pink color, it was noticeably androgynous with no clear indicator as to what it could be. The glass bowl on its head connected to a backpack it was wearing with a single rubber tube that must've been pumping something it could breath into it. It had three arms, two exiting its body at what would be shoulders on a human and a robotic one hung from its stomach holding a toolbox. It walked right past him and dug a flashlight out from its toolbox. It looked around inside what he was beginning to realize was a door, and then turned towards him. It began signing to him in the universal sign language.
"What is your name, you nude fool?"
He began signing back to him.
"Arthur."
What must've been an eyebrow poked up on the strange creatures face.
"Well, Arthur, why did you unplug half the lower circuits in my fucking battery?"
"I crashed on this planet some time ago and have been wandering around since then, I apologize but I had no other choice, at least I didn't break anything, right?"
The small creature shook its head and sighed.
"Come over here, let me show you something."
Arthur walked over to the small creature and squatted down to its eye level, now painfully aware of his nudity. He looked at the creature and followed its gaze towards the panel he had ripped off.
"Arthur, beyond the fact that you ripped the door off my battery, the floor has a weight sensor, so we know when someone is inside of the damn thing. Either one of us somehow gets left behind because the ship is automated poorly, or when some drooling bandit is trying to steal the power. No-"
"I'm sorry, what should I call you?"
"What?"
"I don't know your name."
"Just call me Gary."
"I don't know why, I was expecting something more complicated."
"Fuck off Arthur, now as I, Gary, was saying... you know what, no, what did you mean by that?"
"I don't know, I was expecting something something more... foreign I guess, Gary is a strangely familiar tongue to me."
Gary stopped signing for a moment, then asked in a surprisingly deep voice.
"Wait you speak English, Arthur?"
"Gary, if you couldn't tell I'm human."
"Lose the tone dipshit, we both know there are like thirty species of strangely proportioned dicks and only like five speak English."
"You could lose the tone yourself, Gary."
"I didn't unnecessarily unplug a solar battery and drain a months worth of juice you-"
"Okay, I get it, I didn't do it on purpose okay, how was I supposed to know that would happen and even further, how was I supposed to know the floor had a weight sensor?"
"I'm not going to argue with you, but I will say this, you didn't even need to rip the door off."
"What?"
Gary then reached down into the sand about an inch and flicked a mechanical switch, the metal piece that was holding the door in place then vanished into the metal cylinder. Arthur rubbed his eyes slowly.
"That was buried in the sand Gary, if I didn't have prior knowledge how was I supposed to know it was there?"
Gary paused for a moment, slowly turned, and looked at Arthur, his one eye narrowing.
"Just walk over to the ship and shut up you damned fool."
Arthur stood up and began walking over to the maw of the ship, untying the rag holding his hair back and letting all the sand out of it. The bay door to the ship was about twenty feet tall and thirty feet wide. The ship itself must have been well over a two hundred feet long, he thought about making a joke about the fact the alien must have been overcompensating with such a large vehicle for such a small alien, but thought against it, looking back he saw Gary cursing under his breath while fiddling with the wires. He took a moment and looked around inside the ship, it was large with about half of it dedicated to the bay/storage arrangements, shelves of presumably empty batteries lined the left side of the cargo bay and the other half was dedicated to tools, with some small vehicles littering the floor. He found a nice spot and sat down, watching Gary meticulously reconnecting the cables inside the large battery. He began to once again doze of.