Titus Andronicus Slater awoke in extreme pain. He tried to open his eyes, but only his left eye would open. He was still in the escape pod, but it was now covered in blood. He tried to get into the chair, but as he moved, his right leg burst into extreme pain. It felt like it was on fire. He looked down to see a piece of bone protruding from his shin.
Titus almost fainted. He pulled himself together. Reaching out his right arm, he fumbled with the first aid kit box on the wall of the pod. He grabbed several items at random, because from the floor he couldn't see inside the box. Several items fell to the floor. Titus quickly located a nano-med injector and inserted the tip into his thigh. The pain almost instantly died down, and his leg stopped bleeding.
Titus lay there, tired due to his blood loss. He could feel the pod gently moving up and down. "Is it in my head? Or am I... floating?" Titus spoke aloud. He fumbled with the pod's controls and brought up a video from the outer cameras. "It's... It's an ocean..." he said as he fell into sleep's embrace.
Titus awoke. According to the pod's clock it had been 9 hours and 36 minutes since he was last awake. The view outside the pod was much the same, except it was now almost sundown, rather than late morning. Wait, this planet has a yellow sun? And days close to twenty-four hours long? This can't be Earth, can it? Titus thought. No, all the wormholes near earth have been explored. This must be like Earth... the mythical like-Earth Planet that no one could ever find. If he survived, he could become famous. This was the explorer's find of the century.
Titus rummaged around in the first aid supplies. After self-medicating, he looked under the pod seat for the survival kit, opened it, and took stock. It was stocked for three people, so there was about 21 weeks of food available. He had a Xion Corporation Flare Gun with 6 flares, a multi-shot electric stun gun, a large but compact tent, 6 one-size-fits-all jump suits, a folding solar oven, a clock/thermometer/barometer and a combination shovel/hatchet. The pod featured a comm system, solar panels and a small computer containing an encyclopedia database.
Titus ate, while trying to hail any other pods or lifeboats that may have landed. The pod picked up a lifeboat distress beacon, strong enough to be on this planet, and coming almost due west (a direction based on the planet's rotation, not on it's magnetic field). After an hour of trying to contact the lifeboat, Titus gave up. Night was falling, but he wasn't very tired. He had just woken up. and the meds were keeping him awake.
As night fell, something began to appear on the screens. Is that... Light? It looks like city lights... in the distance Titus stared intently at the screen. As time went by, the lights grew closer and brighter, till it became apparent they were indeed artificial lights. Perhaps it's some other surviving crew members, and they set up a camp.
Some time later, the pod had drifted close enough that Titus could make out a shore, dry land. It was also apparent that some of the lights emanated from rather tall buildings. There's no way a lifeboat group could have set those up. This planet must be populated... but this was an unexplored wormhole. Suddenly, thoughts of alien races ran through his head. Titus did not believe aliens existed, at least not in this universe, and in all of humanity's existence, not a single sapient alien life-form had ever been found. Nevertheless, given the circumstances, there was an equal chance that this planet was populated with aliens as with humans. This might be a discovery even bigger than an Earth-like planet...
It was about midnight as Titus' pod approached the Harbor. For that is what it clearly was, with docks and ships, and skyscrapers. Titus had tried to reset his leg (which was immensely painful) and put a splint on it. Using a metal pole, he was able to stand up and access the top hatch of the pod. He carefully opened it, and hauled himself up. He pulled out the flare gun, and fired one shot into the air as he approached the harbor.
A loud boom echoed across the water, and a brilliant flash illuminated the whole area near his pod. The flash almost blinded him, but for a brief second he caught sight of something rather odd. Was that a... no, my eyes are playing tricks on me.
An object that appeared to be a boat approached the pod. Titus began calling out for help in every language he knew, which wasn't much because he only spoke English and French fluently. The boat (it was clearly a boat now) grew closer, and Titus heard someone call out to him in a language he did not understand.
"Over here! Hey! Aidez moi!" Titus called out. Suddenly, he was surrounded with a curious sensation, and felt himself lifted out of the pod. "What the? Hey!" What on Earth? Is this some new tractor beam technology or something? Titus was levitated over to the boat, and deposited gently on the deck.
Praise God, I'm alive. "Hey, thanks for helping me. I-" Titus turned and stopped cold when he saw several multicolored horses looking at him.
"Ingabe ukhuluma Equish? Ngabe uzizwa kanjani?" said the closest horse, which appeared to be a unicorn.
"Uh... Aliens..." Titus fainted.