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Record broadcast message. Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the cargo starliner Knai-Hak. Our engines are inoperative and we are on a collision course with a rocky planet. We do not expect to survive. There appears to be carbon-based life on the surface, not sentient, and we regret the extinction-level event that we will cause. Please do not attempt to recover our cargo of iridium; may its anomalous presence serve as a reminder to future visitors to this world. Message ends. Send.
@FutzleFiction huh, the Iridium thing is real:
"[The] unusually high abundance of iridium in the clay layer at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary gave rise to the Alvarez hypothesis that the impact of a massive extraterrestrial object caused the extinction of dinosaurs and many other species 66 million years ago, now known to be produced by the impact that formed the Chicxulub crater."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium>