In the final seconds before impact, al the stasis pods, all the cargo pods, all the colonization modules were frantically launched with new descent programming.
The automatic landing systems universally failed.
So Exodus AI initiated emergency override, and took manual control of the thrusters in each pod. The pods, smaller and flying separate from Exodus's main hull, mostly landed easily... Mostly. The final act before impact was to trigger emergency re-awakening for all colonists, an abbreviated process that would leave them feeling groggy and sick, but awake enough to respond to the crisis.
The main hull hits first, all the modules floating lightly over it, scattered like dandelion seeds. It ploughs a long streak into the ice, sending shattered debris up in great showers, some of it impacting descending pods... It was never designed for such rigors. The impact is a hundred times beyond even the worst 'rough landing'. As the massive hulk grinds against the ice at hundreds of miles an hour, it rapidly disintegrates into so much aluminum, titanium, steel, circuitry, and wiring. The resulting debris field is a long oval as pieces fly up or are buried under hills of loose broken ice, and only small sections remain recognizable and intact. The Brigman Cores, in particular, were built tougher than anything else. They bubble and ooze hot blue plasma where they landed, each one melting the ice further with the energies inside, steadily melting small craters into the landscape.
The major modules, exposed on the outer hull, were disadvantaged in their landing. Several of the landing thrusters failed, sending the vital modules tumbling or hitting the ground at high speed, turning billions of dollars worth of high-end equipment into so much scrap. Others, outer hulls still glowing red-hot from re-entry, sank deep into the glacier as the ice greedily absorbed the violent energy of the descent, sinking into melting puddles of oily polluted steam and contaminated water. The pods are supposedly well sealed against anything that could threaten them, but the crash landing is a brutal test of engineering safeguards.
Around half of them landed intact, on flat ground, if embedded in anywhere up to a dozen feet of ice once it refreezes. Some landed hard but not devastatingly hard, or at a steep angle or near a cliff or crevasse, subsequently falling and ruining whatever was inside. Some of them successfully completed their transformation into part of the debris field.
The smaller modules, the suspension pods, the medical module, the labs, the supply lockers and battery banks and shuttle bays, tended to deal better with the ice. They were deep in the hull, sheltered from the heat of re-entry, and less violent in their descent. The landing engines mostly produced large steaming puddles rather than melting away whole lakes, leaving them dug a foot or two into the ice in most cases.
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