"Look."
Tygra's sharp eyes caught the movement in the sky before anyone else. The single, sharp word from his lips caused the rest of the Thundercats- Panthro, Cheetara, WilyKit and WilyKat- to lower their shovels and stop the morning's work in silent obedience, as they turned their attentions towards the area in the sky where he pointed. They hadn't anticipated any trouble, but they all knew trouble could come along at any moment, and those animalistic instincts kept them on the alert.
The strange planet that they'd crash-landed on only a year earlier, which turned out to be the only inhabitable planet in that particular galaxy, had not been completely inhospitable. After several months of establishing a base, building transport vehicles and otherwise utilizing what remained from their crashed ship, they had managed to resurrect the culture that they lost when they fled the dying planet of Thundera. Not a day went by when each of them remembered the lava maelstrom of Thundera as it exploded.
They'd returned, time and again since their arrival on Third Earth, to scavenge whatever parts they could from the crash site. Some days, their digging uncovered vast sections of the still-intact hull. On others, such as that morning's task, they left aside the larger machines in favor of shovels, so as not to ruin the more delicate equipment that might still be buried in the earth.
"It's metal," Panthro remarked. He squinted as the sun glinted off the hull of what appeared to be a small vessel, then lifted one hand to shelter his eyes. The rapid downward descent of the unknown item suggested that it had no propulsion of its own, otherwise it would have been under better control of whatever pilot might have been on board.
"It's going to crash!" Cheetara exclaimed. "In the Dead-Dry Flats, by the looks of it."
Tygra nodded. "Good. Whatever it is, at least over there, no harm can come to anyone on the ground."
In tandem, WileyKit and WileyKat wiped the sweat from their brows and dropped their shovels. The shoveling had been harder, dirtier and less productive than they'd expected, and with the interruption of a mysterious intruder to the planet, they eagerly jumped towards their space boards.
"We'll look into it!" WilyKit told the others as he and his sister jumped onto the smooth metal boards and hovered in place.
Cheetara shook her head. "Not alone, you won't."
"We're not alone," WilyKit countered. "There's two of us."
"Three," she corrected them. Cheetara glanced over at Panthro and Tygra. "You should probably bring the Thundertank. It's possible there's someone inside, but even if there isn't, that's more metal we could use for our own purposes."
Panthro nodded as Tygra kept his attention on the vessel. As it flew closer to the earth, it appeared to be little more than a capsule, not unlike the pods that they'd all slept in on their journey from the ruins of Thundera. After a moment, Tygra looked back down and nodded to Cheetara.
"Be careful. We'll be right behind you."
Cheetara had barely begun to sprint in the direction of the Dead-Dry Flats, with WilyKit and WilyKat close behind, when the object passed out of view. She kept her pace slow enough for the twins' vehicle to keep up with her, rather than going at top speed to reach the area, but the other two Thundercats still had to push their boards to the limit just to keep her in sight. Each movement of her arms and legs reflected a comfortable, controlled balance of movement, and her long hair flew behind her as she relished the warm wind against her face.
The hotter, less friendly air from the Dead-Dry Flats soon replaced the comfortable breeze she'd been running into. Too far from the crash to either hear or feel the impact, Cheetara relied on her instinctive sense of direction to locate whatever had fallen from the sky. Sure enough, she came upon the area with almost uncanny accuracy. Only later would it occur to her that something beyond normal calculations pulled her in that particular direction, but at the time, the low buzzing that echoed in her brain meant nothing; she barely noticed it, and if she had thought about it, she'd have dismissed it as the sound of the space boards approaching from behind her.
Cheetara stopped running, and stood there, looking straight ahead. When WilyKit and WilyKat arrived, they each took a slow jump off their boards and, also, stood in one place and stared.
"It can't be," WilyKit whispered.
"It's…" WilyKat began to reply in the same hushed tones, then closed his mouth and swallowed.
There, on the cracked desert floor, lay a shattered tube of metal with the round, red-and-black symbol of the Thundercats emblazoned across the top. The landing had been more than unkind to the vessel's occupant, but they could make out little more than a dark misshapen lump under a heavy cloak. One hand… no, one paw… stuck out from the black material, the short fur as midnight-black as the garment that covered its owner. And beneath that paw, a puddle of dark red blood crept out into the sunlight. Too much red, spreading far too fast. The paw twitched once, then lay still.
Cheetara pulled in a breath and glanced behind her, in the direction they'd come from. It would be a while before the Thundertank made it to their location. Quite a while. Too long.
"We have to help," she said in a breathless voice.
Yet even as she said it, she felt a sense of dread creep up on her. Some irrational part of her mind told her to back away even as she moved forward, told her to not touch the small form that she gently turned onto its back and gathered up in its cloak, and told her to run away even as she, WilyKit and WilyKat moved the limp and damaged body onto one of the space boards, then began the quick but careful trip back towards home.