FFM 2021 9: Nearby Wreckage

Note: For more context for the two featured groups (metalheads and shamans), you should check out FFM 2020 11: Heavy Metal Sanctuary and [Sept20] Tribble Month 1: Heavy Metal Voice (in this order).

Another note: In the era this story is set in, the pronoun they and its derivatives can be used both as a plural (for groups) and singular (for singular people who prefer to be referred to with that pronoun). Hence, there is no need to go correct my use of them here.


The blaring metal music was cut shorter than a silenced mecha-crow’s call when one of the scouts from the recently departed team rushed into the main room, ash-covered and bloodied.

“Ceros, what’s wrong?” one of the shamans asked before any of the metalheads could.
“Wreckage,” Ceros gasped. They collapsed on their knees, coughing blood. “Fiirddokha wreckage. Outside. Crashed into it.” By now, the metalheads had put their instruments away and rushed to the shamans’ side.
“Meredith,” Anne, one of the metalheads, addressed the nearest shaman, “take them to med. Leo and I will go and have a look.”
Meredith nodded and turned to her fellows. “Viola, Lonu, let’s go.”

Anne and Leo rushed to the hangar and looked at the mess there. The ship was just about completely inoperative, yet Ceros had somehow managed to maneuver it back inside and live to tell the tale.
Leo whistled. “I knew Ceros is one heck of a good pilot, but I didn’t know they is this good.”
“I’d bet even they didn’t know themself.” Anne made her way to the sanctuary’s surveillance computers, skipping even trying to get any data out of the remains of the ship. “If they crashed into the wreckage, it must be close.” A look at the cameras confirmed that. “Yup, there’s the fugly thing. Looks like we need folks on looting and clearing duty.”
“Did anyone else crash?” Leo asked.
“It’s hard to tell since Ceros’s ship was broken to pieces.” Anne scratched her head.
“I’ll go and have a look in the tower. Let Rufus know.” Leo turned on his heels and headed straight to the nearest ship with proper towing equipment.
“Be careful! We can’t lose one of our only guitarists!” Anne called out as she typed a message into the administration channel.
“I’m planning to haul anyone stuck out there back here, so don’t worry, I will!” Leo jumped into the tower, already suiting up.

With Rufus already handling the administrative side of things, Anne could only watch as her fellow maneuvered the — luckily far-slower-than-scouter — tower through the airlock and towards the wreckage lying on the seabed and hope that there were no non-Fiirddokha casualties.

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