Gizzard Gully, a desolate valley of abandoned mineshafts and broken dreams, was coming apart. Frank and Emma Townsend stared at the picture on the TV screen where they saw stabs of laser fire puncture the ground and a series of timed explosions send cliff faces tumbling to the valley floor. Although they were ten kilometres away, the faint tremors still rattled ornaments on the glass shelves of the china cabinet beside the TV set.
The commentary was breathless and garbled. The camerawork unsteady. The helicopter from which it was being broadcast swayed and bucked. At times it was hard to make sense of the scene. Then the picture steadied, focused on the ramp of a silvery, saucer-shaped spaceship.
A figure ran up it.
Another followed. Zigzagging. Unsteady.
Then a third and fourth appeared, half-carrying, half-dragging a fifth.
‘That looked a bit like the kids,’ Em muttered, her words fading as the ramp vanished and the hatch slammed shut.
The ship took off so quickly that the camera tracking it lost it for a second. When it found it again – now little more than a silver speck in the blue evening sky – it was receding fast.
A streak of laser fire stabbed straight across the screen and the silver ship banked sharply, racing back towards the camera, filling the frame before shooting past at tremendous speed, its jetstream making the helicopter buck and dance.
Seconds later, a second ship appeared. A different type of ship entirely. A square, boxy thing that looked like it had been bolted together from scrapyard parts. A noisy, smoky thing that screamed past in hot pursuit.
The camera followed the two craft as they headed south, climbing steadily before vanishing into the darkening sky.
‘The kids?’ Frank said. ‘Nah, it can’t have been.’