“Run!” cried Gaz.

“Gaz, don’t!” replied Joel.

Joel was in a weird position. He really wanted to join the army, and always had, so the conscription ship turning up was welcome news. He was a little disappointed in his brother to find out that he only wanted to join when it would be a laugh. But if Gaz got caught by the officers, and conscripted against his will then this meant he would be treated like an enemy by his comrades.

Despite his better judgement, Joel found himself running down the road after Gaz, with the army in pursuit. As he did so, he found himself desperately thinking of a scenario in which he could help Gaz escape, but manage to volunteer his own services.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t.

“In here!” said Gaz, pointing towards one of the caves next to the crater where it was rumoured that Jake had had his first contact with the Crawkling aliens. Again, against his better judgement, Joel got on his knees and followed his brother, crawling into a hole in the back.

“This can only go badly, Gaz,” insisted Joel. “They have trackers, they will know exactly where we are. We should go outside and volunteer.”

“You can,” answered Gaz. “You want to be in the army.”

“But how are you going to escape? You have no chance! And you know what they do to people they have to force to conscript.”

“If they don’t catch me, then they can’t tag me,” argued Gaz. “Besides, I know where this tunnel goes. Trust me.”

Joel didn’t trust him but didn’t say so, he just scrabbled down the tunnel after his brother. He had a feeling that by running he had burned his bridges anyway, so joining the army wouldn’t be a good thing for him either. The stories you heard of the treatment of runaways conscriptions were horrendous. They got all the worst jobs –armour testing, washing of fighter pilot’s underwear, and of course they were always the sacrificial lamb in any diversion plan. And this was the nice side, every runaway soldier was tagged such that everybody knew they didn’t want to be there. It beeped every time they went anywhere, there was no escaping.

Joel could see a faint light appearing round the edge of his crawling brother. They were coming to the edge of the passage. Maybe Gaz did know where he was going?

He followed him out and winced as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. Dusting his ‘Jake went to Crawk…’ t-shirt off, he stood up and stretched out.

They were in a huge clearing in the mountains, and in front of him was a gaping hole. He followed Gaz to the edge.

“You ready?” grinned Gaz at his brother.

“Are you mental?” Joel replied. “We’ll die for sure!”

Through the hole Joel could see a long drop into a raging underground river.

“There isn’t even a river in Schmingleton...”

“That’s what everyone thinks,” said Gaz. “Let’s go.”

Joel let out a shriek as Gaz pushed him off the ledge and he fell through the air. Gaz leapt in after him.