He sat on the deserted beach, relaxing on a beach towel, gazing out at the ocean. He'd always loved the seaside: the sound of the waves crashing in against the shore, the salty smell of the air, the warm sand beneath his feet. He lay back on the towel, folding his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. Drowsily, he became aware of a distant roaring, and a keening sound. The sound became steadily louder until it began to hurt his ears. He opened his eyes, sat up slowly, and stared out across the water. There, in the distance, was an enormous ... something ... plummeting down from the sky, trailing a plume of reddish black smoke.

The man on the beach scrambled to his feet as the disc-shaped object, hundreds of feet wide, dropped toward him. He backed up slowly, too stunned to run for his life. A few seconds later the gigantic craft slammed into the beach, plowing a furrow as wide as itself in the hot sand, crushing the man in an instant as its bulk impacted the place he was standing, rooted to the ground in fear. It churned up the sand for nearly half a mile before coming to rest against the distant cliff face, its momentum lifting its trailing end into the air briefly before the craft settled down onto the sand with a thump. Chunks of the rocks above were shaken loose by its impact and smashed onto it, booming dully.

After a while, the surrounding area returned to its previous state of tranquility, save, of course, for the huge furrow in the earth and the rather large object which had created it. The craft lay motionless for a time while the planet's sun rose and set, its satellites spun above it, its tides ebbed and flowed. For a time it displayed no sign that it was anything more than a large disc-shaped object, dark-coloured and mottled with pockmarks and veinlike strands. Had anyone been there to examine it, they would have found no radiation emanating from it, no sound from within. For an untold time it sat, seemingly dead.

A figure emerged from the craft, followed by a far shorter one. The taller of the pair looked about at its surroundings while the small one hopped along behind it, foundering in the deep sand. The first figure reached back and plucked its companion from the sand, placed it beside it. "This is a fine mess you've gotten us into, Herbert," pronounced the tall figure, glaring down at the other.

"Berk," said the short, squat, reddish figure, its single eye rolling about in its head several times before settling on the taller being. "Berk!"