Ford - "Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven't made interstellar contact yet and buzz them."
"Buzz them?" Arthur began to feel that Ford was enjoying making life difficult for him.
"Yeah," Ford said, "They buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no ones ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennae on their head and making beep beep noises. Rather childish really,"
Maite looked up and down the control panel of his new Koolfrood 5000. The lights blinked excitedly at him, but in fact meant nothing; the whole purpose of this ship was to look more high tech than it actually was. He had actually wanted the Starbuster hypergon with impact sensitivity, real working missiles, and radar to warn you of incoming vessels, but his father, of course, refused to buy it. Instead he had been bought the Koolfrood for his coming of age at 100 years old, which admittedly looked cool, and satisfyingly expensive, but in reality was teenager proof, and only three of the buttons actually did anything. And most annoyingly of all, had been fitted with GPP (Genuine people personality) so he actually owned a ship that tried to relate to him.
"Hey you froody Star cruiser. Nice light year for kickin' back with those cute alien chicks from Venus, huh?" The computer drawled, sounding slightly strained.
Maite groaned and rolled his eyes over at his companion. Lexi gave him a sympathetic smile. She cast her eyes around the ship's interior. Maite, quite clearly, was not impressed, but she quite liked the ships design, which was probably why he didn't. It was sleek and stylish in appearances and there were, thankfully, no lightening bolts, go faster stripes, or boy racer motifs, which Maite was disappointed with, but she was cheered by. Lexi liked the clean, simple curves of the ship, and she liked the small control room; it was cosy. The carefully laid controls utterly failed to look fast or exciting, which was good because Lexi found space travel rather nervous.
"You cool kids wanna go anyplace specific or shall we just hang?" The computer said, quickly losing its casual tone, and adopting a rather more worried one, as Maite began to try and disconnect it's speech centres. "Now hold up now and chill-" It began rather urgently before cutting out abruptly.
"So you just shut up, yeah?" Maite said, triumphantly standing up, holding half a cable. He threw it to the floor angrily. "Well this just stinks," he muttered, "All I wanted was my own ship, and I get a box with launch pads and a computer that totally tries too hard,"
"It's not too bad," Lexi said, "At least you have a ship. My mum won't even get me a PR (Personal Robot) until I'm 200,"
"Well," Maite said, rather snidely, "With all our money, I'd ask my father to buy you one, but you'd probably end up with the LittleGirlLearner," He sat down grumpily in the Captain's chair, adding, "And it would be pink!"
Lexi knew Maite's relationship with his father was touch and go, as in for the last couple of years it had been handshake and then years away in space. Maite had, as far as she could see, settled into hating his father with enjoyment, and spent many days trying to embarrass or outdo his elder. The Koolfrood 5000 had been the retaliation of a particularly long war between the two, which Maite had lost, hence the Koolfrood. Apparently the loss still annoyed him, as Maite kicked the computer and directed a rather derogatory remark to her regarding her map reading skills.
"Look it's not my fault!" Lexi shot back at him angrily, "I didn't even want to come on this trip. You know I hate space travel. Where the hell are we anyway?"
"I don't even know! You can't even connect to the galactic star guide on this thing. And the planet recognition system doesn't work!"
"Let me try," Lexi sighed frustratedly. She stomped over to the useless control panel, pushing Maite out of her way as she went. Their families had decided that she and Maite would become partners eventually, and most times she didn't mind the idea because he was nice in his own way, but other times, like now, when he was being deliberately apathetic and unhelpful, the thought of spending the rest of her life traveling the galaxy with him was unbearable. "There!" she said, flicking a random looking switch, "We're in..." she trailed her finger over the co-ordinates, "...Section ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. Happy?"
The small, blue green planet rose up into th centre of the viewing window. Planet Earth looked promisingly unprepared. Maite leaned forward, and the casual boredom was replaced by a slow smile. "Hey, you wanna have some fun?"
Lexi looked at him to see if he was joking. He wasn't. "You have got to be joking," she said hopefully.
"Lets Buzz them!" Maite urged excitedly.
"No, we can't!" Lexi hissed, "My parents would kill me! Anyway, we've already done this planet three times, it's not even funny anymore!"
"Oh, it's hilarious," Maite cried, steering the ship towards the planet.
"They're getting suspicious, and those NASA people nearly caught us last time,"
"Lexi relax," Maite said, with annoying superiority.
"I suppose I'll have to go along with this?" Lexi said with resignation. Maite grinned at her, leaned back and draped one arm round her shoulders, whilst he steered lazily with the other. The only time Lexi saw animation in his eyes was when he was doing something adrenalin fueled and stupid. The only time he seemed to appreciate her company was when he was doing something adrenalin fueled and stupid. Lexi sat next to him as they descended on the planet.
"Woo!" Maite cried, "Look out planet Earth!"
