Free The Rift Rider by Mark Oliver Page B

there called for reinforcements. So it's only a matter of time before the
bay's swarming with soldiers."
    "Then let's
get moving," Awani said. "You two play prisoner. I'll follow from
behind."
    The spacecraft's
rear had the appearance of butterfly's backside. Two triangular wings arched
upwards, sliding down into the ship's centre where another pair of front wings
angled forwards. Between the rear wings, a drawbridge protruded like a stumpy
tail.
    With the alien
drug pumping inside of him, Charlie walked up the bridge as calmly as if he
were walking to the shops to buy a Cornetto and a packet of Monster Munch.
Whatever this drug was, Charlie hoped its effects would last forever. He had not
felt this fearless since he had drunk ten bottles of Diamond White cider and
gone for a post-pub surf.
    Once inside, Bei
pressed the beeper in his hand, and the rear doors slid shut. He ran his eyes
over the interior and smiled. He turned to Charlie, and said, "Welcome to
my ship. The Bane flyer. The finest smuggler this side of the Wrake Pass."
    "Your
ship?" Charlie said.
    "Our
ship," Awani corrected, climbing into a metallic sphere that took up half
of the section they were in. She took her place in the centre of writhing mess
of wires and tubes that interlaced the sphere.
    Bei reached
inside, placed a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "Happy
hunting."
    Awani returned
his stare. "Good luck."
    Bei laughed.
"This is Bei Lowaiki you're talking to. I don't need luck."
    She rolled her
eyes, and placed her hand against a dull blue slab in the centre of the
controls. The sphere hummed to life. It spun on its axis, leaving Charlie
looking at his own reflection in the curved metal wall.
      He turned to Bei, and asked, "Where
do I sit?"
    Bei slapped him
hard on the back. "Kid, you're with me in the cockpit, on front guns. So I
hope you're just as good with your left hand as your right."
      The cockpit was about half the size of
Charlie's van and just as disorganised. "Did the Corporation do this?"
Charlie said, taking the seat beside Bei's.
    Bei shot him a
look, and said, "What do you mean? It's always like this."
    Charlie said,
"Oh," and strapped himself in. It was no mean task with one arm lying
limp in a sling. But in the end he managed it.
    Bei cracked his
knuckles above the rows of buttons and levers that covered the control desk. Like
two tropical spiders, his blue hands danced across them, bringing the ship to
life.
    The space
between the control desk and cockpit ceiling was filled with a curving blank screen.
Bei placed his hand against it. It flickered for a second and then divided into
dozens of separate screens.
    Together they
gave Bei a three hundred and sixty degree view of the ship's surroundings, the
front view filling the most central screen. Along the screen's edges, maps,
tracking systems and figures Charlie could not understand danced across two columns
of data screens.
    Charlie scanned
the central screens to see what was happening outside.
    The docking bay
stretched for hundreds of metres in every direction. It was filled with
spacecraft. Some were as small and plain as a Nissan Sunny, others as large and
luxurious as a billionaire’s yacht. All around them, aliens in grey fatigues or
soldier's uniform busied themselves loading cargo, typing on black slabs and
scooting around on small carts that hovered a half a metre above the ground.
    Bei flicked a switch
and Awani's sphere emerged, blister like, on the left side of the ship between
its rear and front wing. The panelling around it rotated one hundred and eighty
degrees, bringing outside the weaponry that had lay hidden inside. Charlie
counted four long barrels and two short stubby ones. The weaponry gave the
blister the appearance of a metallic crab.  
    Bei interrupted
Charlie's observations, by waving a blue hand over the controls in front of
him, pointing out the small cube screen and phallic gun grip.
"Right," he said. "That square there is your targeting