TK Special #7 - Return to the M'Verse: An Ooorah Anthology

Quantum Shift - by @RJGlynn

Quantum Shift

by RJGlynn

Rattling gloom. The whine of poorly tuned engines, a decrepit cargo hauler's quantum-pulse drive priming for intersystem jump out of Consortium Space.

Enforcement Inspector Church Tyrell unfolded her long, armored limbs from the hull access duct she'd just stealth docked with and breached. She flowed into a crouch, her spacesuit's boots hitting scarred deck plates, her dark form merging with the shadows around her. Resting gloved fingertips on corroded metal, she scanned the cable-festooned spaceship corridor she'd infiltrated—that of a pre-liberation Federation Oxen freighter, a once state-of-the-art craft.

Now, an inglorious trash hauler.

Exposed by broken bulkheads, retrofitted systems tangled with crudely mended ones. A rodent's nest of illegal and uncertified tech.

Church curled her lip in the humid confines of her helmet. The ship, the unenviably named Shakey Caboose, was typical of Uraturn's rundown civilian fleet. The trade settlement was an economic jewel in the Consortium's collection of manufacturing planets, but sixty years had passed since the agritech world's divestment from the Star Federation. In its three-hundred-year reign, the science-worshiping Federation had gifted humanity many miracles. Their quantum-pulse Collapsing-Origin Vector-Inflection Drives—COVIDs—like the one whining fifty meters aft of her, had been a space-time–warping phenomenon that'd swept humankind to the edges of the galaxy. But Consortium resource-rationalization laws now restricted sci-tech education to those approved for the extra expenditure. The magic of the Federation's inventions had faded, leaving frayed wires and flashing system errors, malfunctions few knew how to fix.

At least, among the Common citizenry.

Church snarled at the neglected tech around her. If there was one thing she could not abide, it was waste—squandered potential. Why obtain something capable of miraculous feats only to disrespect it and use it for the mundane?

And the Shakey Caboose wasn't the only thing that deserved better treatment. She was Guardian class, her implanted neurotech and education superior to those of the Common, those grown en masse in worker-level farms. Three months ago, after five brutally competitive years of specialist training, she'd graduated top of her class. And yet, this was her assignment: conducting inefficient random cargo checks on vessels passing through Orbital 9, Uraturn's outermost spaceport.

Well, frakk that shit.

Because this check wasn't random.

Church's lips twisted upward, anticipation burning away confused frustration. Enforcement Overwatch had been short-sighted in assigning her a junior Trade Regulation and Customs role. She'd majored in Intel and Infiltration. She wasn't about to spend her time collecting overdue taxes and issuing fines to Common goods haulers. It'd had only taken her an hour of data scraping and trend analysis to detect a real crime.

One of the worst in Consortium Space.

She rose to her full height. One point nine meters—every centimeter of ebony skin within her armored suit polished; every muscle lean and honed. Testimony to her training and general all-round superiority to her pitiful prey. It'd been child's play for her to hack into the freighter's dilapidated systems and board undetected. The ship might have once had impressive artificial-intelligence firewalls and a breach-detection system to alert its crew to any unauthorized contact with the hull, but all that beautiful, clever Federation tech had been left to fray and glitch.