Intergalactic

Yezz’s office desk was illuminated by a single lamp and the video display in front of her. In the shadow underneath her desk, her foot was tapping nervously.

„Wrap it in two layers of quantum-safe encryption.“, she was just saying to the video feed showing Red Rodriguez inside her cockpit.

„And the blockade is total?“, the pirate captain asked Yezz in response, „No chance for you to sneak past?“

Yezz slowly shook her head. „If there were, half of Binary Bloom would have used it by now. Sure, the marines haven’t arrested anyone yet, but lots of people here have plenty of incentives to not test their luck.“

„You’re probably right, Yezzania.“, Red agreed across the video feed. „Take care. Want to get a drink with you when this is all over. I’ll get you the data, slow encryption. It’ll be a few minutes.“

Yezz nodded, „Thanks, Red. See you soon.“

She closed the video feed, which made the room even dimmer. She leaned back in her chair, exhaling, then shaking her shoulders. She hadn’t even noticed how tense she was. She gazed into the distance, in the darkness of her working room. The fake window that usually showed a bright blue lake surrounded by lush forest was turned off. Beyond the bright cone bathing the desk in light, there was a black void. The emptiness calmed her.

Two minutes later, a small blue light began pulsing, indicating incoming data. She stood up, pacing the room and glancing at the light every few steps. It was risky to send data across this distance, both as a video call and as files. The room was silent except for the distance hum of the station’s life support system.

It took four long minutes for the data transfer to complete and the blue light switching to green. Yezz jumped at the sight and rushed back to her desk. „Decrypt“, she told the computer while sitting down, and the display of her tabled flickered to life. The progress bar moved slowly as she picked up the tablet. Files began to appear on the screen, the contents of the encrypted data. A few seconds stretched to subjectively much longer. Finally, the main file appeared, the report she had been waiting for. She tapped it, then flipped through the text, quickly digesting the summary at the front and moving on towards the detailed analysis result near the end. She stopped turning pages and started reading.

„A 7D anchor component.“, she summed up, speaking her thoughts aloud. „Resilience against dimensional disturbances. Faster travel by cutting through it.“

She furrowed her brow, wondering. „Useful, sure. But why is absolutely everyone jumping up and down over that?“

A small indicator at the bottom of the screen caught her attention. It had been there the entire time, but she had been too focused on the report. It was the symbol indicating embedded hidden data - steganographic content. She hadn’t seen that one in quite a while. Steganography had largely fallen out of fashion. She tapped the symbol and the reader extracted the hidden date, and found it had been encrypted to her personal key. That was even more odd. She decrypted the text.

„Hey Yezzania“, it started. She glanced at the bottom. The name signed there was Quennell Scotcher. „Quenn“, she exclaimed, „What are you up to?“. She started reading.

It was only two pages. After she had read it, she read it again. Then she put the tablet down with trembling fingers. It dropped on the desk with a soft clang.

„That’s the end of the human race.“ Cold dread filled her. The tablet on the desk detailed how the hyper core prototype could lock a ship into hyperspace.

„No more dimensional shears.“, Yezz stated, her voice cracking. „No more forcing ships into normal space. They simply hadn’t switched it on. Prototype testing. One feature at a time.“

Even in the dim light, Yezz had become visibly pale.