Quantum Shrimp Saga

 

Jonno Virek had handled many questionable cargoes in his time, but genetically modified shrimp were a first. Officially classified as quantum shrimp, the tiny crustaceans were designed to stabilise wormhole turbulence for research labs. Unofficially, Jonno suspected they’d been bred for far more dangerous experiments.

The Peregrine Queen hummed steadily as it slipped past the bright rim of a small planetoid. Jonno adjusted the ship’s heading, eyeing the cargo bay status lights. All green — so far. In the copilot’s seat, Mara, dressed in her fitted navy jumpsuit with her dark brown pixie-cut hair neatly swept to one side, monitored the shrimp tanks on her tablet. She smiled, looking relaxed, though Jonno had learned to treat that as a warning sign rather than reassurance.

“You realise,” Mara said with a faint grin, “these things can theoretically vanish into higher dimensions if they get startled?”

Jonno sighed and took a gulp of strong tea. “That’s the most comforting thing I’ve heard all week.”

Mara leaned forward, eyes bright. “If even one escapes the containment field, it might reappear inside the reactor coils. We’d be vaporised before you could say ‘seafood bisque’.”

“That’s even less comforting,” Jonno grumbled.

For the moment, the tanks glowed with a peaceful blue light as the shrimp gently paddled about, seemingly oblivious to their bizarre quantum abilities. Jonno had been told they’d been trained to obey a light pulse pattern — red meant calm, green meant feeding time, blue meant transit. But no one explained what to do if they ignored the programme altogether.

Suddenly, Mara’s tablet chimed a sharp warning. One of the tanks showed a sharp spike in dimensional drift. She scrolled through the data, brow creasing. “Jonno — tank three just lost containment for half a second. They’re phasing.”

Jonno clenched the controls. “What does that mean in plain language?”

“It means they’re deciding where to exist.”

Jonno nearly spilled his tea. “Deciding? Shrimp can decide now?”

Before Mara could answer, a faint popping sound echoed through the cabin. A shrimp, shimmering like a heat haze, appeared on the console, its feelers waving curiously at the controls. Jonno froze, staring. The creature seemed to contemplate the switches before darting towards the autopilot toggle.

“Oh no you don’t!” Jonno lunged, catching it in a steel sample cup. The shrimp buzzed, flashing red-green-red in a pattern Jonno guessed was shrimp swearing. He snapped the cup shut. “Mara, is this thing intelligent?”

Mara blinked. “They did say quantum adaptations could produce higher cognition under stress.”

Jonno closed his eyes and muttered a prayer to the Bureau of Sensible Engineering. “So we’ve basically got superintelligent, teleporting prawns in our hold.”

Mara smiled sweetly. “Yes. And they might be plotting a revolt.”

As if to underline the point, three more shrimp appeared near the cabin ceiling, blinking in and out of normal reality, leaving tiny sparkles in their wake. Jonno reached for a containment net, but they shifted away, reappearing by the reactor access panel. Mara leapt from her seat, intercepting them with a burst of calming red light from her handheld beacon. Two paused, apparently soothed, but the third zipped behind a conduit.

Mara’s voice was calm but firm. “Jonno, I need you to re-sequence the pulse emitter in cargo control. If we can get them all to agree on a common reality, we might keep them from phasing again.”

“Re-sequence? Mara, I drive the ship, I don’t do alien shrimp philosophy!”

“Then learn, fast!”

Jonno muttered and bolted for the cargo controls. He pulled up the pulse programming matrix and tried to think like a shrimp — which was surprisingly easy after years of dealing with dodgy clients. Red means calm, green means food, blue means transit. But maybe they needed something more meaningful. He added a soft yellow pulse, signifying home, and overlaid it with a warm low-frequency hum.

Mara’s voice came over the comm. “They’re responding — keep going!”

Slowly, the dimensional drift dropped back to zero, and the shrimp — now pulsing yellow — settled into their tanks as if nothing had happened. Jonno let out a slow breath and leaned against the bulkhead.

Mara rejoined him, brushing a stray lock of hair from her pixie fringe. “Well done. You spoke their language.”

Jonno wiped sweat from his brow. “Next time, remind me to check if the cargo can out-think me.”

She laughed, offering him a fresh cup of tea. “You’d lose that bet every time.”

Jonno took a grateful sip. In the quantum seas of the Belt, even shrimp could leave him feeling out of his depth — but with Mara at his side, at least he had half a chance.