Bandwidth and Lunch Breaks

A shipboard vignette featuring Brennen, Arzana, and Terev aboard the SS Scavenger DX-1017.

The engineering lab hummed softly, a layered choir of diagnostics, cooling fans, and the faint crystalline whine of three synchronized QET transceivers. Brennen Gillings crouched under the open access panel of the new SNS beacon, one arm buried elbow-deep among shimmering conduits.

“Okay,” he muttered, tightening a coupling no one else on the ship would dare touch, “triple-linking the entanglement pairs means we get four times the bandwidth. Don’t ask me why. Quantum math hates being predictable.”

Arzana sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, tapping code into a portable holo console shaped like an oversized datapad. “It’s because the third transceiver stabilizes the decoherence window,” she said absently. “If we offset the timing by nine microseconds, we’ll get clean Phase-burst telemetry without the echo artifacts.”

Brennen poked his head out. “You know, I really missed having someone I can tech-talk with.”

Arzana smirked. “You missed being right half the time.”

Before Brennen could respond, the lab door slid open and Terev strode in, balancing a tray with three wrapped lunches and three chilled cans.

“I come bearing gifts!” she announced. “Joko’s Deli was running a special.”

Brennen eyed the cans immediately — suspiciously. “Tell me that’s not the fizzy stuff again. I can’t drink something that tries to escape the can when you open it.”

Terev snorted. “Relax. This is a new product. Coca-Cola finally realized Terget drinkers don’t like fizz. These are Terget only. Zero carbonation. Promise.”

Arzana reached for a can, tilting it to read the label. “'Classic Terget—still, not sparkling.' Well, that took them long enough.”

Terev set the tray down on an unused corner of the workbench. “And yours has extra Tulek spice, Brennen. The deli guy said it ‘pairs well with mad science.’”

Brennen laughed, wiping his hands on a cloth before grabbing his food. “Fair enough. But after lunch, we test the beacon at full power. If these three QETs behave, we’ll have the fastest ship-to-ship alert signal in the sector.”

Arzana lifted her can in a toast. “To bandwidth.”

Terev raised hers. “To lunch.”

Brennen cracked open his can with a relieved sigh of non-fizz. “To Scavenger — somehow making cutting-edge tech on a shoestring budget.”

They clinked cans lightly and took a drink, the soft quiet of the engineering lab settling comfortably around them as the beacon pulsed in slow, steady readiness — a new heartbeat for the ship.