Quantum Trigger Read online

  Quantum Trigger

  Galactic Space Opera Thriller #1

  by

  Trevor Scott and Trevor Schmidt

  Also by Trevor Scott

  Max Kane Series

  Truth or Justice (#1)

  Stolen Honor (#2)

  Relative Impact (#3)

  Karl Adams Espionage Thriller Series

  The Man From Murmansk (#1)

  Siberian Protocol (#2)

  The Spy Within (#3)

  Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller Series

  Fatal Network (#1)

  Extreme Faction (#2)

  The Dolomite Solution (#3)

  Vital Force (#4)

  Rise of the Order (#5)

  The Cold Edge (#6)

  Without Options (#7)

  The Stone of Archimedes (#8)

  Lethal Force (#9)

  Rising Tiger (#10)

  Counter Caliphate (#11)

  Gates of Dawn (#12)

  Counter Terror (#13)

  Covert Network (#14)

  Shadow Warrior (#15)

  Sedition (#16)

  The Tony Caruso Mystery Series

  Boom Town (#1)

  Burst of Sound (#2)

  Running Game (#3)

  The Chad Hunter Espionage Thriller Series

  Hypershot (#1)

  Global Shot (#2)

  Cyber Shot (#3)

  The Keenan Fitzpatrick Mystery Series

  Isolated (#1)

  Burning Down the House (#2)

  Witness to Murder (#3)

  Other Mysteries and Thrillers

  Cold War Short Stories: Jake Adams International Espionage Prequels

  Cantina Valley

  Edge of Delirium

  Strong Conviction

  Fractured State (A Novella)

  The Nature of Man

  Discernment

  Way of the Sword

  Drifting Back

  The Dawn of Midnight

  The Hobgoblin of the Redwoods

  Duluthians: A Collection of Short Stories

  Also by Trevor Schmidt

  Science Fiction Novels:

  Symbiote

  Memory Leak

  Short Fiction:

  The Chosen (A Novelette)

  Replica (A Short Story)

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

  Quantum Trigger

  Copyright © 2019 by Trevor Scott and Trevor Schmidt

  Cover iStock Photo by Tiziano Cremonini

  trevorscott.com

  Trevorschmidtauthor.com

  Author’s Note:

  Although this is my first time writing a science fiction thriller, many of my books in the past have featured futuristic weapons and technology. This series is a collaboration between myself and my son, Trevor Schmidt, a science fiction writer.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  EPILOGUE

  1

  2144 A.D. - Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

  Liam Kidd stood in an alley surveying the bustling street, making sure to check the sky for surveillance drones. A bead of sweat rolled down his scarred face, which he quickly wiped away with a gloved hand before it froze in the cold Toronto winter. His bright blue eyes darted between passersby as he searched for his pursuer. They wanted credits, and if he didn’t pay up, he’d end up paying a different kind of price.

  His target was Takara, a corporate enforcer and sometimes assassin working for Vesta Corporation, the largest asteroid mining company and the first one to hit one trillion credits in valuation. Vesta was an old corporation with ties to every political office on the planet. Earth needed the precious metals and minerals for manufacturing and some fat cats at Vesta had found a way to deliver them from the Asteroid Belt, holding a tight grip on the supply. Even more frightening was their mafia-like tactics that left countless people missing and presumed dead.

  Agents like Takara, a former Yakuza member, practically had immunity from prosecution. The system was corrupt, but Liam had never had a problem with it. Until now. He’d done a few freelance jobs for Vesta Corporation in the past. Nothing major. A smuggling job here, a protection detail there. It was easy money. That is, until millions of Vesta Corporation’s credits went missing and he was the prime suspect.

  Liam poked his head out from the alley and decided to take his chances. He pulled the brim of his winter hat low over his long blond hair and pulled his jacket close. A gust of wind made his thick Norse jaw quiver, his short stubble doing little to warm his face. The fibers of his clothing were engineered to keep heat in, a necessity during the winters up North, but hardly a panacea for the frigid climate. He kept close to the buildings as he walked toward a growing crowd. It was New Year’s Eve and people were already showing up for the festivities. Liam had never been a big fan of crowds, but he would make an exception, just this once.

  When he was intermingled in the massive crowd of people, he hazarded a backward glance. His heart raced as he searched for her face. Takara was hard to miss. She was heavily tattooed and had cybernetic implants on her arms and parts of her face, her normally graceful lines interrupted by cold, sharp alloys. He didn’t know exactly what the implants did, but he was sure it was all to make her a more efficient killing machine.

  There was no sign of her. Liam let himself relax a bit. He needed to sort through this mess before he ended up dead, or worse. Liam imagined being sent to the asteroid mines. Though spider bots did most of the hard labor, they needed workers to maintain their systems and to start the refining process. He’d been on smuggling runs to the Mars Colonies in the past, but disliked the cramped quarters and extended length of the mission. Even with the latest ship upgrades it took about three weeks one way. Too long in a tin can for Liam Kidd.

  The New Year’s celebration had a number of musical acts lined up for the afternoon leading up to the midnight countdown. Kim-Yoon, a Korean pop star, was singing live on the stage. What passed for ‘live’ was a hologram of them singing live in another location. To be fair, the holograms were so lifelike it was hard to tell the difference, apart from the occasional glitch. The same performance was being broadcast in New York, Rio, Los Angeles and everywhere else. It was almost midnight in Korea, which meant their headline act was about to perform.

  The song ended and the air was littered with the screams of teenage girls. Video of cheering crowds from around the world lined the screens along the metal frame of the stage. He couldn’t stay there. Now was his chance. Liam made his way through the cheering crowd, keeping low and using the cover of the masses to shield his face. Any minute a drone could recognize him and he’d be done. Facial recognition would only take a moment.

  After a few minutes, he reached the edge of the crowd and decided to try to make it to his apartment on Fifth Street. It was only three blocks, but it seemed much farther in the waning light of the
sun. He was going against the grain as more people began to show up. He cursed. Liam would look out of place to any trained observer. None of the concert-goers were concerned with the vehicles passing overhead or the cameras on every corner. They weren’t hiding.

  He pulled the brim of his hat down and walked along the smooth gray facades of the downtown buildings. Liam only made it a block before he heard a familiar robotic chirp. It was the unmistakable sound of information being sent from a drone to its control center. He gazed up and saw a spherical drone hovering above him, a small jet distorting the air below it. Its smooth metallic exterior was interrupted by several camera lenses pointed in every direction. Red OLEDs flashed, making the drone appear to glow in the fading light.

  Liam ran. The drone followed closely, continuing to chirp frantically as Liam tried to lose it down a side street. If he didn’t get away fast, he didn’t like his odds. He’d been on the other end before and knew that the more time that passed, the less likely he was to live.

  He came out on Third Street, the drone trailing by a few feet as he weaved in and out of passing people on their way to the concert, bumping shoulders with several of them and prompting a slurry of snide remarks. The sound of heavily electronic music filled the air once more and a laser-light show jumped to life behind him, sending colored beams of light into the cloudy, darkening sky.

  Liam passed a side street that was filling up with food carts for the New Year’s celebration. Alley parties were finally catching on in Toronto, though Liam never saw the point. He couldn’t remember one good experience that occurred in an alley. Yet, dozens of vendors were already set up and serving while a DJ erected his speakers. The smell of countless spices floated over to him along with the brief feeling of heat against his face. On the other side of the alley another gust of cold air hit his face and the long scar on his right cheek seemed to tighten, surely turning white with its contraction. The distinctive chirp grazed his ears.

  He was sprinting now, clear of the bulk of the crowds and in a straightaway to his apartment. Liam was in fairly good shape, not too bulky or too skinny, athletic despite his generally poor nutrition. He thanked his genetics for that. As his speed increased the drone started to trail a bit, unable to match his pace. Still, Liam continued to turn his head every so often to make sure he was losing the robotic nuisance. After taking one final glance backward he turned his head back to his front, where he saw a flash of something metal.

  Whatever hit him made him lose his balance on the snowy ground so that his feet dug in and found only ice beneath. He lost his footing and flew backward, landing hard on the sidewalk. His eyes unfocused as he stared up into the dusk, until there was nothing left but a dark gray blotch with sprinkles of white fluttering down casually. In that moment, the buildings and the sky were indistinguishable to him.

  “Takara,” Liam wheezed, the wind knocked out of him.

  “Liam Kidd. Always making trouble.”

  Takara straddled him and put her laser pistol up to his head just below his cap so he could feel the freezing metal tip.

  He squinted, focusing his eyes on her face. He’d never seen her this close before. She might have been very pretty before all of her modifications. Her dark brown eyes now looked like the leads of a circuit, her fine black hair tied back behind heavily pierced ears. She was dressed from head to toe in form-fitting black leather, itself a testament to her moxie since most countries banned the tanning of leather in the 2070s.

  Takara gripped his jacket tight and brought Liam’s face up to hers. “Where’s my money, Gaijin?”

  “Maybe I should buy you dinner first,” he said sarcastically.

  2

  Liam Kidd was no pushover, but he knew when he was in a bad situation. Takara’s goons would be around any minute, negating any chance he would have of a fair fight. It didn’t help that he had a gun pointed to his head and the technological travesty above him had an itchy trigger finger.

  “I told you before, Takara, I didn’t take the money,” Liam said, keeping an air of calm about him. She frightened him, mostly because he knew what she was capable of, but he didn’t have to let her know that. Liam had a feeling any sign of weakness might hurt his case.

  Takara scrunched her nose and spat inches from his head, her thick, dark makeup obscuring her eyes as she did. The cybernetic implants imbedded in her face caused her skin to appear pinched whenever she held an expression other than a neutral one.

  “We hired you to protect our money, and you have the nerve to steal from Vesta Corp? Surely you know better.”

  Liam had been hired to smuggle a load of ore from the Martian Colonies back to Earth. Vesta Corporation received subsidies from the government to supply the colonies with ore, but the colonists had more than they needed; government mismanagement at its finest. They turned around and smuggled it back to Earth, pocketing the subsidy and selling metals and minerals to manufacturers on Earth. Liam performed his job as well as he always did, but when he reached Earth, his payload was missing.

  “I swear this is all a big misunderstanding. Vesta checked my hold, they know I’m innocent.”

  Takara’s fingers dug into his neck, her long, pointed fingernails drawing tiny streams of blood which trailed down his throat, warm in contrast to the cold air. Most of what Liam knew about Takara was from her reputation. She wasn’t known for taking no for an answer and he’d heard stories from other smugglers and mercenaries; something about a trophy collection. The morbid kind.

  “A thousand tons of ore missing, worth more than your life,” she said. “Why should I listen to you?”

  “I was stopped at the lunar checkpoint. There were inspectors. They didn’t flag me, I came through clean.”

  “Then where’s the ore?”

  “I don’t know,” Liam choked out. “The inspectors let me pass, but when I reached the surface it was gone. My hold was empty.”

  “Baka,” Takara cursed in Japanese before smashing his face with the butt of her pistol.

  Liam reeled in pain, his cheekbone on fire. She hit with more force that most men and the metal implants on her hand cut deep into his skin. That was going to leave a mark.

  “I can pay you back, but you’ve got to give me more time,” Liam said.

  “I don’t take the word of thieves. My orders from Vesta were clear.”

  Takara charged her laser weapon, a faint whir spinning up within the pistol-like device and creating a blue glow radiating from several slits in the barrel.

  “Twenty-four hours. Just give me twenty-four hours and the money’s yours.”

  Takara considered his request. He could see her eyes flash onto his. Liam had heard stories, but he never believed they were true. The tales went that the circuits in her eyes were lie detectors, sensing his facial movements and ticks to determine if he were telling the truth. Liam wondered how deep the implants went. How much of Takara was automated and how much was real?

  “Vesta Corporation isn’t merciless. Deposit five thousand credits to my account in one hour as a show of good faith. If you do this, we will work out a payment plan that will serve both of our interests.”

  Takara put extra emphasis on the word interest. Whatever deal she was proposing was going to cost him. She knew as well as he did it would take a hundred years for him to pay off his debt. A thousand tons of ore could be worth millions of credits depending on the buyer.

  “If you cross me, Kidd, I’ll add your head to my wall.”

  Takara rose slowly, keeping her weapon leveled at his chest and taking a step back. Liam stood and brushed off his jacket, and then checked his cheek with the back of his hand. Even on the darkening street corner he could see the red stain on the backs of his fingers. Takara knew five thousand credits was his life savings. He didn’t know how, but Vesta Corporation always knew. They always had something on him to make him take the next job. He wanted out.

  He started to walk past Takara toward his apartment, brushing her shoulder as he went. She graspe
d his forearm tight, her fingers bearing down on him with incredible power. Liam winced and then gritted his teeth, determined not to show weakness.

  “One hour.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have it,” Liam replied.

  •

  Liam’s apartment was on the twenty-eighth floor of a forty-story complex. It was one of the larger buildings in Toronto, housing thousands of residents. The living quarters were small, but affordable. Something that was a necessity for Liam. Being the Jack-of-all-trades that he was, scraping together enough money for rent wasn’t always easy. Often his jobs were paid for in favors. The average Joe in Toronto, or anywhere really, didn’t have a dime. Government subsidies accounted for the bulk of their income. The common man was reduced to a crude barter system just to get by.

  He pressed his thumb against a panel, opening the door to Unit 2804. When the door slid open on its track, he entered the dark apartment. The sun had fully set despite the early hour, an unfortunate byproduct of the deep winter. The windows were fogged, but the faint glow of countless neon lights glimmered beyond the glass. Liam shut the door behind him and moved through the entryway to the window on the far side of the room. He touched a pad on the windowsill and the dark glass defogged, revealing the hectic cityscape. Liam checked the sky for drones, hoping to avoid a repeat of before. It’s not like it would have mattered, since Takara knew where he lived.

  A thousand drones filled the sky, moving in an orderly fashion from place to place. Some carried packages and cargo, some carried people, and some bore the black and gray insignia of a government drone, no doubt used for surveillance and police pursuits. None, however, were focused on him. Liam touched the button again and the window fogged up, blurring the outside world once more.

  “Lights,” he said absently.

  His apartment’s computer responded by illuminating the room, slowly increasing the light to his favorite preset level. The apartment was fairly Spartan. He didn’t have much use for furniture if he was never there. Besides, he only really had room for a bed, a kitchen, and a bathroom anyway.