The Pleasure Dome (The Science Officer Book 4) by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Publisher: Knotted Road Press
Published: 2017-05-10T06:00:00+00:00

PART FIVE

SUVI TOOK a moment to consider the right music for this sort of mission. In all the videos, the hero always flew into battle with some serious backbeat drums over a screaming string section, either an electric guitar or a full orchestra.

But she was really more of a cat burglar today, instead of potentially flying a hard strafing run in a tight canyon.

In the end, she settled for Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. Music for someone born without fear. Just for fun, she spun up a couple of jazz improvisation sub-routines for drums and bass, then let them duel elegantly with the piano as she moved.

The Dragoon had disappeared after the two of them had come back from dinner, leaving her and Javier alone to talk shop for several hours while he added a small electric screwdriver with a rotating multi-head to her outer shell.

Finally, hands. She was going to insist he add something at least as good to the big ship when they got home, plus a bigger waldo or something so she could manipulate things.

There was nothing as annoying as having to bonk your nose on a door chime to get it to ring.

And now, the thief in the night.

Someone had given a lot of thought to the architecture of this resort. The square air vent she was cruising down was forty centimeters tall and fifty wide. Too small for most humans, and too dusty for her to worry about running into a cleaning robot.

Not that she was really concerned about running into a drone, except that it might think she was a rodent or something. After all, what self-respecting AI would be happy as a maid-drone?

Nope. Flittering along, happily listening to one of the most dangerous men ever allowed to touch a piano. No annoying Red Baron. Nothing.

Just Suvi, dressed in a skin-tight, black, leather body suit. The kind without any seams at all, and nothing riding up uncomfortably as you moved.

You could do that when you were an AI.

She had kept the scanner pings down to nearly nothing, relying on Visual Flight Rules and passive sensors for now. There was enough light coming in from the regular vents that her optical sensors were fine.

A girl just had to peek and sneak past them, only committing a little voyeurism as she did.

Humans, for all their diversity, tended to be pretty predictable, but she wasn’t really interested in expanding her horizons of experience today.

According to inertial guidance and some math, she should be getting close. Just around a corner and…

Yup. Paranoia.

Someone had hung a something there, right across the duct.

A human would have probably missed it, relying on eyes, but Suvi at least had been listening with all her extra senses. It was a field of some sort, but not a defensive grid.

She moved just close enough that an arcshield would have sparkled as a warning before it zapped her.

Nothing.

And she realized that everything beyond it was invisible on every wavelength except visual.

Huh. Somebody had a clue. Not a full one, but a clue.

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