The Last Fleet 4: Darkfield by Joshua T. Calvert

Author:Joshua T. Calvert [Calvert, Joshua T. & Morris, Brandon Q.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

PERSEPHONE, 2382

She shouldn't have looked up. Peraia knew that Shepherd displayed some of his samples on the shelves in the tiny hallway where his visitors were supposed to change. But now her eyes were glued to the mysterious face that winked at her and formed an inaudible "hello" with its full lips. For Peraia, it was a man who had a lot to tell and even more to experience. Aloisius claimed that the cells only contained X chromosomes. The Mona Lisa smile was really fascinating, but there came a moment when she had to tear her gaze away, only to realize that the head no longer had a body.

Peraia swallowed. The neurologist had assured her in all sincerity that the owner had voluntarily made her head available for research, albeit in return for financial compensation. It was his most beautiful trophy; life had gone out of it twenty years ago. The fact that she was still smiling so beautifully was thanks to a preservation process he had personally developed and a few nanomotors that he had introduced into the cells.

"Where are you?" shouted Peraia.

She had opened the door to Shepherd's cabin, which was also his laboratory, without ringing the bell, using her unlimited authority as captain. The researcher would not have opened it for her anyway. When he was working, which he always did if he wasn't asleep, no one was allowed to disturb him.

Of course, this rule didn't apply to her. No rules applied to her. She was the Emperor's eldest daughter. She could ask Shepherd to kill himself for her and he would obey the order, albeit lamenting the tremendous loss to science that his death would mean.

"Where are you?" she asked again.

Shepherd's lab was a maze. He had built it partly into the reinforced outer wall of the Persephone. Of course, he had not asked anyone. Peraia had only realized it when they were already on their way. However, Aloisius was able to prove that the structural integrity had actually improved slightly as a result of his modifications. Ruben Kardaschenko, the physicist, had done the math.

Peraia put on a rubber glove and pushed aside the blue plastic coats that visitors were supposed to wear. She had once worn one of these, but when it had tried to crawl into her every orifice to avoid any contamination, she had torn it off her body in disgust. The organic material reacted to the inevitable sweat on her skin, so she only touched it with a glove.

Hidden behind the hygienic robes was a door that led to the rooms that had been created later. Peraia opened it, climbed up a ladder and entered a narrow corridor that led in two directions. She turned left. Here it no longer smelled of disinfectant, but of machine oil. She really enjoyed the smell. Her favorite thing to do was to tinker with the rocket engines of the ships, perhaps to tease an extra percentage of power out of them, even if that seemed almost impossible after more than a year alone in enemy territory.

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