Harem Assassins : King Sekton's Harem Planet, Book 2: A Space Opera Harem Adventure Baron Sord (good books to read for adults .txt) 📖

walk gracefully, run swiftly, jump abruptly, or hop on one leg repeatedly without falling over. Or play a giant drum kit for Mechadeth.

Consequently, with the reduced kinesthetic information load coming from the SRF, I very much felt myself sitting with my back weighing against the seat cushion as my jet accelerated vertically upward.

My view had also changed. Even though I still had my helmet visor down, I could see my own chest, arms, legs, the cockpit seat, and my 3D holographic panels and gauges. It was reminiscent of being inside a fighter jet cockpit… if the cockpit were a glass sphere with no visual obstructions in any direction, other than my own body and the cockpit seat itself. Otherwise, I had a complete 360 degree 3D view of my surroundings. As before, my holographic gauges and windows moved wherever I moved my head.

I can work with this, I thought with a smile.

Up ahead, I saw the rear end of Mira’s fighter jet as two bright dots shrinking in the distance.

She was well in the lead.

I’d have to make up for it somehow. For Oia’s sake.

But how?

Was it possible this rig could accelerate faster in jet mode than mech mode?

I thought about increasing my acceleration to maximum and adding afterburners.

KOOOOOM!

The sound of my rig’s afterburners exploding to life behind me was exponentially louder than without them. That explained why Mira was so far ahead.

I hadn’t been using my afterburners.

I grit my teeth as once again, my body was hammered into my cockpit seat by the force of insane acceleration. I had to increase my compensatory POSITION vector accordingly. It wasn’t long until I was again sitting pretty and quickly gaining on Mira’s distant fighter jet.

With my acceleration now presumably maxed out, the only thing left to do was wait and hope I outlasted Mira. I didn’t even have to overtake her. Just outlast her at maximum G’s.

I scanned my rig’s HUD gauges for the basics. Attitude indicator, air speed, altimeter, rate of climb, vertical velocity, compass heading, turn coordinator, etc., etc. There was so much to find and familiarize myself with and not enough time to do it.

Long before I found the altimeter, I punched through clouds. Despite the lack of a visible fuselage, and the vague sense this could be a video game simulator — thanks to my ring’s gravity-compensating POSITION vector — the sense I was hurtling upward at high speed was in-your-face intense.

My Dragonfire shook, vibrated, and banged loudly and randomly.

It cut through turbulence like a bullet through boulders.

And the engine noise was blazing loud.

Booming like bombs.

There was no mistaking I was flying and accelerating at ludicrous speeds, climbing ever higher and ever faster. Despite my compensating POSITION vector, I still felt like I’d left my stomach sitting down on the landing deck, and there was that unnerving fear that if I hit a hard pocket of turbulence at the wrong angle, it could rip my Dragonfire to shreds. Shear a wing right off. Heck, shear off both wings.

It was scary as hell and insanely thrilling at the same time.

What. A. Trip.

Little did I know I was walking — technically hurtling at extreme speed — into a deadly trap. Because no effective assassin told you about their trap in advance.

—: Chapter 76 :—

Black hope bloomed in Hade’s cybernetic heart, opening like the razor-sharp petals of a mechanized Heart’s Knife flower. His magnesium eyes fired bright white inside his spiked and knightly horned helm.

In one of the holographic scanner windows floating around him, two golden blips were racing farther and farther away from the surface of Zalaxia. One blip represented First Lieutenant Mira’s YX-37. The other blip was far behind and represented Tim Pittwell’s.

“The assassin is no longer in attack position. I can’t count on them now,” Hade said menacingly. “But, if that witless fool continues on his current course—” Hade now meant Tim Pittwell, “—he is playing directly into my hands.”

In the workstation pit circling the base of Hade’s dais, his mutant crew chuckled approvingly. The Hyenoks and Gluglons slavered in anticipation of victory. Even the Gorillans snarled and flashed their fangs, which was their version of an anticipatory smile. To a man, every member of the crew chattered excitedly about finally getting their hands on their very own Zalaxian whores.

Hade said, “What do we have that can close the distance between here and Zalaxia fastest? Guns? Missiles? What?”

“Guns won’t work,” said the chief gunner, a sharp-eyed Quadron named Qwayk. The muscular four-armed mutant sat at his gunner’s workstation surrounded by an array of holographic weapon display windows.

“Why not?” Hade grumbled from above.

Qwayk said calmly, “We’re a million kays from Zalaxia, Boss. Our large-bore bolt cannons have a muzzle velocity of 2,000 meters per second. It’ll take 140 hours for a single round to cross that gap.”

“That’s too long,” Hade seethed in frustration. “We can’t use the Tesserack Cannon. That will fold the king and his True Ring into oblivion. What about missiles? They have continuous acceleration.”

Qwayk said, “Even pushing 50 G’s, it’ll take 30 minutes for a Stygian Python to go from here to there. And it’ll be going so fast when it gets there, it—”

“How fast?” Hade interrupted.

“A million meters per second.”

“One million meters per second?”

“Relative to them, yeah, pretty much. At that speed, I don’t know if the guidance system on a Python will be able to course-correct quick enough at the last second. You know, if the king sees it coming and dodges.”

“WHAT SOLUTION DO YOU HAVE, QWAYK?!” Hade roared. “DO YOU HAVE A SINGLE USEFUL SUGGESTION, OR JUST MORE EXCUSES?!”

Hade’s anger ignited his cybernetic Killhounds. They launched into a fusillade of booming barks that echoed metallically throughout the bridge. They strained powerfully at their spiked chains, almost to the point of breaking them. Hade held the chains fast, but the Killhounds pulled at them so hard, lunging so violently that Hade was forced to shift from one titanium hoof to the other as he reeled in the Killhounds, barely stopping them from