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

“SILENCE!” Hade bellowed at the Killhounds, growing more frustrated by the second. “SILENCE, YOU RUSTY MONGRELS! SILENCE BEFORE I HAVE YOU DISASSEMBLED BOLT BY RUSTY BOLT!” With one mighty yank, Hade brought his Killhounds yelping to heel. With quietly restrained rage, Hade said, “Tell me something useful, Qwayk. One more excuse and I’ll feed you to my dogs.”

“I’m not making excuses, Boss,” Qwayk said bravely. “I’m just giving you the facts. We’re too far away to do anything quick enough.”

“Then bring us closer!”

“Boss, our ship isn’t half as fast as a Stygian Python.”

“Make it faster!” Hade turned to another crewman. “Kezz! That’s your department! Get us to Zalaxia NOW!”

Kezz was a hulking Stygian who resembled a humanoid demon-dragon with ruby-faceted skin. All Stygians had gemstone skin of one shade or another and resembled demon-dragons of various sizes depending on color. Kezz was also the warship’s head engineer. Like the other pirates, Kezz wore a random assortment of dark leather, chains, and studded armor plates over his faceted gemstone skin.

Kezz said, “Boss, this ship can only do 5 G’s full out, and that’s with everyone in their Fold Beds.”

“Tell them to skip the Fold Beds!” Hade bellowed. “They’re men! Tell them to tough it out instead of whining like fragile whores!”

“Boss,” Kezz said sensibly, “if we do 5 G’s longer than a few minutes, the crew won’t be worth skruck-all by the time we get there. They won’t be able to man their posts or fight. And, even at 5 G’s, it’ll take almost 2 hours to get to Zalaxia. If we start decelerating halfway there, so we don’t blow past the planet so fast we miss it, it’ll be more like 3 or 4 hours.”

“NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” Hade bucked up on his back legs and kicked his titanium hooves. One of them struck a Killhound in the side of its cybernetic head. The blow was hard enough to split the skull of any organic being, but the burning-eyed cybernetic Killhound barely noticed and shook it off with a brief and only slightly pathetic squeal. “Corroded cur,” Hade snarled. “Watch where you’re standing. Next time I’ll make it count.”

The Killhound hunched its cybernetic shoulders and lowered its massive, spiked head in shame.

“Somebody give me a useful solution!” Hade barked. “This is a plutonium opportunity we can’t let slip through our fingers!”

For the first time in decades, since abandoning Pandemon in disgrace after discovering Synnestra had snuck off to dock with Nemisys Imperius, Hade felt a powerful sense of hope. He felt certain he was only minutes away from killing the pretender king, only minutes away from seizing the Zalaxian True Ring. With that ring in hand, Hade would pay off his debt to Baron Crewd von Bludlust. If they could only capture that ring, Hade would find a way to smuggle ten Zalaxian palace whores back to Pandemon before Crewd arrived to take the throne. Crewd would never know they were gone. Hade would deliver those whores to Nemisys Imperius in secret, thereby saving Incorporare Maximus from ruin, and he would deliver those whores ahead of schedule.

And if he did that?

Perhaps Synnestra would…

No.

Hade didn’t want to think about that whore.

He wanted to think about victory.

The victory he could practically taste.

His creator had been right! There was no need for an all-out siege! Two YX-37 Dragonfires alone in space wouldn’t stand a chance against Hade’s heavily armed and armored warship full of pirates and mechs of their own! Squadrons of them! His pilots and gunnery crew would slaughter those two mechs! If only they could get to Zalaxia fast enough!

“Nyfe!” Hade hollered. “You haven’t said anything! Speak up before I have you thrown in the nearest plasma furnace and melted down for scrap!”

Vok Nyfe hunched calmly on his floating disc, draped in his black cloak and leaning on his ever-changing Technomantic staff. His skele-mechanical eyes blazed a warning.

“Forget the plasma furnace,” Hade relented. “I won’t melt you down. But give me something useful. Before it’s too late.”

“Technomancy,” Vok Nyfe said in his gritty and distorted digital voice.

—: Chapter 77 :—

The thing about falling into a trap was, you generally tripped into it without realizing it. That was the entire point of a trap. You weren’t supposed to know it was there.

I certainly didn’t.

And when someone led you straight into said trap?

BANG!

For a second, I thought ground guns on Zalaxia were suddenly firing flack in my face.

No, just more turbulence as my YX-37 blasted through the atmosphere.

Or someone had hung rocks in my flight path.

In an effort to stay focused and manage my increasing stress and nagging fear, I turned my attention back to the gauges.

Still not finding the altimeter.

Too many damn panels and windows.

I calmly and methodically scanned the entire HUD. After maybe five seconds without any luck finding the altimeter, and barely noticing the lavender sky had darkened considerably, I thought, hey, can we highlight the altimeter window? Wherever that is?

Sure enough, a single window glowed brighter than the others.

“There you are,” I smiled.

The gauge read: 31,000 and climbing fast.

“What units am I looking at?” I said aloud. “Feet? Meters? What?”

An “m” appeared next to the number on the altimeter.

Now it read: 39,000 m.

“What?” I chuckled to myself.

39,000 feet was generally the maximum cruising altitude for your average passenger jet.

39,000 meters put me literally in the stratosphere.

39,000 miles this fast would be laughable.

“Are you sure that’s not feet I’m looking at?”

The gauge changed to read: 43,857 meters.

“Can you show me feet below meters? 3.28 feet per meter?”

The gauge now read:

47,408 meters

and below that it showed:

155,511 feet

And climbing.

Damn fast.

“Whaaat?” I chortled in disbelief.

Due to my altitude, the turbulence-induced shaking of the Dragonfire’s airframe had faded to almost nothing in comparison to the rattling roar of the engines. Around me, the lavender sky had darkened to dark purple. That put me and my rig at the edge of space.

The altimeter had not lied.

“Holy shit,” I snorted.

Let me tell you, being at the controls of a monster