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

me, a hexagonal strip of light glowed briefly, revealing a viewport that wasn’t much larger than the proverbial mail slot or the viewport on a tank. I wondered if it was set up like a periscope and used mirrors? In response, a rotating 3D wireframe diagram of the viewport’s design appeared in a HUD window off to the side. Yes, it had an exterior port set off-axis from the interior port, and a series of angled mirrors connecting them so I couldn’t be shot in the face by some smart marksman.

But the actual viewport didn’t reveal any shining stars or the lavender orb of Zalaxia glowing outside. Rotating my Dragonfire jet in place with navigational thrusters revealed only more blackness.

I checked my instruments. No sign of Zalaxia on radar. No sign of anything. It was like I’d been magically teleported so far away from the center of the universe — the source of the Big Bang — that I’d outraced every single photon of outgoing light from that formative event, arriving at the farthest reaches of uncharted existence where no light had yet arrived. I didn’t know if Folding technology could put me that far away from Zalaxia — possible — but I didn’t remember being folded anywhere. Folding had a distinctly psychedelic and surreal quality to it.

And yet here I was, literally in the middle of nowhere.

This didn’t make any sense.

Hmmm.

When you were in the dark, turn on a light.

I thought, does this rig have running lights or landing lights?

Several intense beams lit up on my jet, one on each wing tip, two more under the fuselage. They lit up my surroundings with brilliant light, proving that my external cameras and internal Visor View were working just fine.

I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Surrounding my jet was a spherical cage of highly reflective metal, endless shapes and forms, like being inside a living metal machine that was constantly changing and reshaping itself around me through a mechanical process of transformation. There was a logic to the movements. Various sections of it were turning, sliding, shifting, hinging, gearing, rotating, latching, locking, or spiraling with machined precision.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Almost like the inside of a living metal puzzle that was impossible to comprehend or solve.

I had no idea how I had gotten here or what this was.

“Crown to Control,” I said over comms. “Do you read me? Out.”

“Skssss!”

“Crown to Control! Anyone there?! Out!”

“Skssss!”

Apparently, this metal cage was blocking comm signals.

So be it.

According to Mira, my Dragonfire had a pair of point-one gigawatt Kurkullan VPS Hellblade plasma swords. She’d also said they required five minutes to charge. I’d spent more than that back on the landing deck running around in mech mode, which I was guessing consumed minimal power compared to 20 G’s of afterburner acceleration.

That meant five continuous minutes of sword use.

That should be more than enough.

I thought, please highlight the gauge for my Hellblades.

The frame of one HUD window glowed brightly, but the contents of it were grayed out.

Did I need to be in mech mode to use the Hellblades?

Likely.

I thought about transforming and my rig did, going from jet to mech in my HUD’s diagram. I felt myself rotate, but I didn’t notice a shift in the orientation of gravity, or any gravity for that matter, which led me to believe I was still in space, or some distant dimension that didn’t have gravity. As expected, my Visor View changed, replacing the view of my body from the neck down with that of the mech’s body. The SR Feed must have kicked in too, because I felt reconnected to the body of my mech like it was mine.

And, my Hellblade gauge lit up.

Both plasma sword batteries were fully charged and ready to rock.

How do I turn them on, I wondered.

FWOZZZZZZ!

A pair of plasma blades exploded from my forearms and roared with deadly purple energy. Each blade was 4 or 5 meters long. Huge. The sound reverberated through my mech, shaking it like I was sitting on the engine block of a 20,000 horsepower Top Fuel dragster revving at the starting line while the go lights counted down.

Hell.

Yeah.

Time to cut my way out whatever this cage was. Since I was floating inside this constantly transforming metal sphere, walking toward the walls wasn’t an option. Back to using navigational thrusters to get me from point A to B in zero-G.

I thought about floating slowly toward the nearest stretch of spherical wall. The mech did as ordered, propelling me gently forward. When I thought about slowing to a stop, I saw a variety of small nav-thrusters on my mech’s chest, shoulders, hips, and knees light up to decelerate me with exacting precision.

That was easy.

I took a moment to appreciate the engineering of the moving spherical wall surface. Whatever mad scientist had designed this thing deserved the freaking Draper Prize. I’d give it to him after I cut my way out.

The hard part about cutting out of here would be swinging a sword while floating in zero G. No solid ground to root my feet and legs. I would need my Dragonfire’s nav-thrusters to blast in precise counterpoint to the moves I made with my legs, torso, and arms. Slowing down an entire rig flying in a straight line was one thing. Swinging these swords with any accuracy and power would require a symphony of coordination I couldn’t imagine. Hopefully the rig would figure it out.

I hovered my mech backward until I was again in the middle of the spherical metal cage. Then I did a few practice swings, going from slow and light to fast and hard as I got a sense for how responsive my mech’s counter-thrusting solutions were.

FWOZZ, FWOZZ, FWOOOZZZZ!

Amazingly, no matter how hard I swung, the Dragonfire’s nav-thrusters compensated perfectly, keeping me oriented in the same position like I was standing on solid ground. It turned out there were more nav-thrusters than I realized. Several more sets fired as needed on my rig’s elbows, wrists, ankles, and bottoms of my mechanical boots, which