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

My eyes popped open and I saw stars.

Actual stars, visible through the acrylic view slot in my steel cocoon.

I was in space!

I’d made it out of the Death Sphere!

Afraid I was hallucinating, I consumed the mass of my cocoon in stages, revealing more and more stars — and no remaining Death Sphere — until the cocoon was gone.

I was free!

Freaking free!

But I had no idea where I was.

I spun around looking for Zalaxia. That lavender orb was nowhere to be found. The Death Sphere was gone, but here I was, literally lost in space, and dangerously low on ring fuel.

How far had I traveled away from Zalaxia?

For all I knew, the Death Sphere had taken me to another part of the universe using some process other than folding. That was worst case scenario. Best case scenario, the Death Sphere had merely trapped me where I’d been drifting away from Zalaxia after winning my bet with Mira, but my POSITION vectors had taken me millions of kilometers distant from Zalaxia during my ongoing escape attempt, and that meant I didn’t have enough ring fuel to retrace my steps. There was no telling how far or fast I’d traveled inside that damn Death Sphere. I had changed course so many times, I—

Wait.

Ring, show me a map of my course of travel since leaving Zalaxia.

In my HUD, a 3D map appeared, showing a zig-zagging line that went shooting generally away from Zalaxia on a tangent composed of a series of straights and abruptly angled course changes. Like an accordion fold of angled lines. That meant my total distance traveled was far greater than my actual distance from the planet. That was a thin slice of good news.

Ring, how far am I from Zalaxia? In kilometers?

The HUD read: 277,260 km

Wow. That was damn far.

Then again, if I accelerated at 20 G’s for 20 continuous minutes, that would put me halfway there. At that point, I could start decelerating. Be back in orbit around Zalaxia in 40 minutes, give or take. A few more minutes and I’d be back on solid ground.

No problem.

Assuming I had enough ring fuel.

Even if I didn’t, I could get myself moving in the right direction and drift the rest of the way. I just had to account for the orbital path of the planet. And hope I didn’t over or undershoot the mark.

No stress.

I carefully accelerated toward home, keeping an eye on my fuel, my speed, my ring HUD, and the remaining distance home. It quickly became clear I would make it. Assuming nothing tried to stop me along the way — like those pesky Cyberknights of the Spacepocalypse — and assuming I was properly accounting for Zalaxia’s orbit.

You know what they say about assumptions.

Again, no stress.

—: Chapter 89 :—

“What happened?” Hade asked from the bridge of his warship. “Nyfe? Where is the Technomantic Labyrinth?”

Only a skeleton crew of cybernoids remained in the workstation pit, and a few of the more resilient alien races. One of them was Kezz the demon-dragon Stygian engineer with ruby-faceted skin. The other was Qwayk the Quadron gunner. Unlike Kezz, who hardly noticed the G-load of 5 G acceleration, Qwayk was getting nauseous but toughing it out and pretending he wasn’t. All other non-cybernoid pirates were hunkered down in their Fold Beds to minimize the strain of extended high-G acceleration.

“Nyfe?!” Hade demanded. “Where is your Labyrinth?!”

“Gone,” Vok Nyfe said, his distorted voice gritty with defeat.

“How?!” Hade growled.

“Consumed by the king.”

“He’s no king!” Hade grumbled. “We’re not even halfway to Zalaxia! He’s heading back toward the planet! We’ll never catch him!” A floating 3D holographic window showed Tim Pittwell’s golden blip speeding straight back to Zalaxia. “If he gets there before we get him, this will all be for naught! And we’ll have revealed our position to Zalaxian Star Defense! Make another Labyrinth, Nyfe! Make one now!”

“There is no other,” Vok Nyfe said.

“How can that be?! Where did you get the first one?!”

Vok Nyfe didn’t answer.

“If you won’t tell me,” Hade growled, “at least tell me what you require for a second Labyrinth.”

“Constructing another requires substantial resources and years of effort assembling it in a Technomantic laboratory.”

“Years?!”

Vok Nyfe tipped a nod.

Hade stomped his titanium hooves against his metal dais and whipped his white plasma tail behind his cybernetic rump. His Killhounds barked half-heartedly before settling down on their haunches. They were sensing Hade’s defeat as if it were their own.

After several seconds of seething, Hade barked, “Fine! Reverse course! Turn this skrucking ship around 180 degrees before we disturb Zalaxian atmosphere! Capturing that pretender will have to wait until after my Technomantic upgrade and siege preparations are complete. Maybe Crewd’s infernal Spartax warriors will do some good.”

Kezz said, “Boss, if we turn the ship around one-eighty, Zalaxia will see our plasma drive.”

“I DON’T CARE HOW YOU DO IT, YOU FOOL! MAKE IT HAPPEN OR I’LL FEED YOU TO MY DOGS!”

When the Killhounds didn’t launch into a barrage of barks, Hade yanked on their spiked chains until they did, but they only barked half-heartedly.

“Yes, Boss,” Kezz muttered and did a slow arcing course change that kept Hade’s warship just outside the edges of Zalaxia’s outermost atmosphere, and he did it without shining the warship’s main plasma thrusters directly at Zalaxia.

Whether or not anyone saw them from Zalaxia was another story.

—: Chapter 90 :—

Halfway home, I ran into Zalaxian Air Guard… in space.

I couldn’t hail them on comms because my power armor was still dead. Suddenly thinking they wouldn’t see me and would go flying by and leave me floating alone in the murderous wasteland of deep space, I thought through a variety of ways to make light in a vacuum using the limited ring fuel I had available. LED’s, lasers, chemical flares. Every approach would require I create tangible mass for the components or materials. I briefly considered running ring ENERGY through the headlamps on my power armor to light them up.

Before I could instruct my rings to scan the circuits of