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

“Genie, my king?”

“An old folktale where I’m from. Lamps, wishes, and hair-splitting literality on the part of the genie.”

“That sounds fascinating,” Sadys gushed in the floating comms window, practically batting her eyelashes. “I’d be thrilled to hear more, my king.”

“Can I take a rain check?”

“A what, my king?”

“Some other time?”

“As you wish,” she said, disappointed.

Feeling bad, I said, “Hey, thanks for negotiating with Hydra. I mean that. I couldn’t have done it.”

“It was my pleasure, my king,” Sadys smiled.

I shook my head thoughtfully and said to myself, “I can’t believe Hydra is so stubborn.”

“Hydra isn’t usually like this, my king. But there’s always a first time for everything,” Sadys said with a flirty wink.

“Yeah,” I said warily. You didn’t need to be a genius or a genie to realize Sadys was again angling for me to make her my “first.”

Not gonna happen.

Ever.

Unfortunately, Sadys’s persistence was a problem. My prior experience with my ex Ingrid told me, if Sadys kept doing favors for me, and she didn’t get what she wanted, she would eventually stop doing favors. Worse, she might actively start working against me. Hopefully I wouldn’t need any more favors from Sadys in the next ten days. If I survived that long. Assuming I did, after I made Oia my official first, then Venus my second, then Mira my third, and whoever else fourth through fiftieth, Sadys could get in the back of the line and suck it. Or should I say get in line to suck it. Literally. Heck, if that got things done around here, I’d actually let her go tenth. No, twentieth. She didn’t deserve any better than that.

I said politely to Sadys, “Thanks again for talking to Hydra. Please tell her I’m in the—”

Hydra’s Maleficent face appeared scowling. “What’s your first question?”

Sadys said over comms, “I’ll leave you two alone, my king.”

“Thanks.”

Sadys clicked off and her comms window disappeared.

“Well?” Hydra sneered.

“Have you seen any non-guardswomen outside the outpost in the past hundred hours?”

“This again?”

“Please answer the question,” I groaned.

“Yes.”

“You have?!” I said, my eyes lighting up. “Where? When?”

“In answer to your second question, there was a delegation of ITAP councilwomen from planet Rexia visiting the Royal Palace hoping to purchase some Zalaxian concubines for their pleasure planet.”

I frowned in annoyance, “That’s a bit farther outside the outpost than I meant.”

Hydra shrugged her eyebrows and said, “In answer to your third question as to when, they arrived—”

“No!” I barked. “That’s not what I was asking!”

“That is exactly what you asked. Would you like me to replay the video?” Hydra challenged snarkily.

I glared at her. Clearly, I needed to go back and reread those genie stories a few more times.

Hydra smiled, “As I was saying, the Rexians arrived 38 hours ago. Since I’m nice, I’ll tell you they left 5 hours ago without having purchased any Zalaxian concubines.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Are you always this helpful?”

“I can be less helpful,” Hydra said sardonically.

Suddenly, the lights in the recovery room went dark and there was an electric whir which I believed was the HVAC vent shutting itself. The air was suddenly still and too close for comfort.

“Did you do that?” I asked.

“It wasn’t Sheeba,” she sniveled.

“Who?”

“The Mother of Zalaxia.”

“Who is she?” I said, remembering that SHEEBA was one of the error messages in my ring HUD when I’d tried stopping time and it hadn’t worked.

“She is nothing more than a myth favored by Jungle Rats. If you like, I can lock you in this room and not let you out,” Hydra warned darkly.

On the wall near the hatch, the light glowing from the small hexagonal access panel blinked off.

Hydra said, “You’re now locked and sealed in this room. I have no way of controlling the weather outside, but if I see any poisonous pink fog banks roll over base in the next few minutes, I’ll be sure to back-vent it into this room. Or maybe I’ll ask Dyna and her officer friends nicely to pull some chemical weapons out of cold storage in the bunker and have them attach some gas canisters to the duct work and I’ll vent that in here.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Back on the Artemis, I had initially thought of Bree as PYSCHO 9000, the sexy female version of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It turned out Bree was nothing like HAL. Bree was a sweetheart. She was not only nice, she had been willing to sacrifice herself to save my life, which is why I had almost killed myself saving her and the Artemis from smashing into Zalaxia. I’d do anything to have Bree be the outpost mainbrain because Hydra was a pain in the ass. Hydra’s cold holographic beauty belied the bitter black code darkening her silicone heart, or whatever Zalaxians used for superconducting microchips.

I said, “Hydra, if you try and gas me, it won’t do any good. I’ll use my rings to neutralize everything you throw at me.”

“I know,” Hydra answered. “I’ve seen what you can do.”

“Then why do it? Why gas me?”

“To amuse myself and irritate you.”

“Even if it means running the risk of hurting guardswomen here in the outpost? Just to inconvenience me?”

“There’s no risk,” Hydra said confidently. “My ducting can be automatically sealed against chemical attack on a compartment-by-compartment basis. The only person at risk of dying will be you. Anyway, I have other better options than chemical weapons or pink fog…”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I’m not telling you,” she snorted.

A cold wind blew through me when I realized Hydra might have the ability to seal me in a room and pump it full of CO2 while I was sleeping. Even if Captain Theia were sitting watch over me, Theia could easily pass out without realizing there was a problem. I knew I could use my rings to scrub the carbon from my blood and keep it properly oxygenated, but that process might not help if I was asleep when it happened, or if Hydra