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

and raced after the scout toward the surface of planet Zalaxia. Much like Tim and the Bombshells had survived their crash after being hit by Zalaxian cruise missiles, so had the nine pirates in their scout ship. For the past four days, while Tim had been busy at the jungle outpost, those nine pirates had been busy reconnoitering the surrounding area in preparation for Hade’s planned invasion. It was never Hade’s plan that those nine pirates would intercept, capture, or kill the pretender king. Nine men was too few for an assault force. But Hade knew the tide of war could change swiftly and victory went to those who changed with it.

“Yeah, Boss!” Kroach bleated. “The ki—” Kroach stopped himself from saying king, “—the pretender and his bodyguards are heading straight for the crash site of the scout!”

“You said he has fifty of his whores with him?”

“Give or take.”

“Our nine men aren’t enough,” Hade grumbled in disappointment, his magnesium eyes burning white in frustration from inside his knightly horned helm. “They won’t stand a chance against fifty highly-trained Shock Knights.”

Vok Nyfe spoke up from where he stood on his levitating disc, saying in his understated and gratingly distorted voice, “Send them the Technomantic Nullifier.”

“Another of your useless Technomantic gadgets!” Hade railed, glaring at his cloaked skele-mechanical advisor, considering the joy it would bring him to destroy Nyfe where he stood. Knowing that fight would not be easy and victory not guaranteed, Hade refrained. Instead, he gouged his metal dais with his titanium hooves and sent a spray of sparks flying. When that didn’t satisfy, he turned an agitated circle, bucking like a robotic bronco and whipping his plasma tail while kicking his hooves at his Killhounds. They dodged and barked until it was raging chaos atop Hade’s dais.

In the workstation pit below, Hade’s mutant crew hunched away defensively, afraid of having the backs of their heads kicked in by Hade or bitten off by his Killhounds. They were careful not to be too obvious because they knew if Hade sensed their fear, he would attack them directly.

Eventually, Hade burnt off enough of his volcanic rage to get himself under control, but only barely. The recent failure of Nyfe’s Technomantic Labyrinth was still eating away at Hade’s mental architecture like rampant malware. What good was underhanded treachery or scheming skullduggery when such tactics failed to produce results?

Vok Nyfe said, “The Technomantic Nullifier is not useless.”

Hade seethed, “Even if it works, which I doubt, can you beam it to Zalaxia like you did your failed labyrinth?”

“No,” Vok Nyfe replied. “Unlike the Technomantic Labyrinth, a Technomantic Nullifier must be delivered by conventional means.”

“You fool! There isn’t time to get it to Zalaxia! Even I know that! Don’t be a two-bit transistor, Nyfe! Without some miracle, there is nothing nine men can do against the pretender and his fifty Shock Knights!”

“Hey Boss?” said Kezz, the ruby-skinned Stygian demon-dragon.

“What?” Hade scowled in despair.

Kezz replied, “We could deliver the Nullifier to Zalaxia on a fast drop ship. You know, an automated supply shuttle. One of them can close the gap to Zalaxia in twenty minutes. We can put the Nullifier on one of them.”

“I thought we were saving Nyfe’s Nullifier for the siege,” Hade grumbled disinterestedly.

“Your call, Boss,” Kezz shrugged. “If you want it there now, we can get it there.”

Hade swished his plasma tail curiously. “How will you get it past Zalaxian Star Defense satellites? Anything traveling that fast will disturb the atmosphere long before it arrives. The satellites will see it coming and destroy it.”

“Not if we mix it in with a meteor shower.”

“What meteor shower?”

“The one we’re going to make,” Kezz grinned, his ruby-faceted snout peeling back over obsidian fangs.

“Is the Nullifier small enough to pass as a meteor?”

Kezz considered it for a moment.

While he did, Hade gloated morosely, “You didn’t think of that, did you, you idiot.”

Kezz’s obsidian black crystalline eyes lit with inspiration, “It’ll be small enough if we break it down into smaller parts and send it on a bunch of smaller fast drop drones.”

“Will that work, Nyfe?” Hade said doubtfully. “Can your Nullifier be broken down into smaller parts and rebuilt by those idiots on Zalaxia?”

“Yes,” Nyfe said. “The Technomantic Nullifier is modular and can be programmed to reassemble itself.”

“How long will reprogramming take? Years in your skrucking laboratory?”

“Minutes in the hangar bay where it sits.”

Hade’s plasma tail sliced the air behind him while he mulled it over, passing Kezz’s premise through several different generative adversarial mental networks to challenge the soundness of the idea. After a few hundred milliseconds, he growled, “Do it. But do it quickly. Time is of the essence.”

“You got it, Boss,” Kezz said with a pleasant snarl. He started barking orders to everyone else on the bridge, which quickly became a flurry of activity.

Hade glared at Vok Nyfe and said, “This device of yours better work, Nyfe. If it doesn’t… if you fail me a third time…” Hade’s magnesium eyes smoked with evil purpose from inside his horned helmet, but he was reluctant to be any more specific or forceful with his threat.

“The device will work,” Vok Nyfe said calmly.

“It better. I paid you a fortune for that skrucking thing.”

“You will pay another fortune for the Technomantic Labyrinth.”

“YOUR LABYRINTH DIDN’T WORK!” Hade bellowed. “I’M NOT PAYING YOU ONE SKRUCKING RUSTY COIN FOR THAT THING! NOT A SINGLE PANDEMONIAN BIT! NOT ONE TENTH OF AN ITAP CREDIT! NOTHING, NYFE! DO YOU HEAR ME?! NOTHING!”

The hood of Vok Nyfe’s black cloak blew backward as the top of his skele-mechanical skull erupted in a furious plasma blast. His cloak billowed open, revealing his claw-like mechanical ribs opening up and glowing angrily, ready to fire blaster bolts at Hade.

All activity on the bridge screeched to a halt. Kezz and the other pirates froze, eyes locked on Vok Nyfe.

“I WON’T PAY!” Hade raged. “I DON’T PAY FOR FAILURE, NYFE! I ONLY PAY FOR SUCCESS!”

Wind whipped Vok Nyfe’s black cloak around his seemingly frail metal skeleton. He raised his transformable