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

I took a step back and turned to address everyone. “Listen up, ladies!”

All eyes were instantly on me.

“I need to find those pirates and their secret weapon. I don’t want to risk them shooting down Air Guard when they get here. That means you all need to stay here and keep an eye on each other. For now, that means you’re relieved of your duty to protect me.”

That brought instant gasps and reluctant mutters from them all.

“Just for now,” I emphasized. “You can resume your duties later. Understood?”

They agreed uncertainly and didn’t look too happy about it.

Neither did Theia. She was shaking her head almost imperceptibly, but I saw it.

I said quietly to her, “It’s our only choice, Theia. I won’t risk you or them any more than I already have.”

She glared at me.

I said it louder for everyone, “I’m not risking anyone else’s life tonight! Does that make any sense?!”

They were stunned.

“No king has ever done this,” said one Shock Knight.

“It’s not… it’s…” stammered another, not sure what to say.

“It’s our duty to protect you, my king,” pleaded a third.

I said, “And it’s my duty to avoid putting you ladies in harm’s way. I’ll tell Control to mark my position here in this Cage Root grove. Stay here so they can find you…” I did not add, in case anything happens to me.

Another Shock Knight said, “My king, wouldn’t it be wise to wait for Air Guard and let them deal with the secret weapon instead of you?”

That elicited general agreement from the other Shock Knights.

They were trying to convince me not to risk it.

Someone said, “We don’t even know where the pirates and their weapon are, my king. At least let Air Guard find it first.”

“Who says they will?” I said. “Look, ladies, I really appreciate your concern, but I have to take care of this for everyone’s sake.”

Was part of me embarrassed by how incompetent I had been earlier, and trying to make up for it now? Absolutely. Was that part of me making what was potentially an unwise strategic decision? Most likely. Did that mean it was a completely bad idea? Only if you considered neutralizing a very dangerous enemy weapon a bad idea. Admittedly, setting out on my own in the Zalaxian jungle was a terrible idea under any circumstance, but someone had to do it, and I was the best equipped for this mission. I had two functional rings while the Shock Knights had none and were completely naked. And, I had an infinite supply of jungle dirt surrounding me. That meant effectively infinite ring fuel.

In short, I was ready to rock and roll.

I knelt down and placed my hands on the red soil.

Ring, show me a 3D wireframe of the surrounding jungle in my HUD.

The wireframe quickly expanded outward from my position.

Question was, how to pick out a secret weapon from the cacophony of jungle animals and carnivorous plants?

That was easy.

Ring, highlight any sources of concentrated energy in yellow. Turn everything else dark blue.

I had to adjust the parameters of what constituted “concentrated energy” until most everything turned blue. No matter how widely I scanned the diagram in my HUD — rotating, scrolling, zooming — I didn’t see anything at first. Probably because my scan had a limited range. It extended out no more than a few hundred meters, possibly a kilometer. Beyond that, the wireframe faded.

Either the pirates’ device was outside of ring scanning range, or, was it possible their secret weapon had been a one-shot device? Drained of its fuel and left inoperable for now?

Definitely.

That didn’t mean it couldn’t be recharged and reused at a later date. Or an hour from now.

I needed to find it quickly.

The question was how?

Hmm…

Here’s a thought: Ring, highlight any straight lines or perfect curves in yellow. Make everything else go black.

That should remove potentially everything that wasn’t tech from my scan.

Nearby, the ABR-17 rifles and the rings worn by the Shock Knights lit up bright yellow. So did a number of jungle plants with straight-vertical stalks or smoothly curving stalks weighed down by gravity. Again, I had to adjust the tolerances, but not too tightly because even a perfectly straight ruler or machined curve will have imperfections at a molecular level.

Once I had refined things to where only the rifles and rings were visible in my HUD, I zoomed out. The pirates’ ring-killing secret weapon instantly stood out. It was located over a kilometer away, possibly two or three. I zoomed in to take a closer look. The device resembled a futuristic piece of artillery with a barrel set in a rotating gun carriage mounted on a stable platform. Big difference, the stubby “cannon” barrel was quite wide and very short. More like a classic searchlight than a projectile cannon.

I wasn’t exactly sure the scale of the weapon until I noticed several suits of power armor holding bolt rifles nearby. I turned off my HUD’s “lines and curves” filter and saw four wireframe pirates standing around the weapon like they were guarding it. Turned out the “cannon” was a decent size compared to the pirates and would require the equivalent of a jeep or truck to tow it around. Not that it had wheels. Just a big clunky base with four adjustable outrigger legs. For all I knew, it had plasma engines and could hover or fly like everything else on Zalaxia. Anyway, it was big enough to qualify as artillery in my book.

“I found it,” I said to the Shock Knights and stood to go.

“Is it close?” Theia asked. “Will it take long for us to get there?”

“Us?” I smiled.

Theia nodded hopefully.

I took both her hands in mine and said, “Please stay here, Captain. Where I know you’ll be safe.”

Corporal Syx interjected, “No place in this jungle is safe.”

“Which is why you need to stay here too,” I said, glancing at Syx.

“I wasn’t volunteering to go with,” she snarked.

“Then you won’t mind keeping an eye on everyone for me while