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

And with that, the floodgates opened and the emotions rolled out. I blubbered like a baby. If the intensity kept up at this level much longer, my intensifying PTSD would eventually eat me alive.

—: Chapter 13 :—

As we returned to the outpost, the royal Golden Galleon glinted in the lavender sunlight.

Byzantine, sleek, and futuristic, the galleon stood on the landing deck atop the outpost’s largest and tallest hexagonal building. It was an impressive spaceship of the first order, boldly evoking both power and luxury. The “real” King Sekton had flown in on it last night before I’d killed him. Good riddance. Guy had been a royal prick. Literally.

Seeing his — now my — snazzy Golden Galleon made me think of another equally snazzy spaceship.

The Artemis.

It was the fast and sexy ship the Bombshells had piloted to Earth to find me. The Artemis was also effectively the “body” of Bree, the AI “ship’s brain.” That’s what Cygna had called it, a ship’s brain. Breathy Bree the Babe Brain. Bree’s “human” hologram was a busty, platinum blonde bombshell with jealousy and attachment issues. Despite her personality quirks, I had learned to like her quite a bit.

Call her my honorary fifth Bombshell.

Talking to Bree, you’d think she was real. Her CG holographic rendering was perfect. It had no “uncanny valley” effect and appeared 100% real. Her personality was no different. Completely believably real. She could pass the most strenuous Turing Test imaginable. Even though I knew Bree was an AI, she seemed like an actual person.

Before we’d crashed in the Zalaxian jungle, I had nearly killed myself slowing down the Artemis to give it a relatively soft landing. I had promised Bree I’d come back for her — “her” being her “neural mass” housed in the front half of the Artemis. The wreck had settled on the red dirt slope of a random Zalaxian mountainside not far from this outpost.

As I flew slowly toward the landing deck in my power armor, followed by Captain Theia and her Shock Knights, I decided to do something about Bree. If I couldn’t save Violet, I would save Bree.

“Hey Control?” I said over comms. “This is the king.”

“Control to Crown. Ursa here. How can I assist you, my king?”

“Hey, Ursa.” I wasn’t surprised she was still on duty. It had only been two hours since I’d left the outpost to go find Violet. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything for you, my king.”

“Great. There’s the front half of a spaceship around here somewhere in the jungle. The one I crashed in? Yesterday? Do you have any idea where that is? Did you people happen to see it? Out.”

“One moment while I check.” After a pause, Ursa said, “Yes, I have the coordinates.”

“Is it still there? The wreckage?”

“Yes, my king. Exactly where it crashed.”

“Perfect. Can you have someone go get it?”

“I can pass word along to Colonel Sadys, if that’s what you mean.”

“Who is she again?”

“Base commander, my king. She can make arrangements to rescue your starcraft.”

“What was her name again?”

“Colonel Sadys.”

I vaguely remembered the colonel from last night after I’d killed Sekton, but my brain was foggy from exhaustion and I was focused on bringing back Bree.

Bree, Bree, Bree.

Didn’t matter she was only a hologram, or that her spaceship body was bigger than a literal blimp. She was my fifth Bombshell, she had saved my life more times than I could remember, and I had promised her I’d come back for her. The last thing I needed was for some huge jungle beast like Mrs. Mountainous to come lumbering along today or tomorrow, and accidentally step on the Artemis and crush Bree’s neural bytes to bits.

I said, “Ursa, can you put her on? The colonel, I mean?”

“I’ll hail her. One moment.”

At that point, I and the Shock Knights touched down on the expansive landing deck.

Seconds later, a new female voice said, “Command to Crown, this is Colonel Sadys.”

“Hey, Colonel. This is King Tim. Tim Pittwell.” I was rambling because I was exhausted. “I need you to have someone fetch the Artemis.”

I explained in detail, giving size and mass estimates and whatever else I thought relevant. In closing I said, “And be careful with it. I want the ship’s brain intact. You got that, Colonel? Ship’s brain intact. If not, heads will roll.”

“Yes, my king,” Colonel Sadys said hastily. “I’ll get right on that. It may take some time and effort to get it here, but we’ll manage.”

“Great. As soon as you do, I expect to talk to Bree myself.”

“Who, my king?”

“The ship’s brain. Her name is Bree. Get her up and running so I can talk to her. You got that?”

“Yes, my king. Your wish is my command.”

“Thanks. Crown out.”

After that, Captain Theia guided me over to the decontamination showers situated atop the landing deck in one corner. She explained we had to scrub down after every outdoor mission because the jungle was teeming with airborne pathogens.

For example, there were the red rainstorms to worry about. I had dubbed them “red death rain” after going through one such storm. Highly acidic and loaded with flesh-eating bacteria.

Theia said there were also insect swarms blowing by on any given day. Or there might be an unusually high spore count in the air. On those occasions, merely stepping outside for 10 seconds meant you needed to shower off the spores before going back inside. There was also the toxic pink fog I’d seen from a distance, but had yet to get caught in the middle of.

Whatever it was, there was no telling what sort of bacteria, fungi, molds, invasive seeds, microscopic insects, grubs, or amoebas might have landed on your power armor or be nesting in your hair. Or ears. Or nostrils. Or inside your eyelids. Yes, inside your eyelids.

You name it, and they didn’t want it inside the outpost, and you didn’t want it on or in your body.

Once we were showered off, I trudged down to Medical to watch over my beloved Bombshells while they