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

So! Stupid!

I blamed Mira’s incredible body and relentless flirtation. More like manipulation. If she was half the pilot she was a player, my bet was as good as lost.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dying to pilot a transformable mech. The question was, where to start?

—: Chapter 57 :—

Sitting there in the dark mech cockpit, I thought, does this thing have a HUD?

All around me, display gauges blinked on, appearing as floating holographic windows surrounding me like you would expect from a futuristic fighter jet cockpit. Not surprisingly, wherever I turned my head, the transparent windows and gauges moved with me. Very convenient. Like Augmented Reality goggles.

I thought, how do I see outside?

A full 360-degree view of the landing deck appeared around me in 3D. Other mechs were visible, I could see the deck mechanics going about their business, and the purple Zalaxian jungle and lavender skies were shimmering in the distance. The bright sun glinted like diamonds off the waxy tropical leaves. The image was impossibly realistic and detailed, but it had to be a holographic projection.

The odd part was, my point of view was from the head of the mech. That was strange because the cockpit was inside the mech’s chest. And yet, I could see my rig’s chest and shoulders when I looked down, and the mech’s dangling hands, and the toes of its mechanical boots. But I couldn’t see my own chest, shoulders, arms, hands, or legs where I sat in the cockpit seat. In fact, the more I looked around, the more I had the eerie feeling I had become my mech. The only sensory data to the contrary was the feeling of my butt weighing down against the cockpit seat cushions.

It bordered on disorienting.

This was the perfect Virtual Reality experience. Better than any VR headset I’d worn back on Earth because there was no set focal length that put the 2D picture plane a fixed distance from my eyes. This was real 3D. Every object was clearly positioned at a different distance. I could tell because I felt my eyes constantly accommodating, and converging or diverging as needed, whenever I shifted my focus from near to far and everywhere in between.

In fact, everything looked so perfectly real, I retracted my personal power armor’s visor to make sure I wasn’t confusing the facts somehow. To my surprise, the 360 view outside disappeared, revealing the dim interior of the cockpit.

Wow.

My 3D view of the world outside had been entirely projected by my power armor’s helmet visor.

Clearly, the Dragonfire had cameras mounted all over its exterior, and they fed a video signal directly to my power armor helmet. Amazing. That made me wonder, what would happen if my armor wasn’t working? Or if I didn’t have armor? Could I still see to pilot this thing?

As soon as I’d thought it, the interior of the cockpit lit up with a view outside. 3D and 360 degrees with infinite depth, same as when I had my helmet visor down. I could also see the same gauges and information windows from before, and they even turned whenever I turned my head. That meant a camera or cameras inside the cockpit where tracking my head movements. Smart. The only difference was I saw my own chest, shoulders, hands, arms, and legs, not those of the mech. The illusion that I had become the mech was gone. My assumption was this was my backup system, which made perfect sense. When you didn’t have a transparent canopy revealing the world around you, you needed a backup viewing system in case of emergency.

With a thought, I lowered my visor. The switch from cockpit view to visor view was seamless. Incredible.

I wondered about rearview mirrors. How did I quickly see behind me, and below me to the rear? Even with a 360 view, I still only had two forward-facing eyes and a turnable head to work with. Mirrors were essential. Could I get some dedicated camera windows to show my “rearview” which I meant in both senses of the word: the rear over my shoulders, and the rearview below the rear I was sitting on?

Directly in front of me, three windows appeared in a line, blocking my field of view. The windows showed three different views behind my mech. I quickly discovered I could mentally reposition the windows, resize them, expand them for a wider or taller view, and specify where each camera was pointing.

Once I got them dialed in, it was easy to track every blind spot using my mirrors and peripheral vision.

Perfect.

Maybe this bet would be easier than I thought.

It sort of made sense. I had no doubt a YX-37 Dragonfire would have substantial computer assist, much like fifth-generation fighter jets like F-22s and F-35s. Those fighters were so unstable in flight — to allow for incredible maneuverability — that no human pilot could fly them without computer assistance keeping them from constantly falling out of the sky. My guess was, these battle mechs were no different.

A comms window showing Mira’s face appeared floating in the corner of my vision.

Mira said, “How’s it going in there, my king? You didn’t fall asleep, did you?”

“No,” I snorted. “Just getting things dialed in. There’s a lot to take in. By the way, what kind of armament does this thing have?”

“One 30mm Kurkullan RG66 Destroyer rolling bolt cannon, a full—”

“A roller, right?” I asked, remembering when Captain Theia had explained the terminology to me.

“Yes. Continuing on, the Dragonfire can carry a full compliment of guided Kurkullan missiles in its weapon bays. Air-to-air or air-to-ground.”

“Will air-to-air work space-to-space?”

“Yes.”

“What are we carrying now?”

“You aren’t carrying anything until you learn how to fly without dying,” she smirked.

“Now you tell me,” I chuckled, my eyes darting around to different gauges and display panels as I attempted to familiarize myself with everything. I quickly realized it would take more than a few seconds to learn