Harem Assassins : King Sekton's Harem Planet, Book 2: A Space Opera Harem Adventure by Baron Sord (mobi ebook reader .TXT) 📕

serious as spying for the enemy. I might end up with another bloody riot on my hands, one that led to murderous revolt. Just because these women were my royal harem didn’t mean they’d simply lie down and do everything I told them. Some would, sure, but not all.

What a quandary.

Could I go back to flirting with First Lieutenant Mira on the flight deck from the cockpit of a Dragonfire? I’d much rather lose our G-load blackout bet than go through this judicial nightmare.

Don’t say it, Bill Shakespeare.

“Heavy is the—”

Don’t.

“—head that wears the—”

Say it.

“—king’s True Ring.”

He was right.

Damn it, he was right.

Guess what?

Turned out, having total authority over everyone meant everything fell on your shoulders.

—: Chapter 60 :—

“What is tower duty exactly?” I asked, still conducting Corporal Syx’s impromptu tribunal in the Mess Hall.

Sergeant Kane said, “We have guard towers on the perimeter wall surrounding the outpost, and more at the MRS with women in them 25/7, my king.”

“Twenty-five seven?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that what I said?”

“Is the Zalaxian day 25 hours?”

“Uh, yeah,” Kane said, slightly confused.

“Noted,” I nodded. “Dyna, what time was it when you say you saw Corporal Syx?”

“Actually, my king, it was this morning around oh-three hundred. You can see her on security video. I saw her through field glasses and logged it in my report.”

I turned to Colonel Sadys, “Is that something we can see from here? Can you have Hydra call up a window to show us the video?”

“Certainly, my king,” Sadys nodded and called out, “Hydra? Can I bother you for a moment?”

Hydra’s Maleficent face appeared floating in front of us. She glared at me, “You again?”

“Yup,” I smirked.

“Are you king yet?” Hydra demanded, glaring at me down her nose.

“Nope. Not officially. Acting only.” It was starting to seem like my coronation was nothing more than pomp and circumstance at this point. A mere technicality. Until someone said otherwise, I was going to function like I’d already been formally crowned. Whatever that meant.

“Then I won’t call you king.” Hydra closed her eyes defiantly before turning her head to face Colonel Sadys. She then opened her eyes with a smile and said pixie-sweet, “How can I help you, Colonel?”

Sadys said, “Please bring up infrared imaging of all MRS cameras from today, oh-two hundred to oh-four hundred. Playback speed times fifteen.”

I said, “Sorry, what’s the MRS again?”

“Everyone knows that,” Hydra huffed under her breath without looking at me.

Sadys said, “The MRS is the Main Relay Station, my king, It supplies power to base.”

“Right, someone said that already,” I nodded. Juggling new vocabulary while juggling a thousand new responsibilities was more of a challenge than I expected. “Where is it? The MRS?”

“Half a kay from here.”

“Kay?”

Hydra snarked, “Do you know anything?”

Colonel Sadys ignored her and said, “A kay is a kilometer, my king. The MRS is half a kilometer away.”

“Got it,” I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Here’s your video,” Hydra scowled.

Forty floating 3D holographic windows quickly appeared, popping up one at a time and arranged in a tight square grid. The cameras showed what looked like an electrical substation, but with a hexagonal building and hexagonal industrial transformer boxes connected by power lines. In the corner of each window was a time and date stamp. The time raced by at 15x speed. The only movement visible was the flickering of plant life shifting in the background of several windows — due to the wind, I was assuming — and quite a few insects zipping in and out of frame. No people were present that I could see.

“See?” Syx smirked. “I’m not there.”

“Keep watching,” Dyna said confidently.

A minute later, after fifteen minutes of video time had elapsed, Syx sighed, “I told you I wasn’t there, you skrucking Conk liar.”

“There!” Dyna pointed.

On screen, a lone figure darted from the shadows, passing from one video window to the next.

“That’s her, my king!” Dyna cheered. “That’s! Her!”

“That’s not me!” Syx protested. “It doesn’t even look like me!”

Colonel Sadys said, “Hydra, please pause video. Give me touch control.”

“My pleasure,” Hydra smiled lovingly at Sadys, then scowled briefly at me.

It was now obvious that artificially intelligent Hydra had as much personality as Bree, but Hydra was very annoying. Sure, the Bree I remembered fondly from the Artemis was insecure, had low self-esteem and needed constant encouragement, but I’d take that any day over Hydra. Hydra was too touchy with too much attitude. The only thing Bree needed from me to win her over had been a little attention and TLC, which I had been happy to give. Hydra here seemed like she’d need a lobotomy before she started being pleasant.

With a sigh, I thought that it would be nice if they were eventually able to recover Bree from the wreckage of the Artemis, but Sadys hadn’t gotten back to me about that project, and now wasn’t the time to change the subject.

A new floating holographic button panel appeared in front of Sadys. She tapped a few buttons, swiped her finger, and scrubbed the video backward. Her eyes danced from window to window until she found the best one. Using her finger, she touched another button, then drew a red circle around the shadowy figure in one image, then pinched the edges of the circle with both hands — using both thumbs and both index fingers — and pulled her hands apart.

The image expanded until the face filled the window. It was surprisingly high resolution. Because it was infrared imaging at night, the skin and hair color were impossible to determine. The high downward-angle also made it difficult to recognize the face.

Sadys again scrubbed the video back and forth. The enlarged face in the red circle turned repeatedly back and forth, going between looking forward and over her shoulder. There was more than enough motion-blur that it was difficult if not impossible to clearly identify whoever it was.

“That’s not me,” Syx sneered.

“Yes it is,” Dyna insisted. “Look at the glowing eyes.”

I said, “Eyes often glow in low-light video. You have to compare the bone structure.” I glanced between