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

there?” Boltus seethed corrosively while watching the remaining Aught army spread out from their Fortress Cube at a casual pace.

Nemisys watched with amused interest as the Aughts methodically occupied every floating Battle Cube in the battle space without resistance, turning every last one white.

Aughts had won the day.

Nemisys had won his bet.

And now Hade Maximus owed two masters far more powerful than his creator. Worse, he owed them the same prize. Baron Crewd von Bludlust would never agree to give up ten of his Zalaxian Palace Whores to anyone. Not to Hade, and not to Incorporare Imperius. Hade knew Baron Crewd cared nothing for the petty squabbles of Pandemonian nobles.

In short, Hade was skrucked.

—: Chapter 64 :—

“Seven days, Hade,” Nemisys Imperius said over the holographic comms window.

The square window floated in the square courtyard inside Maximus Cybertronic Conversion Factory where Hade had parked his destroyer after returning from Kill CUBE. Hade shifted impatiently from hoof to hoof beside his power-armored pirates. They stood at attention in a square formation. Vok Nyfe hovered low to the deck on his levitating disc. Boltus Maximus was parked beside Hade, surrounded by his own contingent of cyberquad guards.

“YOU’LL GET YOUR WHORES!” Hade growled at Nemisys over the comms window.

“Concubines, Hade,” Nemisys sneered pleasantly. “Whore sounds too gauche, even for you.”

“You’ll get them!” Hade raged.

“In seven days?” Nemisys challenged politely.

Hade growled noncommittally.

Nemisys said, “My family’s entire Incorporare is prepared to move quickly against Incorporare Maximus if you don’t deliver, Hade. Will you have my concubines waiting outside my fortress firewall within seven days?”

“Yes,” said Boltus Maximus hastily, revving forward on his centank treads to lean his face in front of Hade’s, blocking the comms window. “Hade will have them in seven days, won’t you, creation?”

“YES!” Hade roared before lazing the holographic window with the bolt blaster hidden in his index finger.

The bolt merely disrupted the hologram temporarily, but Boltus was wise enough to shut off comms for the sake of his creation, terminating the connection to Nemisys. The holographic window blinked off.

Boltus gazed at Hade.

“What?” Hade grumbled.

“You know what’s at stake, creation,” Boltus said matter-of-factly.

“Yes! Everything!” It wasn’t an exaggeration.

“Your pirate army must seize the Zalaxian king’s ring.”

“HE IS NO KING! HE HASN’T HAD HIS CORONATION! HE’S A PRETENDER!”

“I know, creation. I know. You told me already.”

“Seven days isn’t enough time to prepare and seize the True Ring.”

“How much time do you need?”

“No, father,” Hade said savagely. “How much time do you need to upgrade those Spartax warriors Baron Crewd insists you modify and I use?”

“They’re not the problem, creation. The problem is prepping the Technomantic upgrades you demanded for yourself!” Boltus said irritably.

“I can’t win without them!” Hade argued.

“I know!” Boltus defended. “You told me already!”

“How long, father?” Hade snarled.

“Must you call me that?! How many times do I have to tell you, I am your creator, not your father!”

Hade snarled at his builder without saying a hateful word.

“I require at least ten days,” Boltus said eventually. “Ten days to convert and install and deliver.”

“I only have seven.”

“I know! I’ll stall.”

“Incorporare Imperius waits for no cybernoid.”

“I KNOW!” Boltus roared. “I told you I’ll stall! Now you go plan your attack! Win by any means necessary! Do you hear me?!”

“Yes I hear you!”

“Remember what happened at Kill CUBE!” Boltus warned.

“I said I heard you!”

“Overwhelming force isn’t always the answer!”

“FORCE NEVER FAILS!”

“It did yesterday! Don’t be a fool, Hade! Use the neural algorithms I gave you! Machine algorithms aren’t always the answer! Be creative! Don’t do the obvious! Take Sekton’s Royal ring however you can! If you don’t, Nemisys will take everything we have!”

“I KNOW!” Hade roared.

Both cybernoids fell into difficult, tense silence.

There was nothing more to say on the subject.

Boltus asked quietly, “Do you calculate Synnestra is happy with Nemisys?”

“NO!!” Hade scowled.

“Neither do I. You should ping her before you leave for Zalaxia.”

“NO! I HAVE NO NEED OF HER!”

“No. Why would you,” Boltus sighed with rhetoric and beleaguered bitterness.

“BECAUSE SHE HAS NO NEED OF ME!” Hade roared. His magnesium eyes burned hatefully white and smoked with serpentine wisps. His reactive armor plating stormed over in red lightning so bright, it cut sharp shadows across everything in the square courtyard. Eventually the red storm on Hade’s centanoid armor faded to bleak black.

Hade mumbled, “I have to go.”

“Fold well,” Boltus said. “May victory be yours when you reach Zalaxia.”

Hade grumbled and turned, stomping his titanium hooves across the metal deck toward his destroyer. Vok Nyfe followed quietly on his levitating disc. Hade’s contingent of power-armored pirates marched close behind. They wore the newly manufactured Pandemonian power armor and carried the new Pandemonium bolt rifles gifted them by Boltus. Hade had refused them at first. Boltus had insisted. Hade had begrudgingly accepted in the end.

“Remember what I said!” Boltus called out the moment before Hade walked up the ramp into his destroyer.

Hade grunted in reply.

The ramp closed, turbines whined, plasma engines crackled, and Hade’s destroyer took to the air. After a short trip into orbit, Hade’s destroyer docked in the hangar bay of his Nova Class warship and folded back into the Zalaxian solar system in a blazing hurricane of refracted reality, arriving near the gas giant Infernius as before.

The words of Boltus Maximus still echoed through Hade’s cybernetic circuits with an infuriating persistence that Hade detested.

— Victory by any means necessary —

Eventually, he found it impossible to not consider his creator’s wise words in a different light.

The glorious light of victory.

Perhaps the direct frontal assault Hade had planned against the jungle base wasn’t the best way. Perhaps something more subtle and sinister would ensure victory. Something unexpected, something secretive and surprising that no one would expect.

Something entirely skullduggerous.

Something involving…

Assassination.

—: Chapter 65 :—

“I was starting to think you ran out on our bet,” First Lieutenant Mira teased the next morning.

Her and I were meeting up on the landing deck near our Dragonfire YX-37 mechs. It was bright and early, the lavender skies clear and cloudless. As always, Mira was knockout-hot in her tight flight suit. The