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

Mira said, “Did you just open your helmet visor?”

“Yeah, why?” I hissed, barely able to get the words out.

“You’re confusing the SR Interpreter. Close your visor and stand up.”

With a thought, my helmet visor lowered. When I glanced at my hands, they had become the mech’s armored hands propping me up on the landing deck on all fours. Same for my knees. They had become the mech’s knees. The illusion that I was the mech slowly reasserted itself, but it was fighting against the sensation that my chest and shoulders was pressing against my biting seat harness.

I sat back on my haunches — I should say my mech did.

As the mech transitioned positions, I felt my butt settle into my cockpit seat cushion, taking the cutting pressure off my harness straps. Fighting with that sensation was the sensation of my butt resting on the heels of my feet, not a seat cushion. I knew that was the sensation my mech should be feeling but not my body. I also felt the balls of my feet — I should say my mech’s feet — pressing down on the landing deck, even though my real feet were resting flat on the floor of my cockpit.

I realized I was getting conflicting kinesthetic information from my own body and the mech’s body. I couldn’t pay attention to both, so I did my best to ignore what my body was telling me and pay more attention to what the mech was telling me.

After concentrating for a moment, I thought about standing slowly and my mech responded, planting one foot sole-down, then straightening both legs until I was stable and standing tall. When I felt ready, I started walking again. Slowly at first.

Amazingly, it wasn’t long before I felt one with my mech again, felt its hips, knees, and ankles bending and flexing as if they were my own, felt its feet touching and weighing down on the ground with every confident step.

“How is this happening?!” I laughed. “How is it I feel like my body is walking when it’s not?! This is insane!”

Mira smiled in the comms window, “Is this your first time in a rig with an SR Feed?”

“What’s an SR Feed?”

“Somatic Relay Feed. SRF for short. It activated when you turned on your reactor core.”

“It did?”

“Did you feel your scalp tingling when you turned it on?”

“I did.”

“That was your SRF establishing a link with your mind.”

“Wow,” I chuckled. “This is incredible. The Rolbotics exosuit sure can’t do this.”

Wondering about my hands and arms, I stopped walking and imagined rubbing my palms together like I was washing them with soap and water. At the bottom of my helmet’s Visor View, I watched my rig’s mechanical hands do exactly that.

“I can feel my hands washing!” I laughed. The sensation was so convincing, I again retracted my visor and looked down at my actual hands inside the cockpit to see if they were moving and touching. They weren’t. They were resting on the armrests of my cockpit seat. As soon as my brain made that connection, my rig’s mechanical hands stopped washing in mid-motion.

“Did you just retract your visor again?” Mira asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“You’re confusing the SR Interpreter. It takes a lot of practice to pilot a rig without your visor down.”

“So I noticed,” I chuckled. “Wait, can you pilot a mech without a visor or helmet or power armor?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“By thinking about it. Same as you were doing with your visor down, but you have to concentrate more, and it takes more skill. For now, keep your visor down, especially in mech mode. And whatever you do, keep your helmet on at all times.”

“Hold on. You just said I can pilot this thing without armor.”

“You can, but if you retract your helmet, you can’t control your rig in mech mode or jet mode until you disengage the SR Feed.”

“Oh. How do I do that?”

“You don’t.”

“I mean if I need to.”

Mira huffed, “There’s a covered switch on the outside of your right armrest.”

I mentally retracted my visor until I could see the armrest, then I felt around until my fingers touched the cover. “Found it.”

“The SRF switch?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t touch it.”

“I won’t. But if I did, how would I control my rig then?”

“The easiest way is with verbal commands to the autopilot.”

“Will that work for dog fighting? I mean air battles?”

“Yes.”

“The autopilot is that good?”

“Yes. Only the most advanced pilots can outfly the autopilot.”

“Good to know,” I smiled. “Can you outfly the autopilot, Lieutenant Mira?”

“Of course,” she snorted.

“Ooooof course,” I smirked, regretting my bet more and more by the second. “What about manual controls? In case the autopilot is down?”

“There’s a covered switch on the outside of your left armrest. Don’t touch it. It will deploy manual controls. And don’t get any ideas. Piloting a rig with manual control requires thousands of training hours to learn, thousands more to master.”

“Good to know,” I said respectfully, very much appreciating the level of redundancy built into a battle mech, and Mira’s level of knowledge and skill.

What was not to like about a Hot Young Pilot who knew what she was doing?

It wasn’t like she was trying to assassinate me. She was teaching me how to fly and wanted to have sex with me before any other woman on Zalaxia could have that privilege.

When you thought about it, Mira being an assassin was outrageous and illogical. What would be the point of being the first to have sex with me, only to kill me immediately afterward? The moment she killed me, she’d lose her status of being the king’s first. Mira would go right back to square one, vying with every other Zalaxian woman to be the next king’s first.

Unless she already had someone in mind for my replacement?

Someone she knew would maker her his first?

Someone like Baron Crewd von Bludlust?

What a laugh.

Mira and Baron Crewd as boyfriend and girlfriend?

Or secretly married?

Ridiculous.

—: Chapter 70 :—

“Boss!” Kroach croaked from his workstation in the bridge pit. “Your order went through! The