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

That was polite understatement.

She’d been horrible.

Had she tried to assassinate me?

Nope. What she did was worse. No exaggeration.

Trying not to scowl, I turned my face forward and tried to forget about what Dyna had done. Truth be told, Dyna’s previous reprehensible behavior was the least of my problems. Baron Crewd von Bludlust and his pirates were a far bigger threat to not only my life, but the lives of every woman at this outpost and the rest of Zalaxia.

If you think Dyna is more dangerous, you must have forgotten the dangerous doings of Baron Crewd. Since the day I had walked into Zola’s Jewelers back on Earth and my beloved Bombshells — Oia, Venus, Cygna, and Sirius — had tricked me into donning a Zalaxian king’s ring, I had endured one deadly attack after another from Crewd’s menacing mutant henchmen.

Their onslaught never stopped. They were a daily danger for everyone, not just me.

One averted and covert assassination attempt was a freaking vacation compared to Crewd’s pirates, let me tell you.

Recently, I had seen first-hand what they had almost done to Cygna when they’d kidnapped her, ripped off her clothes, and almost… You can figure out what space pirates would do to a beautiful Bombshell like Cygna when she was naked and helpless. Thank goodness I had ripped their limbs off before they had done her any permanent damage.

I grimaced to myself.

I didn’t want to think about the past. I shoved those awful memories down into the growing emotional bunker where I kept the rest of my PTSD and locked the lid. What I needed to do was focus on the here and now.

If given half a chance, Crewd’s pirates would try again.

I had to be ready for anything he or they threw at me, this outpost, or this planet.

There was an excellent chance an army of pirates was out there this minute, lurking somewhere in space near Zalaxia. I knew they would stop at nothing to kill me and take either or both of my rings, then take every last Zalaxian concubine for themselves. As far as I knew, the only thing standing in their way were me and my two rings.

One ring was the True Ring, which was the royal ring that gave the wearer — currently me — official and legal title to the Zalaxian throne. The other was the Bombshells Ring, which didn’t confer any special title, but did give the wearer — yours truly — almost magical abilities to control different aspects of reality:

MASS

ENERGY

POSITION

PATTERN

Like the Bombshells Ring, the True Ring did all of the above and controlled one additional aspect:

TIME

I had yet to attempt TIME control — talk about playing with the fiery unknown of temporal paradox — but I imagined I soon would, especially if Baron Crewd and his pirates came sniffing around.

They could sniff all they wanted.

To semi-quote the infamous bumper sticker featured in the film Red Dawn, “If they want my rings, they can pry them from my cold, dead fingers.”

Hundreds of Crewd’s pirates had already tried and failed to take the Bombshells Ring. If I had anything to say about it, they’d continue failing to take either ring.

And failing and failing and failing.

Short of them sending an entire pirate army to invade Zalaxia — or a sneaky space assassin to kill me when my guard or pants were down — there was zero chance they’d ever succeed in getting my rings or stealing the throne of Zalaxia from me, Tim Pittwell.

Acting king of Harem Planet.

—: Chapter 3 :—

The gas giant Infernius was the third planet from the Zalaxian sun.

For reference, Zalaxia was the fourth.

Infernius was similar in size to planet Jupiter. Some called Infernius The Devil’s Eye because it was a roiling, blood-red ball in a state of continuous storm. Like Jupiter, Infernius had a hurricane eye. Unlike Jupiter, the eye of Infernius was bright yellow and centered on the equator.

As if it were the eye of Asmode himself, The Devil’s Eye watched intently as a massive Nova Class pirate warship unfolded into existence on the far side of Infernius where no Zalaxian satellite could detect its arrival. The process of unfolding was a storm of spiraling and slashing triangular blades of every size, shape, and color that solidified into the form of the immense warship.

Once resolved, the warship’s plasma engines lit up with crackling fury, sending it rumbling toward Zalaxia. The hull of the menacing carrier rippled liquidly and it “shifted” until it was invisible across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, save for its engines, which were a bright beacon behind it.

After a brief burst of powerful acceleration, the main plasma drive shut off in exchange for the slower acceleration of Gravitron Projection Drive, or GPD. It emitted no light or exhaust, instead projecting a series of forward-positioned gravity wells that pulled the warship along. Using GPD made the warship completely invisible to the naked eye, as well as passive and active scanners of almost every variety.

Inside the warship’s expansive main hangar bay, a company of 100 space pirates wearing Stygian power armor marched across the metal deck in tight formation, boots snapping as they went. They carried savagely crafted Stygian K177 assault rifles at the ready. Unlike most rag-tag pirates who wore mismatched weapon belts and bandoliers over patchwork armor-plates and scuffed leather, these elite pirates wore matching and expensive Stygian power armor. The armor’s black reactive plating currently mimicked the dingy interior of the warship’s shadowy hangar deck. The simulated and changeable patterns weren’t an exact match bordering on invisibility, but they were accurate enough to function as highly effective camouflage.

As the power-armored pirates passed, the mutant deck crew on duty watched warily, growling and snarling amongst themselves. The deck crew consisted of wild-eyed and slightly insane Hyenoks; muscular blue-skinned Quadrons with their four arms and eight tiny eyes; hulking and brooding Gorillans; slimy toad-like Gluglons; slithering Serpentors; a handful of demon-dragon Stygians with their crystalline