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

“Where should we put the bomb?” Captain Theia asked over comms.

“How powerful is it?” I asked while sealing off the view slot I’d created, leaving us in near darkness with only our helmet lights shining in the cramped space.

“Very powerful, my king. The packet bomb is atomic. It will easily destroy the Fold Core mechanism on the other side of this wall if you carve out the stone like you did on the way here.”

“Hmmm. Let me hollow out a spot.” I used my ring to extract a small cavity in the wall just large enough for the backpack bomb. I also scored the rock with perpendicular lines spaced a centimeter apart. I wasn’t thinking shrapnel, more like breakaway seams. I wanted as much explosive force blasting toward the reactor. Once I backfilled the space where we stood with solid lead, it would effect a shaped charge that would send even more blast force directly into the reactor. And, shrapnel always helped. Finished, I said, “Go ahead and place the bomb.”

Theia shrugged off the backpack and set it carefully in the recessed space.

“How do you set the detonation timer?” I asked.

“There’s a small panel on the back, my king.” She pointed to it.

“Okay, I’ll leave a space for that.”

Using my rings, I added enough lead to seal in the bomb except for a notch giving Theia access to the control panel.

I said, “Since this thing is atomic, maybe we should set the timer for 13 minutes. Juuuuuust in case something goes wrong on our way out. That’ll give us 5 minutes once we exit the keep topside.”

“I agree.” She pressed buttons on the control panel for a few seconds then turned to me and nodded, “The timer is set for 13 minutes, my king. On your mark, I’ll start it counting down.”

“Give me a second to set up my own timer.” In my HUD, the timer appeared: 13:00. “Okay, I’m ready. Before you start the bomb timer, I just want to tell you, Captain Theia, whatever happens, it’s been an honor working with you. I mean that.”

“It’s been an honor to serve you, my king.”

“I prefer the term ‘work with’ over serve,” I chuckled. “But I know what you mean. Thank you, Theia. I couldn’t have done this without your resourcefulness, initiative, and constant bravery. Without you, I’d still be struggling to figure out a mechanical timer for my nitroglycerin bomb while fighting off shark-headed space demons,” I chuckled.

“It’s my pleasure, my king. I do it all for you.”

“Thanks, Theia. That’s why I risk everything for you.”

“You shouldn’t, my king.”

“I have to. As long as you risk your life for me, I feel obligated to do the same for you.”

Her helmet visor was inscrutable, but in the comms window, her kryptonite green eyes were searching mine. “You surprise me more and more each day, my king. Truly, in all my years, I’ve never known a man like you. Your goodness grows with every challenge you face.”

“Thanks,” I grinned. “And you’re a damn good woman yourself, Theia. If you keep holding my heart like you have been,” I winked, “I’ll never let go of mine or yours.” It was a remix of what she’d said to me yesterday while I’d cried over the deer corpse of what I believed to be Violet, my beloved jungle babe.

Theia smiled in the comms window. “You remembered what I said.”

“How could I possibly forget? You’re an inspiration, Theia.”

“Permission to touch your Royal Person?”

“Always.”

She placed her gauntleted palm over my power-armored heart and said, “You give great meaning to the oath I swore to you, my king. That has rarely been true with past kings, and never true to the degree you give it meaning every day I’m by your side.”

Being in imminent danger on the far side of the universe with a gorgeous woman who had risked her life for yours, while you did the same for her, was a heady thing. My feelings for Theia sizzled through my body. Had we not been armored up in a vacuum inside a Space Keep, and not wearing our helmets and visors, and not holding an atomic bomb, a kiss seemed inevitable. But we were. A kiss would have to wait.

So I said, “Thank you, Theia. Forever and always, you’re the best of the best.”

“I’m honored, my king.”

“Shall we start the timer and get out of here?”

“Yes, my king. On three?”

“Yes.”

“Three, two, one, mark.”

I started my HUD timer ticking down and Theia did the same with the bomb.

12:59…

12:58…

12:57…

Intense dread washed over me. I was centimeters away from an armed atomic bomb. You better believe my balls crawled up into my pelvis and my throat went bone dry. I ignored my discomfort and sealed the small hole over the bomb’s timer with more lead.

“Let’s move,” I whispered over comms.

I squeezed around Theia and started extracting the lead I’d backfilled behind us on our way here, creating the same Walking Bubble of empty space around us, complete with a 5 cm skin of surrounding lead, again backfilling lead behind us as we retraced our steps.

Captain Theia and I quickly ascended toward the surface. En route, my gut suddenly told me the demons outside would be massing around the point where I’d drilled into the walls. Instead of coming up to the green side of the keep, I changed course halfway there, steering our Walking Bubble in the direction of the black side. Gone was the green glow from the stones. These were dark black and devoured the beams from our helmet lights hungrily.

We continued through the thick walls.

Based on the 3D diagrammatic layout of the keep visible in my ring HUD, we couldn’t go up through the top of the keep to escape there. Reason being, the higher the keep walls went above the surface of the ground-level outside, the thinner the keep walls became. Too thin for Theia and me to continue comfortably or quickly or stealthily. That meant we’d have to exit out to the ground level