Harem Assassins : King Sekton's Harem Planet, Book 2: A Space Opera Harem Adventure by Baron Sord (top inspirational books .txt) 📗

Let’s see…

How about a sand-filled hourglass?

Nope, useless without gravity. Presumably, the “asteroid” described by Captain Theia wouldn’t have enough to make an hourglass function predictably. I’d need something spring-driven like an old-school wind-up kitchen timer. Given enough time, that was manageable.

Flickering lights down on the distant surface of the triangular white face of the Space Pyramid signaled the launch of more SAMs. I took evasive action and focused on dodging the incoming, spiraling medieval warheads — complete with snarling white gargoyle faces — by cranking up my POSITION vectoring once again, zipping through frequent Light Cycle-intense course corrections they couldn’t match.

Making my life as a space bomb designer… in space… even more difficult was the sheer number of white, black, red, and radiation green X’s representing space demons showing on my HUD. Their ranks had grown to the thousands. They were all converging toward the Chaos Gate because that was obviously my destination.

How could I possibly plant a time bomb on the asteroid where the gate projector was located with an entire army on my ass?

Any suggestions, Lightfoot?

How about you, Shake Eyes, with your silent ninja ways?

Or you, Lady Jaye?

Heck, Cobra Commander?

Destro?

Anyone?

Crickets.

I shook my head in grumbling frustration.

This was never going to work.

What I wouldn’t do for a—

“Theia to Crown! Are you out there, my king?!”

“Yeah!” I gasped in surprise. “I thought I ordered you back to Zalaxia!”

“You did! I went and got a bomb!”

“You what?!”

“I went back to base and secured a KPB, my king! I have it with me!”

“What’s a KPB?!” I barked.

“A Kurkullan Packet Bomb, my king! It has a timed detonator!”

“Is it big enough to detonate the asteroid and the projector?!”

“Yes!”

“Can you plant it on the asteroid while I deal with the army?!”

“I’ll try, my king!”

A surprise SAM streaked toward me on my blindside. Grunting, I suddenly dodged and went streaking through space, my eyes dancing between my HUD radar and scanning the vicinity for any other incoming missiles. I might be able to outrun them, but if they hit me from different angles when I wasn’t paying attention, my speed would be irrelevant. Unfortunately for me, this was like playing speed chess, but faster and more deadly.

When I had a moment to breathe, I said, “Theia! Do you think ten minutes until detonation will be enough time?!”

“May I suggest five, my king?! The demons on the asteroid look restless…”

“Yeah! Perfect! Tell me when you arm the timer so I can set a timer in my HUD to count down for me! I don’t want to get stuck here!”

“No, my king! I won’t let that happen!”

“Perfect! Do me a favor?!”

“Anything, my king!”

“Once you plant the bomb and arm it, get the hell our of here!”

“I won’t leave you, my king! I am your sword and your shield! I will always give my life to secure the safety of yours!”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but I already knew better than to argue with her, and I was too busy dodging more medieval gargoyle SAMs anyway.

Two or three minutes of space flight later, I could see the Chaos Gate flickering in the distance. It was still a small dot. My HUD showed a cloud of space demons gathering around it. Hundreds if not thousands of them.

Things were getting worse by the minute.

“Crown to Theia! Have you set the bomb?!”

“I can’t get near the asteroid, my king! They’ve blocked the entrances and won’t let me in! I’m sorry! You go through the gate as soon as you’re able! Once you’re safely through, I’ll get as close as I can to the asteroid and manually detonate the KPB myself!”

“Huh?! You mean you’ll suicide bomb the asteroid?!”

“Yes! Tell me when you’re approaching the gate!”

“No, Theia! I can’t let you kill yourself for my sake!”

At this point, I was close enough to the army of space demons to see them. They were firing a hailstorm of blaster bolts at me. I was vectoring myself faster and faster in random directions to avoid them, cutting more 90 degree turns than a Tron Light Cycle on its best day. Problem was, the longer I dragged out this death dance — in space — the more difficult it would be for me to get to Theia and take the bomb from her before she did something stupid with it.

Wait, was speed my only option here?

That gave me an idea.

What about energy? My rings could extract MASS damn fast when I was close to something, so why not do the same with ENERGY? I had done it before, but sometimes the heat of battle made you forget the most obvious things, or those things you hadn’t ingrained into your nervous system after years of training. When it came to using my rings to expert effect, after only a few weeks of having the Bombshells Ring and a few days of having the True Ring, I was well short of my 10,000 hours.

Ring! Absorb all incoming energy! That includes blaster bolts! Heat energy and kinetic!

In the same way I couldn’t absorb any amount of mass at any rate from any distance, I doubted I could absorb all energy from every incoming bolt shot by an entire army, but it was worth a try. Bordering on suicidal, but still worth a try.

Banzai!

I banked toward the nearest burst of incoming blaster bolts. Cringed in anticipation as I streaked through space, veering just close enough to allow a few bolts to come within a few meters of my position. To my surprise, as the bolts whizzed toward me, they faded away to nothing.

It worked!

I rolled and banked back toward the massive storm of incoming bolts. It was a deadly vortex of red, black, white, and radiation green bolts.

I flew straight down the middle of it.

Every bolt within a 15 meter radius of me instantly disappeared. Beyond 15 meters, my “Sphere of Absorption” had increasingly less effect. Bolts between 15 and 30 meters faded in intensity but didn’t disappear entirely and continued shooting past me at a slower