Weapons Master Galactic Gladia - Anna Hackett Page 0,46
saw cut through more bots and equipment.
She grinned. “Hard to have death races with no bots, fuckers.”
Her bot kept sliding.
The solid, metal wall appeared ahead of her, and she swallowed.
She couldn’t slow down.
She closed her eyes. “Maxon.”
Crash.
Then Bellamy didn’t feel a thing.
No. No!
Gritting his teeth through the pain, Maxon stared at the horrible, twisted wreck of the bot Bellamy had been operating.
A column of smoke rose up from it.
No.
His body was battered and bruised, and one of his eyes was swelling shut. But it was nothing compared to the pain tearing through him as he stared at the twisted ruins of the bot.
She’d destroyed all the Edull’s battle bots.
He felt a fierce pride. His fearless woman. Around him, the Edull were cursing, and Vossol’s fury filled the air.
Bellamy. Maxon waited to see her climb out of the bot.
There was no sign of her.
She could be hurt, bleeding, or—
He shut down that terrible thought, but it was hard to breathe. Bellamy was his heart. He’d never had a heart before. The synthetic organ inside him didn’t count. Bellamy was the one who had made him feel like this.
She saw him, liked him just as he was—cyborg parts, surly personality, and all.
He couldn’t lose her.
She’d survived hell—her abduction, the Edull, a life that hadn’t been easy. She deserved to live.
With a roar, he tore at the chains.
The Edull guards spun. He ripped his chains off the frame. They were still clamped around his wrists and the length of chain slid across the floor. He lifted it and swung it. He caught one of the Edull.
The guard shouted, and Maxon yanked the alien off his feet.
He turned, just as another Edull guard came at him with a staff. Maxon ducked. He knew all about staff fighting, and this Edull was not very talented.
He wrapped the chain around the staff, then kicked the Edull. As the alien staggered back, Maxon snatched the staff out of the alien’s hands.
“If you can’t use a weapon properly, you should never pick it up.” He swung the staff and it connected with the Edull’s head. The alien collapsed.
Dragging in a deep breath, Maxon turned and saw that Vossol was gone.
Drakking coward.
It didn’t matter. He needed to get to Bellamy.
He spotted one of his confiscated weapons nearby and shoved the gun in the holster in his thigh.
Maxon pressed a hand to the railing and leaped over, dropping down onto the track. He landed in a crouch, his chain rattling.
The remaining battle bots had stopped on the track, kids climbing out of them.
The crowd was in disarray and upheaval. Many people poured out of the stands, while others were shouting and booing.
Maxon charged down the track. Bellamy.
He had to get to Bellamy.
As he drew closer, he saw the ruins of her bot were worse than he’d thought. His gut twisted.
He was about to leap into the maintenance area, when he heard rhythmic, clanking sounds. He spun and lifted his staff.
Several smaller bots about his size jogged in formation toward him. They had thin, metallic bodies, and blank faces, with a red strip of lights for “eyes.”
He growled. Security bots. They were all armed with long stun batons.
They circled around him. Then the batons lit up, crackling with red energy.
Maxon smiled grimly. Everything welled up inside him, growing to huge proportions. He exploded into action.
He lunged low and swung his staff. It hit the first bot hard. Left, right, whack, whack, whack. He worked different parts of the bot in quick succession.
He needed to learn their weaknesses.
As he pulled back, a bot rushed in. They crashed together, energy sparks flying. The energy weapon burned against his skin but he ignored it.
He let his anger, pain, and fear fuel him.
He fell into a rhythm, following through with a flurry of hard strikes. Metal broke and snapped. A bot fell.
Moving the weapon was natural to him. His muscles knew exactly what to do. With the image of Bellamy’s face in his head, Maxon attacked the bots in a frenzy.
These things were stopping him from getting to her.
His staff became a deadly executioner. He slashed and whacked. Fluid spilled out of the bots and onto the track.
Maxon growled. “You’ll be scrap when I’m finished. I’ll take you home and turn you into something useful.”
A bot’s energy weapon whacked against his staff.
He whirled and knocked the weapon out of the bot’s metallic hands.
It clattered to the track, and he crouched and picked it up. The red energy crackled, and he was careful to keep his