Space Wars! Read Online Free PDF

the zapster fire as the monitors exploded behind him.
    ‘Otto, use a flash grenade,’ Diesel shouted.
    The bounty hunter flung a grenade from his belt at the Meigwor guards. Kaaa-boom! A bright light exploded, temporarily blinding them.
    In the lull, Diesel sprinted towards Selene. The engineer crouched down with her hands linked together ready to lift him into the air. As he stepped on to her hands, she boosted him upwards. Diesel somersaulted across the room. He grabbed hold of the main monitor hanging in the middle and climbed on to it. Then he opened fire with his blaster.
     

     
    As the Meigwor guards ducked, Selene rolled towards Onix. The Xion prince had built a barrier in front of Peri’s console made from pieces of computers, melted technicians’ chairs and charred manuals. Once she was safely behind the barricade, Diesel backflipped from his hanging perch and landed in a perfect crouch behind the chairs. He threw himself against the barrier and unleashed another round of blaster fire.
    ‘ Mars ’rakk ! ’ Diesel taunted. ‘Is that all you got? I had better aim when I was a baby!’
    The console behind Peri took a direct hit, showering him with molten sparks. It didn’t matter. He had to ignore what was happening in the control centre. His battle was with the Extractor itself. He used his bionic senses to weave through the Meigwor computer code. By mentally ducking and diving, sneaking and sliding, he navigated the alien system, searching for the main control functions.
    But it knew he was there, and sent a surge of power to blast him away from the Extractor’s core. It swamped his mind with thousands of small computer codes and programs, making every nerve and circuit in his head feel as though it had been dipped in molten metal. The pain screamed at him to disconnect himself, but Peri kept dodging and twisting through the surge.
    He caught glimpses of the Extractor’s own camera feeds, showing him the battle in the nerve centre from every angle. He didn’t understand how his bionic brain could hold so many images and information in one split second. He could see Onix firing wildly at the Meigwor guards. Selene and Diesel were shooting with extreme accuracy. He wanted to help his friends, but he had a fight of his own to finish first.
    The Extractor dashed him away from the camera feeds, plunging him deeper and deeper into the program until it felt as though he was drowning in computer code. It kept crashing against his mind with blocks of data, rolling his brain around in a storm of alien symbols.
    He was disorientated. He didn’t know where he was or how far he was from the core program. He pushed hard against it and surfaced back in his body. He took a deep breath then dived again into the Extractor with his mind. It pushed Peri back. The computer slammed everything it had into his body. Every nerve and wire inside him was under assault. His skin crackled with a white-hot web of electricity, each spark stinging him like a Martian-wasp. He had to pull the wires from his arm soon, or he was going to explode!
    Kaaaa-boooom! Another grenade rattled the nerve centre. Diesel slammed against the console above him. The gunner’s Expedition Wear was in shreds. Peri looked down, seeing Selene and Onix pressed against the barricade. Wisps of smoke rose from their smouldering suits. He had to help his crew! Peri grabbed the wires to pull them out, but hesitated.
    What am I doing? he asked himself. His friends were still fighting, risking their lives to help the dying Xion people. Millions of lives and an entire galaxy were at stake. It didn’t matter if all Peri’s circuits were fried.
    The Meigwors had to be stopped.
    Peri let go of the wires and traced the power throbbing through his circuits. The Extractor was trying to saturate his body with electricity. But instead of frying his circuits, he realised it was giving him greater power! The more energy that flowed into him, the stronger a weapon he became.