Big Pete (Privateer Tales Book 4) Read Online Free

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CAPTURE
     
    Proximity warnings blared in my ears. Frak.
    My HUD showed several dozen red blips surrounding the transport ship. Trap it is , I thought.
    Incoming communication from enemy command . My AI would normally have screened the message, but it had changed protocol based on my predicament.
    “Release your armor and step free of the craft. Will you comply?” a heavily accented woman’s voice insisted. It was a standard requirement when capturing an armored Marine. I’d captured a few Marines in my time and understood the desire to limit additional casualties. I had to make a decision. Go out in a blaze of glory or get captured. I’m sure Lieutenant SITA would prefer the former, but I was only twenty-five years old and had no desire to punch that final ticket.
    “I’ll comply,” I replied. SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) was to brick the ship and then the suit. I didn’t think that was necessary with the transport ship, it had flown its last mission. My armor, however, was another thing. It wouldn’t do to have some Skamper killing men with my suit. I set the self-destruct, which would fry all of the components and effectively turn it into a brick.
    I directed the armor suit to release and wriggled up and out of it. I was wearing a suit-liner in bad need of a cleaning and it wasn’t completely lost on me how bad I smelled. Without HUD, AI or communications, I pulled myself up and out of the side of the transport ship. I stood figuratively naked in front of an enemy host.
    “You guys sure know how to throw a party,” I said with humor I didn’t feel.
    “Secure the prisoner,” the squishy Lieutenant directed. She was wearing the gray and maroon officer’s uniform of the Skampers. I suppose it wasn’t fair for me to think of her as squishy anymore. I was just as squishy, something they were about to prove to me.
    I didn’t take it personally when the soldiers fell on me more heavily than was required. My team had taken quite a toll on their forces tonight. I felt grateful that at some point one of them was magnanimous enough to knock me unconscious. After that they had a simple decision to make:  kill me or keep me alive. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, it was just beyond my ability to control and the adrenaline of combat had long since faded.
    When I woke up in a cell with a handful of med-patches covering my body, I took it as a good sign. I estimated I’d been down for no more than an hour. My body was plenty sore and the patches hadn’t had much time to do their work. An inventory of my limbs revealed no broken bones, save for a few cracked ribs. My head hurt like the dickens, which wasn’t surprising after having been knocked unconscious. All in all, I’d made the transition from enemy combatant to prisoner quite successfully.
    My cot was in a temporary cell which led me to believe they hadn’t been expecting visitors. I was probably in a temporary command center, which meant someone wanted to talk to me. As if I knew anything. Surprisingly, I was only bound by my wrists.
    When the door opened, the same squishy Lieutenant who’d captured me walked through the door. It was a bold move since I could have easily jumped her. It was probably some elaborate ruse to put me off balance. I grunted a laugh. It was working.
    “Sergeant Hoffen, you’ve had an interesting evening, I’m Lieutenant Peralta,” the woman was older than me, but not by much. Her black hair was cut short, like most female officers I knew, and her skin tone was the light brown of most of the Skampers.
    “Yeah. It’s been lovely,” I said.
    “The damage you and your team did to the city of Manaus is considerable. What was your mission?”
    “Just trying to get home, ma’am,” I replied.
    “You knocked down a thirty story building and took out a company of the army of Soledad de Charus. Explain to me how you were trying to get home? What was your mission, soldier?”
    “Seriously? You Skampers knock down a