Big Pete (Privateer Tales Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

What’s the worst that could happen?
    “Hey! I need to talk to the Lieutenant! Open the door!” I banged on the door with my fists, as if it was a drum, and repeated myself as loudly as I could. I kept it up for almost a minute and wondered if my voice would go hoarse, when finally the door was thrust open.
    Three squishies piled into the room with their rifles. First through the door was a big boy with a bigger attitude. He brought the butt of his gun up in an attempt to catch me in the gut. I’d been in enough scrapes to see it coming and stepped into it. I spun around and brought the back of my elbow into his head. The dumbass should have been wearing a helmet, should have used a stun weapon - lots of should haves – but all of them were moot. I felt him crumple. These guys definitely weren’t pros. They obviously thought three against one would be enough to shut me up.
    My timing was pretty good. A loud explosion blew into the adjacent room, sending debris billowing into my cell. It was a perfect distraction for my remaining two guards. I was expecting it and they weren’t. Involuntarily, they jerked their heads around to discover the source of the explosion.
    Lethal combat is the name of a class we take in Basic. There are twenty-two ways to kill a person with your bare hands. Personally, I like to keep things pretty basic as I’m a big guy, which is why they call me Big Pete. And if I could avoid killing someone, I was okay with that. My wrists were bound, so I just brought them around, smashing ‘em into the nearest nose I could find. Lights out, Betty Joe. Two down and one to go.
    Unfortunately, I was more of a brawler than anything else and the third guard figured out what was going on in plenty of time to drop me like a sack of potatoes with the butt of his rifle. It wasn’t enough to completely knock me out, but I was stunned and fell to the ground. I heard the tink, tink, tink of something small and metallic bouncing on the floor and then recognized the marble-sized objects that skittered in front of me. It was all I could do to put one hand on an ear and roll into the guard who’d dropped me. I had to get clear of the doorway. A second later a loud explosion and a bright flash confirmed the flash-bangs I’d seen.
    You can close your eyes and cover your ears all you want, but when flash-bangs go off, you know it. The design is simple and has been around forever. A really loud noise and really bright lights do a fantastic job of stunning a person’s ability to react. The fact that marbles were being used let me know that I wasn’t being rescued by an armored squad. We didn’t have any use for marbles. Small discs imbedded in our armor could generate both the lights and the noise.
    Stunned as I was by the rifle butt and the near miss with the flash-bangs, I knew the last standing guard was having a much worse time. I pulled up to my knees and saw him stagger away from the door. He had his rifle half raised and was firing into the wall, slowly turning toward the open door. A lucky bullet will kill you just as dead as a well-aimed bullet and whoever had breached the room didn’t need the crossfire. I figured the guard and I were operating at about the same level and I've always thought fifty-fifty were acceptable odds.
    I staggered to my feet and lumbered into him, while at the same time, tripping on the two bodies cluttering the floor. I was going down either way, as I was still too stunned to keep myself upright. The bodies just made it a lot less elegant. The guard didn’t see me coming and I threw my bound arms over his head and drug him down with me. I almost felt guilty, as the guy just wasn’t that big and I had thirty kilograms on him. I choked him, all the time hoping he’d make it. It had long ago stopped being personal for me. I had a job to do, and I’d do it, but I’d sure had enough of the killing.
    A quick motion caught my eye and I squinted up through the haze and saw a Skamper