Castle's Team

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Go Castle! Yeah Team! Oh, I don't own any of this. Rating: K Time: After my story Castle's Recon.

"Captain Rick Castle, reporting as ordered, sir." He said, saluting his commander, Black Jacques Schram. Then he added with a smile, "Reporting for the last time as a captain, sir."

Schram laughed.

"Don't be too sure, Rick. We have a new mission."

"Really? Where are we going?"

"The Maratha Confederacy."

"Sir, they hate non-humans. They'll never allow my Tarkai scouts to serve."

"True, I'm afraid. But I have another job for you that'll keep you as a captain. You'll be leading a team."

"A team? I'm sure I can put some sort of team together from my platoon, sir. What do you need?"

"First, you'll get a little history lesson. What do you know about the Adeni pirates?"

Rick thought back to his days in school, the last time he'd ever heard of the Adeni pirates.

"I don't really know anything about them except they were a big problem in the early days of the Europa Cluster, and they've been gone for a long, long time. Am I to deal with pirates, sir?"

Schram looked at the ceiling for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"When the Chinese, Russians and Americans decided that running Earth and the nearest, richest colony worlds together, rather than fighting each other, it upset a lot of people. We, the United Kingdoms headed out about as far as we could get from the so-called Triple Alliance. Others came out here as well. We had several million people in the first wave of colonization, a solid industrial base we'd brought from Earth, and some weaponry. The Triple Alliance wouldn't allow us to bring anything but light police weapons and our only "combat" ships were based on Earth police ships. But it was enough to keep the Adeni pirates away. And we had enough industry that we could build better weapons and ships, eventually."

"Other colonists weren't so lucky. They were a lot less populous, had limited industry, little or no weaponry…You get the picture."

Rick nodded.

"A lot of people back then didn't realize how difficult it was to set up an extra-solar colony."

"Among other things, the Adeni pirates were slavers." Schram said.

"Slavers, sir? Slaves aren't nearly as efficient as machines. Economically, it's a dead end."

"True, but you can get a lot of work from your slaves before you hit that dead end. Assume you have a reasonably successful small colony. You have a nice hospital, a half a dozen doctors, twenty or so other medical personnel, and their families. The Adeni pirates come in, grab your hospital and all its equipment, all the people and head for an alien planet where the level of technology is, say, about Earth in the year 1600. The doctors are told that they're on a planet with no spaceships and no way off, and that no one other than the Adenis ever come here. They can either work or the locals will get mad and kill them."

"Sure, the doctors don't know anything about the alien race they now work for, but they know disease isn't caused by witch's spells and they know about inoculations plus they have machines the locals can't even imagine. In the meantime, the local warlord sets ten thousand peasants to work mining valuable minerals to pay for his slaves, with a byproduct of diseased and injured peasants for the doctors to learn from while treating."

"Some aliens can also use human slaves with no particular skills. The Nowicki, for instance, have lots of nice transuranics, but the average Nowicki is far more susceptible to heavy metal poisoning than humans. A Nowicki will die in three months while a human may last for two years before dying."

"We had to build our space navy long before we had thought we'd need one and the campaign against the Adeni took decades. They had no regular planetary home base. They mostly stayed on their ships or set up on a planet for a bit and then moved on."

"Some of the slaves we could take home. Others had no idea where home was, or maybe the whole settlement had been destroyed. We eventually ended up with several thousand ex-slaves that we couldn't send home. So, we found them a home. We called the place Haven. Needless to say, the freed slaves we had were the most poorly educated. Most of them were from religious groups that had gone to the stars to live virtuously poor lives. So, we gave them simple agricultural tools, seeds, domestic animals, all sorts of things. We set them up and we send a ship to check on them every now and then. There are now about ten or twelve thousand and they have neighbors."

"What kind of neighbors, sir?"

"Some two thousand European Nationalists. People who believe that Earth and the Core should be run by a quadruple alliance: America, Russia, China and Europe. The authorities on Earth "encouraged" them to migrate. They're not very well armed as things go, just rifles, pistols and shotguns, but they have a lot more firepower than the Havenites. The best they have are muzzle loading, flintlock muskets. The Europeans have taken to raiding the Havenites."

"We could send a battalion task force to Haven, sir. Why don't we?"

"Politics. The closest world to Haven is Pandora. Pandora is as isolationist as they come. They want nothing to do with anyone else, especially us and the Han Worlds. We're trying to coax Pandora to be a bit more open, but if we sent a large military force so near to them, they'd think we were getting ready to invade them or some damn thing. But, if we sent a team, composed of non-humans to look after our friends the Havenites, they'd understand. We hope."

"A team from my platoon is hardly what's needed to take on two thousand people, no matter how lightly they're armed, sir." Rick protested.

Schram smiled.

"The word "team" is very elastic, Rick. We plan to send your platoon, the Tarkai scout platoons from Kampfgruppe von Tarlenheim, the Viking Intervention Regiment, The Wolves of Tuscany, and the Amur River Cossack Host. Plus a few other odds and ends of Tarkai units. And a few humans. You'll have a reinforced infantry company and a company of helicopters. All of which will be referred to as a team."

"That sounds much better, sir."

"Now, tell me about your platoon. I understand you've been reorganizing?"

"We got enough Tarkai from the training unit to form a fifth squad for my platoon, but it didn't work out well. The organization was too cumbersome. So, I decided to form another weapons squad. I now have a light weapons squad with two medium machine guns, a 60mm mortar and a 77mm recoilless rifle. The heavy weapons squad has a 15mm heavy machine gun, an 81mm mortar and a heavy anti-tank guided missile system."

"Those weapons will come in handy when you go back to liberate Tark."

Rick sighed.

"That's a long time in the future."

"By the way, since you'll be the commander of the team, you'll need to appoint someone to command your platoon."

"I know just who to promote, sir."

Platoon Sergeant Saava looked at his commander.

"You want me to become an officer, sir? Really?"

"Yes. I can't run the size team I'll be leading and still command the platoon. I know you like being an NCO, but can you think of anyone in the platoon, or elsewhere, that would be better?"

"No, sir, but…"

"Congratulations, first lieutenant Saava."

"And you'll need to promote one of the squad leaders to be your platoon sergeant." Castle added.

"I'll work on that, sir."

The platoon from Kampfgruppe von Tarlenheim was based only a few hundred miles away on the moon Wales where most of the Tarkai soldiers' families lived. They came in an atmospheric transport and marched smartly off the aircraft to meet Castle.

Their Tarkai commander saluted Rick.

"Lieutenant Bornas, reporting as ordered, sir."

"Glad to see you, Lieutenant."

"We're glad to be here, sir. This will be the largest Tarkai unit yet."

The new platoon was very similar to Rick's. They had four 13 Tarkai line squads, a weapons squad, snipers, medics, a five Tarkai sapper team and the usual headquarters personnel. The weapons squad boasted two medium machine guns, a 60mm mortar and a single 77mm recoilless rifle.

"I'm afraid I'll have to take your weapons squad away, as well as your snipers and sappers. Your medics will technically work for the medical team, but they'll stay with you. You have four Tarkai medics?"

"Yes, sir. They're very good as medics, but I wish we had more doctors who can treat Tarkais."

"We're supposed to get a surgical team, so we'll see."

The platoon from the Viking Intervention Regiment had been in a training exercise in the highlands of the planet Scotland. They came in a day later. Warrant Officer Trappas commanded them. Their four rifle squads were the same as Castle's platoon, but their weapons squad held three medium machine guns and a single 51mm mortar.

"I can get you a 60mm mortar and a 77mm recoilless rifle, Mr. Trappas." Rick said. "I'll let you keep the 51 and the extra machine gun. Give them to your rifle squads. Your two snipers will go to the company sniper squad. Your medics will stay with you under the medical officer, when we get one."

The Wolves of Tuscany, under a Tarkai Lieutenant Pangorran, had four rifle squads totaling seventy people with the crew served weapons, snipers, medics and everyone else all mixed up. Rick got busy reorganizing and reequipping them.

The platoon from the Amur River Cossack Host had three small nine Tarkai rifles squads, three rocket propelled grenade teams for crew served weapons, one sniper, one medic and one radio operator.

Lieutenant Frolov, who was a Tarkai in spite of his name, asked if he could expect more troops.

"We're supposed to get the next batch out of training, but I don't know how many that'll be. And how did you get the name Frolov?"

"I was officially adopted by the commander of the Host. So, I took his name. I should point out that some Tarkai are starting to name their children Castle or Richard."

Castle just shook his head.

Rick was sitting in his office doing paperwork when an officer knocked on the open door.

"Can I help you, Lieutenant?" Rick asked, looking up.

"Yes, sir. I'm Lieutenant Anthony, sir. I'm in command of your intelligence unit."

"What do you bring me, Anthony. Come in and sit down. There's coffee if you'd like some."

"Thank you, sir. I would,"

Anthony got a cup of coffee and sat.

"We have two sections, sir. One is an electronic warfare module. We can eavesdrop on the enemy's comms as well as scramble theirs. We understand that all they have are regular personal phones so that shouldn't be too hard. However, we do have decryption programs we can use. We also have recon drones, everything from little handheld models to some weighing three hundred pounds. Oh, and we have five Tarkai in the unit. They're very smart and well trained."

"Excellent, lieutenant. Anything else?"

"No, sir. I'd like to go get my people settled in."

An hour after Anthony left, Rick heard the thump of helicopter blades. His helicopters had arrived.

They flew over the company's camp and then landed. Rick went out to meet their commanding officer. A young man in a camouflaged fight suit ran up to him and saluted.

"Good day, sir. Squadron Leader O'Donnel reporting sir."

Rick returned the salute.

"What did you bring me?"

"Six Model 606 transports, sir. They'll carry sixteen of your troopers. I might add that all of our door gunners but one are Tarkai and one pilot is also Tarkai. We have four Mod 578 gunships and four Mod 819 scout birds. The scouts have drones they can control. We have our support people, and we brought some more people for you."

Castle saw one of them. She wore shorts that showed off her long, trim legs. Her chestnut hair was worn long and curly. As she approached him, he could see her hazel eyes.

TBC