Battle Group Castle
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I own zero Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future and see below.
Author's note: This is a sequel to Vengeance and to Tercio Corazon Negro.
Castle made two trips up to the flagship to make sure that the plans were properly coordinated. He wished he had more time to train his battalion, Esposito's regiment, the mixed airborne/airmobile battalion, and most of all, the Gendarmes. They were not yet familiar with the new weapons and equipment they'd been given. However, they had no choice. The convoy couldn't hang around in orbit forever and they'd be needed for the coming battle.
Luna had decided to work the night shift. The lunatics who orbited above him seemed less inclined to cause trouble then. He, and the rest of his staff, were listening to a three-way argument between three merchant ship captains. Several of the junior staff were surreptitiously taking notes, the better to remember the colorful obscenities being shot back and forth between the three.
Suddenly, they were interrupted by a call of the emergency channel.
"Santa Cruz ground control, this is dropship Connaught Lady. I'm declaring an emergency. I've been hit by another dropship. There's a severe gash in my hull and I'm losing air fast. I have the crew in the command section with me, but I don't know how long the damaged bulkheads will last. I'm coming down."
Luna grabbed the mic. "Connaught Lady, you do not, repeat, do not, have permission to land. If you attempt to land, I will have the anti-space defense batteries open fire on you. Do not land."
"Santa Cruz ground control, this is HMS Liverpool. We observed the collision and it's legitimate. If you refuse to allow Connaught Lady to land, you are in violation of interstellar law. If your defenses paint her with their fire control radars, I will take them out. Do you understand?"
Luna had no idea what to do. The firepower of a heavy cruiser could take out the entire spaceport, and possibly more. He played for time. "Allow me to contact my superiors for instructions."
"This is Connaught Lady. You don't have time. I'm coming in."
Luna cursed.
"Santa Cruz ground control, this is HMS Liverpool. The other ship, Princess Patricia, is also coming down. Our sensors indicate she's more heavily damaged that Connaught Lady. I don't think she's under full control. She may not make the spaceport."
Luna was desperately trying to get ahold of his superiors, but it being night, all he was getting was voicemail. He ran to the windows and looked up. One ship was headed for the spaceport, but he couldn't see the other. Then he caught sight of it. It definitely was going to miss the spaceport and land somewhere in the city.
Luna breathed a sigh of relief when Connaught Lady landed more or less gently. He looked at the ship and could easily see the long gash along the hull. If he'd been able to see more closely, he would have seen that the "gash" was merely paint and some sheet metal, artfully made to look like damage.
Suddenly, all of the sensors, comms, and computers in ground control went dead. Unknown to Luna, the same was happening all over Santa Cruz City.
The Connaught Lady was a heavily armed and armored military drop ship. Inside, it was filled with electronic warfare equipment that was busy shutting down as much of the electronics in the city as possible. Only a few military grade computers that were hardened against an electro-magnetic pulse continued to function.
Luna watched in shock as gun turrets emerged from the ship's hull. The guns blasted the few local dropships and other space capable vehicles at the spaceport. None were armed, but none would now be available to move the Santa Cruz police or Han volunteers around. The Connaught Lady soon finished reducing the other ships to scrap and began shooting up the spaceport defenses. Luna noticed that some of the ship's weapons were firing down town. He wondered what their targets were.
"Mr. Luna, should we run?" A nervous underling asked.
Luna made an intelligent decision. "No. They haven't shot up the control tower, so I assume they know we're out of commission. But, to be safe, we'll go to the basement level until this is over."
On the way down, Luna wondered if the new owners of Santa Cruz would need a good ground control manager.
The Magnifico was the finest hotel on all of the planet Welland. It had fine restaurants, bars where the very best liquors were available, several fine casinos, and many willing and available women and men, depending on your taste. However, its services were available only to the elite of Santa Cruz and the Han Worlds.
The elite watched as a dropship waddled down from the sky above. At first, people moved away from the front of the hotel, in fear that the ship would hit the hotel. But, it became clear that the ship would land in a large park across the wide boulevard from them. They crowded around the windows to watch. They saw a half a dozen of the hotel's security detail cross to the park. Before they were halfway to the ship, they were cut down by heavy machine fun fire from the ship.
As the elites watched in shock, cannons opened up on the security posts for the hotel, destroying them. Ramps were lowered from the ship and hundreds of heavily armed troops from the airborne/airmobile battalion rushed the hotel.
As mass panic ensued, a few wise people ran quickly to the back entrances to the hotel. There they found small groups of heavily armed Gendarmes who had been smuggled into the city. Those who weren't killed ran back into the hotel.
A few of the Han on the ground floor had sidearms and were prepared to fight. They were quickly killed. The rest were cuffed and left under guard. The troops began to work their way cautiously up the stairs to where many Han were staying. Their intel had told them that there were over a hundred Han Volunteers up there, as well as plenty of small arms to arm the Han pirates there.
As this was happening, helicopters were being moved from the Princess Patricia's hold and prepared for flight. One set of choppers took a reinforced platoon to the roof of the hotel. There, combat engineers blew open the doors to the stairwells and prepared to destroy the stairs.
Corporal Bucky Doyle was just preparing the last charge that would blast the stairs into twisted metal and drop them to the next floor when he heard the door behind him open. He grabbed his assault rifle and whirled. Then he stared. She was tall, blonde, completely naked and spectacular. Very spectacular.
"Hi." She said, with a dazzling smile. "My name is Melody. That's actually my real name. I saw what was happening down stairs and thought that you guys would be smart enough to seal off the roof, too. I want to surrender. Okay?"
Doyle couldn't think of a thing to say.
"Doyle!" Bellowed Sergeant Peralta. "Are you done yet, goddam it? And if not, why the fuck not?"
"There's a woman down here that wants to surrender." Doyle managed to reply.
"Is she armed?"
Is she ever? Thought Doyle. "Miss, will you turn around so I can see you're not carrying a weapon."
Melody laughed, but did as he asked.
Doyle decided she was spectacular from all sides.
"She's unarmed, but I have to get her some clothes." Doyle called out. He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a tee shirt. It was long enough so that if Melody was careful, she'd be covered.
"Who are you guys, anyway?' Melody asked.
Doyle replied with the cover story they'd all been given. "We're from Major General Castle's Mercenary Armored Division. We also have General Esposito's Airmobile Division under command. We were hired by the government of Free Santa Cruz."
"Does that mean those asshole Hans and Santa Cruzeros will be gone?"
"Yeah. Um. You're not from here?"
She shook her head. "I'm from New Ark. My parents sold me when I was fourteen. I was brought here."
"Sold you?"
She nodded and pulled her long, blonde hair back. "See the mark on my neck? That means I'm a slave."
"Melody, we need to go back to the roof so I can blow this stairway."
Melody happily followed him up.
The other helicopters took a reinforced platoon to a building at the back of the Magnifico that overlooked the hotel.
Sergeant Mike Bennett was happy. He had picked up a few snipers from Esposito's command and even a pair of useful snipers from the Gendarmes. The Colonel had wanted to promote him so he could command the platoon, but Bennett had vowed he would never be an officer. He'd talked the Colonel out of it. And, Lieutenant Graham was a good officer. He'd started out as a private and worked his way up. Bennett could trust him, as far as he could trust any officer.
"Okay, people." Graham said in a whisper. "Start knocking loopholes in the parapet of the building. The rest of the battalion will be working their way up the stairs. Our job is to shoot up all the Han pricks we can see from this side. Get to it."
When loopholes had been cut in the parapet, Bennett called his snipers together. "Okay, listen up. We were told to shoot anyone over there who had a weapon. We know there's slaves over there, but the infantry over there, "Bennet gestured to the rest of the platoon, "are just going to bang away with their assault rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. We aren't. If you see someone armed, drop 'em. Otherwise, don't, even if they are Hans. Prisoners are valuable for intel and maybe we can trade some of 'em for people who've been enslaved."
"Listen up." Lieutenant Graham interrupted. "The party's about to start in the hotel. Get ready."
There were four sets of stairs in the hotel, one at each corner. The elevators had been disconnected, the basements cleared and now they were ready to clean out the rest of the hotel. While the rest of the battalion did their best to fortify the hotel against any Han attack, one reinforced platoon headed up each stairwell. One platoon would clear out the rooms while the other three held the stairways so the platoons wouldn't all be in the same corridor firing at each other. When one platoon was done, they'd move up a floor and the second platoon would clear the rooms. And so on until it was the first platoon's turn again.
"Ready?" Lieutenant Bucleigh whispered, standing at the door to the corridor. Before the men could nod, Bucleigh opened the door. No one there.
They moved as they had been trained. One fireteam to each door. An explosive charge was put on the lock and everyone backed off a step. The door blew and hand grenades were thrown into the room. As soon as the grenades exploded, the light machine gunner and the grenadier sprayed the interior of the room. The fireteam went in to check, spraying the closets and bathroom with bullets. There were two dead Han in the first room. The fireteam left and headed to their next room.
TBC