Deadly Planets

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own a lot of things, including Castle. Rating: K Time: This begins at the end of my previous story, Deadly Planet.

The Scot in charge nodded and his assistant gunner loaded the weapon. He took careful aim and fired, loosing a back blast of super-heated gas. He hit the middle two timbers, snapping them in half. The top two timbers flew in the air and the bottom two were blasted loose from the frame. That impressed the Moreans. There was a smattering of applause and some cheering.

Castle smiled at the Moreans and everyone followed him to the next demonstration. "As you can see," Castle announced, "we have some old sheets that were to be torn up for cleaning rags. We have a better way of tearing them up. We have painted some rather simple stick figures on the sheets for our targets and have the sheets strung on lines 800 yards away. My soldiers, including my Moreans, will open fire with all of our weapons at the sheets."

Castle gestured to his troops to take their positions. They had to crowd together, but they got in place. Behind the riflemen, grenadiers and machine gunners, the mortars and the recoilless rifle was set up.

"Ready on the right, ready on the left, ready on the firing line?" Castle yelled. "Fire!"

Although he had ordered his men to limit their firing, the noise was ear shattering for half a minute. When they were done, the sheets were indeed rags.

He turned to the Moreans and bowed. "Thank you for attending and we hope we've impressed you with our abilities."

A few Moreans went to flirt with the human soldiers, but most went to look at what was left of the targets.

"I think you impressed the hell out of them, Babe." Kate said, sliding her arm around Rick's waist.

"At least were more than boy toys around here now."

Kate giggled. "You're still my favorite boy toy, Lover."

"Please, man toy."

Rick and Kate woke up the next morning to the sound of yelling outside of their quarters. They threw on their clothes and ran to see what was happening.

They found Sergeant Major Kanakredes standing in the doorway, effectively blocking it while the rest of Castle's command gathered behind him. Castle noticed most had brought their weapons.

One of the Moreans who was able to translate ran up to Castle. "Sir, you need to come quick. You have to hear this."

"Sergeant Major, you're with me. Everyone else stay where you are. Be ready, but don't shoot. It doesn't look like they're mad at us."

Castle and Kanakredes walked out into the mob. He noticed that Kate was right with him in spite of his orders.

"Silence!" Kanakredes roared, as loudly as he could. The crowd went silent.

"What's happening?" Castle demanded.

"It's the Crimson Tide." Said the Morean soldier.

Castle frowned. "The Alabama football team?"

"No. They're a savage tribe that inhabits islands far to the south of us. They've learned to keep their distance from us. But, Torya here, says they've heard about men being here and they're coming to steal you away."

Torya, who looked tired and beat up, spoke some more. The Morean translated. "She says the Blue Hands are with them, another savage tribe and she says they have ships with them with flags she's never seen before."

"How many people?"

The soldier and Torya had a short conversation. Finally, the soldier spoke. "She says there were fifty large ships, sailing ships, that looked packed. So, maybe three to four thousand warriors."

"How are they armed?"

"Badly. They have very few modern weapons, but many of them have some sort of firearm, muzzle loaders, single shot breech loaders, repeaters. The poorest will have edged weapons, swords, spears, maybe some bows and arrows."

"We'll have to get all of the men onto the Puncher. "That was Lieutenant Bortha who had come to see what the fuss was about.

"Like hell." Castle said. "You have maybe a hundred militiawomen armed with bolt action rifles. You can't fight off a force that size. My troops will chop them up. You saw what we did yesterday."

Bortha turned red in the face. "Bullshit. My job is to protect men and I'm dammed well going to protect you, whether you like it or not. Now gather your people, not just the men, but the rest, and your gear and get aboard the Puncher. NOW!"

Castle smiled. "Well, since you out it that way." He looked over her shoulder to Kanakredes. "Sergeant Major, if you would please?"

Kanakredes picked Bortha up and slung her over his shoulder. "There's a lovely place in the basement with a door that locks from the outside. I can tell her of some of my adventures so she won't get bored." The gigantic alien moved off with a screaming Bortha.

"How long until the enemy gets here?"

There was a short conversation. "Probably late tomorrow afternoon. They might attack at once, but more likely they'll attack the day after."

"We'll need to move everyone to the fort, with all the weapons, ammo and food you have. Plus anything you don't want them to get."

The soldier blushed. "That's not going to work, sir. A hurricane blew the fort's gate down a year ago. The government said they'd send money to fix it, but since we haven't been attacked in decades…I guess they didn't think it was that important."

Castle cursed. "Okay, we'll use my headquarters. It's the biggest building in the village and the most strongly built. Get everyone and everything in there now. Move it."

"What about the Puncher, sir?"

"Send a message that Lieutenant Bortha has bravely decided to stay here with us and orders them to pull out into the bay where they can fire on the enemy."

"Will they believe it, sir?"

"How do I know?"

The weapons and ammo from the fort were brought in, including two cannons that looked like they might have been from the era of the American Civil War. Castle supervised the blocking of doors and sandbagging the windows. Then he saw to the sighting of the weapons. The machine guns covered every avenue of approach from the ground floor and from the second floor. The single recoilless rifle and the mortars were put on a flat extension of the roof.

When night fell, Castle put out observation posts at the edge of the village. He was confident that their superior night vision equipment would allow them to see any enemies before being seen and allow them to get back to the main building.

At dawn, the OPs came in. Anber and Than came up to Castle. "I'm pretty sure I saw some movement in the trees to the south just before we came in." Than said as Anber nodded.

"Any idea of what it was?"

Than smiled. "I'm betting it was some women coming to get you humans."

"I agree. From what the locals told me, the enemy should be here about now. Okay, you two pick a good spot to drop people from. I'm going to take one last look around." As he walked away, he noticed he was being followed quite closely by both Kate and Kanakredes.

He stopped first by Kirsa, the head of the village council. "Do you have any idea what kind of tactics they'll use? Try to rush us? Hang back and try to wear us down? What?"

Kirsa though for a moment and then started asking the village's militia. They had very little idea of what to expect. One woman remembered something from her grandmother's time. "Granny said that they'd rush us, but that was back before we had repeating rifles. They'd take a volley and then charge before we could reload. None of the savages have attacked us for decades, so I really don't know what they'll do now."

Castle moved on. The troops that he'd brought here were experienced combat soldiers and he didn't need to do much with them. But as he walked, he remembered that generals as far back as Alexander the Great, and probably earlier generals, had walked among their troops before a battle to raise their spirits. He thought he remembered from high school that Shakespeare's Henry V had walked among his troops and talked to them. For the life of him he couldn't think of a single Shakespearean thing to say.

Kanakredes was doing a better job, laughing with the troops and cracking jokes, even making up snatches of song about the coming battle.

When they got to the militia, Castle decided they definitely needed some morale boosting. Almost all had served in the Morean's army before joining the militia, but less than a dozen of the women had actually seen combat. Castle spoke to them about the weapons they had seen his troops use and spoke of the battles they'd fought back on the other planet. It seemed to cheer the women up a bit.

"Captain Castle?" Sniper Herftood called to him from the top of the building. "You need to see this."

Castle ran up the stairs to the roof, where Herftood was. "What do you have?"

"Over there, by the edge of the woods. I've got a good look at it with my drones. Take a look." He handed Castle something like a tablet.

"An old woman, sitting on some kind of a chair…." His voice trailed off. "The chair is made out of human skulls. Shit. Can you hit her from here? I bet she's their leader or someone important. Killing her might screw their plans up."

Herftood shook his head. "She's a bit over eight kilometers away. At that range, she'd feel some brief heat and nothing more."

"Our mortars can't hit anything near that range."

"If it were easy, we'd get no famous ballads from this battle." Kanakredes said, unhelpfully, Rick thought.

As they watched, the enemy began filing by the chieftainess on her throne of skulls. Each group stopped briefly and exchanged words with the woman, them raised their weapons in salute and moved on, followed by the next group.

"They're forming up behind that ridgeline." Herftood said. "It's still too far for our mortars to hit them, but once they cross the top of that ridge, we'll have them."

Castle smiled. "I think I see what they have in mind. The ones now forming up behind the ridge are all armed with spears, swords, bows and arrows and other edged weapons. Those with any kind of firearms are behind them. They'll let their poorly armed troops soak up our ammo in hopes we won't have anything left for the people with guns."

Kanakredes laughed. "We have far more bullets than they have people, not counting our heavier weapons." The furry giant began humming to himself. "We have more bullets than they have people. There's a good song in there. I'll work on it."

"Just work on making sure enough of us survive to enjoy your song." Kate said.

Kanakredes laughed. "I'll make sure I include a verse about the ass kicking woman who told the poor minstrel how to do his job."

Kate laughed.

As more and more of the enemy poured down from the heights, it became clear that Castle had figured out their tactics, but they had added something.

"They're starting to move to our left and our right. They're going to hit us from all sides." He grabbed his radio. "This is Castle to all units. They're going to come at us from all sides. Everyone is going to get a chance in this one. Be ready." He stopped and had a thought. "Mortars, keep an eye on the ones with firearms. When they come in range, that's your target. Until then, fire at will."

Long minutes dragged by as the enemy got into position. Then they heard the beating of drums. Castle looked back at the woman on the skull throne. She was now surrounded by drummers, pounding madly away on their drums. The woman raised both arms into the air, then dropped them.

TBC