Castle's Platoon
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Drop and give me ten if you think I own Castle. Rating: K Time: The future.
Hearts and Minds.
"Father! Father!" Screamed the four village boys, running towards him.
Old Theo was not the actual father of any of the boys, but as the village headman, he was called by the honorific, "Father".
"Yes, what is it, young ones?"
"There are flying things coming. The hali…heli…coppers?" Said the oldest.
Old Theo smiled at the boys.
"Many thanks, but I am not so old that I haven't been hearing them approach for the last several minutes."
That did nothing to dampen the boy's enthusiasm.
"But they are coming here. Look up. Look at them."
Old Theo stepped out of his house. As the village headman, his house was larger than any other and he had a roof made of extruded plastic from an off-world shipping container, rather than the thatch that others used.
He looked up. He could see some small, rounded flying machines and some lean dangerous looking ones. He was sure that the lean ones were the gunships the travelling merchant had told them about. The destruction the merchant had described made him shudder. He hoped they were not here to attack his village.
"Look!" Shouted a boy. "Some are landing."
Indeed, there were five of the strange machines landing and they were now disgorging the off-world troops that the Young Duke had hired.
Old Theo had no idea what the varying weapons and equipment the soldiers carried were, but if a human soldier from the late 21st century had been somehow transported over two hundred years into the future, he would have easily recognized everything. When China, Russia and the United States had formed the Triple Alliance to run Earth and its nearer and wealthier colonies, they had stopped all weapons development throughout Earth and the Core Worlds. They didn't want any outside parties to suddenly develop a weapon that would negate their enormous military advantage over everyone else.
"Oh!" Cried a boy. "Look at the soldiers. Most are not human."
That was true. The soldiers, who he would learn were called Tarkai, were long limbed and thick bodied, covered in short fur than ran from black to a light grey. They had small noses, small external ears and rather large front teeth.
"That's one of the Young Duke's men." Someone said.
"Several of them." Old Theo said. The Duke's men were dressed in the same camouflage uniforms that the strangers wore, but kept the billed caps the rest of the Young Duke's troops wore.
One of the Duke's men used something to make his voice louder.
"Listen, villagers. Your beloved Duke has sent us to help you. We bring you medical care from the off-worlders. Your legitimate duke has gone to great expense to do this for you. You should express your thankfulness by cheering the duke."
Old Theo knew an order when he heard it. He raised both his hands over his head.
"Hurrah for good Duke Erwin. Hurrah." He kept yelling as the other villagers joined in.
Once the cheering had died down, the duke's man made a speech contrasting the Young Duke's many fine qualities with those of the Old Duke and the bandits that followed him.
If the speech was boring to the villagers, it was driving Surgeon-Captain Arnold crazy.
"God dammit, Castle! Can't you get that idiot to stop yammering at those peasants so I can do my work and get out of this god forsaken hellhole?"
Dr. Anna Arnold may have been a good, or even great, doctor, Lieutenant Rick Castle thought, but she had the bedside manner of Attila the Hun.
"Remember our orders from brigade. Hearts and minds."
"Jesus! I just want to inoculate the bastards and check for their general health." When Captain Goddard, the duke's man stopped talking, Arnold yelled at him. "Goddard, get the chief or boss or whatever the hell he is, and we'll inoculate him first."
Two of the duke's men headed for Old Theo and brought him to Dr. Arnold.
Castle made his way around the village to check on his platoon. He was followed by Corporal Tarn, his radioman and his platoon sergeant, Sergeant Saava. There was only one other human with Castle's platoon, a Lieutenant Borges, the artillery forward observer. All the rest were Tarkai.
The small Tarkai diaspora provided a lot of volunteers for the military of the United Kingdoms. Tarkai's senses, vision, hearing, smell, and even taste and touch were far superior to those of humans. Accordingly, they were much sought for jobs as scouts and reconnaissance troops.
Castle, in spite of being very junior and very green, had been much sought after as a Tarkai speaking recon officer. Better yet, he had been born on Tarkai and had contacts with a number of Tarkai tribes. Normally he would never have been offered a job with a first-class unit like Black Jacques Schram's Brigade. He was still worried as this was his very first combat assignment. He had years of training, but no actual combat experience, unlike the rest of his platoon.
He checked each of his four squads. Two were on the perimeter of the village, making sure no one interfered with the medical program. One squad was circulating through the village seeing, and smelling, what there was. The fourth squad was his reserve.
"Sergeant Saava, I'm going to go talk to the village headman. If he's smart, he won't say a word about the Old Duke and his men, since they'll probably show up tonight after we leave. He may let something slip, though."
"If the enemy is coming tonight, perhaps we should wait for him?" Saava touched the hilt of the foot long, double edged knife that all Tarkai warriors carried.
"That would be a good idea, but Duke Erwin wants us to cover all the hearts and minds stuff."
The human and the two Tarkai walked to the headman's house. He had been inoculated and was standing outside of his door, watching what was happening to his people.
"You are the headman, Theo Dorff?" Castle asked through the translator that hung from his belt.
"I am. And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" Old Theo said, bowing slightly.
Castle bowed in return.
"I am Lieutenant Richard Castle. I command an Aero Scout platoon of the Air Cavalry Squadron of Colonel Black Jacques Schram's mercenary brigade. May I offer you some green tea?"
Old Theo was very tempted. Green tea was a luxury that the village rarely saw. As the headman he had a cup at the harvest festival each year and he tried to give a small cup to as many of the heads of the farmer's households as he could.
"I would be honored by your company." Old Theo said. After all, the Old Duke's men would expect that the soldiers would talk to him.
Old Theo and Castle went inside. Tarn and Saava sat in the front doorway to keep anyone from going inside. When two young men from the village headed for the headman's house, Saava pulled out a smaller knife and began whittling, smiling at the men as he did so. The men left.
Castle pulled out a thermos and poured a generous amount of tea into Old Theo's cup. It was far more than he'd ever had before. Castle then poured himself a cup.
As was usual, they talked of inconsequential things, at first. They spoke of the weather, fishing in the nearby river, but finally Old Theo mentioned that the harvest this year had been very good.
"That's fortunate." Castle said. "Since you have two separate dukes collecting taxes. Even so, that must be difficult for you."
Old Theo could hardly deny that.
"When the old Duke Frederick died and left the dukedom to his son, Duke Erwin, we thought all would be well. But Frederick's younger brother, Duke Gerhard, said Erwin was too young and too enamored with the ways of the off-worlders. He rebelled. He would have won, as all the landowners great and small, rallied to him along with their retainers. But Erwin was able to use the money from the merchants in the towns to hire troops from other worlds. Such as you and your men. It must be very costly to bring so many men and their machines from so far away. Is that not so?"
Castle laughed.
"I suppose it is, but all I worry about is getting paid myself and getting my men paid. How Duke Erwin pays us is no concern of mine."
That was a lie, of course. Duke Erwin couldn't have hired a mercenary platoon from off world on his own. There were other things at work here.
The United Kingdoms was the wealthiest, and militarily most powerful, star nation in all of the Europa Cluster, which contained well over one hundred inhabited planets. At the very edge of the Cluster were the three Han Worlds, which were almost as wealthy and powerful as the United Kingdoms. The two nations had been fighting the so-called Shadow War for decades. Since each side could deploy warships with thermonuclear weapons, each side was careful not to push the other too far. So, they fought each other by proxy. The Han Worlds sent "volunteers" to support causes that favored the Han and the United Kingdoms countered with "mercenary" units. In fact, both were a part of each nation's regular military. But as long as each side maintained the fiction that "volunteers" were fighting "mercenaries", all went well.
Even if Duke Erwin had no money, he did have a planet with a great location. The planet was placed so as to make a wonderful place for pirates to raid the UK's shipping and those of its friends and allies.
Oh, the Han Worlds never sold ships to pirates, of course. They built very fast cargo ships. If some pirates were to buy one of their ships and add weapons, that could hardly be called the Han Worlds' fault. All a pirate really needed was enough weaponry to over awe an unarmed merchant ship and enough speed to outrun any warship it might encounter. The Han fast cargo ships fit the bill perfectly.
As Duke Gerhard was getting help from the Han, the UK sent their tame mercenaries to aid Duke Erwin.
Castle decided to take a chance.
"It seems a shame that you have to pay taxes twice. Wouldn't it be better if you only had to pay taxes to one duke?"
Old Theo smiled.
"But how could that be? You are able to come here for Duke Erwin with your flying machines or your ground vehicles, while the…others live in the vastness of the forest. Who knows where they might be?"
Sensing he would get no useful intelligence from the headman, Castle changed the subject.
Meanwhile, Rifleman Phu'un was patrolling the village for any sign of support for Duke Gerhard. He suddenly smelled some sort of oil- based preservative, such as might be found protecting weapons. He followed his nose to a hut. There was no door, so he walked right in. There were three older human females in the back of the hut, who drew away from him. He repeated the words that he had learned that should tell the women that he meant them no harm. He followed his nose to a tarp covering a table. Lifting the tarp, he found a collection of carpenters' tools, all well lubricated. No weapons were there.
He smiled at the human females, which did not put them at ease, and mumbled what he hoped was an apology in their own language. But as he turned to leave, he saw some movement in a corner. Something was under a blanket. As he went to investigate, the three human women rushed at him. He prepared to defend himself, but they did not attack, but yelled at him in a language he did not understand. Phu'un at once called for help and his squad leader was there in seconds, with half the squad. But as they arrived, other women arrived, all shouting and crying. Before long, Lieutenant Castle and his command team arrived.
Castle had a translator and was able to find out what the problem was.
"They say there's an injured young girl under the blanket. I've told them I need to check if that's so. "He told his troops.
He lifted the blanket and found there was a terrified young girl under the blanket. He pulled the blanket all the way down and saw that the girl had one leg shorter than the other.
"Corporal Tarn." He said. "To me."
The radioman knelt beside Castle so he could use the radio.
"Saber Six Actual to Caduceus Six. Come in."
"What?" Surgeon-Captain Arnold bellowed.
Castle assumed that Arnold wasn't going to suddenly start using proper comm procedures, so he replied.
"I have an injured child here. Looks like her leg was badly broken and badly set. Over."
"Okay, I'll be over in a bit."
Castle assumed that she meant that the comm was completed.
It took ten minutes for Arnold to arrive, and all the while villagers, mostly women, gathered around the hut and cried and screamed.
"What is it?" Arnold demanded.
"Take a look." Castle said, pointing to the girl.
Arnold knelt and examined the girl.
"What sort of idiot tried to set her leg and was satisfied with this?" She snarled.
Castle was glad he'd turned off the translator before Arnold arrived.
"It's not like they have access to first class medical care."
"And now they do. I can fix her up in two weeks and then she can…Shit! These idiots will never understand the kind of physical therapy she'll need. I'll have to keep her for a month. Have your people take her to the chopper. We're done here."
As soon as two Tarkai soldiers picked up the girl, the screaming and crying hit a crescendo. Old Theo pushed his way to Castle.
"The women think your men are taking the girl away to eat her." Theo looked apologetic. "That's what Duke Gerhard's men say about you. Please, they are simple peasants. They don't understand."
"Look, tell them that I promise we'll have the girl back in a month as good as new. Will they believe that?"
Old Theo moved closer to Castle so he could whisper in his ear.
"To tell the truth, this is pretty much for show. As she is, the girl will never find a husband, she's too crippled to work in the fields, and she doesn't have the talent to be a weaver or a potter where her bad leg wouldn't matter too much."
Castle had an idea. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a brick sized package wrapped in shiny foil.
"This is a complete bar of green tea. Tell the women we're giving it to you, to the village, in return for keeping the girl for a month. Okay?"
Old Theo spoke in his own language to the crowd. They quieted down at once. None of them had ever seen that much green tea. They began to drift away from the hut.
Castle carefully slipped a smaller package into Old Theo's pocket.
"That's some green tea for you. I appreciate the help."
Castle and his platoon headed for the helicopters. They lifted off and Castle looked back as the village faded into the distance. Tomorrow he'd see another village just like it.
He never saw the girl again, but he did check on her. She made a full recovery and went back to her village and with any luck, a happier life.
TBC