Raids
Castle gathered his squad leaders and command team around the map. Everyone had done this countless times before, either in training or in the real and dangerous worlds, but he always briefed them as if they'd never done a raid before. As someone once said, the easiest things to do in peacetime become difficult in combat, and difficult things in peacetime can be impossible in combat. Endless repetition could overcome that.
"Brigade intel has a possible location for a bandit camp, here." He pointed to the map and gave the map references.
He also used the term "bandits" for Duke Gerhard's troops. Their putative employer, Duke Erwin, had decided that he was the only duke and anyone else was a fraud and his followers were bandits.
"Lift ships will pick up the platoon just after sunset, about half an hour from now."
Few of his troops bothered with wristwatches, having lived all of their lives by telling the time by the position of the sun, moons, or stars.
"The lift ships will make dummy landings three times before they drop us off here." He pointed at the map again and gave the coordinates. "Then they'll make two more dummy landings and head home. Unless the bandits have every potential LZ covered by watchers, they won't know which one we landed on. Or if anyone actually landed at all."
"Once we're on the ground, run to the tree line to the north. If there is anyone watching, we want to give them as little to report as possible. We'll form up in the trees in a vee shape formation. First and third squads to the right, second and fourth squads to the left. The command team will be in the center. The camp is about two miles from the LZ. And, well be headed into the wind, so we should know where they are before they have any idea we're there."
Fire team leaders and squad leaders checked their men while Castle coordinated with the Air Cavalry Troop commander and the pilots. If things turned to shit, as they often did, he wanted gunships in support of his platoon and lift ships to get them out of trouble ASAP.
Like many veteran units, his Aero Scout Platoon had "acquired" additional weapons in addition to those officially issued to them. In this case, Castle had added his three extra medium machine guns to his squad. The squad that didn't get an extra machine gun was given an extra squad automatic weapon, essentially a light machine gun, to give them more firepower.
The sun set and the raid was under way.
They hit their LZ and headed for the forest. As soon as they made it to the trees, Castle was on the radio.
"Saber Six Actual to Quarter horse Six. LZ is cold. Repeat, LZ is cold. Over."
"Quarter horse Six Actual to Saber Six Actual. Confirm a cold LZ. Go for it. Quarter horse Six Actual out."
They arranged themselves into the vee formation and headed off. Castle heard Sergeant Saava growl to one of the squad leaders.
"Boonef, try not to make as much noise as a drunken bush pig this time."
A week before, Corporal Boonef had trod on a rotten branch that made a noise that couldn't have been heard more than ten yards away. But, for a race of lifelong hunters, warriors and soldiers, making any noise at all was unforgivable. Boonef hadn't heard the last of that. In fact, when he was an old, retired soldier, his comrades would probably still remind him of the time he'd made so much noise.
They moved slowly through the forest. Every Tarkai was able to tell where the others in his squad were by their smell. Castle had to resort to night vision goggles, and he was very careful not to step on any branches.
They were about five hundred yards from the camp when Sergeant Saava whispered in his ear.
"I think there's no one at home, and hasn't been for several days."
"You're right, no doubt, but we'll proceed cautiously."
Saava was right. The camp was deserted. The fires were long cold and after a discussion, the Tarkai agreed the bandits had left about two days ago.
"Okay, check the huts for anything left behind and check outside the perimeter. And watch out for booby traps." Castle ordered.
There were no booby traps, but Rifleman Zaahn found something.
"Sir, there are five small bushes here that are planted in an unusually straight line. And the ground around them has been dug up recently."
"Could it be a booby trap?" Castle asked.
The Tarkai took turns sniffing.
"They don't think so. Rifleman Zaahn would like to check."
Zaahn was a careful and methodical soldier, so Castle agreed. But, he had everyone else move back out of the clearing."
Zaahn probed the area around the bushes with a wooden stake he'd carved from part of the hut. Then after smelling carefully, he removed the five plants and began checking the dirt for explosives or trip wires. Finding none, he began removing the dirt.
"Lieutenant, there's a box buried here. By its size, it might hold rifles."
"See if you can figure out what's inside of it. Carefully." Castle replied.
Zaahn pulled out a small but very sharp knife and began cutting through the wood of the box. When he had made a hole, he put his nose next to it and inhaled deeply.
"I'm pretty sure there's ammo inside, but no explosives, sir."
"Okay, open it up."
When he had done so and checked for further booby traps or trip wires, they gathered around the opened box.
"Five rifles, sir." Sergeant Saava said.
"And they look like ours. L23A3 battle rifles."
Saava pulled one out of the box and handed it to Castle.
"That said, I don't recognize the alphabet they used to mark it. Anything else in there?"
Saava took a quick look.
"Thirty magazines and fifty boxes of ammo, with fifty rounds per box and two boxes of grenades, twenty grenades per box. Don't recognize the maker, sir."
"Okay, we'll load everything up and take it back with us. Intel will be interested in where the rifles and grenades came from. Tarn, to me."
Castle got on the radio and arranged for a pickup at another LZ about four miles away.
Three nights later, they were at it again.
Castle explained to his platoon that brigade intelligence had a hot tip about a bandit camp some forty miles away. He went through the same explanation of what they were to do as he had before, but he added something.
"The hot tip may be accurate, but someone could be looking to ambush us. Be careful when we get there. For that matter, be careful going in and coming back."
They were lucky, although some might not have thought so. They flew in a heavy rain which served to somewhat muffle the sound of the helicopters. They landed in a cold LZ and got quickly into the trees. The rain lessened and then stopped, but water still dripped down on them from the trees.
"Sir, the wind is behind us." Saava said. "We won't smell them until we're almost on top of them."
"Can't be helped." Castle replied. "There isn't any kind of an LZ for miles."
The platoon moved as quietly as they could through the forest until Castle's GPS told them they were within a hundred yards of the bandit's camp.
"Saava, we'll send a fire team ahead to scout. If the camp is occupied, we'll attack. If it isn't, we'll go in slowly."
Four Tarkai broke off from the platoon and headed for the camp. Soon, they contacted Castle by radio.
"Sir, we're at the edge of the clearing. The camp is empty. We can smell wood smoke, but it's been at least a day since there was a fire here. Orders?"
"Maintain your position. We'll join you."
The camp was empty of people, but not entirely empty.
"They left behind some food, sir. Bags of beans and bags of rice, and…" Saava lifted up another bag, …"Cans of fish. Maybe a hundred."
"Shit. We're cold and wet and all we got for our trouble is some food. Anyone want beans, rice or fish for dinner back at the base?" Castle asked.
The Tarkai liked some human food, but preferred food from back on Tark when they could get it, but no one wanted the bandit's food.
"Okay, we'll open the beans and rice bags and spread the food out on the ground, then piss on it and then stomp it into the ground. Second squad, perimeter security, First squad, beans, Third squad rice and Fourth squad, open the cans and dump 'em out."
It took some ten minutes to destroy the food cache. Then Castle called for a helicopter pick up.
"The cost of the choppers to take us here, our time and effort, overhead and all, it probably cost us ten times as much as the food was worth to destroy it." Castle muttered.
He'd forgotten for a moment how good a Tarkai's hearing was.
"But the bandits will have empty stomachs for a while, sir." Saava said.
Castle just grunted in response.
The next raid was worse.
Castle spoke to his assembled platoon.
"Brigade has a hot one. They have a drone sitting on top of a small convoy carrying weapons. The convoy is twenty mules, plus a muleteer for each mule and maybe forty bandits for security. They've stopped in a clearing about twenty miles from here. There's no LZ anyplace near, but the clearing is big enough to get four lift ships in at once. Two gunships will start the party and then we go in. We'll be landing right on top of them, just about."
The helicopters roared over the forest just a few feet over the tops of the trees, and occasionally hit the upper part of a tree. Luckily, there was no damage to the helicopters.
Castle could hear the gunship pilots over the chopper's radio and imagined them going into a figure eight pattern to attack the gun runners.
"Red One Five, we are rolling in hot. Repeat we're going in hot."
Castle thought he could hear the sound of the gunships' weapons over the roar of the chopper's engines, but that may have been his imagination.
Suddenly, the ground shot up under them and the chopper braked hard.
"Out! Out! Out!" Castle and his NCOs were screaming.
They could hear the sound of incoming and outgoing rounds. The bandits intended to fight for their weapons.
A Tarkai dropped just in front of Castle. He checked his protective vest and smiled up at Castle.
"Didn't penetrate, sir." He got up and ran forward.
Castle tried to control the firefight, but it was pointless. The attack had degenerated into a swirling mass of small gunfights as Tarkai and bandits fought it out.
Castle and his radioman came across a Tarkai who was face down on the ground. Castle saw that half of his head was missing.
One dead. He thought. I've lost one of my men.
He saw a sudden movement to his right, turned and took a quick shot. He missed. Before he could fire again, a terrified mule ran past him, shedding its load.
"We've got them in an L shaped ambush now, sir." Saava yelled to him.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light and both Saava and Castle were flat on their backs,
Corporal Whaan, their medic, rushed to them and began checking the two over.
"I think that was a concussion grenade, sir." Whaan said softly. Then it occurred to Castle that Whaan was actually yelling. His hearing was damaged.
"You'll be a bit woozy, sir, so you should…"
Castle and Saava helped each other up and went back to the fight.
To their surprise, it was almost over. Most of the bandits were standing up, with their hands raised above their heads.
"I think we have a dead Han, sir." Corporal Boonef reported, happy to have something to say that didn't involve his making noise on patrol. He led Castle and Saava to the corpse.
Castle examined the man. A bullet had hit his throat, severing his jugular and causing him to bleed out. He checked him for any intel.
"His ID says he's named Harry Nakamura and he's from the US. I'll bet if there is a Harry Nakamura, he's sitting at home and this young fellow is from the Han Worlds.:
"C&C bird is coming in, sir." Corporal Tarn announced. "Captain Norden is here along with someone from Duke Erwin's people."
Norden, the commander of the Air Cavalry Troop, was happy. This was the biggest arms convoy they'd intercepted all year.
"We'll take the prisoners out first. Our wounded have a dust-off chopper coming. How many casualties?" Norden asked.
Castle had no idea, but he had an extremely efficient platoon sergeant.
"Lieutenant, we have confirmed three dead and eight wounded. Wounded severely enough to be medevacked out. Neither Lieutenant Castle nor I need to be evaced."
"You're wounded?" Norden demanded.
"Concussion grenade, sir. It just knocked us down."
"You're bleeding from your right ear, Rick. Okay, you can go back with your platoon, but they'll have to stay here until we move everything out. Duke Erwin wants all the weapons brought in and the surviving mules."
"We're going to try to load mules into the choppers?" Castle said in disbelief.
"Brigade is sending a heavy lift chopper for that. Let the aviation battalion worry about that. And, when you get back, you and Saava report to the hospital. I know Saava has enough red wound stripes on his dress uniform for any two people, but a nice wound stripe will look good on you, Lieutenant Castle."
Castle did get a red wound stripe to indicate he'd been wounded in combat. He just as soon would have not had to have had one, though.
He was also called in by brigade intelligence to talk about the weapons he'd recovered. He told them all he knew, which was in his report anyway.
"The language on the weapons is Hindustani and they indicate the rifles were built on Earth in India. We think the Han made them and are trying to get us to get into a pissing contest with India. That won't happen."
"Any reason they're making copies of our rifles?' Castle asked.
"They can get ammo from us or more likely from Duke Erwin's men."
Castle left and was met by Sergeant Saava outside of Brigade Headquarters.
"We have five replacements, sir. They're fresh out of the grinder and ready to go. We need to look them over."
"Let's go then."
TBC