Shipwreck
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I feel wrecked not owning Castle. Rating: K Time: Far in the future.
"An auroch. Local animal. Two aurochs can pull as much as six, or sometimes, eight horses. They're slower, but they get the job done. And they can feed on local plant life whereas horses, since they were imported from off-world, need a special diet of Earth based plant life. The best thing about them, for us, is that they're not horses. The Horse People have no interest in them."
Delahn looked them over.
"Just how much money do you have, by the way?"
It turned out that the horses they had, plus the gear and money they'd taken from Pully and his now dead friends was enough to rent a wagon for Rick and Kate, one for Walter, Matilda and Janice and a very fine wagon for Sister Alexis. She had made her own deal for the wagon and there was some discussion as to just what she had used to get such a fine wagon. Well, perhaps not that much discussion.
When they came out of the forest and onto the prairie, they were shadowed for a day by a group of mounted Horse People. They followed the convoy for several hours and then disappeared.
When they stopped at dusk, Rick asked one of the other wagon drivers, a man named Sellen, if he thought the Horse People would bother them.
"Why would they?" Sellen asked.
"They steal horses. They might want to steal other things."
Sellen grinned.
"Now, by their lights, they don't steal. They believe their gods gave all horses to them, so they're just taking what's rightfully theirs. Their gods didn't give them any aurochs, wagons, or anything in the wagons. They'd be real upset at being called thieves."
Rick thought he might be right, but he put boundary sensors out and slept with his weapons handy. Nothing happened.
They had been on the prairie for almost a week when something did happen. A blaster bolt zipped by Castle's head. He slammed the faceplate on his helmet closed, grabbed his sniper rifle and rolled off of the wagon. There was mass confusion in the wagon train, which helped him. Whoever was shooting at him couldn't get a shot off. He checked his sensors and found a trail of superheated air that led back to a hill over a kilometer away. That meant the sniper was good, but if the sniper had been much better, Rick would be dead.
Rick moved among the wagons, heading for a patch of woods where he could stop and hopefully locate the sniper and kill him. He was distracted by a blaster bolt headed towards the hill that came from behind him. He glanced around and saw Kate crawling between two wagons with one of his blaster rifles.
"Kate, dammit. Get back. I can handle this."
He was positive she had heard him but kept right on going.
Castle now had two problems: how to take out the enemy sniper; and how to keep Kate safe.
He was considering both problems when another blaster bolt was fired from the other side of him. He saw a black clad figure move between two aurochs and fire at the hill from between the beast's legs.
"At least she has some idea of what she's doing." He muttered to himself.
He almost had a plan worked out when a bolt was fired over his head from directly behind him.
He looked behind him and yelled.
"Walter, get back. Sister Alexis and I can handle this."
Walter just smiled at him and fired again.
Castle decided he needed to get moving before Matilda and Janice showed up, armed to the teeth.
That's when the sniper made a mistake. He probably assumed he was now facing four trained soldiers and decided to retreat. He showed himself for just a second as he ran through a small ravine and Sister Alexis took a shot that missed him by millimeters. He did stop and that's when Rick shot him. Rick's shot hit the sniper in the hip and he rolled several meters down the ravine. He tried to crawl away and get behind cover, but Rick shot him in the other leg.
"Kate! Walter!" Castle yelled. "Go back to the wagons and let Sister Alexis and me handle this. He's wounded but he's still dangerous."
Kate looked like she was going to argue, but when she saw Walter low crawling back to the wagons, she followed him.
"Sister Alexis?" Rick yelled. "You move on him from the left and I'll go right. I'd like to take him alive, but not badly enough to get either one of us shot. Clear?"
"Clear. You go first and I'll cover you. When you drop and cover me, I'll move. Okay?"
It took nearly an hour to get to the sniper. In the end, Rick rushed him and kicked his sniper rifle away, then took a blaster pistol from him and a vibro knife.
"Who the hell are you? Who sent you?" Rick demanded as Sister Alexis joined him. Then he got a closer look at the sniper. "Shit. You're just a kid. What? Sixteen? Seventeen?"
The sniper looked at Sister Alexis.
"Fucking heretic whore." Then back to Rick. "Bloody hired gun. Kill for money."
"He's probably Orthodox Catholic, or maybe one of the splinter churches that lost touch with the rest of the civilized galaxy. Anyway, he's…" Suddenly, Alexis screamed," Look out!" And threw herself onto Rick, carrying them both several meters down the slope. Then there was a small bang.
"What the hell was that?" Rick demanded.
"He suicided and tried to take us with him. "
"How did you know?"
"He smiled at me."
They both got to their feet and checked out the dead sniper. His head and the upper part of his chest was gone.
"You can have his weapons." Sister Alexis said. "I'll check and see if he has any useful intel on him. You'll have to help me back to the wagons, I'm afraid. I caught some shrapnel when he exploded."
"Where?"
"In my cute little ass."
She found nothing and Rick did have to help her back, although he wasn't at all sure she was wounded, but she did seem to find ways to push her boobs against him.
"What happened?" Kate demanded to know.
"What was the explosion?" Walter asked, arriving right after Kate.
Rick explained as he helped Sister Alexis back to her wagon.
"I'm afraid I'm wounded." She said. "I'll need Rick and his medical kit. I'm sure he's quite good with wounds. If you could help me into my wagon, Rick?"
"I'd better do it." Matilda said. "I'm a trained nurse, you know."
Matilda took Alexis' arm and led her to the wagon.
"I'm sure Matilda will do a much better job than I would." Rick called out as Matilda led an unwilling Sister Alexis into her wagon.
The rest of the trip was peaceful and they arrived at Tiddimport, the destination of the wagon train.
"The south bank doesn't look like much of a desert." Rick said to Delahn.
"Oh, for ten or twelve miles on the south side it's all right, but after that, it's all desert. There are only a few sources of water there and the tribes that control them would rob you blind. You're better off taking a ship south from here. Just a couple of weeks on a ship and you'll be at the mouth of the Chidwin which is right where you want to go."
There were only three ships in port that were headed for the Chidwin. The first one they looked at was small, dirty and smelled.
"Don't get many passengers." The ship's captain, named Vahn, said. "I carry dried auroch dung south. It burns really hot and blacksmiths use it when they need a really hot fire. Not many folks want to sail with auroch dung."
Castle, whose eyes were tearing from the stench agreed. The rest of his party had refused to board the ship.
"And that's how we feel." He said, running off the ship.
The second ship was clean, lean and rakish, and heavily armed. Captain Porsoch explained.
"We have a letter of marque and reprisal from the Kingdom of Posselton."
"What's that?" Kate asked.
"Posselton is at war with the Republic of Answaller. The letter of marque allows us to attack and take Answallerite ships and split the value of the ship and the cargo with Posselton."
"Privateers." Castle said. "I've heard of them, but never seen one."
"If you'd join the crew along with your weapons, I'd give each of you an officer's share, even the little one. Good money."
"We'll pass. We have to get to the station."
Captain Porsoch followed them onto the dock trying to get them to sign on as crew, but they left.
The last ship was the Wave Breaker, Captain Nabdersand. The ship was the largest they'd seen, clean and well armed, if not overly well armed.
"I've been making the trip to the Chidwin for sixteen years. The Wave Breaker is Confederacy of Alg'gona ship. Most pirates stay away from us since the Confederacy has the strongest navy on the planet. Take an Alg'gonese ship and the navy will chase you all the way to hell."
Castle looked at the rest. He thought that this was the best ship they'd seen, and the only one left. He nodded slightly. The rest nodded as well.
"Looks like you have some passengers." Rick said.
Rick had served in many environments in his years as a soldier. He had fought on high gravity planets, planets with poisonous atmospheres, no atmospheres at all, and even in zero gravity and the complete vacuum of space. However, he had never even been on a small ship rolling and pitching on a rough sea. Neither had any other member of their party.
Kate was vomiting into a wooden bucket in their cabin.
"Let me know if you need the bucket, babe."
"I don't. I have nothing left to vomit. I think the last thing I threw up was my intestines. Felt like it anyway."
Kate closed her eyes and threw up again. As she did, she heard the unmistakable sound of Castle vomiting.
"I thought you said you had nothing left to vomit."
"I didn't. I threw upon an empty stomach. The dry heaves." He managed a grin. "One of the sailors told me that no one has ever died of being seasick. They just wish they'd die."
"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it isn't working." She moaned.
They were interrupted by a seaman.
"Beggin' yer pardon, Mr. Castle. Cap'n's compliments an' could you come on deck wi' yer weapons?"
"Why? Castle demanded.
"Mejios the pirate is bearin' down on us, sir. He's bluddy insane, he is and he ain't afraid of nuttin. The Cap'n figgers yer weapons'll scare him off, or destroy the bugger, mebbe."
Castle grabbed his sniper rifle and headed for the deck. When he got there, he saw that Kate had the sniper rifle they'd take from the man who'd tried to kill Sister Alexis. He wanted to tell her to go back below decks, but the dry heaves got in the way.
"Kate, you should…" He began, but was interrupted.
"Is that the pirate?" Walter asked. He was armed with one of Castle's blaster rifles.
"Walter, what are you doing up on deck?"
"Matilda sent me up. She's downstairs with Miss Janice. Don't worry, they both have blasters."
"Both?" Castle said. "You're giving a ten year-old girl a blaster?"
"Better than that she fall into the hands of an insane pirate."
Castle was about to give his opinion on that idea when Alexis broke in.
"Why didn't you tell me there was danger, Castle? I had to hear if from some crewman."
TBC