The Advisor
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I've been advised I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Shortly after Battle Group Castle.
"Hi, I'm yours for the night." She said.
She had expected Rick to move towards her, but instead he started backing up. This saved his life. The woman advanced on him with a knife in one hand that she'd held behind her back.
"Kate!" Rick yelled. "Get in here with a gun!"
The woman snarled and tried to kick Rick's legs out from under him. He avoided her, but she did slash the toe of his shoe.
Kate, wearing only a bra and panties, came out of the bedroom and aimed her pistol at the woman.
"Don't kill her, Kate. I want to question her."
The woman backed towards the balcony and right into Sergeant Saava. Saava clocked her with the hilt of his knife, a long wicked double-edged weapon that all Tarkai males carried. The woman collapsed. Within seconds, two more Tarkai soldiers arrived.
"Find something to bind her hands and legs with and call hotel security. Sergeant Saava, go back to your room and get our weapons and body armor." He turned to Kate. "You do look very sexy, Kate, but you might want to get dressed again."
Kate winked at him and handed her pistol to him.
It took less than a minute for security, led by Ms. Chen, to arrive. Castle explained what had happened.
Ms. Chen looked at Castle's shoe.
"It looks like your shoe is starting to disintegrate, Colonel. The knife was probably poisoned." She turned to one of her men. "Get Dr. Rhodes up here at once. I want him to examine Colonel Castle."
Castle quickly took his shoe off and examined it.
"I don't think she cut it all the way through and my sock and foot are fine."
"I'm glad to hear that, Colonel. I do not need a distinguished guest dying at my hotel. Dr. Rhodes will be here momentarily."
"I'm not sure we need…" Castle began.
"I'm sure he needs to be thoroughly examined." Kate interrupted. She had dressed in a pants suit of somber grey and wore body armor, a helmet and carried a shortened assault rifle.
Ms. Chen smiled.
"I think you should listen to your wife, Colonel. She seems to have everything under control."
Chen turned to another of her men.
"Who is she and how did she get into my hotel?" She barked,
"We have her as a Miss Patricia Parker, a minor shareholder in Pacific Partners. Everything about her checked out."
"Start rechecking. I want to know who screwed up and where. In the meantime, we'll interrogate her." She turned to Rick. "Would you and your people care to observe? Something that'd mean nothing to us may be significant to you."
"Certainly. Um, we do have access to certain chemicals which will make her very talkative."
Chen laughed.
"We're not barbarians, Colonel. We won't be putting burning wood slivers under her fingernails. We have quite a chemical arsenal of our own."
The interrogation was long and not very rewarding for the Castles. The woman was a hired assassin who had no idea who had paid for the deaths of both Rick and Kate. She had come all the way from Earth which led the two to believe that Senator Bracken was behind the assassination, but the woman knew no more than the name of a broker who'd arranged payment and provided her with travel documents. She did have a lot of information about her prior kills and information on criminal activities on Earth and the Core in general.
At the end of the interrogation, she was given one more chemical and quietly died.
When they got back to their suite, Rick made a decision.
"I'm sending for a platoon of Tarkai as a personal protective detail for us. In the meantime, poor Sergeant Saava and the few we can spare from their duties are going to have to work overtime protecting us as well. And we'll both go about armed and armored at all times."
"Of course." Kate replied.
"You're not going to argue?" Rick said, a bit suspicious.
"Not where your life is concerned, lover. Now we need to go to bed." She winked at him.
It had been three days since the assassination attempt and Rick was getting tired of having both Sergeants Saava and Bennett always under foot, discussing where the next attack might come from.
"Will you two relax?" Castle asked. "If it was Bracken, and I'm sure it was, it'll take time to get word back to Earth that the assassination failed and more time to get another assassin hired and sent out."
Bennett shook his head.
"Maybe not, sir. I know a little bit about how these things work. Sometimes they'll send two teams. If the first one fails, then the target relaxes, just like you are. Then it's easier for the second team to take you out."
"Here comes Captain Beckett and the colonel's new ride." Saava said.
"I have a new ride?" Castle looked out the window. "And my new ride is an armored car?"
"The Saint George Police have a couple in case of riots, sir." Saava said. "But they haven't had a riot for years, so they let us borrow one."
"It's nice and roomy inside, sir." Bennett added. "And we put in a fridge and a minibar for you and Captain Beckett. And your protective detail."
"And how much damage to the contents of the fridge and the minibar has my protective detail done so far?"
"We had to make sure nothing was poisoned, sir." Bennett said with a straight face.
Castle's phone rang.
"Colonel Castle."
"Sir, this is Major Howland. The Manx Maid, a freighter from the UK just came out of FTL. She's radioed that she's carrying a brand-new PK 29 patrol aircraft from Fitzsimmons Aerospace along with a full supply of spare parts and weapons as well as a team of tech reps from the manufacturer."
Castle thought for a second.
"I thought you said we hadn't decided yet between the Fitzsimmons aircraft and the one from BVA."
"We haven't, sir. But Fitzsimmons had an aircraft left over from a deal that fell through and decided to send it here for a demonstration."
"Okay, we'll have a look at it."
It took two days for the Manx Maid to make orbit over Edo and to get the aircraft on the ground. Once it was, however, just about everyone wanted to look at it.
"That's big." Castle said.
"It's twice the size of the aircraft the Saint Georgians have been using and about a thousand percent better. Better sensors, better comms, and best of all, it has weapons and a first-class weapons control console, sir." Major Howland said.
"What kind of weapons?" Rick asked.
"It comes equipped for and with anti-aerospace weapons and anti-submarine weapons, neither of which we'd have any use for right now, but they do have two kinds of air to surface missiles. The Black Rose is the one we'll probably use the most. It has a range of seventy-five miles, travels at Mach 3 and has a fifty-pound warhead. It'll destroy any of the hijackers' ships we've run into so far. If the send out bigger and more powerful ships, or it we want to hit a target on land, we have the Onyx missile. It has a range of 450 miles, travels at Mach 5 and has a thousand-pound warhead. In addition, it has penetration aids to confuse enemy defenses. Not that the locals have any defenses for either missile."
"How soon before it's ready?"
"The factory tech reps want to spend five days, maybe six, getting ready. Then they'll take it up with the plane crewed by the tech reps, but with as many Saint George bigshots as they can get aboard. We're both invited, sir." Howland said.
It took five days to get the aircraft ready and both Castle and Howland were aboard when she took off.
"Sir, we're at fifty-five thousand feet and have our full electronic warfare suite engaged. There's no way anyone on the ground can spot us, but so far, we have no hijackers out there. But we're looking."
It took another two hours before they caught something.
The pilot spoke over the intercom.
"We have a distress call from a black fin tuna boat. They've been overhauled by a boat out of the JCL colony. We'll be turning and will be in range in about three minutes. Since the hijacker is still alongside the fishing boat, we'll have to wait until they're clear."
The two ships were alongside each other for an hour. The JCL ship was certain that no one from Saint George could possibly do them any harm and took their time.
"The JCL ship has disengaged. We'll let it get about ten miles from the victim before we shoot." The pilot announced.
Everyone crowded around the monitors to get a good look at what was about to happen. One monitor showed a view from the missile itself and the other was a long-range view from the aircraft itself. They saw the missile fired and head for the hijacker.
"The missile has acquired the target." One of the console operators announced. "It's diving now and will head straight down when it's close to the ship."
They saw the missile rush towards the unsuspecting hijacker. The hijackers may have seen the incoming missile as there was some movement around the bridge, but it was far too late for them to do anything. The missile impacted and exploded. The hijacker's ship was cut in two and quickly sank. They could see no sign of any survivors.
"They didn't get a message off, and they're too far from their colony, or anywhere else, for the explosion to be seen, and there are no other ships in sight. As far as the JCL colony is concerned, their ship went out and never came back. They'll figure out what we're doing soon enough and then they'll have something to worry about." Howland said.
"I think Fitzsimmons Aerospace just made a sale, Major." Rick said.
"They probably did. There really isn't that much difference in the two aircrafts, so it'd be a tossup as to who got the contract, but I'm sure that the Saint Georgians will want this bird."
"How many aircraft will they get?" Rick asked.
"We'd like ten. Three would be out on patrol, three coming off patrol and getting local maintenance and crew rest, three getting ready to go out on patrol and one more just in case."
As Howland had guessed, the contract did go to Fitzsimmons Aerospace. It would be a while until the rest of the aircraft arrived at Saint George and the local crews were trained to operate them.
Castle was again struggling with paperwork when Kate called him from her office.
"Colonel Castle, "she said very professionally. "We just got a message from the UK Ministry of Defense. You're going to want to see it."
"I'll be right there, Captain Beckett." He said with a smirk.
He walked over to her office.
"What is it?"
"We have a problem. A man named Antonio "Tony the Tiger" Mejia is coming to Samland. Mejia was the head of the protective detail for Senator Gordon of New Mexico until Gordon was killed. Gordon was an ally of Senator Bracken, but with the death of Gordon, Mejia had to flee Earth. Bracken's people apparently have enough influence with Pacific Partners to allow Mejia and his people to go to Samland. However, Sylvestre does not want him to stay there nor does anyone at Samland. Intelligence back in the UK thinks he'll try to carve out his own colony."
"Do you think Bracken has sent him after us?"
"Maybe. But the "protective details" of politicians on Earth are more like small armies these days. Intelligence says he has ten thousand men, reasonably well equipped, trained and led. If he lands at Samland, he'll probably attack the Berbers. We 'll need to warn them."
Castle nodded.
"I think we'll need to do more than warn them."
TBC