The Advisor
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I've been advised I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Shortly after Battle Group Castle.
Castle went to see Admiral Paredes, who informed the government of the intelligence from the UK. For over a week there were arguments back and forth as to what Saint George should do, or if it should do anything. Then they got a surprising visit from a delegation from Samland itself. The delegation was led by Ms. Chen and represented all of the nine companies running Samland. Castle was invited to listen to what Ms. Chen had to say.
"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for agreeing to meet with me. I should like to inform you that I not only represent the companies who run Samland, but I have a document from the offices of the Pacific Partners at Sylvestre indicating just how seriously they take the news that Mejia and his men are headed for Edo and especially to Samland. I ask that you examine it, do any necessary authentication, and return it to me as Pacific Partners has indicated in the document. Pacific Partners at Sylvestre would find it…impolitic if news of their interest should leak back to Earth."
The members of the government were apparently prepared to authenticate the document as several specialists came forward and quickly authenticated the document.
Prime Minister Douglas read the document and had copies handed to his cabinet. It appeared that he read it several times.
"The accusations that Pacific Partners make concerning Mr. Mejia are quite…appalling."
Chen nodded.
"Mejia is an appalling person. He's a sociopath who loves violence and power. He has a history of murders, kidnappings, rapes, theft and sabotage which he not only engages in personally, but through his men as well. We have a dossier which we've put together from intelligence sources on Earth as well as sources that the nine companies have accessed. I ask that you review the information. I must tell you that if Mejia succeeds in destroying the Berbers, he'll turn of Samland next and eventually, he'll get around to you and every colony on this planet, except for Edo colony itself. You'll be his slaves."
It took two days for the government to make a decision. They asked Castle and Admiral Paredes what could be done to help the Berbers.
"We have little in the way of spare weaponry to give them. In fact, we could only arm a battalion of Berbers if we took all of the military weapons and gave them to the Berbers. What we do have is an excellent patrol aircraft with long range missiles and an excellent electronic warfare suite. While the aircraft is up, we can shut down Mejia's communications. He has no electronic warfare equipment himself as using that on a crowded and communication dependent planet like Earth would cause a disaster. He has no more than a few short range, man portable anti-aerospace craft weapons, nothing that could hit our one patrol plane."
"That doesn't sound like much, Colonel." One of the cabinet ministers said.
"We have sent an emergency message to the UK asking for weapons and mercenaries, but Mejia will get here long before we get a response. And we've asked the Edo colony to sell us weapons. We haven't had a reply from them, and they don't have a lot to spare, but we'll see."
"We do have one thing we can send to the Berbers, trucks. They're transportation is almost all by mule trains and their infantry gets where it's going on foot. We have a lot of four-wheel drive trucks we could send."
Prime Minister Douglas looked around at his ministers. They all nodded.
"We've contacted the Berbers and they want someone on the ground with them to coordinate everything and advise them. Colonel Castle, that would be you, if you'll go."
"Of course, I'll go, sir."
Rick just hoped he could keep Kate here in Saint George.
"Stay in Saint George while you go off to face a sociopath and his personal army of goons? Not a chance."
That was exactly what Rick had been afraid Kate would say, and it was exactly what she did say.
"You do remember you're pregnant, right?" He countered.
"I'm pregnant, not brain dead. Your job isn't to be on the front lines, and neither is mine. And if we lose to Mejia in Berberia, I'm sure he'll come after us. He was working for one of Bracken's allies back on Earth. I'm sure he knows how badly Bracken wants me, that is, us, dead."
"Kate…" He began.
"In addition, I know a hell of a lot more about Mejia and his kind than anyone else on this planet. I spent years on Earth studying bastards like him and his kind. You need me. And you need me with you in Berberia, not somewhere safe in Saint George. Assuming that Saint George would be safe."
Castle argued further but got nowhere. In the end, he agreed Kate would go with him. He also took all of the soldiers he'd brought to Saint George and added a platoon of the best of the Saint George soldiers they'd trained.
Their job would be to protect Rick and Kate. At least that was the plan.
"Fuck being some dumb ass bodyguard." Sergeant Michael Bennett said as he settled into a nice sniper's hide about a mile from the only road leading into Berberia from Samland. He had with him a Corporal Woods from Saint George who'd been a hunter in civilian life. He wasn't as well trained as Bennett would have liked, but Bennett figured if he kept an eye on Woods, he'd do okay.
Bennett controlled three other sniper teams, consisting of a trained Tarkai sniper and one half trained Saint George sniper.
The teams were set up overlooking the dirt road that led into Berberia. The first two miles were open country until you reached the forest. That was where Bennett and his teams had settled in. In addition to the snipers, Berber engineers had planted mines in the road and along the sides of the road.
In addition, there was a Tarkai artillery forward observer and a radioman in a hide in a tall tree that could look deep into Samland.
Something caught Bennett's attention.
"Lookie there."
A small four-wheel drive open topped car was driving down the road. There were four uniformed men in it and the car mounted a machine gun.
"Sierra Alpha to all Sierras. We have a target. I'm betting the car is too light to set off most of the mines there, so we'll let them come to us. Over."
The other snipers and the forward observer acknowledged.
The car came to a small rise and stopped. Two men got out and examined the forest with binoculars.
"Shit. I'll bet the bastards aren't going to drive into the forest where we can kill them without anyone being the wiser." Bennett got back on the radio and told each sniper team who was to shoot which of Mejia's troops. Bennett took the officer with the binoculars who was doing all the talking. Bennett figured that made him the senior officer. Woods was told to shoot the machine gunner.
"Everybody ready?" Bennett whispered into the mic, although his intended victims couldn't possibly have heard him. Getting affirmative answers, he gave the orders.
"Send 'em."
The two officers collapsed at once and the driver slumped over the steering wheel with half his head gone. The machine gunner tore at his chest and reached for a first aid pouch. Bennett's second shot killed him.
"You did okay, Woods. Your shot kept him from firing his weapon which might have alerted someone, and he didn't reach for the radio to call for help. But you can do better, okay?"
Woods smiled.
"I'll do better next time, Sergeant."
"Damn straight you will. Now if the god of war loves us, as he should, we can go down there after dark and put the dead into the car and leave. Then Mejia will be wondering what the hell happened to his scouts. I just hope the map of the minefields the damned engineers made are accurate."
The god of war did love Michael Bennett and the engineers made good maps.
The UK's intelligence service had a small, but sophisticated, presence in Saint George. They were able to tap into Mejia's communications with little trouble. There was some chatter about what had happened to the car and the four people in it, but that was overwhelmed by traffic concerning the upcoming invasion of Berberia. That began two days after the ambush by Bennett's snipers.
The Berber's division was lightly armed. A squad of nine or ten men was armed entirely with assault rifles. Three such squads constituted a platoon with a platoon commander, platoon sergeant and a medic. As platoons had no radios, the platoon had a half a dozen runners to communicate with his squads.
Three platoons made a company. The company had a small weapons squad, consisting of a pair of squad automatic weapons and a single grenade launcher. The company commander had a radio, but since his platoons had none, he also used runners to keep in contact with his platoons.
Three companies made a battalion. The battalion had a weapons platoon that featured a machine gun squad with three medium machine guns, a pair of 51mm or 60mm mortars and a few single shot, unguided rocket launchers.
Three battalions made a brigade, or in the Berbers' terminology, a regimental tactical group and there were three RTGs in the division. Their heavy support weapons were a battalion of sixteen 105mm artillery pieces. This was important as the guns outranged anything that Mejia's troops had by a good bit.
Their other units were all company sized. Two of the most important in the upcoming war were the engineer company and the commando company.
Mejia's units had plenty of machine guns and light infantry weapons such as mortars and recoilless rifles, but they had specialized in attacking their political opponents on Earth with platoon, or at best, company sized forces. Although they had now formed battalions and brigades for a division sized force, they were still just a collection of platoons and companies without the small company sized support units the Berbers had.
The engineers proved their worth on the first day of the invasion. Mejia's troops roared down the one road leading into Berberia and promptly ran into mines. They lost two trucks which brought the whole column to a stop. Trying to go off the road they quickly found the off-road areas were mined as well. The blocked column began taking casualties from Bennett's snipers. Eventually, reinforced platoons were sent off to try to suppress the snipers. After taking substantial casualties, they found that the snipers had retreated into the dense woods that covered most of Berberia. Eventually, the column cleared the mines and rumbled into the forest.
That night a platoon of engineers easily infiltrated past Mejia's troops and laid more mines on the sections of the road that had previously been cleared. Two hours after they left, a convoy of ten trucks bringing supplies to Mejia drove into the minefield. Two trucks were destroyed and the other eight stayed where they were and radioed for help. Apparently, Mejia's officers thought that the mines were ones left over from the original minefield. It wasn't until the engineers laid more mines that they figured out that the Berber engineers were sneaking in and laying new mines. That led them to assign a company to go down the road every morning to clear any mines that had been laid at night. Of course, the further they got into the forest of Berberia, the more troops they needed to clear mines.
Lieutenant Lahcen commanded one of the platoons of the Berbers' commando company. His company was very well equipped by their standards. Two of his squads had a squad automatic weapon apiece and the third squad had a grenade launcher. His men had body armor and helmets and Lieutenant Lahcen had a radio to keep in touch with his company commander. His men were well trained and had plenty of ammunition. They had no night vision goggles, although they had learned to use their night vision well over their years on Edo. In addition, they had a single Tarkai with them who had not only night vision goggles, but a night scope on his assault rifle.
TBC