The Advisor
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I've been advised I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Shortly after Battle Group Castle.
"Perhaps a couple of my Tarkai scouts could accompany yours?" Castle said. "They not only have excellent night vision goggles and weapon sights, but their senses are superior to those of humans. We could provide a number of night vision goggles and weapon sights as well as other gear for a small patrol."
"Excellent idea, Colonel."
Sergeant Fa'an liked working with the Berbers. Without technology, they weren't as good at night as Tarkai were, but given the same equipment that he and the other Tarkai had, they were pretty damned good.
Fa'an checked the positions of the planet's two moons.
"We've been watching this damned road for better than an hour now and no one has come down it. What kind of idiots don't check their one and only supply line regularly?"
Sergeant Zadi smiled in the dark.
"The kind that know that if they walk down this road in the dark some Berbers will sneak up behind them and slit their throats. Both brigades send out patrols every night. The patrols move a few hundred yards from their perimeter and settle in for the night. They come back in the morning and report the whole road was clear. We keep an eye on them just to make sure that they stay nice and safe because we don't want anyone deciding to send a bigger force down the road."
"Where did these people ever get the idea they were soldiers?" Zadi asked.
"They're not from what Captain Beckett says. She's from back on Earth and knows what these people are, really. They're criminals that became political bully boys because they could kill, rape, steal and destroy and their political bosses would make sure they never got punished." Fa'an chuckled. "Until things turned to shit back home and they had to flee to planet Edo. Surprise, surprise."
Another patrol came in from the south and the patrol leader spoke to Zadi in Berber. Then Zadi explained what had been said to Fa'an.
"This patrol went damned near to the next brigade. Same thing. They sent out a patrol that's all sound asleep within shouting range of their dug in brigade. It was all my patrol could do not to slit their throats for them. We need to get this information back to division."
"We can use my radio." Said Fa'an. "I can guarantee you they can't pick up the transmission and find us."
General Izem looked over the patrol reports, satellite photos, communications intercepts and all other available information and discussed it with Colonel Castle.
"I think we can destroy them, Colonel. We'll have to use the entire division, but with the weaponry we have, what you've given us and what we're captured, we can do it. We'll use two regimental tactical groups to surround the northernmost enemy brigade and pound them while our other regimental tactical group blocks their second brigade from interfering. Once we destroy the one brigade, we turn our whole force on the one remaining brigade and overwhelm it."
It took three days for everything to get ready. The Berbers salvaged all of the enemy weapons, ammunition and supplies that they could and used their new trucks to move their artillery, other heavy weapons and troops into position.
As this was happening, Mejia's troops did nothing except send occasional reports back to Mejia, when Saint George's electronic warfare troops allowed it, saying that they were slowly but surely inflicting massive casualties on the Berbers. In return Mejia promised women, loot, slaves and property to his men in what would be his new kingdom.
Not having been attacked recently, both enemy brigades had gotten sloppier than usual. When the Berber artillery began firing on the northernmost brigade, things began to fall apart at once. The brigade screamed for help and the other brigade, very slowly began moving north. They soon found themselves facing a large force of dug in Berber troops and the advance stalled.
It didn't take the enemy troops too long to figure out that the Berbers' artillery outranged anything they had and they seemed to have a lot of ammunition. The Berbers did have a considerable amount of ammunition, but not enough to pound the enemy into small fragments. Luckily, they didn't need that much.
The northernmost brigade began a breakout just after dark on the first day of the attack. A few of those who headed south made it through, but many did not. To the surprise of the Berbers, a force made up of odds and end of various shot up units of approximately battalion strength headed west towards the Outback. With practically no Berber troops covering the west, most of them got away and disappeared into the uncharted lands beyond the colonies on Ambrosia. If they became troublesome, General Izem thought they could track them down and destroy them at their leisure.
Three Berber regimental tactical groups was now ready to attack the lone remaining brigade of Mejia's army. But the attack never happened.
"They want to surrender?" Izem said.
"That's what the party that came out under a flag of truce told me, sir." A dirty and disheveled Berber officer said. A Lieutenant Colonel Cobb claims to be the commander of the brigade."
Kate checked a computer terminal.
"According to our intel, the brigade commander is a Brigadier General Forbes and there are several colonels below him. Cobb isn't even the senior lieutenant colonel."
"Cobb says the other officers were all killed in the line of duty. I suspect that they were all murdered by the people who wanted to surrender."
"Okay, tell Colonel Cobb we'll accept this surrender under the Laws of War."
"One more thing, sir. Cobb says he and his men can't be sent back to Earth. Too many people there want them dead."
"Under the Laws of War prisoners should be repatriated to their home world." Izem said.
"Tell Cobb we won't send him back to Earth, but we have no idea where the hell he'll end up. No one on Edo will want him and his men and we can't afford to ship that many men, and women, to another planet. Not that there's any planet I can think of that'd take them. We'll have to figure that out later."
The surrender went off without a hitch, but several hours later, Castle got a call from Ms. Chen, the hotel owner from Samland.
"Colonel Castle, I have some news from you concerning General Mejia."
Castle was positive it was going to be trouble.
"What news, Ms. Chen?"
"General Mejia wanted to join his troops to give them the benefit of his…expertise. He borrowed two of our helicopters and got aboard with his senior officers. I'm afraid the helicopters crashed and General Mejia and his officers all died."
"We did not shoot down any helicopters, Ms. Chen."
"Oh, we know you didn't. The surviving crewmembers said it was a freak accident. No one is to blame."
"There were surviving crewmembers?" Castle asked, thinking that sounded very unusual.
"Yes, all of our crewmembers survived with no injuries. I'm sure that was a miracle." Ms. Chen said with a smile.
"Are there any other members of General Mejia's party still with you?"
"There are about a dozen junior officers and some women. We'll be happy to take them into our little family." Ms. Chen knew there were lots and lots of toilets in her hotel that needed cleaning and after the way that Mejia and all of his people had behaved, she felt that was the very least they could do.
"Thank you for letting us know, Ms. Chen, and I'm glad to hear your people survived."
"You're more than welcome, Colonel."
The call ended.
Kate checked something at a computer terminal.
"I don't see any evidence of any aircraft crashes of any sort in the last few days." She said.
"Did you expect to find any evidence?"
Kate stopped and thought.
"Ms. Chen, and her friends, had Mejia and his people killed."
"No, they died in a helicopter crash, just like Ms. Chen said. It's better all around that way."
"Of course."
Neither the Berbers, Saint George nor anyone else on Edo wanted anything to do with Colonel Cobb's people. Neither, in fact did Colonel Cobb. He disappeared with a nineteen-year old girl and all the spare cash that the headquarters of Mejia's division had. From the amount that disappeared it seemed Cobb would be able to live a nice, comfortable life somewhere.
Eventually, a solution to the POW problem was found.
"The Liri Valley?" Castle said.
"It's perfect." Admiral Paredes said, smiling. "Two would be colonizers looked it over and found it suitable, but never set up a colony. One even released some chickens there. The local predators won't go after the chickens for some reason so they're plentiful. And there are several species of plants that grow wild that are edible, tasty and provide needed nutrients. We'll send the POWs there, give them some simple tools, some seed, medicine and instructions and they can support themselves."
"How far away is this Liri Valley?"
"Fifteen hundred miles as the crow flies, but closer to two thousand if you have to walk. And there's a thirty-mile swim involved before they could get back here."
In spite of the best efforts of the Saint Georgians and the Berbers, the idea was a disaster. Once landed, men armed with axes, machetes, hammers, or any other kind of makeshift weapon began attacking those weaker than themselves and stealing whatever they had. By the end of two years, the five thousand POWs had been reduced to no more than six hundred survivors scattered around the Liri Valley in small groups.
Four months after the battle with Mejia's troops was over, Commander James, the senior naval advisor came to see Castle.
"Our ships are here, Colonel."
"Our ships?" Castle asked.
"The Hiawatha is just in from the UK. It's carrying three modern patrol ships. They're beauties. We managed to convince the Ministry of Defence that the Saint Georgians needed a good, big set of ships. We can provide smaller patrol boats later. They're Clyde class ships, about eighteen hundred tons, fusion power plant giving it a speed of about twenty-five knots and unlimited range. She has a 76mm main gun, an anti-air defense system and best of all, she has missiles. Each ship will carry twelve Red Demon missiles. They have a range of 150 miles and can blow any hijacker to bits and pieces. You should tell Admiral Paredes. He'll be ecstatic. We really didn't think the MOD would go along with our idea.
Paredes and all Saint George were ecstatic. The hijackers, having heard that Saint George had hired off world mercenaries to help them had increased their attacks. The attacks were also getting more violent. It was becoming common for the crews of the Saint George ships to be murdered and the ships sunk.
The three ships, the Saint George, the Saint Thomas, and the Saint Francis, were landed from the spaceship and given a complete check by Commander James and his team, tech reps from the shipyard back in the UK, Barrow and Sons, and the sailors of Saint George.
At Castle's suggestion, it was decided to make an all arms attack on the JCL colony as they had been the most violent.
The three ships would stand off and fire their missiles at JCL ships in their main harbor while their single modern patrol plane, the PK 29, fired its own missiles. The aircraft was nicknamed the Lucky Lady and was adorned with a portrait of a beautiful woman, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Kate. The Lucky Lady would use her missiles to attack the JCL's shipyards and other industries that supported the hijackings.
Lastly, the newly established Saint George infantry company, now called Number Five Saint George Commando, named in the hopes that their enemies would think there were four more just like it, would land and bombard the port with mortars and short range missiles. These had been provided from the loot of Mejia's army by the Berbers.
Castle had wanted to go ashore with the commandoes and their mercenary advisors, but cooler heads had talked him out of it. The cooler head was covered in lovely chestnut colored hair.
TBC