The Advisor
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I've been advised I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Shortly after Battle Group Castle.
Sergeant O'Hara was a first-class pain in the ass. He drank, he gambled, he chased women and he started fights. He did all of these things quite unsuccessfully. But even Castle had to admit that O'Hara was an artist with infantry heavy weapons.
He was once again a sergeant having briefly been a lieutenant, but he was more than used to being busted on a regular basis. However, he was happy. He had a chance to show off his artistry.
He jumped out of the Saint Georgian boat and landed in water up to his waist.
"Okay, people, you can see how deep the water is. Do not, I repeat, do not, get my weapons and ammo wet. If you do, you can damned well start swimming back to Saint George."
The five Tarkai and twenty-seven Saint Georgians he was in charge of carefully made their way off the makeshift landing craft and onto the beach.
Two Tarkai scouts materialized out of the darkness.
"Sergeant, there's no one here, or even close." Said the lead scout. "I can't understand people like this. Don't they ever think?"
"Their problem is that they've never run into real soldiers before." O'Hara said. "They'll get their first lesson tonight. Will we be able to control the fire from my weapons? Our night vision sights only have so much range and I don't want to have to move too far inland."
The Tarkai sergeant laughed.
"You won't need your NVGs and sights tonight. The locals have every light they have lit. You can probably see the town from the far moon. Come up the hill and I'll show you."
O'Hara and the two scouts trudged up the steep hill while the rest of O'Hara's people unloaded the landing craft. Finally, they made it to the top.
"Jesus Fucking Christ." O'Hara said. "I can't believe it. That looks like Skibereen City on a Saturday night."
"Skibereen City? What's that?" Asked the lead scout.
"Back in the United Kingdoms, on the planet Ireland, there's a large island or maybe a small continent called Skibereen. The whole place is set aside for the military. They can have entire corps maneuver against each other in war games, plus they do a lot of testing and research there. Horrible place really. If you're not in the jungle, you're in the desert, or maybe in snow up to your ass. But outside the main cantonment is Skibereen City and it has everything a soldier could want when he's coming off duty with a month's pay in his pockets. Oh, the times I had there…" O'Hara stared off into nothing remembering the good times and not the trouble be got into.
"Anyway, you won't need any night vision gear, sergeant."
"Yeah." O'Hara pulled himself away from his memories. "There's a nice ledge about fifty feet back down that'll be perfect for the mortars, and we can set up the recoilless rifles and missiles right here. As good a place as any, unless you've seen better."
The scout shook his head, something he'd picked up from humans.
"This is as good as it gets."
O'Hara went back down the hill to his troops.
"Get a move on. We have one hour and eight minutes until showtime and we're not going to be late. Got that?"
The weapons were set up, ammunition stacked beside each weapon, and targets selected with twelve minutes to spare.
"Our first shots are into the petroleum storage tanks right by the entrance to the harbor. Intel wasn't too sure, but they think the JCL clowns put them too close together, so they may all go up at once when we open fire. So, we'll be careful with our first rounds, got that?"
They all got that and had gotten that in the many times before that O'Hara had briefed them on what they were to do. But the Tarkai combat veterans among them knew that things that were easy to do in peacetime could get very hard to do when someone was shooting at you. Repetition could help.
After eleven minutes, one of the Tarkai scouts called out.
"I can see rocket exhausts incoming. From the ships I'd say."
Seconds later everyone could see those missiles and those fired from their one combat aircraft.
"Get ready!" O'Hara yelled. "Less than a minute to go."
They watched as the missiles slammed down into the hijacking ships beside piers across the little bay. Some must have been fully fueled as they began to burn.
"Okay, mortars, you go first. Where do we shoot?"
"At the farthest petroleum tanks." The mortar crews repeated in unison. "Because any burning fuel will flow downhill and set fire to other tanks."
"Then fucking do it!" O'Hara yelled.
The mortar crews did it, firing four rounds each from their four mortars.
"Shit!" O'Hara yelled. "We breached three tanks, but didn't set anything on fire. Two rounds of willy peter, each tube."
The crews dropped two rounds of white phosphorus down their mortar tubes and watched for the results.
"That's what I'm talking about!" O'Hara yelled, as the tanks across from them started to burn. "Okay, we'll put two rounds into each remaining tank and see what happens."
O'Hara walked over to his recoilless rifle gunners.
"We have a nice electrical power plant over there. It's not a fission plant or a fusion plant, but runs on oil. Do you think you can knock it out?"
The gunners laughed and said they'd flatten the plant and they did. Soon, the burning power plant joined the burning oil tanks in lighting up the night sky.
"Look at that." The senior Tarkai scout said. "They have an anti-aircraft gun and it's shooting straight up in the air. There's nothing up there now. All the missiles have hit."
"Carson, use your rangefinder to get me a range on that gun."
Carson, one of the guided missile gunners worked on his range finder.
"Eight thousand meters and a little bit. That's past our eight-kilometer range, but I bet if I aimed a little bit over the gun, the missile would drop right on it at the end of its run."
The missiles they had were scarce and expensive. O'Hara had been told not to use them up unless he had to. He decided that destroying a gun that might shoot at one of their aircraft was something he had to do. Besides, he wanted to shoot that gun.
"Okay, Carson, but I'll bet you a tenner that you don't hit it with the first missile."
"Money in the bank for me, Sarge. Money in the bank."
Carson huddled with his crew and worked out range, deflection and how far the missile would have to fly once its fuel ran out. Then he very carefully fired.
Everyone watched as the missile sped on its way. Soon the glare of the missile's exhaust was lost in the fires burning all over the harbor.
Then there was an explosion near where the gun was, but nothing else.
"Ha!" O'Hara yelled. "You owe me ten. Care to bet twenty on another shot?"
No sooner had O'Hara spoken than there was an explosion and they could see gun rounds cooking off and spiraling upwards and outwards. Then three missiles shot upwards and spun through the sky before crashing to earth.
"You owe me ten, Sarge!" Carson yelled. "We not only got the gun, but they must have had a surface to air missile battery nearby. The ammo explosion caused the rocket fuel to start burning and…BOOM!"
O'Hara looked around.
"Damn. We still have ammo and no targets in range."
He really hated to do it, but he ordered his troops back to the landing craft.
The next day, Castle and his staff as well as the Saint Georgian officers poured over satellite photos of the JCL colony.
"My God." Castle said. "We really wrecked the place, didn't we?"
"That we did." Said Commander James. "But a lot of it was their own damned fault. The petroleum tanks the ground pounders destroyed were too damned close together. When one caught fire, the rest followed suite. All of their boats were jammed together, for some reason, so when one caught fire, it spread to the rest. But now our enemies know what we're capable of. They'll be ready for us to come at them."
"We're planning on hitting the anarchists next, aren't we?" Kate asked.
"Yes, ma'am." James replied. "We've had teams going over satellite recon photos for the anarchists, the Cornish and the Quebecers and they're all running around in circles, digging trenches, setting up what whatever artillery they may have, camouflaging their ships and industries, and doing their best to get ready for us to strike."
"Should we hold off for a little bit in hopes they'll relax if we don't strike immediately after the strike on JCL?" Kate asked.
Rick shook his head.
"They know the Saint Georgians are getting help from off planet. Time isn't on their side. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, we'll have more aircraft, missiles, combat ships and more troops. Our enemies will either keep digging in as best they can, or they might even try to attack us."
"I'd recommend we go after the anarchists as we'd planned, sir." James said. "We have everything planned and they're more numerous and better armed than the Cornish or the Quebecers. All of our enemies are putting up coastal fortifications of one sort or another, so I'd really recommend against trying to land troops, sir. We can do enough damage with our air and naval assets."
Castle glanced at Kate and then nodded.
"We'll hit Free Land next, as planned."
Castle and his team watched the assault on Free Land from the recently built war room in the capital of Saint George. As war rooms went, it wasn't that much. It was deep enough underground that no weapons that were likely to be fired by their current enemies could penetrate, but should the Han Worlds take an interest, that would change.
There were multiple screens that showed the positions of all of Saint George's ships, aircraft and ground forces and where their intelligence said the forces of everyone from Samland to the pacifist enclave called Ashram. Only the forces of the JCL, Free Land, Free Cornwall and Quebec Libre really concerned them. And, as far as they could tell, no one was trying to help Free Land.
"We're almost in position, sir." James said softly.
Everyone watched as the green dot representing the single Saint George combat capable aircraft and the gold triangles representing their combat ships suddenly sprouted red lines representing missiles all headed for the continent.
"All missiles nominal." A voice said.
"Missile Delta Four is not on track. Repeat, not on track." Said another voice.
They all watched as one red track suddenly veered to the north and then headed for the ocean below. It disappeared about fifty miles from the ship that had fired it.
"Missile Delta Four has crashed. All other missiles are nominal."
One by on the red lines entered Free land airspace and hit their targets.
Admiral Paredes stood up.
"We'll keep the war room manned at normal levels from now on as we don't think Free Land or any other of our enemies has any means of retaliating. Local dawn will be about 0617 hours and it'll take two hours to get a good read from the recon satellites. I'd suggest we meet back here at 0900 hours to review the photos. "
The recon photos showed extensive damage to the ships that Free Land used to hijack cargoes from Saint George and they also later showed that the other hijacking nations were hard at work digging in. But the following days would show something else.
TBC