The Advisor
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I've been advised I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Shortly after Battle Group Castle.
Castle and his staff and Admiral Paredes and his staff gathered once again in the war room.
"We have the communication intercepts from all four nations ready? And an appreciation from intelligence?" Paredes asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Okay, let's start with the intercepts."
"The first one is from the most recent incarnation of Jesus Christ Li. He's speaking in Chinese, of course, so we've translated it into English, sir."
The main screen lit up with a stocky man, appearing to be about middle aged, dressed in a baggy blue suit with a high collar.
"The lickspittle running dogs of the pagans on the so-called United Kingdoms have dared to attack the home of God's chosen people. They have evilly spread destruction upon our peaceful people. Our God will not allow us to let this pass. We will destroy them utterly. For the time being, we are allying ourselves with non-believers in the hopes that when we've utterly destroyed the Anti-Christ that lives on the islands whose foul name I cannot bear to utter, we can lead them onto the paths of righteousness and peace."
The video ended.
"Next up are the eleven leaders, more or less, from the largest communities in Free Land."
The video came on and showed eleven people crowded around a table. One woman spoke.
"Greetings, fellow members of our free associations of communities. As you doubtlessly know we were foully attacked by a government. Yes, this is what governments do. They seek to enslave free man and women. Doubtlessly, the insane government of Saint George and their blood soaked mercenaries, backed by an obscenely large government which enslaves four entire planets and seeks to enslave more has only one intention, to force a government upon us. We cannot allow this and have formed a free association with other groups on this planet to oppose this crime. We have come to ask you, as free persons, to arm yourselves and form free associations to fight our enemies."
Again, the video ended.
"I'm not sure I'd be too frightened of an army made up of people who regard discipline as a dirty word." Admiral Paredes said."
"The best discipline comes from inside a soldier, and it's not imposed from without. Plus, you're just as dead if you're killed by a poorly disciplined soldier as you are with any other kind." Castle replied.
"Touché, Colonel."
The next video was shown.
The speaker was a painfully thin man with long blond hair and a blue robe.
"Cornwall was a rich, powerful and well respected country for centuries until the evil English conquered us and took away our language, laws and heritage. Now the English speakers are coming for us again and we must fight them again. But we have allies in three other nations that the English also wish to subdue, and we have the right on our side. We will prevail!"
"Was Cornwall ever a nation?" Castle asked.
"It was one of the tribal areas in Celtic Britain before the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD and was a nation of sorts after the collapse of the Roman Empire, but that's more than two thousand years ago." Kate replied.
"The last video is from Quebec Libre."
Admiral Paredes interrupted.
"Do they say anything that we haven't heard already?"
"Um, no, sir."
"Then let's skip it, if that's all right with Colonel Castle."
"Fine with me." Rick replied.
"What does intelligence have to say about this?"
An officer stood up and walked in front of the group.
"Sir, the population of the four countries allied against us is roughly a half a million people. However, their militaries are based on militias with very few full-time troops. Most of those troops are really more police than soldiers. Given their poor economies, they probably can't put more than fifty thousand troops in the field. But many of them will be fanatics more than willing to die for their cause."
"Because we helped Berberia in their recent war with the Tigers, and since they feel Samland was on our side, our intercepts indicate they'll attack Berberia first and then Samland. Berberia has a powerful force, but Samland is basically defenseless. However, we think we have five to six months before they attack."
Castle shook his head.
"Even if their armies are poorly organized and led, I'm sure they could attack well before then."
"Not if they want to eat, sir." The intelligence officer said. "It'll be another month before spring planting in the JCL and later than that as you move north. They'll have to put their civilians on short rations to be able to feed their armies. If they try to attack before that, they'll starve."
"Colonel Castle," said Admiral Paredes, "we have taken some steps to prepare for this war."
"One, we've let the local office of Pacific Partners know about this and also their offices on Sylvestre. They're putting all the pressure they can, which is a lot, on Edo colony to provide us and the Berbers with weapons. They also want Edo colony to forbid the importation of weaponry, and, well, anything else to the colonies attacking us. Edo doesn't like that idea, but they're under a lot of pressure. We understand they may ask to be able to let medicines and such in."
"Two, we've sent a fast ship from Edo colony to the United Kingdoms and asked for as much help as they can give us. We'd like your battle group, if possible, and anything else the UK can send us."
"I'd like to add a message to the UK MOD myself." Castle responded. "I can pay for another courier ship."
"Certainly, Colonel. But we'll be happy to pay for it. We hired the fastest ship that Edo colony has, but it'll take two weeks to reach the UK and God knows how long before we hear from them."
"In the meantime, Admiral, I and my team will do everything in our power to get Saint George, Berberia and Samland ready for war."
"Colonel, we did do some checking on you and your unit, but perhaps you could refresh our memory about the composition of your unit? It's called a battle group. What exactly is that?"
Castle was positive that Admiral Paredes knew he wasn't a mercenary in any traditional sense, but a part of the UK's military calling himself a mercenary so as to not involve the UK in an actual war with the Han Worlds. But, he answered as if he were a mercenary.
"My battle group is a heavily reinforced battalion. We have a headquarters and headquarters company which my wife usually commands that has the usual staff functions plus we have a sniper platoon attached, a foot mobile scout platoon made up entirely of Tarkai, and a security platoon."
"We have an armored cavalry squadron of three platoons, ten tanks and thirty or so armored infantry fighting vehicles of one kind or another. We also have an engineer squad in an AFV and a tankdozer, one with a bulldozer blade in the troop headquarters. In addition, the troop headquarters has a self-propelled 105mm gun. It's based on the same chassis and turret of our 155mm guns. Since the troop operates well in front of the main body, sometimes it needs a bit more firepower."
"I have five all arms line companies, each with two tank platoons and two armored infantry platoons. Alpha company has five tanks per platoon and four IFVs, the rest have four of each. In addition, we have a heavy tank company of fourteen tanks."
"Then there's a heavy weapons company with six self-propelled 120mm mortars and seven anti-aerospace vehicles."
"The artillery battery has eleven 155mm SP guns, three 1280mm SP guns and one tactical missile launcher."
"We also have an armored engineer company and I understand we've acquired an air cavalry troop, but we got that since I've been here. I assume it's rather like a standard UK air cav troop."
"Then we have the usual support units, a medical company, supply and transportation company, maintenance company, and other odds and ends."
Admiral Paredes frowned.
"You have a rather oddly organized unit, Colonel. I've never heard of an armored cavalry troop having its own engineers or its own organic artillery."
"We're a mercenary unit, sir. A regular army unit would be able to call upon its parent brigade, division or even corps if it needed, say, more artillery support or more engineers. I have only my own resources. We've been lucky in our last few missions in capturing a lot of enemy equipment. Most of it isn't compatible with our equipment, but we can sell what we capture and buy what we need. But again, we can only buy what's available. When we were last on Transit, we had enough spare cash to buy the 105mm gun, but nothing else we could use was available, so we bought it."
That last part was a lie, of course, but Castle had to stay in character.
Oddly enough, they got their first help only three days after that. The two ships must have passed each other.
"Colonel, there's an X-boat from the UK entering the system." Sergeant Major Saava said.
"And ex-boat?" Admiral Paredes said. "A former boat?"
"No, sir. That's short an express boat. Since the only way to get a message from place to place is to put it on an FTL ship, the UK an express boat service that connects our main allies in the Europa Cluster and as many other planets as we can cover. That's another thing we don't have enough of."
"What are they like?" the admiral asked.
"They have a great big engine and they cram a two-man crew and either passengers or cargo in the few spaces between the engine and the hull. I've never taken a trip on one, but I've been inside one. The boats are so crowded that the twelve passengers have to sleep in shifts. Each passenger gets to sleep eight hours before he has to turn the bed over to someone else."
"Let's hope this express boat has brought is good news." The Admiral growled.
The news was good and was brought by a Lieutenant Burke of the Royal Space Navy, along with computerized communications and intelligence. Burke summarized what he had brought to the two staffs.
"Things are happily worse in the Han Worlds, sir." Burke said. "After General Ziang's attempted coup, the government of the Han Worlds recalled all of the Han "volunteers" who were raising hell in the Europa Cluster. To everyone's surprise, almost all of them refused to go home in disgrace. Many of them had developed their own sources of supply for weapons, food, troops, money and intelligence and decided they could do without anything from their government until the government "came to their senses.". Most of them were every bit as fanatical as Ziang."
"Better yet, from our point of view, many of the pirates that the Han had been supporting had strong connections to Ziang's "volunteers" and were willing to help out by smuggling anything the volunteers needed and acting as the volunteers' naval force. The Han Worlds Space navy, which had been riding high because they had refused to support Ziang's coup suddenly found themselves the object of a great deal of suspicion by the government."
"Lastly, a strong task force from the Chinese Space Navy showed up at the Han Worlds to impress on everyone that their job was to keep the UK occupied in the Europa Cluster and not start any wars that China could get dragged into since the Chinese government felt they needed to concentrate on Earth and the Core, and a few other wealthy, nearby planets."
"So, there was a wholesale purge in the ranks of the Han Worlds' government, Army and Navy. Right now, everyone there is concentrating on not doing anything that might get them in trouble, which means, not doing anything."
"That's very nice for the UK and for the Europa Cluster as a whole, Lieutenant, but it doesn't help us here in Saint George much." Castle said.
TBC