Vengeance
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: For the last time! I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.
They walked towards the restaurant on marble floors, covered with expensive hand-crafted rugs, surrounded by dark wood paneling set off by highly polished brass fixtures. They arrived at a table set with a gleaming white tablecloth, sparkling glassware and glowing silverware.
Their waiter, Hippolyte, waited upon them with a perfect tuxedo over his large grey-skinned body. His trunk-like nose swung back and forth as he looked at each of his customers. "Would you like to start with some coffee?"
Kate brightened up. "Can I have a grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla?"
"Certainly, Madame." Hippolyte said with old world dignity. "And you, Miss?"
"I'll have the same." Alexis said.
"Sir?"
"Just black coffee for me, Hippolyte."
"Very good, sir. I hope the Zambesi blend will be acceptable?"
"Perfectly so."
The two women pored over the menus. Then Kate spoke. "What can we order?"
"Anything you want. Two of anything you want, but you'll have to eat it all here. The Club doesn't approve of take out food. They think it gives the Club a bad name."
"What's an ice crusher?"
"You're looking at the ice crusher's breakfast special?"
Kate nodded.
"There a large fusion plant on the outskirts of town. They use the waste heat to melt down the glaciers. In the short term it gives us water, and it can be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen. Lot of vehicles run on hydrogen here. In the long run, it'll give us more ice-free land. But, to answer your question, the ice crushers are the ones who melt the ice. It's hard and demanding work. We don't want a flood coming through Dirtside Transit. The ice crusher's special breakfast is the biggest they have. It's a traditional Dirtside breakfast, suitable for men doing hard and demanding work."
Both women ordered the ice crusher's special while Castle ordered his traditional English breakfast. Castle watched as the two women shoveled their food into their mouths. He could believe they hadn't eaten in two days. About halfway through, Kate must have realized that Castle was watching her. She slowed down and glared at Alexis. Alexis apparently got the idea and ate more slowly. When their breakfasts were eaten, Castle suggested more coffee.
Kate savored another sip of coffee, then spoke. "Why are you interested in our stories?"
"I've spent all of my military career in scout, recon or tactical intelligence units. A strong sense of curiosity is an asset and I have one. You need to wonder why an enemy's radio traffic patterns have changed slightly. You wonder why the enemy is sending fewer patrols out, or why your patrols are getting so deep into enemy territory. In your cases, I'm curious because your accents say you're from Earth. Not many of you this far out. And you're educated, an oddity on Transit Dirtside. And I find that my two beggars are armed. That makes me very curious."
"It's unlikely you'll gain any valuable military knowledge from us."
Castle shrugged. "I once spent a night drinking with a Zoroastrian poet. I wanted to learn about his planet. All I learned was about Zoroastrian poetry. But, two years later I was able to get valuable intel from a Zoroastrian because I knew of their poetry. He trusted me. Maybe I'll never use what you tell me, but I'm still curious."
Kate reached into her pocket and brought out a small leather wallet. She passed it across to Castle who opened it.
He whistled. "Captain Katherine H. Beckett, United States Constabulary. You should not be begging, Captain, unless you're undercover."
"I'm not a captain anymore, but the ID can be useful."
"Useful how?" Castle asked.
"It's my story, can you let me tell it my way?"
"Please go ahead."
She took another sip of coffee and began. "My parents were lawyers and they wanted me to be one as well. But, I sort of rebelled and accepted a commission in the Constabulary when I graduated from college. I was good and rose fairly rapidly. I was in charge of the Close Protection Unit for Senator Mike Daley of California. How much do you know about Earth's politics?"
Castle thought for a moment. "Not much. I know the Triple Alliance began to unravel some years back and it's been unraveling faster and faster. Nationalists from the US, Russian and China all feel that their country should be top dog, not just in the Core, but throughout known space. They're trying to break up the Alliance."
"A good enough analysis." Kate said. "Senator Daley was a passionate supporter of the Alliance. He was sure that if the Alliance broke up, there would be war, nuclear war, not just on Earth or in the Core, but everywhere. His main enemy in the Senate was Senator William Bracken, of New York."
Kate stopped and took another sip of coffee. "Politics is sometimes described as a blood sport. It got to be that way on Earth. Mobs of supporters of either side would attack each other, riot at each other's political meetings, and generally raise hell. Some people died on both sides and that raised the temperature. We got intel that Bracken intended to assassinate Senator Daley. We increased our security, but we couldn't believe a US Senator would have one of his colleagues murdered. We were wrong. Very wrong. A team of heavily armed assassins shot their way into Daley's office and killed him. We managed to catch them as they tried to escape. There was one idiot just standing there, just enjoying the show, so I lit him up with my assault rifle. He turned out to be a nephew of Bracken's who thought a political assassination would look good on his resume or something. He was too stupid to realize he could get killed."
"Oops." Castle said.
Kate went on. "Bracken already had a cover story ready. He had "evidence" that Daley had been murdered by Russian and Chinese paid terrorists. It was a simple matter for him to add the name of a "traitor" to his story. Captain Kate Beckett had been the inside woman who had let the terrorists get to Daley. There was a warrant out for my arrest almost at once."
"You were lucky to get away." Castle said.
"It was more than luck. My commander, Colonel Montgomery, got me some money, a number of phony passports and a ticket on a ship going out of Sol system. He told me to run and keep running. So, I have." She grimaced. "He should have run, too. He was executed." She took another sip of coffee. "And here I am, begging on the streets of Transit and keeping an eye out for assassins."
Castle turned to Alexis. "And your story?"
"My name is Alexis Harper, and Senator Daley was my father. When he was just beginning his political career, he married a woman named Kyra Blaine, the niece of Senator James G. Blaine of Texas. The marriage was strictly political. It served to unite two political families. The two had a great deal of passion for pro-Alliance politics, but no passion for each other. Daley had four children by his wife and six more by other women, obviously including my mother, Meredith. While Dad didn't exactly flaunt his relationship with his other children, he made sure we were well taken care of, educated and protected. I even got an internship with his office while I was in high school which became a part time job while I was in college." She sighed and looked sad. "I would have graduated three months after he was killed."
"Do you know how to use the weapon you have, or are you just carrying it for show?" Castle asked.
She smiled. "Oh, I know how to use it, all right. And I can use a lot of other weapons. I was a lot closer to the street than some of the ivory tower political types around Dad. I saw the violence out there and it frightened me. I talked a Constabulary trooper into teaching me how to shoot. When the assassins came, I fought back. I got one, too. When Kate had to flee, I went with her. I had some money stashed away and I knew a guy who could get me good, false papers. And here I am, with Kate."
"Now what about your story, Captain Castle?" Kate asked.
"Have you ever heard of the planet Tark?"
Both women shook their heads.
"How about Ardizir?"
Kate nodded. "It's an extra-solar planet. It's one of the few places that are on a technological par with humans."
"More than that. They developed faster than light travel a couple of centuries before we did, but the Ardizir'ho don't seem to have the human drive to go out and find new homes on new planets. They've set up research stations on planets they've found interesting, but never any colonies. When the two races ran into each other, there was a lot of exchange of information. One of the things the Ardizir'ho found out about was a plant that grew on Tark. It's a cure for some sort of degenerative nerve disease that plagues them. They call it Golden Life because the plant has golden leaves and it's life giving to them. The extract of the plant could have been manufactured in chemical plants on Earth, but the Ardizir'ho are great bioengineers. They tried to grow the plant on Ardizir, but failed. They modified the plant to grow there, but it was nowhere near as effective. For a lot of reasons I don't understand, the Ardizir'ho refuse to use any medications made by "dead" machines. Their only option was to ask the nice humans to grow the stuff and then buy it from us."
"How did that effect you, a soldier?" Kate asked.
"My dad was asked by the Geiser Corporation of New Hanover to run the plantations on Tark. Make agreements with the local Tarkai tribes, set up the plantations, recruit humans to run them. Actually, they were set up on a franchise basis, and of course, recruit Tarkai labor. I guess I was never meant to be some kind of glorified farmer, though."
That, Castle thought, was true as far as it went, but was far from being the whole truth.
"You became a soldier?" Alexis asked.
"I got a scholarship to a two-year military college in the United Kingdoms, Lothian Military College. From there I got a commission in a mercenary unit, Black Jacques Schram's Brigade. But now I have my own small mercenary unit."
"Black Jacques Schram's Brigade? One of the so-called mercenary units out of the United Kingdoms?" Kate said.
Castle raised an eyebrow. "I can assure you that Black Jacques Schram's brigade is a mercenary unit. We always insisted on getting paid."
Kate just smiled. "So, it's just a coincidence that somehow Schram's brigade and a dozen or so other mercenary units ranging from battalion to brigade in size always seem to end up fighting for governments or causes favored by the United Kingdoms and they always seem to be opposed by the Han Worlds?"
Castle shrugged and smiled back. "That's understandable. The Han Worlds don't use mercenaries, ever. They send "volunteers" if they need to support one of their friends."
"Captain, I may not know an awful lot about extra-solar affairs, or about the Europa Cluster in particular…."
"Then may I educate you, Captain Beckett?"
Kate bowed slightly. "Certainly, but I'm not a captain anymore."
Author's note: Hamlet 77 asked me if I'd been getting notice of my PMs as he wasn't getting any notice from FF. I checked my PMs and found I had PMs going back to December 2019 that I hadn't gotten any notice of. I tried to make at least one reply to everyone who PM'd me, but if you PM'd me and never heard back from me, I apologize. I won't depend on FF to notify me any more, I'll check them myself. Anyone else have that problem?
TBC