Vengeance

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: For the last time! I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.

Castle shook his head and grinned. "Oh, Miss Earth Bound City Slicker, there are horses all over the planets colonized by humans. Most colonies outside of the Core are too poor to have aircraft or ground vehicles available for the masses. Those kinds of vehicles are expensive, require expensive spare parts when they break down and trained mechanics to keep them operational. Not to mention expensive roads and/or landing grounds. Horses, on the other hand are relatively cheap, self-repairing, up to a point, don't require expensive fuel, and they replace themselves and even add to your herd."

"And I'm supposed to ride this?" Kate was familiar with police dogs of various sorts, but couldn't recall ever having seen a live horse before.

"Ride it? Of course not. You'll be slung over Nikolai here like a sack of oats. You're supposed to be unconscious, remember."

"Better than being dead, I suppose." Kate muttered unhappily.

Years before, someone had set up a large steel cross on a hill well outside of Transit Dirtside. On it was the name of Sergeant Daffyd Williams. No one now knew who Williams had been, or why anyone would put a cross up in his honor. Over the years a few people had dug around the cross, but there was no trace of Williams' body there or anything else worth having. An occasional soldier would shoot at the cross, just for the hell of it. Most stayed well away from it. Soldiers were generally a superstitious lot and anything to do with cemeteries or memorials to the dead was considered bad luck and best left alone.

Well before dawn on Fourday, Castle and Beckett set off for Williams' Cross. Kate was lying across Nikolai's back. From a distance it would appear that her hands and her feet were tied together, but they were not. She had an assault rifle in easy reach and wore body armor.

"Are you sure this will work?" She whispered to Castle.

'No. I'm never sure that things will work, but you were there when we planned this. Do you think this is a good idea?"

"No, but I can't think of a better one."

"Just remember, when the shooting starts, roll off of Nilolai and take cover. The assault rifle is there just in case things really turn to shit."

Kate made no reply and made no promises.

The arrived at the top of the hill the Cross was on. Castle looked around carefully. With his unaided eye, he couldn't see anyone else on the hill, or near it. He stood there with one hand on Nilolai's bridle and waited.

An hour after dawn, he saw a car slowly approach. He decided that Vaughn had a much larger budget than he did. He had a large, fancy Earth built car. Vaughn stopped the car at the bottom of the hill and got out. He was holding a small suitcase in his hand.

"I have your money. Do you have Beckett?"

"She's right here on the horse. Are you ready?"

"Sure. Do you want to come down here?"

Castle smiled and spoke softly into the mic clipped to his jacket collar. "Send it."

No sooner had he spoken that nine shots rang out. Vaughn was slammed backwards, a bullet through his brain. His eight men, who had taken cover the night before, died along with him. Castle's two two-man sniper teams and six of his best shots pulled themselves out from the sniper's hides they'd set up two nights before.

When Rick turned around, he found Kate kneeling with her assault rifle pointed at where Vaughn had stood. "Your people killed them before I could get a round off."

"Didn't I tell you to take cover unless things really turned to shit?"

Beckett stood and slung her rifle over her shoulder. "Did you really expect me to cower behind you like some little girl? As far as I'm concerned, when my ass is at stake, things have very much turned to shit."

Castle sighed and shook his head. "And a very fine ass it is. I can see that you'd like to protect it, but in the future, tell me if you're going to do something like this."

Kate just winked at him.

Sergeant Thull, the chief sniper, walked over to Rick and Kate. "I'm damned glad I can move around and get warm now, sir. Staying motionless for two days in this frozen hell is no fun."

"Even with your built-in fur coat?" Castle teased.

"This place is a lot colder than anyplace I've ever been on Tark, sir."

"Did you have any problems spotting them?"

Thull shook his head. "These people were strictly amateurs. They never thought that we'd get here before them and they weren't any good at digging in and camouflaging themselves. Even if we'd arrived with you and Private Beckett, a recruit could have spotted them and killed them." He shook his head. "Useless fuckers."

The rest of Castle's troops moved slowly down the hill and made sure that Vaughn and all of his people were dead. They were. Then they began stripping the dead of their weapons, body armor, comm gear and anything else of use. As they did so, one of Castle's platoons came up from a position near Williams' Cross where they had waited in case things really turned to shit.

Castle was briefed on what they'd found.

"The suitcase wasn't empty, sir. Vaughn had bottle of pretty good rum in it. I guess he was planning on celebrating, but there was no money in it."

"They had eight Earth built assault rifles, and we found twelve pistols among them, all Earth made. Vaughn himself had a submachine gun, Earth made of course and body armor. They each had a short range radio and an assortment of knives. None of their stuff is compatible with our stuff, sir."

Castle frowned. "Well, it looks like top of the line equipment, so we should be able to sell it all to Jules."

"They had about three hundred US dollars in cash on them, sir. They each had a preloaded bank card from the Bank of Zurich. No good to us without a password."

Sergeant Martens spoke up. "Sir, I know a guy who might be able to help with that. But he'll charge twenty percent of what's on the cards."

"We get their room keys?" Castle asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, take Vaughn's car and load a squad in it. Take Martens with you and drop him off at his friend's place. Then go to the Grognard and toss their rooms. Bring anything back that might be useful. Move."

"Have a squad dig a mass grave and put these people in it. Make sure the grave is deep enough to make sure no one finds them without going to a lot of trouble. Dig on the backside of the hill so no one sees you."

A squad unlimbered their E tools and got busy digging.

"Won't people be curious about the gunfire?" Kate asked

"You'd be amazed at just how little people at Transit Dirtside hear or see. Of course a little money might improve their memories, but it'll be a good long while before anyone comes looking for them."

Back at his headquarters tent, Castle looked over the equipment they had gotten. "Sergeant Major Saava, can you think of anything we need from Jules' that we might get for all this?"

Saava grinned. "I have a list that'll reach from here to Tark, sir. But you know as well as I do what we need. What we get depends on what Jules has and what we can get for the gear we now have."

Castle looked over at Kate and Alexis. "Anything you two need?"

"A quick ride out of here." Alexis said. "But I think that's coming. In time, I hope."

"You realize you've made an enemy in Bracken for what you've done? He'll want you dead as well."

Castle smiled. "He'll have to get in line."

After an hour, the squad came back on foot. Sergeant Martens reported. "We left the car a block away from the owner's place. No reason to give anyone the idea we had any connection with Vaughn. Although someone will figure it out eventually."

"Was your friend a help with the bank cards?"

Martens smiled. "That he was. The eight goons averaged a bit over two thousand US dollars on their cards and Vaughn's had over five thousand. All together 21, 104 dollars, less my friend's commission leaves us with $18,993." He handed Castle a piece of plastic." It's all here on a Banque du Commerce card in your name, sir."

Sub-Lieutenant Corroon, who had led the team to the Grognard spoke. "There were just a few things there, sir. We found four small handguns, backup weapons, I guess. We also found a really nice sniper rifle in one room. An 8.5mm Skoda Arms Model 600 with a range finder, day and night sight, a built in computer to calculate temperature, barrel wear…."

"And not compatible with our sniper rifles?" Castle broke in.

"No, sir, but she' a beauty. We also found a Skoda assault carbine in Vaughn's room. It's a brand new model, I'm sure. I've never even heard of it."

"If anyone here has, Jules will. And if he hasn't, he'll make something up."

"We also got Vaughn's pad, sir." The Sub-lieutenant held up a slim computer. "Again, top of the line."

"Damn. We'll need his password to open the damned thing."

Corroon held up a small scrap of paper. "Like this, sir?" Everyone laughed. "The good news is that Vaughn probably hadn't told his bosses back on Earth that he'd found Private Beckett. He has copies of every message he's sent going back fifteen months. The most recent one is dated eleven days ago and just says he's arrived on Transit and is chasing down a lead."

"Who's the message to?" Kate asked.

"Some guy named Oliver. Franklin Oliver."

Kate nodded. "One of Bracken's head goons. He's dangerous."

"We have some bad news, Private Beckett. This Oliver sent Vaughn a list of people who'd been executed for treason for the death of Senator Daley." Corroon handed the pad to Kate.

Kate began to tear up. "Oh my God! This is my whole close protection team, Ryan, Esposito, Stegner, Hastings….Everyone. He had them all killed."

"He'll want you even worse now." Alexis whispered in her ear.

"Anything else on the pad?" Castle asked, wanting to change the subject.

"He did have a plan in case we wouldn't go along with handing Private Beckett over. He'd been talking to Conroy's Legion. No details about us that I've found, just some preliminary discussions about costs."

"Conroy's Legion?" Kate asked.

"A pretty good small mercenary unit. Two companies of infantry and a heavy weapons company. If they'd caught us unawares, they'd have been able to shoot us to pieces with their weapons company." He turned back to Corroon. "Anything else?"

Corroon went on. "The guy was really into sado-porn and he has a whole list of expensive stuff he wanted to buy once he got rich. The pad does have access to another account for the Bank of Zurich. But this one requires he go into the local branch and establish his ID by giving a sample of his DNA. I don't think the fine folks at the bank would be too happy if we showed up with Vaughn's recently dug up corpse and asked to make a withdrawal."

"I'd like to see their faces if we did." Castle said. "Okay, we'll take the rest of the day off, but we'll double the guards and no one goes into town. Vaughn was probably the only one of Bracken's goons here, but let's not take chances. Dismissed."

When everyone had left the headquarters tent, Kate Beckett stayed behind. "I wanted to thank you for what you did. Not many people would have done that for me."

"Actually, I didn't really do anything. I knew Vaughn wasn't going to pay me, so either he'd kill me or I'd kill him. I'm just better at doing that than he was. And once you'd signed on, handing you over was not an option. My people have to trust me. When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can't do that, you're like some animal. You're finished." He looked at Beckett and smiled. "The same goes for a woman, of course."

Author's note: Anyone recognize where I stole most of Castle's last line from?

TBC