Vengeance
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: For the last time! I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.
The next morning, they all met at Shamsa's longhouse again. Once more, Rick was asked to sit next to Shamsa and once more, Kate joined him.
Shamsa spoke. "We have pondered this. To be rid of the slavers would be a good thing. But wars are easy to start, but harder to stop. Therefore, we will agree to allow Captain Castle to put the first part of his plan into operation. He will, with our help, continue to keep an eye on the slavers. He will use his machines to listen to the slavers and learn of their plans for slave raids. It has been suggested that when we gather the Golden Life leaves, that we hide each bale separately so that if our villages are raided, the slavers will not find all of them as when we kept them in our villages. This plan is good and will be done. Does anyone wish to comment?"
Shamsa and Castle looked at the young warriors who had wanted immediate war the night before. Now, they sat quietly and said nothing.
"Then it is done." Shamsa said. Then he smiled. "Now we must have breakfast."
Lance Corporal Daska was shaken awake by the warrior now on watch. "Lance Corporal, Beer Belly is at it again."
Daska moved slowly so as not to cause any movement in the hide they had carefully built above one of the plantations. Beer Belly was the name he had given to the obese human who was one of the guards on the plantation. Daska grabbed his binoculars and swept the area around the plantation before zeroing in on the area where Beer Belly usually was. Sure enough, the human was laying down behind a tree where he couldn't be seen from the rest of the plantation. He made a pillow of his coat and settled down for a nice, afternoon nap. On the other side of the tree was an older Tarkai that they had nicknamed Sentry. His job was to warn Beer Belly of any humans coming. If one did, Beer Belly would stand up and arrange his clothing as if he had just peed. But few ever came near him.
Daska took out his notebook and wrote down the time, date and a summary of Beer Belly's actions, or rather, lack of any actions.
"We could slit his throat and take his weapon." The warrior said hopefully.
"And how many Tarkai slaves would they kill trying to find out what happened?" Daska snarled. "And they might find out about us. Do not be foolish, recruit."
The warrior nodded and smiled. He was one of the warriors who had been chosen to be armed with the Model 71 carbines and be trained by Castle's troops. He was very proud of the fact, but still had much to learn.
Daska watched for a bit and decided that Beer Belly wasn't going to do anything worth watching. "I'm going to check around us." He handed his binoculars to the recruit. "Keep watch."
He carefully moved to the end of the hide, past two more recruits who were asleep, and backed out of the hide. They were on a steep hill a half a mile from the plantation. They hadn't seen a human anywhere near the hill since they'd been keeping watch, but Daska kept checking.
The lance corporal was dressed like any other of the local Tarkai. He wore ankle boots made from the hides of a local animal, and baggy pants and a shirt made of a local equivalent of cotton. The grey material had been daubed with green and brown dye as a form of camouflage. His shirt was far baggier than normal as it had to disguise the fact that he wore body armor and load bearing equipment carrying spare ammo clips, a first aid kit, water, a rain poncho and a small radio. His assault rifle hung across his body in easy reach of his hands. He used his excellent sense to determine that there were no humans, or other Tarkai, around them and then relaxed.
He thought about what he had seen in the last week and what he had heard from other recon teams. The humans were unforgivably sloppy. They never patrolled outside of their own plantations, as they had no fear at all of the free Tarkai. What security they had was aimed at keeping their slaves in line. He had thought out a raid on the plantation what should destroy it and free the Tarkai. First, they would use explosives to destroy the power generator. Tark had no power grid as more developed planets did. With no power, the slave collars could not be activated and could be cut off with no problem. This would also leave their radio without power, preventing the slavers from calling for help. The freed slaves could the load up as much processed Golden Life leaves as they could carry. The rest could be destroyed along with the processing equipment. Neither the slaver's house nor the buildings housing his human employees were built to withstand gunfire. The forest came close enough to the buildings for the Tarkai to fire grenades into the houses. Incendiary grenades would set everything on fire.
Daska smiled to himself. Of course, this would only work for a while. The humans would react, building stronger buildings, cutting back the forest, bringing in more gunmen and more and better weapons. But, this would take time and money.
"Lance Corporal Daska." The recruit called softly. "Humans."
Daska crawled back in the hide. "Who is it?"
"Boobs and the Engineer. At it again."
Boobs was one of the daughters of the slaver, named for obvious reasons. The Engineer ran the processing plant and was Boobs' lover. Daska had seen Boobs give water to thirsty Tarkai and had once given aid to an injured slave and insisted he be off work for several days. Daska hoped that she wouldn't die when they attacked, but that was hardly up to him. He reached for his notebook to continue his report.
As he dismounted, Sergeant O'Hara cursed, for the thousandth time, whoever it was who had introduced horses to Tark. He vowed to himself that he would find him and kill him slowly. Very slowly. Very, very slowly.
As had happened when the Spaniards had introduced the horse to the Americas, horses had run wild on Tark or had been stolen by the Tarkai. While wild horses were not as numerous as they had been on the pre-spaceflight great plains of North America, they were numerous and the locals had enough to mount O'Hara's small patrol.
O'Hara was a heavy weapons soldier, but the Tarkai were being trained as light infantrymen. There was no one for O'Hara to teach his hard won skills to, so he was temporarily excess to requirements. That made him the perfect NCO to lead this patrol.
"Are you all right, Sergeant?" Corporal Feena asked as O'Hara stretched and groaned.
"I will be as soon as I find and kill whoever brought these fucking animals to Tark."
"There have been horses here since my grandfather was a lad, if not before…" Feena began.
O'Hara cut him off. "I know. I'm just bitching. Soldiers bitch, you know. Now get Pallentot'kin over here so we can look at the damned map."
Pallentot'kin was not from one of the local Tarkai tribes, and spoke another language and worshipped different gods. His father was a trader who travelled about with a string of pack horses and Pakkentot'kin, trading with tribes far and near. He had confessed to Castle that he was as interested in seeing what was over the next hill as he was in making a profit. And, he had told Castle an interesting story about a human plantation many, many miles from the Golden Life Valley. This had led to the patrol that O'Hara now led.
O'Hara grabbed a map from his saddlebags and spread it out for Feena, Pallentot'kin and the rest of his patrol to see. "Okay, now that's the waterfall over there, "he pointed, "and the mountain like a witch's hat over there. That means we're right here." O'Hara tapped the map. All of the patrol agreed with him.
"So, we're a day's ride from the ridgeline here." He tapped the map again. "We should be able to see our destination from the top of the ridge and get some idea of what's there."
Again, the patrol agreed with him.
"So, let's hobble the horses, light a fire and have dinner. Then we can pass around a bottle of the good stuff."
"The good stuff?" Corporal Feena said. Some human expressions were still unfamiliar to him.
"Alcohol, young troop. That lovely home brew that you lads make."
"But we brought none with us." Feena said.
O'Hara reached into his saddlebags and brought out two bottles. "And this is why I'm a sergeant and you're a corporal. Now, get busy."
The next night they stopped at the top of the ridgeline. Once they were settled in for the night, Corporal Feena said he thought he could see a light in the distance, possibly a fire.
Using his binoculars, O'Hara could see nothing. "We'll find out tomorrow."
But the next day brought rain so heavy they could barely make out the foot of the ridge they were on.
O'Hara cursed. "The best scout and tracker is young Villus, am I right?"
Corporal Feena nodded. "One of the best in the company."
"Tell him to change out of his uniform and into his civvies. He's not to make contact with whoever's out there unless he can't avoid it. He's to take a quick look around and head back here. Depending on what he sees, we'll decide what to do next."
Once Villus was on his way, O'Hara went to the horse that was carrying their radio and called Captain Castle to report.
After two days in the pouring rain, Villus came back to report. "I got near to the plantation. It appears to be as we were told. I had to move very slowly as they are alert. Much more so than any other plantations we've scouted."
O'Hara thought for a moment. "Okay, we'll ride in tomorrow openly. Villus and Borthun will stay behind with the horse with the radio and their own mounts. Should things not go well, they are to contact Captain Castle and then head back home. No heroics. Understand?"
The next day dawned bright and clear, and a bit warm. O'Hara knew that they'd be seen a mile away when they rode in. Sure enough, as soon as they were out of the trees, humans and Tarkai began running for the plantation buildings. When they came out, they were armed.
"I'd say a hundred, at least, wouldn't you agree, Corporal?"
Feena nodded. "And thirteen of us, now. Even with our weapons, we're in deep shit if they start shooting."
"Lip deep in shit with the tide coming in." O'Hara replied.
The patrol stopped in front of what appeared to be the main house, or at least the largest building. Slightly in front of the humans and Tarkai was an older human woman, grey of hair and spare of frame. She did not look happy to see her new guests.
O'Hara smiled at her. "Good day to you, ma'am. I'm Captain O'Hara of Colonel Castle's Brigade, supporting the Tark Anti-Slavery Alliance and the Tark Liberation Front. We're just one of the colonel's patrols scouting about."
Castle had told O'Hara to exaggerate the size of the unit. If this plantation, so far from the Golden Life Valley, was hostile, it was better that they thought that there was a powerful mercenary force supporting the Tarkai.
TBC