Vengeance

By

UCSBdad

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

They trotted through the forest towards the dirt track that the slavers had used to get their vehicles to the Tarkai villages. They stopped within the tree line and looked out at the dirt track. As they had suspected, the slavers had had to bridge a small stream with a temporary wooden bridge.

Bennett got on his radio and got good news. "The slavers are headed east towards Mugwump's village and there's no one headed this way. You know what to do, so get to it." Bennett led the Tarkai as they ran to the bridge.

They did not destroy the bridge outright. That would have just stopped the slavers as they returned and caused them to drive slowly through the shallow stream or use rocks to create another bridge. Instead, Bennett's team cut away the supports holding the bridge up and even cut partly through the large beams holding up the roadway of the bridge itself. Then they ran back to the forest and waited.

They waited until well after dark. Then they heard the roar of engines and saw headlights coming towards them. The first truck that tried to cross the bridge put too much weight on it and the bridge collapsed. The truck fell no more than three feet into the river, but slammed to a halt, throwing the truck onto its side. The truck immediately behind it crashed into the back of that truck. The following trucks managed to skid to halts.

As the chaos mounted, Bennett's team fired into the mass of men and then retreated. There was no pursuit.

The next morning, Castle sat with his arm around Kate as they both drank coffee and listened to the slavers bitch and whine over the radio. They had captured a few slaves, gotten some Golden Life leaves, and done a lot of damage. In return, they had lost expensive and hard to replace vehicles, they had shot off a lot of ammunition with nothing to show in return, and had suffered eleven dead and over twenty wounded.

Half of the slavers were arguing that since the Tarkai had run, they should keep pushing them to the south and away from the valuable plantations.

The other half disagreed. "Chase them to the south? How fucking far south do you think they'd run? I'll tell you how far. All the damned way to the south pole."

"They can't run that far. There are tribes to the south all the way to your damned south pole. They'll fight the local furbutts for sure. And where would we get more slaves?"

The yelling went on for hours.

"Captain, we have a delegation from the other tribes coming in. They want to talk."

"Who are they?" Castle asked.

"It's old Mugwump and his pals. The ones who wanted nothing to do with us when we got here. Since they got raided, I think they're a little more willing to listen to reason."

As Castle found out, old Mugwump wasn't that good at listening to reason. He had a lot of demands to be made that would benefit his village and those allied with him, and offered precious little in return. Castle was firm that the other villages would join the Tarkai Anti-Slavery Alliance and accept him as their supreme commander in the same manner as the other villages. They wouldn't get any special privileges. Old Mugwump was stubborn, but as the discussions went on, he began to lose allies. He eventually had to agree with Castle.

As they say, this was good news and bad news. They had more than doubled their number of recruits, but they lacked the weapons and equipment for them. But Castle had an idea.

"What the French did back in their revolution." He said brightly.

"They had a revolution?" Kate asked. "When?"

"Back before spaceflight, love. Eighteen hundred and something, I think. Anyway, they had an army but when the revolution broke out they had all kinds of untrained volunteers and conscripts ready to fight to defend the revolution. But how would they train them? The answer, demi-brigades."."

"Ah." Said Kate, sarcastically. "Of course."

"No, they broke up their regular army regiments into separate battalions and paired them with a battalion of untrained troops. The regulars taught the rookies how to fight."

"And it worked?"

"They were at war at the time, so a lot of people got killed before everyone was on the same page, so to speak, but the revolution survived."

Kate nodded. "At least we have some time. The last raid was such a fiasco that they'll be a while getting another one under way. The slavers are still arguing about whose fault it is that things went wrong." Kate smiled. "They don't know yet that it was Rick Castle's fault that things went so wrong."

He smiled back. "Flattery will get you everywhere with me."

"Will it get you in bed with me?"

He didn't need to say a word.

Eventually Castle's plan worked. At first, the trained recruits objected to giving up their weapons and equipment half of the time so that what they thought of as Johnny Come Latelies could be trained. The brand-new recruits, many of whom had had their villages raided objected to not being able to train full time.

The problem was solved in a manner that Castle had not expected.

A soldier came running up to Rick and Kate. "Captain Castle, you're need at HQ. There's an incoming message from the Pink Zephyr."

Castle frowned as he started towards his HQ with Kate right with him.

"What is it, lover?" She asked.

"The Pink Zephyr shouldn't be here for another two or three months. Something must be wrong."

"Maybe they just couldn't find a cargo for other places? The Pink Zephyr doesn't really have a regular route. They go where they can find work."

When they go to the headquarters, the recorded message from the Pink Zephyr was not particularly helpful. Captain Coleman said that her ship was inbound and that she'd have to take a roundabout course to get to Castle. She said that the radar at the Tark spaceport was now operational 24/7 so she didn't want to get picked up on radar. She'd be on the ground in five days at the usual place.

Five days later, Rick and Kate, as well as about a thousand Tarkai were watching as the Pink Zephyr slid through the atmosphere and landed. The cargo hatches opened and very much to Castle's surprise, a long line of uniformed and armed Tarkai began to march out.

One of them headed for Castle at a trot, stopped and saluted. "Captain Zendai reporting, sir. I've brought one hundred and seventeen Tarkai soldiers with me. Everyone of them is a veteran and every one is well armed and equipped. And we're all ready to fight for Free Tarkai, sir."

It took Rick a second or two to process this. "I'm certainly glad to see you and your men, Captain. However, this is very unexpected. How did you learn about this?"

Zendai smiled. "You're famous, sir. There aren't a lot of Tarkai out among the stars, but what there are have heard all about you. They've been pushing to get those of us in the military to come to Tark to fight. They've also been collecting money to buy weapons and equipment. It's not just Tarkai that have been contributing, but a lot of humans as well." He took out a pad and handed it to Castle. "This is what we've brought for you this time, sir."

Castle's eyes widened as he saw the list of weapons, ammunition and equipment that the Pink Zephyr had brought. He could equip every volunteer he had and then some. He turned to Kate. "Babe, please get more porters and get the weapons and whatnot off the ship and distributed. I want to go talk to Captain Coleman."

Kate smiled. "One thing, lover. Given the size of your new force, you should be a lieutenant colonel, at least. By an amazing coincidence, I've been learning embroidery from the Tarkai ladies and I've embroidered some nice rank insignia for you. Can we have a little ceremony after we unload the ship?"

"Absolutely." Castle said.

"I'll give you my personal congratulations after that. Okay?"

Rick could just nod as Kate walked away, wiggling her ass.

He found Coleman in her ship, telling the porters what to take first. She smiled when she saw Castle. "Captain Castle! Good to see you. Your friends out there are making me rich. I have to go back and pick up another load of volunteers and weapons to deliver here. I should be back in a month or so. In the meantime, I have a message I was told to deliver to you, in person, and with no one else around. Come back to my office, okay?"

Castle followed her through the ship to her office. She handed him a pad. He saw that the pad would check his DNA before releasing the message. When He read the message, he smiled. He had hoped that something like this would happen, but he hadn't expected it so soon.

"I was told there'd probably be a reply." Coleman said.

Castle nodded and took out his own pad. He typed a reply, encrypted it and then transferred the message to the pad Coleman had. "If you could please return this?"

She nodded. "With pleasure. I have a contract now to supply you, courtesy of the Free Tark movement. I've been able to pay off some old debts, and get a few things fixed on the old girl. If I can get the new government of Tark to let my transport the Golden Life product, I can freaking retire in a few years."

"Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, Captain Coleman. We haven't won the war, yet."

"You will. Oh, are you still not sleeping with the brunette?"

Castle just laughed and left.

With his new recruits from off-planet, and his new arms and equipment, Castle organized his command as a battalion. Headquarters and headquarters company, commanded by the newly promoted Captain Kate Beckett contained the usual staff functions: Personnel and administration; Intelligence; Operations; Logistics; and communication. The company also had a sniper platoon, an engineer platoon and a scout platoon. The very best Tarkai scouts were in the latter platoon.

There were three rifle companies, C Company, F Company and H Company. It was hoped that using non-consecutive letters might convince their enemies that there were more companies than actually existed. C Company contained most, but not all of the Tarkai and humans that had initially come to Tark with Castle. He had plans for that company.

Lastly was the Weapons Company. Since their weapons were more complex and took longer to master than infantry weapons, more experienced troops were assigned there.

But, all good things come to an end.

Castle, Kate and his officers sat in the headquarters longhouse and listened to the radio broadcasts from virtually all of the plantation owners. So many were on the air that they were all talking over each other, making it very difficult to tell what was being said.

"It's hard to tell, "Castle said, "but from the sound of it, Geiser's told everyone about the letter I sent to them through my lawyers."

"What the hell did you say in that letter?" Asked Lieutenant O'Hara, now the executive officer of the weapons company.

TBC