Vengeance
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: For the last time! I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.
"I told Geiser that my parents did not sell the concession for Tark to Demming, but that Demming murdered all the rest of my family. I said that as the only living descendent of Jackson and Martha Rodgers, I was now the legal owner of the concession. I further said that I considered all of the sales and leases signed by Demming to be illegal and totally invalid. I asked the Geiser Company to recognize my legal position. I also said the Tarkai were not employees of the plantation owners, but slaves. I advised them that my command had joined the Tark Anti-Slavery Alliance to end slavery on Tark."
"Every plantation sale or lease was financed through the Geiser Bank." Kate said. "This whole planet is basically a monopoly for Geiser Corporation. Losing all of this might be enough to tip Geiser into bankruptcy. Even if it didn't, they'd take a hell of financial hit."
"It does sound like you've managed to unite all of the plantation owners against you, Colonel." O'Hara said with a smile. "They'll be coming for us. You have a plan, sir?"
Castle nodded. "I had intended to retreat as far as we could to draw them after us and then hit their supply lines. Then when they had to retreat, we'd chase 'em. Chase 'em good. But given our strength, I think we'll fight them where we are. "He walked to the map and looked at it. "I think we need to build a good, big dam right about here." He tapped the map.
Everyone gathered around the map. Then both Lieutenant O'Hara and Captain Corroon started laughing.
"Oh, that is nasty, sir." Corroon said, nodding his head. "Oh, so very nasty."
The other officers began laughing as well.
"Okay, people." Castle said. "I'd guess we have a week, maybe less, before the slavers start moving south. We need to get as many civilian Tarkai as we need busy on the dam. Other civilians need to get busy digging entrenchments on the east road and stockpiling weapons, ammo, food and everything else we'll need. Company commanders, get your companies ready. We'll have a staff meeting tonight to start planning."
Everyone hurried off except Kate. She was still looking at the map. "I'm sure you have something brilliant planned, but I just don't see it."
Rick walked over to her. "The slavers aren't really soldiers, and aren't very imaginative. So far, they really haven't had to be either. When they raid to the south, they come by way of two dirt roads, called the east road, here, and the west road, here. Both are dry except in the middle of the rainy season and they go through fairly open country. The forest comes down to about three or four hundred yards from each road, sometimes further."
Kate nodded. "Okay. So why a dam?"
"We build a dam here and the water backs up. With the spring snow melt in the mountains, the west road will be blocked by the water, here. Now, they could build a bridge across the water, or they could go upstream and destroy the dam. Both would take time and allow us to move our forces ahead of them and set up an ambush. But, I'm betting that their aircraft will spot the blockage on the west road and they'll take the east road. The ground is higher there and the ford will still be useable for their trucks and other vehicles. We'll set our ambush here and shoot up the head and tail of the convoy, blocking the road in both directions. If they move off the road to the west, that's pretty boggy in the best of times and it'll be worse then. If they move to the east, they'll be headed straight into our guns. I'm betting that when we spring the ambush, most of the trucks and troops will automatically head to the west, away from the ambush."
Kate kissed him. "That's nasty." She whispered. "But not as nasty as I'm going to be in bed tonight."
As it happened, it took eleven days for the slavers' attack to get under way. First, aircraft flew over they area of the villages and the land in between. The paid special attention to the two places where the roads were flooded. They also flew over the villages, but the trees were too thick to be able to see that the villages were deserted. Castle had sent all extraneous personnel to the south. The only civilian Tarkai that were left were those young men chosen to be porters for the weapons and ammo.
Another day went by before the large convoy of vehicles started moving. As Castle had suspected, they were moving by way of the east road. The slavers still had no notion of communications security and Castle knew he was facing a force of some fifteen hundred men, nearly twice the strength of his own force. But, his men were better trained, better armed, better led and had the advantage of fighting from prepared defensive positions.
One company was deployed where they would strike the head of the convoy. A series of command detonated mines would stop the front of the convoy. The second company was where they hoped the tail end of the convoy would be. A series of command detonated mines was planted well behind that point so that the road behind the tail end of the convoy could be cratered and made impassable to vehicles. The third line company was held as a reserve and the weapons company was distributed between the two front line companies.
All was in readiness.
The start of the ambush went well enough. The mines detonated at the front of the slavers' convoy destroyed three trucks outright and caused four more to slam into the wreckage and overturn. The rest of the vehicles stopped as fast as they could, and the result was chaos. The slavers had expected the Tarkai to retreat as they had before and no one had planned for an attack. It was quickly every man for himself, or occasionally every small group for themselves.
There had been two fixed wing aircraft flying low over the convoy when the ambush was sprung. Both were small, single engine aircraft carrying a pilot and a second person to throw out the knock out gas bombs. The first plane was hit by several heavy machine gun bullets. The 15mm slugs shredded the engine, stopping it. The pilot tried to find a place to land, but crashed into a large tree. The plane was destroyed, and both crew killed. The pilot of the second plane was killed by the heavy slugs and the other crewmember severely wounded. The plane began a slow roll and then dove nose first into the ground.
A small helicopter over the rear of the convoy was engaged by other machine guns and damaged. However, the pilot was able to fly in back to the nearest plantation where it was eventually repaired.
Two other airplanes were too far away from the ambush to be engaged by the Tarkai. They climbed as high as they could and contributed nothing to the fight except for dropping some very poorly aimed knock out gas bombs that missed both sides.
The story at the rear of the convoy was different. It had been intended that the mines would be detonated after the tail end of the convoy had passed, blocking the road behind them. The convoy was so strung out that when the mines were detonated at the front of the convoy, there were twenty trucks that hadn't yet reached the area of the mines. Seeing no other choice, the mines were detonated. The last truck in the convoy promptly reversed back down the road and easily escaped. Some vehicles tried to back down the road and some tried to turn around, all while under fire from Castle's troops. Very few trucks or people escaped from the end of the convoy.
Lieutenant O'Hara was commanding the recoilless rifles, bringing destruction down on the targets he saw as most dangerous. "Gun number one!" He bellowed. "Right in front of you, that truck has some kind of armor plating. Range four hundred yards. Check for the back blast. Let them have it." To his dismay, the shell exploded twenty yards in front of the armored truck, spattering it with shrapnel, but doing no serious damage. "Raise your sights a hair and keep at it." He turned his attention to gun number two whose crew was methodically working its way down the convoy, blasting truck after truck.
"Gun number two! There's a machine gun set up five trucks up from your last target. Hit that next." He smiled as he watched the truck explode and the machine gun and its crew go flying,
Safe from direct fire, behind a small ridge, Captain Popho, the weapons company commander, had his mortars dropping shells on the stalled convoy. He couldn't see his targets, but the forward observers told him they were chopping up the slavers. "More shells! More shells!" He screamed at the porters who promptly brought more shells to the mortars.
One mortar shell landed in a truck that was carrying spare ammunition. There was a colossal explosion and parts of the truck and shrapnel from the ammo went flying. Two Tarkai were killed by the explosion and seven wounded. Far more slavers died.
The convoy's defense began to collapse. Some ran back up the road towards the supposed safety of the plantations. They had to pass through a hail of fire from rifles, grenade launchers and machine guns. Few survived.
Some ran directly away from the ambushers, towards the water that had backed up from the dam. Although the water was quite shallow, anyone who was badly wounded could easily drown.
Many threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. It took Castle and his officers and NCOs some time to get the troops to stop firing, but eventually he took the surviving slavers prisoner.
Castle had the prisoners disarmed and stripped of any militarily useful equipment. He then had his troops go over the wreckage of the convoy for any weapons, ammo or equipment that could be salvaged. Then he addressed the prisoners.
"I don't have the facilities to hold you as prisoners, but I'm not going to kill you as some of my men wish. I'm going to let you leave. If you'll look around at your convoy and at your friends, both living and dead, you'll see why I don't think you're any real danger to me. If you come after me again, I might not be so merciful and you might not be so lucky. The walking wounded will be helped by the unwounded. My men are making stretchers for the wounded that can't walk. You'll carry them back. Are there any medics here?" A half a dozen men shuffled forward. "There are some badly wounded here, so I'm letting you have four trucks to take them back. For God's sake, drive slowly. Bouncing on this dirt road will kill them."
Castle was approached by Lieutenant O'Hara. "Colonel, come and look at what we found." O'Hara led him down a line of vehicles, some destroyed, some damaged and some just abandoned. "Aren't they beauties, sir?"
The "beauties" were two unusual trucks. Instead of having wheels, they were fully tracked. But, they had a truck-like cab and a flat bed in back. The bed was covered by a canvas top.
O'Hara jumped into the cab of one and started the engine. "I've checked them both out, sir. There are a couple of bullet holes in the metalwork and one or two in the top, but mechanically they're just fine. They're just the thing for my idea. What do you say, sir? Can I give it a try?"
Castle thought for a minute and then nodded. "Okay, but you get one recoilless rifle and the one 15mm machine gun. And if you run into any kind of trouble, get hell out. I've got too much on my mind to have to go get you out of trouble. Understand?"
"Perfectly, sir." O'Hara said with a smile.
TBC