Driving Miss Beckett
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I'd drive Miss Beckett anywhere, but I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: In the same fictional universe as my story The Pilot and its sequels, but several centuries earlier.
They visited the Fourth Corps, but they were very busy getting ready for the upcoming Laconian rainy season offensive. Kate did get to visit a forward platoon position in the Famous Fifth Division's sector, probably because everyone was too busy with real work to stop her.
They discovered that after rains, tracked vehicles churned the mud up into an awful semi-liquid that got everywhere.
"I've never been any place where you can stand in mud up over your boots and have dust blow in your face." Kate grumped.
"Maybe someone will help you wash it all away tonight." Rick suggested, getting a smile from Kate.
When the rainy season and the Laconian offensive began, they were at sea in a Teresan frigate, the Exeter. In the daytime, the rainy season was bad enough. At night it was worse. All of their sensors, from the human eye on up were degraded by the pouring rain, and the smaller ship pitched and rolled badly. Far to the east, they could see lightning flashes, but they were too far away to hear thunder.
"Captain, there seem to be some Laconian ships off their coast to the north of us. Is there some reason we're not attacking them?" Kate asked.
"Yes, there is, ma'am." Captain Stegner replied. "It's a trap. Those ships we see are their oldest, most useless old crocks. Missile boat that are ready to be scrapped. They're out of range of our anti-ship missiles and we're out of range of theirs. But we know they have lots and lots of shore-based missiles up there, all protected by anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. If we go after them, we'd get hit for sure."
It took another fifteen minutes for something to happen.
"Missile launch." The radar officer called out.
"Where away?" Stegner yelled.
"East. It just popped up out of nowhere. No radar. No infrared. Nothing. And it's heading for the Laconians. Must be one of our subs out there. Decided to take a shot at the old crocks."
"Prepare to launch one missile and inform Firenzan missile boats P 23, P27 and P 30 to fire one missile at the Laconians."
"Sir, we can't possibly hit them from here. They're out of range."
Stegner smiled.
"Yeah, we know that, but they don't. We'll give them something extra to worry about."
One missile streaked away from Exeter and seconds later a missile was fired from each of the Firenzan missile boats. Those missiles did attract the attention of Laconian defenses and did split their defenses.
"Explosion, sir. Looks like the sub got a hit or at least a near miss. Radar is showing the Laconians are headed for home. One ship is lagging well behind. Even if the sub didn't sink her, any damage at all will be enough to send her to be scrapped."
"Do we have any idea who launched the missile?" Kate asked.
Stegner thought for a moment.
"Speaking off the record 'cause I don't want to give anything away to the enemy, I'm betting it was the Sand Lance. Captain Tyson is really an aggressive type. He may get into trouble for launching a million credit missile to damage an old wreck like that missile boat, but probably not."
It was still raining when dawn broke. If anything, Castle thought it was raining harder than it had at night. He was about to suggest that he and Kate should go to their (separate) cabins and get some sleep. That idea was quickly quashed.
"Torpedoes on sonar. Fast screws coming from zero one zero degrees true. Range nine zero zero zero yards and closing. Speed five zero knots." There was a break, then. "Two torpedoes inbound."
"Probably damned homing torpedoes." Stegner said. "Can you predict a target?"
"No, ma'am. Could hit us or any of the Firenzan missile boats. Depends on the computer on board the torpedoes."
"Can we launch on the sub?"
"No, ma'am. She's really quiet. Could be one of their Project 5067 subs we've heard about. Really quiet."
"Ma'am." Another officer broke in. "Sinbad One says he has the torpedoes on his dipping sonar. He can direct Sinbad Two to try to bomb the torpedoes."
"Tell him to go ahead."
Castle whispered to an officer standing near them who didn't appear to be involved in the torpedo attack.
"What's happening. Who's Sinbad One and Two?"
"Sir, those are anti-submarine helicopters. Sinbad One has a sonar system that can be dipped into the water to detect subs. The torpedoes will have to go fairly close to the surface to hit us, otherwise they'd just go right under us. So, dropping a bomb might destroy them or at least knock them off course."
Rick and Kate, and everyone on the bridge watched at the helicopters tracked the torpedoes. Every once in a while, the rain closed in and they lost visuals on the choppers, but they were on the Exeters's radar.
They didn't see the bomb drop due to the rain, but they heard the explosion.
"I'm only picking up one set of screws, ma'am." Said the sonar operator. "Heading away from us and it seems to be going deeper."
"Can we get the sub itself?" Stegner demanded.
"I'm not getting anything, ma'am. I'll bet he's got the thermocline between us and him and I'm guessing he's headed for the Briar Patch."
Castle looked at the young officer near them and raised an eyebrow,
"Sir, the thermocline is where warmer surface water meets colder water. Sonar waves will bounce off the thermocline, meaning we can't get a sonar fix on the sub, The Briar Patch is a section of the seabed near here where lots of ships have gone down over the years. The sub's captain will take her down and sit on the bottom, it's about a hundred and fifty fathoms. That's well above his crush depth. He'll turn off all of his systems and sit on the bottom and wait us out. Even with a magnetic anomaly detector, something to pick up something magnetic like a ship's hull, we won't know the sub from all the wrecks down there."
"Can't we just wait until he has to come up?" Kate asked.
"We could, but we'd be sitting here and letting the Laconians think up something really nasty for us. Plus, they could just send other subs out and go around us and attack elsewhere. We'll stay for a bit and hope we get lucky, but this looks like a tie to me. Sub zero, us zero."
And it ended in a tie.
Later that day a helicopter came and took Rick and Kate off the Exeter. Once back in Firenza they flew back to Khalistan.
"You've seen all the places you came to see." Rick asked, gently stroking Kate's hair as they lay in bed. "What now?"
"I have to go back home. The Independent Progressive is as good as dead. I'll have to see that it's all wrapped up neatly. I'll probably sell off the various bits and pieces as no one seems to want to take over the paper as it is. Not that I'd blame them. And, Grandpa Jim has offered me a job with any of BME's operations that I would like. I was kind of thinking about getting out of print media and into electronic media. Something different."
"You'd be staying in Christmas Landing City then?"
"For a while. Grandpa Jim had an idea that we could probably use a full-time war correspondent here in the Circle Sea. I might try to get that job."
"What would it take to get you to really try for the job?"
Kate just laughed.
One year later…
The Commander of the carrier air wing stood in front of his pilots and aircrew in the hangar bay of Furious. Behind him was a very large holographic map of part of Laconia.
"I know you've all heard this a hundred times before, but as most of you know, things that are easy in peacetime and difficult in times of war. And things that are difficult in peacetime are nearly impossible in time of war. So, I'm going to tell you this for the one hundredth and first time."
He tapped the map behind him and brought up a very small, but very important section of Laconia.
"This will be an alpha strike by us and by our friends from Fortitude…"
The mention of the other carrier brought some subdued boos from the assembled pilots and aircrew.
"As I said this will be an alpha strike by us and that other carrier. I'll be flying mission lead. If anything happens to me, Captain Hunt from Fortitude will take over. Fortitude's Hurricanes will go in first to suppress the Laconian air defenses. While they're doing that, we'll attack the bridges at Torri. Nearly a quarter of all Laconian war materials going to the south and to Firenza go over those bridges, both railway bridges and vehicle bridges."
He tapped the map again and the picture zoomed out, showing several air bases near the bridges.
"There's no way they won't see us coming. Even if we could somehow suppress all of their radars, they still have ground observes with binoculars and landline phones. The task force is going to fire all of the surface-to-surface missiles they can at their airbases. Some will get knocked down, but a lot will do some damage, but we can expect a hell of a lot of aerial opposition. We will hit them once. Going back for a second strike is a good way to get yourself shot down and even killed."
"Any questions?"
There were none.
"Okay, man your planes."
His crew chief had his Cutlass tighter all ready for him.
"Captain Castle, Kate is all ready to go, sir." He tapped the name of the airplane, Kate, which was printed in small black letters just underneath Castle's name and that of the crew chief.
As Castle was strapped into his ejection seat, he looked up to the ship's bridge. As he expected, he saw one watcher with long brunette hair watching him. He waved and she waved back.
He forced his concentration away from Kate and to the job at hand. He taxied his aircraft to the catapult and was hooked up to the catapult's bridle. He got the okay from the catapult officer, saluted and was shot of the ship.
For once, things were going well. Circling over the bridges he could see smoke rising from the anti-aircraft missile and gun positions. There was defensive fire coming from the Laconians, but not as much as he'd feared. Already, two spans were down on the railroad bridge and three were down on the vehicular bridge. And his attack aircraft were only halfway through their runs.
"Strike leader, this is Red Queen. We have four zero bandits approaching yours, coming from nine five degrees, angels two two and climbing, speed six three zero knots. Acknowledge. Over."
"Red Queen this is strike leader. I copy four zero bandits approaching from nine five degrees, angels two two and climbing, speed six three zero knots. Over."
"Excellent, strike leader. We'll keep you advised of anything further. Red Queen out."
Red Queen was the call sign for the section back on the carrier that collated all of the sensor data and intelligence and advised aircraft of their information.
Castle turned his fighters toward the oncoming enemy and began diving, trading altitude for speed. The result was a five-minute fur ball with fighters of both sides swirling and trying to get some advantage. As always, Castle reacted automatically to everything around him and hardly remembered what exactly had happened he was so busy. He thought his gun camera would show that he'd gotten three enemy fighters, but he'd wait until he got back to Furious to make any claims.
He landed and waited as his pilots brought their planes back to the carrier. He found he was missing three planes. One was a Hurricane that had blown up when hit by a large caliber anti-aircraft gun. There couldn't possibly have been any survivors. Two of his fighters had been hit. One pilot had managed to make it to the Circle Sea and had been picked up by a lifeguard submarine. The other had gone down ashore. Rescue choppers were looking for him.
He knew the embedded correspondent from the Beckett Satellite News Service would want to talk to him, so he headed for the bridge. He wanted to talk to Mrs. Castle as well.
The End
Author's note: Next up is Desert Heat. After being shot by Caleb Brown, Rick and Kate need some peace and quiet. Rick knows a guy, actually several, who can help. What could possibly go wrong?