Deadenders
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Castle reached a dead end with Season 8, but it's going strong here. Rating: K Time: The far future.
The expedition was centered around the Aurora Stone, although no one ever called it that. Rumors that Ancient could be deciphered would be a disaster for the expedition. That did make setting up security a lot easier for Strelkov and Castle. The biggest problem was that members of the expedition liked to drop by the Castle ranch whenever they could to enjoy the amenities. That led to the first theft.
Lisa Androvski was a Ph.D. candidate who was thrilled to be able to work on the Ancient project. One night, after dinner at the expedition's dining facility, she decided to walk the quarter mile to the Castle ranch. She'd been reading a fascinating series of pre-spaceflight Earth crime novels and wanted to read the next one in the series. Although it was dark, she could easily see the lights of the Castle ranch ahead of her. She wouldn't get lost.
Suddenly, a man jumped in front of her, waving a knife.
"Hand over your backpack, girlie, and you don't get hurt." He said.
Terrified, she handed the backpack over. The man grabbed it and ran away. Lisa stood there shaking and crying. It seemed to take her forever to decide what to do next. She was about halfway between the expedition and the ranch. She finally decided to run to the ranch.
She pounded on the main gate of the ranch.
"Please! Someone help me." She yelled.
In seconds the gate was opened, and she was brought in. She told Rick Castle what had happened. He gathered together Ormlon, the best Ka Rara tracker they had, Miss Chen, Esposito and Kate Beckett.
Ormlon was able to find where the robbery had taken place and tracked the human for maybe a hundred yards.
"Human had horse here. Gone now."
"Can you track the horse?" Rick asked.
"Yes. We need horses. By time we get, he be far away."
"We'll get horses then."
"We can cover a lot more ground in the helicopter." Kate said. "If we see a lone rider we can drop down and interrogate him."
"Okay. Get ready. I'll go with you and Hastings. We'll take Lisa with us. She might be able to ID the thief and she can sure as hell ID her belongings."
They took off just as dawn was breaking and just as a party on horseback was starting from the expedition's camp. Their leader was Strelkov and except for Ormlon, they were all members of Strelkov's unit.
The helicopter crew could see no lone riders or even any groups.
They got a radio call from Strelkov.
"Bad news, Castle. Ormlon says the man is headed for something called the Windy Bog. He says if the thief just skirts it, he won't leave any tracks we can follow."
"Check it out anyway. Maybe we'll get lucky, and he managed to bog his horse down."
They did not get lucky.
Strelkov and Castle discussed their problem over the radio.
"What if we split up and see what we find?" Strelkov asked.
"Best not. Criminals usually travel in groups. You could get ambushed. I think he'll probably head for the Moon Pools area. It's the best fresh water source around and there are often a lot of people around he can just fade into."
At the first of the Moon Pools they found a trading caravan. Castle had them land the chopper and he and Espo got out with Lisa.
"Damn! Rick Castle? Is that you? With a helicopter?"
"It's me, Mr. Gates. We're looking for a thief who robbed this woman of some Earth goods. Anyone come in overnight looking to sell?"
"No but let me call my wife. She was up most of the night." He turned away. "Oh, Vicky Baby. Can you come here?"
Vicky Gates was no help. The only person to come in overnight was a hunter with some steppe wolf skins to trade. He had arrived only an hour or so after the robbery, so he couldn't have been responsible.
Next, they came across a family group that had stopped at the Pools on their way to start up a new ranch. They had seen no one.
Once back in the air, they got a radio call from Strelkov.
"We found something. A black backpack. Looks Earth made. It's empty though."
"We'll be there in ten." Rick called back.
Lisa identified the backpack as hers.
"What was in it?" Rick asked.
"My personal computer, my wallet and some energy bars. And makeup."
"Was there anything about the Ancients on the computer?"
"No. Of course not."
"Problem, Ka Sal. From here bad man can cross bog on Shorty's Passage. He be in spur of Shining Mountains by now. We no find, even with flying thing."
And they never did find any of the stolen goods. But Strelkov did put up high intensity lights along the path from the expedition to the ranch and made sure the guards at both ends kept an eye on the path. They had no further troubles.
A week later they had bigger troubles.
"Beckett!" Castle yelled early one morning. "You and Hastings get the chopper ready. There's an attack on a ranch to the north."
Rick then started to put his team together. He took Espo and McGary, the snipers as well as the two grenadiers, Landini and Maleter. He also took N'Kosi as well as the two Grant brothers to man the door machine guns. Silent Smith came as did Reynolds. They also brought the Ka Rara Simon who was an all-round good shot and tracker.
By the time Rick's team was ready, Kate had the chopper ready to go.
"Where are we going?" She shouted over the noise of the engines and the rotors.
"The Jacobson ranch. It's about a hundred miles north of here. I input the navigation data into the chopper's system. It'll take us right there."
"How bad is it?"
"The worst we've seen. Jacobson says there are about a hundred of the mountain clan's members there and they're well-armed. Those clans usually come down with maybe a dozen or so people and try to run off some cattle or horses. Maybe attack a much smaller group and steal whatever they have."
On the flight there, Castle kept in contact with the Castle ranch which was in contact with the Jacobsons.
"We're about five minutes out." Kate yelled over the intercom. "What do you want to do?"
"If there are that many and that well-armed, we'll have to stand off and attack from a distance. Take us over the ranch so we can get a look at what we're up against."
They found that the mountain clans had surrounded the ranch and were well armed indeed. They fired at the helicopter and several bullets zipped through the cabin.
"Anyone hurt?" Castle yelled.
"I got hit in my chest plate. Just a bruise though." McGary said.
"Okay, half on one side and half on the other. We'll go over fast at about six hundred feet and shoot them up. They have no overhead cover, so they should figure out pretty quick that they're in trouble and leave."
The machine gunners fired short bursts into the enemy while the grenadiers fired at any group they saw. The snipers and the rest fired single shots or short bursts.
The helicopter made three passes over the enemy, killing and wounding many. However, they didn't run. Instead, they stood and fought. The chopper was hit more than a dozen times. Although doing no great damage and N'Kosi and Maleter were both wounded, but still able to fight.
Castle told Beckett to take the chopper up to about fifteen hundred feet and go in a circle around the ranch. The attackers kept firing back but hadn't learned how to compensate their aim to hit the higher and moving helicopter. The raiders began to take more casualties.
"They're starting to break up." Castle yelled. "Does anyone see any horses?"
No one did.
"They'll have to retreat on foot then. We can hunt them down one at a time."
Each clansman ran in a different direction, making hunting them more difficult. Some managed to find cover under rocks or brush, but many died or were wounded.
"We're losing them." Rick said. "We should go back and see how the Jacobsons are doing,"
The Jacobsons were not doing well at all. They had four dead and seven wounded. Only five people were un-wounded. Rick decided to send the wounded back in the chopper and keep his team at the Jacobsons for the night.
"I can't stay here." Tom Jacobson said. "I lost too many dead and some of the wounded won't ever be able to do ranch work again. I'll load up everything I can in the wagons and drive my herd south. I'll find someplace to start over again."
"We'll do what we can to help." Rick said.
"Just showing up when you did was help enough, Rick."
"We need to talk, Ka Sal." Simon said as Rick was setting up the defenses for the night, in case the raiders came back.
"Sure, Simon. What is it."
"The attack was all wrong. They had too many guns. The mountain clans don't trade much with humans or other Ka Raras. And they don't stand and fight like they did. They hit and run, plus I'm pretty sure there are people from three or four separate clans here. Very unusual for them to cooperate on anything."
"I've been away for a long time, but from what I remember, you're right."
"I found one badly wounded enemy. He kept repeating the same thing over and over. He said, "The Great Prophet will drive the evil humans and their foolish followers away and the mountain clans will live as the gods intended without human evil." He kept repeating that until he died. I tried to get him to explain, but he just kept saying the same thing."
"Okay, let me take a look at him."
Simon led Rick to the dead Ka Rara. Rick examined him but found nothing of interest. He was armed with a new human made assault rifle and had a half a dozen magazines left.
"He is well armed for the mountain clans." Rick said.
He spotted another weapon lying by a Ka Rara who'd been hit by a grenade. The weapon was a Took submachine gun. Rick began checking the weapons left behind by the raiders. Most were human Standard weapons. Three were Took submachine guns and one was a Took grenade launcher. Two however, were Xank weapons, both assault rifles.
"Someone's selling guns to the clans." Rick said. "We'll take all of these back. Maybe someone can ID the human weapons and where they came from."
Rick decided to have Kate fly him to Alphaville so he could show Jackson Hunt the weapons he'd recovered from the dead raiders.
"I'll send notice of this off to Earth and to a few nearby planets that might be interested in gunrunning to Aurora, but I don't expect much help if any. Everybody's too busy with their own problems after the war to worry about us." Hunt said.
Rick decided to head for Professor Montgomery's office. Maybe his connections back on Earth could help.
"I don't know that I can be much more help than Hunt." Montgomery said. "The raid was a long way from the expedition's site, and I can't see Earth government being very excited about some gunrunning here on Aurora even if they do worry about the Ancient's expedition. At best they might pay to upgrade the site's security."
"There are hundreds of people back on Aotearoa that we could recruit. There are probably thousands more on various other planets. We won't need heavy weapons like artillery or tanks, but enough helicopters to lift a strong company would help." Rick suggested.
"I'll suggest that, but I can't promise you anything. In addition, I'd like you to write a report for me to send to Earth about the attack."
"I'm going back to the ranch tomorrow morning."
"Tonight will be fine then. Just a short report."
Castle decided to check in with Charlie and Alexis and see how they were doing.
"Castle!" Said Charlie as soon as he came in. "Good to see you. Have you translated the Ancients' script yet?"
TBC