The Prince, the Princess, and the Other Wizard
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Castle is magic, but I have no magic. Or Castle. Rating: K+ for language Time: A few months after The Princess and the Wizard.
Author's note: To get a look at what Castle's unit looks like, go to http colon back slash back slash ctrp dash 3d dash 4thcav dot com backslash troop dot html Click on org chart.
"Did you see any kind of insignia anywhere?" Rick asked.
"I did see a white star on some vehicles. The same star I think as on your vehicles."
"You probably dreamed about Vietnam then. The ship you saw may have been a US Navy guided missile cruiser sailing off of Vietnam and I'm sure the last part of your dream was some kind of US Army air assault."
Rick stopped and thought. He'd been brought to this other Earth by an evil sorceress to do her bidding, but that hadn't worked. He had fallen in love with and married Princess Katherine, but he had sworn an oath to serve his country in Vietnam. As much as he loved Kate, he'd given his word and he'd have to return to Vietnam if he could. So far, Queen Johanna, a very powerful sorceress, had been unable to figure out how Castle and his platoon had been brought here or how to get him back.
"Speaking of those tiger stripes, I believe that the royal seamstresses and the royal cobbler are finished with someone's order." King James said.
"Why didn't you say so at once?" Princess Kate said, hurrying off. She came back five minutes later dressed in her very own set of tiger stripe fatigues and wearing Rick's pistol belt with his 1911A1 Colt in a holster on it.
"How do I look?" She asked.
"Very hard core." Rick said.
"Is that good?"
"Yes. Very good."
"Then finish your breakfast. We're supposed to take the platoon out for a patrol today."
"We?" Castle said with a smile.
"Yes, we. In case you don't remember, I'm the platoon intelligence officer. You don't know this world. I do."
"Okay. Okay. Sergeant Esposito should have the platoon all ready to go in a bit. The men have to eat breakfast too."
After breakfast, Rick and Kate walked out of the King's castle to where the armored cavalry platoon was stationed. The vehicles were too heavy to cross the drawbridge to get inside the castle itself, so they were dug in outside.
The platoon consisted of ten vehicles. Three were M 48 tanks, weighing nearly fifty tons and armed with a 90mm gun and several machine guns. The other seven vehicles were variants of the thirteen-ton M113 armored personnel carrier. Four were scout tracks called armored cavalry assault vehicles, or ACAVs and mounted a .50 caliber machine gun in a round, open topped turret and a 7.62mm M 60 machine gun on each side of the vehicle, with an armored shield. These could be fired by troops standing upright in the overhead cargo hatch. One ACAV had had its .50 caliber machine gun replaced with a multi-barreled minigun.
There was also an M113 adapted to carry an 81mm mortar. It also had a single .50 caliber machine gun. The platoon also had an infantry squad also mounted in an M113. Lastly was Castle's command track which carried additional radios. Both of these also had a .50 caliber machine gun in an open topped turret.
Castle also had some Vietnamese Kit Carson Scouts, former VC or NVA troops who had changed sides.
"Are we ready to go, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir. We don't have to worry about food, fuel, ammo or anything else since we are magically resupplied. In fact, Queen Johanna's magic seems to work on everything: batteries; spark plugs; air filters; everything and anything. Nothing seems to ever wear out or need maintenance."
"Okay, mount up. We'll go out to Slippery Rock Lake. We haven't been there for a month."
The ten vehicles left their dug in positions around the castle and headed for the lake. First were two of the tanks, then two ACAVs, then Castle's command track, then the mortar track, the infantry squad track, the other two scout ACAVs and finally the last tank.
On the way to Slippery Rock Lake, they passed many small farms and the occasional small village. As they passed, the residents came out to cheer them. Because Castle and his troops had defeated Meredith the Mad, the evil sorceress, and her armies of goblins, orcs and zombies, the kingdom was peaceful once again. Evildoers knew they had no chance against Castle's platoon.
Once at Slippery Rock Lake, they stopped for lunch. There was a small village of fisherfolk art the lake who happily gave the soldiers fish and beer. Then they headed back to the castle. Suddenly, Specialist Kemper, Castle's radioman shouted.
"Sir! There! Those are Hueys for sure."
Sure enough, there were five Huey helicopters flying at about a thousand feet.
"Kemper! Try to get them on the radio. Someone fire a flare."
But before anyone could fire a flare or get them on the radio, the helicopters turned towards Castle's platoon and began descending. The lead helo landed while the other four orbited around the armored cav platoon. Two men got off the chopper. Since one had a radio Castle assumed it was the unit commander and his RTO. Then a woman jumped off. By her mail coat and sword, they knew she wasn't from their Earth.
"Are you Lieutenant Rick Castle?" The young lieutenant said.
"That's me. And you are?"
"Second Lieutenant Joe Bravin, Aero-Rifle platoon, Second Squadron, Third of the Seventeenth Cavalry, part of Second Field Force."
"I imagine you're curious about how you got here."
"Damn straight, sir."
"We don't have time for this." The woman said. "Prince Richard, there is a huge army of goblins headed straight for King James' castle."
"There are?"
Bravin nodded.,
"We flew over them. They're maybe thirty miles behind us and moving pretty fast."
"Damn. We'll have to get back to the castle ASAP. Lieutenant, can you fly top cover for us? The castle is about fifteen miles from here and all you have to do is follow the Greensward."
"No problem, sir."
"By the way, how's your fuel and ammo?"
"We haven't used a drop of gas all day and our ammo seems to replenish itself."
"Good to hear. Now let's mount up and go."
They made it back to the castle easily and Castle began getting his men and vehicles ready to defend the castle. The vehicles were all dug in behind berms and the spaces between them were covered by razor wire and claymore mines. Castle's platoon did have some spare weapons which had been given to some of King James' guards. Those guards were called out, armed and assigned positions in the defense.
Because of the lack of attacks, King James had been able to rebuild the walls of his castle with heavy stone walls in place of the dirt ramparts and wooden walls he'd had to use when his castle was being attacked regularly.
Riders were sent out to bring in people in the path of the goblins and everyone moved back into the castle along with all the food and animals they could find. Soldiers armed with bows and arrows, spears and javelins manned the walls.
The wounded LRRP sergeant was carried into the castle where Queen Johanna examined his wound and decided what magic to use on him. To everyone's surprise, Sergeant Ryan was back in fifteen minutes.
"I'm fine, dammit. I don't even have a scar. I don't know what she did to me, but it sure as hell worked." Both Doc Park and Doc Mellon, Castle's platoon medic, examined him. They agreed he was fine.
"The same magic that Queen Johanna used to cure your wounded LRRP is what's keeping both of our units in fuel, ammo, rations, medicine and everything else. And before you ask, I can't explain it, but it works."
"Yes, sir."
"We seem to be ready, Bravin." Castle said. "We just need the goblins to show up." He thought for a moment. "Why don't you tell me how many people you have?"
"I have four aero-rifle squads, but we're way understrength. I have only five men in each squad, so I use them as slightly oversized fireteams. They have a squad leader armed with an M16, a two-man M 60 machine gun team, a grenadier armed with an M79 grenade launcher and a rifleman. The machine gunners and the grenadiers are supposed to have just .45 pistols as back up weapons, but they all managed to find an M16. Specialist Williams also has a Soviet made SDV sniper rifle. He used it to kill, or maybe just destroy, a bunch of zombies. There are zombies on this planet, sir."
"We also picked up a six-man LRRP team." Bravin began.
"What's a lurp team?" Kate asked.
"It stands for Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol." Rick explained. "They go into the enemy's territory to see what he's doing."
"They're heavily armed." Bravin continued. "Five have M16s and two of them carry sawed off M79 grenade launchers. One man has a weapon I'd never heard of before, a Stoner 63 light machine gun. It's a machine gun but it fires 5.56 ammo just like the M16s. It doesn't have the range or hitting power of the M60, but it's light and handy."
"The aircrew?" Castle asked.
"Ten warrant officer pilots. They seem to favor the old cavalry style 1876 Colt single action army revolvers like the cavalry out west used, but they have M16s, CAR 15s, Swedish K guns, submachine guns in 9mm and one guy has a sawed-off pump action 12-gauge shotgun. The crew chiefs man one M60 on each bird and they all have an M16 just in case."
"Lastly we have two Hoa Haos."
"I've heard the name. What exactly are they?"
"Hoa Hao is a Vietnamese religious sect. It's part Buddhist, part Taoist, part Confucianist, and part god knows what. Anyway, their territory is where the LRRP team was so II Field Force sent them along with us just in case."
Castle turned away as a horseman rode up to him.
"We rode for seven miles, Prince Richard. We saw no goblins."
"Sir, how about I take two birds out and look for the goblins. I can go out farther and faster than these horse soldiers can."
"Good idea. Get on it."
"Why two of the flying machines?" Kate asked.
"If something happens to one, the other one can land and bring the others back home,"
"And if something happens to both?"
"Then they're screwed."
Bravin came back a little more than an hour later.
"I have good news and bad news." He told Rick.
"The good news?"
"The goblins have settled in for the night. They're all jammed together so they're hard to count, but there are a whole shitload of them."
"The bad news?"
"There are other armies of goblins stretching back for a good twenty miles. I'm assuming that they'll all want to attack in one huge human, or goblin, wave, so it may be a day or two before they get here."
Rick thought for a moment.
"We've been teaching the King's guards how to shoot firearms. The archers seem to do best at it. Everyone will have to turn in all but one weapon so we can arm everyone we can. I'd suggest they give up sidearms, area weapons like shotguns or grenade launchers, or work as loaders on the machine guns. I know that because of Queen Johanna's magic we won't run out of ammo, but I worry about overheating the weapons if we have to keep firing over a long period of time."
"Maybe we could put a lot of water buckets out?" Bravin suggested.
"As good an idea as any. Now how about you tell me just how a brand-new second lieutenant got to command an aero-rifle platoon?"
Bravin explained what had happened. Castle explained in detail how he and his platoon had been brought to this Earth by an evil sorceress who discovered that evil sorcery didn't work for some reason on Castle's people, but they could be helped by Queen Johanna's good sorcery.
"And this Meredith the Mad just disappeared and her accomplice got turned into a dog?"
"That's what happened."
There was no goblin attack the next day which allowed Castle to dig his force in and give more training to the locals.
The day after that was different.
TBC