Castle's Tanks
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Tanks, but I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Several centuries into an AU future.
"Where's the lunch?"
"Right over there, the Spaceport Rendezvous Inn." Tillis pointed.
The building was easily the tallest building at the spaceport, towering over the other structures.
Castle just smiled and walked back to his tank.
"Sergeant Saava, please pass me down my assault rifle."
Saava did so and Rick headed for the Inn.
"You won't need weapons." Tillis yelled after him.
"Oh, these are like old friends. They'd miss me if I didn't take them." Rick said, touching his assault rifle and his pistol.
Once inside the Inn, he was surprised that no one seemed interested in a soldier coming in, fully armed, wearing a flak jacket and carrying extra ammo in a chest rig.
He was approached by an attractive young lady in the Inn's uniform.
"Lieutenant Castle? Come with me please."
She led him to an elevator well away from the bank of elevators used by the public. She used a key to open the elevator door and took him to the top floor of the Inn. The room had a spectacular view of Rendezvous and the Outside. It also had a large lunch table set up for two people. At least there were just two plates and two glasses and one man standing by the table.
"You won't need your weapons, Lieutenant Castle, but please feel free to keep them handy. I'm Michael DeRuyter, and I'm an Executive Vice President of Seven Provinces Interstellar Trading, often referred to by the unfortunate English acronym of SPIT. I Imagine you've heard of us?"
"You're probably the wealthiest and most powerful company in the Latin Expanse. You're a lot more than a trading company. You own very large mining concessions on perhaps six or seven planets and moons, you build your own ships, you own your own banks, insurance companies, manufacturing…"
DeRuyter laughed.
"Enough, Rick. You do know who we are."
"And I'd like to know just who you are." Rick replied.
"I'm in charge of future expansion for the company. We've found that in the last few years, the use of mercenary soldiers, once rather rare in the Expanse, has been increasing. We've lost business when governments and companies we'd made deals with were attacked and either reneged on the deals or were replaced by less friendly governments or companies. The mercenary units were almost always small battalions of light infantry, seldom amounting to over five hundred men and lacking anything more than infantry weapons."
"You formed Hawk's Company." Rick said.
"Exactly. An armored company could easily overrun any of the mercenary units we'd run into. But someone blew up the ship they were on, killing the whole company and destroying both the ship and the final payment for the armored vehicles."
"I hope you don't think Colonel Schram was involved."
"Not at all. Oh, we did some checking just to be safe, but all Colonel Schram did was take advantage of a business opportunity."
"So why do you want to see me?" Rick said, wondering what this was all about. He hoped DeRuyter didn't want him to desert Colonel Schram with his men and the vehicles,
"We keep an eye on what's happening on Earth and in the Core. The nationalists in all three parties are getting stronger. Oh, they aren't strong enough to overthrow the Triple Alliance, but they're strong enough to cause trouble."
"Serious trouble?" Rick asked.
"Nothing like the Shadow War you have with the Han Worlds and their Chinese backers on Earth, but worrisome. Some of the star nations in the Expanse, such as Nuevo Durango, Las Pampas and Tenochtitlan were settled by peoples who were historically anti-American. There are people there who feel like they should favor the Chinese or the Russians for historical reasons. Other star nations were founded by people who were anti-Chinese or anti-Russian. The people and groups who favor one side or the other back on Earth are small and weak, but they do attract the attention of Earth based politicians and groups that can use them to advance their own causes. We, my company, as well as the government of the Seven Provinces, and several other star nations want to keep Earth and its problems away from the Expanse. Away from the whole rest of human occupied space."
"And you called me here to tell me this?"
"No, what I want you to do is to carry an unofficial message. A message from a private citizen in the Latin Expanse via a private citizen of the United Kingdom to another private citizen, Colonel Schram and whoever he might wish to tell."
"Why a private, unofficial message?"
"An official message would have to go through the bureaucracy of my company, or worse yet, through the bureaucracy of the Seven Provinces. Too many people would know about it. Too many people who could talk. This way, it's just you and me. If anyone hears about it, it has nothing to do with any star nation, just two individuals."
"And the message is?" Rick asked.
"That the United Kingdoms, my company, and the Seven Provinces, as well as other star nations in the Expanse, have common interests in keeping Earth out of our respective areas. In addition, my company has thought that it might be better to hire a mercenary unit rather than trying to form one on our own. We were hoping that Colonel Schram might give us some advice on who to hire. We'd be happy to reimburse him for his time and trouble."
"Okay. I can deliver your message to Colonel Schram. I'm sure he'd pass it along to the government of the UK, but I can't guarantee any answer. And I'm sure he'd like to make money from your offer."
"Of course not. Now, why don't we have lunch?"
The lunch was very good, but Rick had to leave. When he got back to his unit, they headed for the dropship and lifted off to the orbiting Blue Heron.
"Where are we going?" Sergeant Saava asked.
"Minas Gerais. It's a mining colony run by a company from High Brazil. It's not much, but we'll have to layover there for a week until our next ship arrives."
Once there, they found out there might be more to Minas Gerais than they had thought.
"We have to land at night to avoid being shelled?" Castle asked Captain Yamaguchi. "Shelled?"
"That's what we were told, Lieutenant. We won't be sending down your dropship for another five hours. You might get your troops ready for trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
"I don't know, and Minas Gerais control seems to not want to talk about it."
Castle was angry but went off to prepare his troops as best as he could.
When the dropship landed, Castle went at once to Mr. Spinola, the manager of the mine.
"Who the hell is going to shell this place and why?"
"Colonel Kirov. He calls himself a mercenary soldier, but as far as we're concerned, he's nothing but a criminal. We don't know how he got here, he just showed up around a year ago, and began demanding the mine provide him with food, water, and other consumables. This planet is mostly desert. Nothing edible grows for many miles and that's hardly enough to feed one man."
"So why doesn't the mining company send someone here to take care of him?"
Spinola shrugged.
"The mine is not a great money maker. Kirov's demands are not so great that the mine can't pay them and still make a profit. Paying for a mercenary unit to come here would cost more than the mine would make in five or six years. So, the company tells us to pay. Recently, he's started asking for deliveries of refined ore. We think he has an off-world contact that helps him transport and sell the ore."
"So, we get shelled?"
"Let me tell you about a Mr. Colby who came here some four months ago. He planned to make his money by providing the miners with entertainment. He had gambling games, drugs and alcohol and most of all he had women. Prostitutes."
"Kirov has a drone that he sends over when a new ship cones in. He demanded that his men get the first crack at the girls, so to speak. He also wanted alcohol and drugs. He promised to send the girls back when he was done with them. He didn't."
"And Colby?" Rick asked.
"The miners can make home brewed liquor and have cards and dice. Without the girls there was little reason to spend their money with Mr. Colby. He left."
"And when Kirov sends his drone over to look things over, he's going to want some of my vehicles."
"I can't imagine him not wanting such lovely vehicles." Spinola said.
'What kind of weapons does he have?"
"I have no idea. I do know he can shell us at will. We have no defenses of any sort. That would cost too much money."
"Are you willing to pay my unit to protect you?"
Spinola shook his head.
"Willing, yes. But, alas, we have no money."
"So, my choices are to either sit here for two weeks and get shelled or fight your battle for you for free."
"That seems to be the case." Spinola admitted.
Castle stormed off to get his troops ready.
"The intel track has recon drones, right, Feldwebel Priller?"
"Yes, sir."
And we have someone here who can operate them?"
"Several people."
Castle explained what they were up against.
"We need to find this Colonel Kirov and see what kind of weapons he has."
It was still dark when the drone lifted off. They found the colonel's camp about six miles away.
"No radar or lidar emissions." Said the drone operator. "I don't even see any sentries. Pretty sloppy."
"Look for his weapons." Castle said crossly.
"There. I make those to be HaramCo Model Seventeen tanks. Four of them."
"HaramCo Seventeens?" Saava said. "Those were second rate tanks when they were new, forty years ago."
"I see only five APCs of some sort. I can't ID them. Looks like they only have machine guns for weapons." That was the drone operator.
"What about his artillery."
"Okay, there's a Solomon Arms 145mm self propelled gun. Next to it is…I'm not sure what. Looks like an old 180mm howitzer stuck on top of some kind of tracked vehicle."
"There, to the left." Said Rick.
"Ah. Rocket artillery. Just tubes on the back of a truck. Load your rockets in and point towards the target. Not very accurate, but there are a lot of rockets."
Rick turned to Priller.
"We have two vehicles designed to shoot down anything incoming, including rockets, and artillery shells. Can the two knock down a barrage from those weapons?"
"Maybe, but we'd probably get a leaker or two in each barrage. And we don't have that much ammo. Of course, we don't know how much he has."
"Shit. We'll have to go after the bastards." He thought for a moment. "We'll take all five tanks and a platoon's worth of infantry fighting vehicles. We'll use the mortars and the aerospace defense vehicles and leave the rest here. We should be able to knock them out."
Castle positioned all the drones he had so that he could keep track of all of Colonel Kirov's troops and vehicles. Then they left the spaceport.
"We're under a mile from their base." Sergeant Saava said to Rick. "They must all be asleep or drunk not to hear us."
"The mine makes a lot of noise. Maybe they just can't tell the difference."
They moved a little closer and Rick got on the radio,
"Okay, mortars, hit the artillery. As much as I'd like a shell to fall on Spinola's ass, Kirov's gunners would probably kill some innocent miner. Aerospace defense, keep anything off of our ass. Tanks and fighting vehicles…Charge!"
One artillery piece and the rocket launcher were knocked out at once, with the second artillery piece being hit by both mortars. Enemy artillery rounds stacked by the guns exploded.
The enemy tanks were taken out without being able to fire a shot as were the personnel carriers.
"Jesus. That was easy." Castle said. "Any injuries? Any damage?"
There was none.
"Okay, let's head for home."
TBC