Friendly Planet
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I own neither Castle nor planets. Rating: K. Time: After my story Deadly Planets.
Red's people were equipped much like any US army squad. They had five assault rifles and two squad automatic weapons. And they had a weapon Rick was unfamiliar with. It looked like an oversized shotgun.
"What is that thing?" Rick asked pointing to the gun.
Red laughed.
"That's an automatic 40mm grenade launcher. Some old, retired SEAL came up with it and formed a company to sell them. Silverleaf bought a couple to see how they worked. What do you think, Tiny?"
Tiny was 6' 6" and a good 250 pounds. He had long blonde hair and a shaggy blonde beard. He looked like someone's idea of a Viking. He smiled back and laughed.
"The recoil is a bit much, but it's good for close range work like in a jungle. I load it with alternating buckshot and flechette rounds. Clears the jungle out, and anyone near you in the jungle. I haven't tried it operationally yet, but we'll see."
Rick had met people like Tiny before. He had always been the biggest and strongest kid since kindergarten and so had never been pushed around or been bullied. Accordingly, he was even tempered and friendly.
With one exception Red's team was what Rick had expected. Men in the late thirties or early forties with greying beards and longer hair and very, very buff. The exception was Luis. He was in his twenties, clean shaven and with short hair.
"Luis is not a member of the US Army, are you Luis?" Red said.
"No, sir. If I was in the US Army, the government of Panama wouldn't allow me to come here."
"Luis has dual US Panamanian citizenship. His dad is an entomologist who works for the UN in Darien. Luis knows the area well."
"I'm going to put you in Third Platoon. It has only two squads. Platoon leader is Lieutenant Hussein, Royal Jordanian Special Forces. His men are all Bedu and very, very good. You've worked with Jordanians before, haven't you, Red?"
"I sure have, and I'll be happy to work with them again."
The company was quickly reorganized and began marching again.
A day later they saw a large group marching parallel to them a mile away. Both groups stopped to look the other one over.
"Humans." Rick said. "Can't tell much about them. No two seem to have the same uniform. Their weapons don't look familiar."
"They're headed his way." Kate said.
The other group stopped about fifty yards away. One man made a show of putting his weapons down and walked towards Rick. Rick put his weapons down and headed towards the other.
The man had a fairly clean set of cammies on and was shaven and had a recent haircut. He looked to be in his early thirties and seemed tired.
"Name's Verrick. This is my mob." He said, nodding his head towards his troops. "I hope you ain't the ones who brung us here."
"I'm Captain Rick Castle and this is my company. We were all brought here by someone else." Rick had decided not to share too much with the stranger until he knew him better.
"Where you from, Castle?"
"Planet called Earth. I have people from all sorts of planets with me, though."
"I noticed." He took a long look at the non-humans and a longer look at the women. "I'm from a planet called Talwin. Nothin' left of it now. Here is probably better than there."
"Why is that?" Rick asked.
"Nuclear war. Blew the shit out of the planet. We been scratchin' for food, clean water, medicines and…damned near everything. Here we get that delivered to us. Back home, we found us a small valley that had more or less survived. Not exactly like the good old days, but we ate more or less regular. Then we ended up here."
"We have more people to the east. We're headed there. Where are you headed."
Castle had been looking over Verrick's mob. Mob was a good word for it. Their clothing was patched and dirty, no one seemed to have complete set of cammies and equipment. He noticed one fellow who wore a camouflage cape which he had pushed back over his shoulder. He had on a dirty tan uniform on that was loaded with gold braid and medals. On his head he wore a top hat. Worse, from Rick's point of view, they didn't seem to be taking care of their weapons. He could see rust on some of them.
"Heard of a place." Verrick turned around. "Ana Li, come here."
Ana Li was young, slender and trim. She wore ankle boots, very tight shorts and a crop top that showed the bottoms of her boobs.
"Tell Captain Castle about yourself and what you found."
Ana Li smiled at Rick. He was sure that Kate was not happy.
"My clan came here six months ago. We had flintlock muskets and knives. Got hit by some folks with better weapons. Shot us to bits. One big fellow grabbed me and carried me off. Wanted some privacy, I guess. As soon as his pants were around his ankles, I slit his throat." She pulled a knife from behind her back. "I got a few like that. Kept me in food and other necessities. Dumb men. They see poor helpless little Ana Li and figure they can just take her."
She laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh.
"I found me a place near a spring that had people in it. Maybe fifty all together, but only thirteen have guns. Someone built themselves a still to make alcohol. The place attracts business."
Verrick spoke.
"I figured they only have thirteen people and I have forty-four, counting Ana Li here. I figured I'd send her in to kill a few and then hit them. Interested in coming along?"
Castle shook his head.
"I have over a hundred people, and I like being in command. I think you like being in command as well."
Verrick laughed.
"Damn straight. We'd never get along. I guess you'll head east, and we'll head for the town."
Both men walked away.
"I don't trust them one bit." Rick said. "We'll dig in and stay extra alert tonight. The valley is getting wider, so we'll put some distance between us tomorrow."
Sergeant La Pierre, Marine Special Ops, saw him coming through his night vision goggles. When he was about fifty feet away, La Pierre spoke.
"That's far enough. I've got four people covering you and we have night vision devices."
"Are you Captain Castle's people?" Came the reply.
"Yes."
"I wish to join you."
"Stay right there. I'm going to get the captain."
Castle had just been dozing and quickly came to see what was happening.
"Okay, you can come in, but keep your hands away from your weapons." He said.
"I'm slinging my assault rifle over my back. Is that okay?"
"Come on in."
The man dropped into a foxhole the Marines had dug.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Rick asked.
"I'm Sergeant Alon Gammon and I want to join you. I was a soldier in a real army for seventeen years until the war. Then everything went to hell. We stole, we murdered, we raided anyone who had anything. I'm not proud of what I did. My only excuse is that everyone on what was left of our planet was doing much the same. I don't want to do the same thing on this planet."
"Is Verrick planning to attack us?"
Gammon laughed.
"He is if he can find anyone willing to lead the way. Everyone is happy to shoot at you from a distance, but no one wants to lead an attack against a force three times our size."
"Okay, you can stay, but hand over your weapons to Sergeant La Pierre. Have you eaten?" Gammon nodded. "Then get some sleep. We'll move out at dawn."
"You might get another two coming over. A man and his sister. Verrick likes the girl. If he likes her too much, Ana Li might slit her throat."
An hour after Gammon came in, they saw a pair crawling towards them.
"Captain Castle?' Called a voice.
"Who are you?" This was one of Color Sergeant Breede's people.
"My name is Alder, Benis Alder. My sister Coran is with me."
Once again, Castle was rousted out of bed and the two were allowed to come in.
"What do you want here?" Rick asked.
"My sister is in danger. She's only sixteen. Verrick wants her and if she isn't…friendly, he might kill her. Given what he's like, he might kill her anyway. If he doesn't, that bitch Ana Li might."
"All right, you can stay, but turn in your weapons and then get some sleep. We move out early."
When it was dawn, Castle took a look at his new recruits.
Gammon was in his thirties and in good shape. He wore ankle boots, grey green trousers and a camouflage jacket over a black long sleeved tee shirt. On his head was a steel helmet. His weapon was an assault rifle unlike any anyone had seen before and using ammunition not used by anyone else's weapon. He had ten thirty-two round magazines on him. He also had two baseball sized hand grenades and a potato masher style grenade stuck in his belt. He had a bayonet that didn't fit his assault rifle and a rucksack.
Castle decided to let him keep his weapons.
Benis Alder was perhaps twenty. He had mismatched camo trousers and a shirt with a grey greatcoat rolled up over his backpack. He carried a large, heavy automatic rifle.
"What kind of a weapon is that?" Rick asked.
"A .351 caliber automatic rifle, sir. It's an enemy weapon, but I like it. It can fire single rounds or fully automatic. The rate of fire is low so a good shooter can get of a burst of two rounds. I'm very good."
"How big are the bullets?"
Alder removed a round and handed it to Rick.
"Espo, this looks bigger than your .338 magnum round."
Espo removed a round and compared the two.
"Sure is. His weapon looks like an old BAR, but on steroids.
Castle thought for a moment.
"I've heard the term, but I can't remember what it refers to."
"It's a Browning Automatic Rifle. My abuelo, my grandpa, carried one in Korea, back in the day. Fired the same 30-06 cartridge as the old M1 Garand rifle. Could also fire fully automatic. Grandpa loved it."
Castle turned to Coran Alder. He decided she was cute rather than beautiful, had a nice smile but was rather skinny. She wore a pair of oversized grey pants held up by suspenders, a green sweater under a tattered camo jacket that looked to be in some sort of desert camouflage. He had a rather battered looking submachine gun and was loaded down with clips for her brother's weapon. Rather than a backpack, she had a blanket roll.
"Okay, you can stay with us as long as you obey orders. Order number one is we don't rob people, steal or kill unless we're in danger. Got that?"
All three smiled.
"You'll be with my command group until I can decide where to put you." He didn't tell them that he'd told Kanakredes to keep a close eye on them just in case they were working for Verrick somehow.
They began moving a bit south of east to put some distance between Verrick's mob and them. Not too far since Castle wanted to keep an eye on Verrick.
Verrick's mob got moving after Rick's company did and moved like a mob. Rick couldn't see that Verrick had anyone on point, nor anyone on drag, covering their rear, and no one was looking after their flanks. He wondered if Verrick might be just pretending to be so poorly organized, but he had no way to tell.
By noon, Castle was a good mile ahead of Verrick. Then someone called out.
"Shit. Grey cannibals, headed straight for Verrick."
TBC