Castle's Team

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Go Castle! Yeah Team! Oh, I don't own any of this. Rating: K Time: After my story Castle's Recon.

Eventually, Castle got the five woods runners that had been recruited by Sergeant MacInnes, plus two more woods runners MacInnes hadn't been able to arm. The two men who had taken their new bolt action rifles and left had apparently gone off on a private hunt for vengeance on a particular Euro.

The first few days on the planet were busy. The team was setting up its base, including pierced steel planking for helicopter spots, a small nuclear fusion power plant, plus bunkers for the base hospital, headquarters, ammo dump and fuel supply, as well as bunkers for the troops to live in.

The new Havenite scouts were armed and equipped and then trained on their new weapons as well as any infantry weapons they might run across in the field. They were given training on radios and comm procedures as well as the use of the first aid kits they'd been issued. That training had caused a problem with one of the scouts.

"Captain Renoir, may I speak to you?"

"But of course, mon capitaine. I am yours to command." She said with a smile.

"I understand you had a problem with one of our local scouts a while ago?"

"A problem? Non, I would not say it was so serious as to be a problem."

"I understand that one of the scouts grabbed your…" Rick stopped and began to blush.

"My derriere." She said with a laugh. "And he gave it a squeeze."

"And your response?"

"I smiled at the boy, and then I kneed him in the groin. It was quite painful, but he'll have no lasting disability. I believe his male pride was the most badly damaged."

"An assault on an officer is…" Rick began.

"An assault? I do not think so. When he was able to stand fully upright, I had Sergeant Doukas to examine him and explain the error he had made and what might happen in the future. I see no reason to pursue the matter further. Do you, mon capitaine?"

Sergeant Doukas was built very much like an Earth great ape which was very handy if he had to carry a wounded soldier from a medevac to the operating room. He also had an ability to explain the consequences of errors that even the dullest of soldiers could understand.

Rick nodded.

"Okay. This will go no further."

Surgeon-Captain Renoir gave him a dazzling smile.

Sergeant Toboso settled himself onto the hide they'd created in a tall tree. To his side was the human scout, named Esau. Toboso thought that Esau could hardly be considered a soldier, considering his very brief training with modern weapons, communications devices, first aid and everything else he'd had to learn. His senses were, of course, far inferior, to those of a Tarkai. He did know the country, though. He had led Toboso's scout team unerringly through a forest to a tall tree from which they could watch an enemy held farmhouse through a notch in the hills. Toboso was sure there wasn't a better spot to be found.

The other occupant of the hide was Private Bonsole. As his rank indicated, he had not yet seen combat. Toboso wondered if he ever would. Bonsole was a communications intelligence tech. His job was to keep an eye, or rather, an ear on the communications from the enemy farmhouse.

Three Euros had wandered into an area covered by a patrol from Castle's team. The three Euros had been quickly killed. Their only comm units were personal phones made on Earth. They were very good phones, but they had no encryption capabilities, and the Euros didn't seem to even try to devise verbal codes.

The rest of Toboso's team had settled in at the bottom of the tree.

The sun was beginning to come up and they saw movement from the farmhouse. An armed Euro took five women out of the farmhouse and to the barbed wire pen where the rest of the Havenites were kept overnight. The women were put inside, and four more women were taken out and into the house.

Esau spoke.

"I'm bettin' the women leavin' the house are young and pretty. Used for sex by the Euros. The four comin' in now are maids and cooks, I bet. The Euros reckon they're too good to do something like that for themselves."

After an hour, Bonsole began picking up radio chatter. He listened and made notes. After fifteen minutes, he turned to Toboso.

"The farmhouse boss was talking to Central." The head of the Euros used the codename Central. They hadn't figured out his real name yet. "Farmhouse boss is complaining about the lack of food. He's bitching that the Havenite slaves aren't working hard enough. Wonder why. Sounds like more people are coming for a raid. He said he has thirty-two people and is expecting more. I don't know how many more. Central told him to solve his own problems. Cheerful bastard."

"Men coming out of the farmhouse." Esau said.

A dozen men came out of the farmhouse and let the Havenites out of their prison. They set them to work in the fields. Nothing happened until late afternoon when the Havenite workers were taken out of the fields and back to their pen. Five women were taken out of the pen and led to the house.

After dinner, when it was dark, Bonsole reported that Central was talking again. He went on for an hour explaining how Europe had once been the most powerful continent on Earth. He told his followers that they would begin a new Europe on this planet and eventually make Old Europe the power it was destined to be. This went on for over an hour.

"God. Can that man talk. If talking could win a war, he'd be unbeatable." Esau said.

"We'll show him what does win wars." Sergeant Toboso said.

Toboso's recon team stayed in their hide for a week before leaving. There were other recon teams out and eventually they all reported back to Captain Castle. He, and his staff, went over the intel they'd developed and made a plan.

Castle gathered his officers together to discuss the plan.

"We learned a lot from our recon teams." He said. "Most importantly, that they have the worst communications security possible. They don't seem to realize that other people can listen in on their comms."

"Secondly, they think that because we didn't attack them as soon as we got dirtside that we're going to fight a defensive battle. We won't."

"They have four Havenite farms that they've taken over that they plan to use to launch attacks on the rest of Haven and us. These are also the closest to Haven. They're marked on your maps as Targets Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. We're going to hit all four. We'll use one platoon plus a weapons squad, snipers, sappers and other support troops for each target. Now the hard part. Only two platoons will air assault in. The other two will have to walk to their targets."

That brought some muttering from the assembled officers.

Castle spoke up.

"I know. We have enough lift ships to air assault more than that. However, we have the Havenite prisoners to consider. The Euros aren't taken good care of them. They're sick and starving. There's no way they could walk out and back to Haven. So, once the attack is successful, all of our lift birds will be taking the prisoners out. The two platoons that air assault will have two gunships in company. One scout will be my command-and-control bird. The fifth platoon and the last choppers will be our reserve."

That last line got a muffled laugh. The scouts were the last ones. Three scouts couldn't possibly lift a platoon. That meant there really was no reserve.

"Any questions?"

Surgeon-Captain Renoir raised her hand.

"I understand that they have some sort of betting pool as to who'll get me after Central is done with me. Could we set up a pool for what I'll do after I'm through with Central?"

Everyone laughed.

"Surgeon-Captain Renoir, I appreciate your concerns, but you are a non-combatant. And I won't allow you to abuse any prisoners."

"Merde." She muttered.

"But I have been asking my officers to have dinner with me. I'm trying to get to know all of them. I've asked Lieutenant Bornas, formerly with Kampfgruppe von Tarlenheim and Sergeant-Pilot Gallenda, our only Tarkai pilot. I hope that you can come as well. Tomorrow night in my quarters at 1900 hours. Dress is informal. That means plain old cammies."

"I would be delighted, mon capitaine."

The next evening Lieutenant Bornas got ready to have dinner. He had heard that the captain had received some delicacies from Tark, and he couldn't wait to see what was on the menu.

Simone dressed in her best cammies and, after some consideration, put on a minimum of makeup. She also made sure she didn't show too much cleavage. She did like Captain Castle, and if the circumstances were different, she might have considered a little fling with him. Anything more was impossible, of course.

Sergeant-Pilot Gallenda was a nervous wreck by the time it was time to go to the captain's quarters. He had never had dinner with an officer, much less a human officer, let alone an officer as famous as Captain Castle. He had mixed socially with human flying cadets in training, but they had been a rowdy bunch, given to drinking too much, having food fights in the mess and generally raising hell when off duty. He had no trouble getting along with them.

Both Lieutenant Saava and Squadron Leader O'Donnell had talked to Gallenda and tried to calm him down.

"Gallenda," Saava had said, "Captain Castle was born on Tark. His family was murdered there. He wants nothing more than to lead us all back to Tark to liberate our people. He's not going to try to embarrass you because you don't know which fork to use or which way to pass the wine."

That did no good for Gallenda. He had no idea that more than one fork could be used and that there was a proper way to pass wine.

But he marched off to the captain's quarters, making sure not to be late, nor arriving too early. If Sergeant-Pilot Gallenda went to dinner looking like a condemned male going to his execution, he did manage to look like the sort of prisoner who would refuse a blindfold, crack a joke with the commander of the firing squad and offer to give the command to fire himself.

Gallenda was seated by Surgeon-Captain Renoir. He had been told that she was considered to be very beautiful by human standards, but he really couldn't tell. At least he wasn't next to Captain Castle. He was still frightened he'd do something to embarrass himself.

He found Simone Renoir to be pleasant to talk to and very friendly. She managed to bring him out of his shell without him realizing how easily she did it. Soon he was talking about himself.

"I was born on the Scented Sea, well south of the Golden Life Valley where most of the Tarkai in this unit are from. My father and his brothers owned ships that traded all over the Scented Sea. Oh, they were nothing like human ships. Ours were made of wood with some iron reinforcements and were wind powered. I grew up on those ships. I learned to sail and to navigate. But for one coincidence, I'd be captaining a small ship by now."

"Oh, and what was that coincidence? Please tell me." Simone said.

Gallenda found that he really wanted to tell Surgeon-Captain Renoir all about it.

"We'd sailed into the port of Lairge where a human FTL ship had landed. They had aboard a human geological survey team, looking for rare minerals. The team had a helicopter. Once I saw people actually flying, I was hooked."

TBC