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.
Castle brought his staff in and briefed them on what the recon team had found. They got out maps of the whole Jordan River Valley as well as photos taken from orbit. Everyone examined them. Their two best local scouts, brothers named Absolom and Elias Fisher had gone north past the Falls of the Jordan River and all the way up to the first tributary before Castle's arrival.
"Here's the Falls, sir." Absolom said. "You can see by the white water. We've scouted as far as the first tributary and went no more than five miles up it. Didn't see nothing of interest, so we come home. I don't know of anyone that's gone further than we have."
Squadron Leader O'Donnell, who commanded Castle's helicopter unit, looked at the maps.
"From here to the second tributary is too far for my choppers to go. The troop transports have the longest range. Even if we filled the passenger compartment with avgas and took out everything that wasn't absolutely necessary, we could get there, but we'd never get back."
"Do you think the UK would abandon the Havenites, sir?" Saava asked.
"That I can't answer. But they're not going to leave most of their Tarkai scouts here forever. We have enough arms, courtesy of our Euro friends, to arm the Havenites. How good at being soldiers they'd be if the pressure was off of them for a couple of years, I can't say."
"We have a problem, then." Saava replied.
Squadron Leader O'Donnell stared at the map.
"We don't have to do this all-in-one go, you know."
"What do you mean?" Castle asked.
"We could fly from here to…" He stopped and put his finger on an area of the map just south of the Falls of the River Jordan. "…about here. We can set up a small helipad here, stock it with fuel, weapons, spare parts, maintenance teams and tools, then fly the rest of the way to wherever the Euros are."
Elias spoke.
"There's this flat-topped mountain about ten miles north of the Falls, sir. The sides are real steep. A good squad could hold off an army and there's plenty of room on top of the mountain. You could set up the whole chopper unit you have here and still have room left over."
"That could work." Rick said. "First, we'll send a recon team to check out this flat-topped mountain."
"You'll need to send a few of my people to look it over." O'Donnell said.
Sergeant Gorad was bored. He reflected that this could be a good or a bad thing. It was good if it meant no one was trying to kill you. And no one was. They had been landed by helicopter two days ago. They had checked out the flat-topped mountain, now called a mesa by the humans, and decided that no one had ever been here before. The sides were so steep and smooth Gorad wasn't sure anyone not an accomplished climber with the appropriate equipment could make it to the top.
On the other hand, getting bored could lead to you getting sloppy and getting sloppy could get you killed.
Gorad decided to lead his recon team on another trip around the mesa to see if they found anything they'd missed before. His team wouldn't get bored doing that.
That night, Sergeant Mullins, from the aviation team told Gorad that the mesa was perfect for a temporary heliport.
"I'm going to call it in tonight and we'll have a chopper here tomorrow to haul us out."
The choppers flew at night and did their best to avoid anyplace held by the Euros. It took a week, but a temporary heliport was set up and ready to go. Tarkai recon teams were soon on their way to track down the new Euro settlements.
Corporal Tapa inhaled deeply.
"They still haven't learned a damned thing." He whispered to his recon team even though there was no one else within a mile. He didn't want to get into any bad habits. "There's wood smoke coming from the northeast. It's got to be a Euro encampment."
It was. Tapa and his team watched them carefully. There were eleven Euros who had one rifle, two shotguns and a pistol between them. There were five Havenite prisoners who seemed to be doing most of the work.
Tapa and his team settled in to watch and learn. No other Euros came to this camp, and they saw no evidence that the Euros were using phones or radios to communicate. After six days they left and were airlifted out.
Captain Castle looked at the maps with his staff. Several Havenites had been rescued and all said that the Euros had twenty small farms set up in the far north with a twenty-first heading north. A Tarkai recon team was tracking the twenty-first.
"We have six assault helicopters. They'll carry sixteen fully armed troopers. If we use an eleven-person squad we can hit a Euro farm, rescue the Havenites, load everyone into a bird and take them back to Mesa Base. Then we send them out again and do the whole thing all over again."
"What about the scout ships and gunships, sir?" O'Donnell asked.
"They'll stay here. They don't have the range and who knows, we may need them."
Lieutenant Saava had decided to lead the assault squad from his platoon in person. The helo roared up to the Euro farm, went into a hover and came down. A Euro came out of a lean-to and fired a shotgun at the helo. He missed and the door gunner cut him down. The other Euros quickly surrendered.
Saava quickly organized the Havenites for their evacuation. As he did, he was approached by a Euro woman, a tall Nordic looking blonde.
"You're taking the Havenites away before we've learned how to farm. All of us are from the city and know nothing of farming. We'll starve."
Saava handed the blonde a book.
"For reasons I don't understand, the Havenites don't want you to starve. But they don't want to have their people stay here and be your slaves, either. They've put together a book telling you what to do. There's also local food around here that'll provide protein and some minerals you'll need. Vitamins and other minerals you'll get from the Earth food you grow. And I'll remind you that you wouldn't have this problem if you hadn't come here with weapons and tried to take over the colony."
Saava was back on the chopper and headed for Mesa Base before any of the Euros could say anything.
In the end, all twenty farms were raided, and three Euros were killed and the rest surrendered. One Havenite had died before the raids, but the rest were resecued.
"Okay," Castle said to his officers, "we've got their farms that they thought were out of our reach, now we begin Operation Harvest."
Sergeant-Pilot Hyde pulled up over the trees surrounding the Euro farm nearest to Castle's base. He knew that the Euros and their Havenite slaves would be in the farmhouse with all the farm animals and food they could fit in since it was the middle of the night. But that left some very nice fields of corn, wheat and potatoes unguarded as well as a small orchard of apple and pear trees.
Hyde looked through his sights and aimed at the corn.
"One away." He said to himself, and an incendiary bomb dropped onto the corn field. It didn't destroy all of the corn, but most of the corn was destroyed. The second bomb landed between the potatoes and the wheat, badly damaging both.
"Okay, Ottar, work on the trees." He said to his Tarkai gunner.
Ottar used all of his ammunition on the trees, damaging most.
Other scouts, gunships and lift birds were attacking other Euro held farms. In two nights, the crops were mostly reduced to ashes.
"Captain," Saava said, "the Euros' Central is calling. He wants to discuss terms."
"He can come here with two other people and no weapons. Alert Brother Daniel and Sister Gina. They'll want to be around since they decided what the terms would be."
Central was younger than Castle had thought. He was in his early thirties at best, but he had the look of a fanatic about him. His name was Jean Gilles and he was French. For some reason Simone disliked him. He read the terms with a frown.
"You aren't giving us much, Captain Castle." Gilles said." Your landing ship will take my people, plus food, seed, farm animals and tools to an island three thousand miles from here. The Havenites will provide us books on how to farm. Things will be very hard on my people."
"For the record, I would have let you starve to death." Castle said. "Brother Daniel felt that Christian charity was in order. But the UK still doesn't trust you or the other Euros in the European Liberation Front. My unit will leave, but a UK training team will come to train the Haven militia with the weapons we got from you. UK Navy ships will keep an eye on Haven and if the ELF or anyone else tries to invade Haven, we'll send in a brigade and flatten you, leaving the survivors to starve in the ruins. We've advised the European Union and ELF of that."
"Now, you can take the terms or the war continues."
Central sighed.
"We accept."
Castle and his unit were prepared to leave Haven, their mission successfully accomplished and the last of the Euros sent into exile.
An orbiting transport was being readied to begin lifting the entire team.
"Brother Castle." Said Brother Daniel. "May I have a word with you?"
Castle had long since decided that he'd rather be called Brother Castle by Brother Daniel than argue with the man.
"Certainly, Brother Daniel. What do you want?"
"Could you and your command come to the main church here in New Ark? We want to hold a service of thanks for the deliverance your command provided."
"It'll be several hours before we can go. I hope it won't take longer than that."
"Oh, not at all."
Castle marched his whole command to the church and managed to get all of them, and a good number of Havenites inside.
For once, Brother Daniel's sermon was short and to the point. A hymn was sung and then Brother Daniel pointed to a large tarp that had been spread over part of one wall.
"We usually don't go in for decoration of our churches, but we thought we'd make an exception." He turned towards two people standing by the tarp. "Now, Brother David and Brother Michael."
The tarp was taken down and Castle saw that the church had a stained-glass window. Then he saw that the subjects, in appropriately saintly robes, were him, Squadron Leader Bullock, Surgeon-Captain Renoir, Lieutenants Saava, Bornas, Pangorran and Mr. Trappas. Behind them were ranks of angelic Tarkai and humans.
"Sir what are those glowing circles over our heads in that?" Saava whispered.
"Those are halos. Angels have them in some human religions."
"Aren't angels dead people, sir? How could dead people save Haven?"
"I suppose there are dead angels that can save lives." Castle said, winking at Surgeon-Captain Renoir. She just smiled.
Saava decided that he might never completely understand humans.
The End.
Authors note: Next up is The Wild Bunch. No, Pike Bishop and his gang won't be around, but you may see some familiar faces including a leggy, chestnut haired beauty with hazel eyes who is named Kate Beckett, as well as a blue-eyed stranger who's handy with a gun.