Freebooter

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Castle and Star Trek: Enterprise belong to vast corporations. UCSBdad is not any kind of corporation. Rating: K, but maybe more. Time: Some vague time in two alternate universes.

At the end of the day, they each owed the other ten beers.

Castle's troops began to break down into smaller groups to catch the many small groups of pirates. One such group was Lance Corporal Manen's fire team of four Tarkai.

Manen stopped and examined the group about four hundred meters ahead of them.

"A Vulcan family, I'd guess. Looks like a father, mother, son, and daughter. The two on the ground are human, doubtlessly pirates. Be careful, they could be playing…what's the animal I'm thinking of?"

The other three just shook their heads.

"Well, be careful."

As they got closer, they saw the humans were unarmed.

"Hello, I'm Lance Corporal Manen. Are you all right?"

"I'm Thabak, this is my mate, K'Ser, our son Tomon, and daughter K'Tla. And our human friends, Mike and Janet."

"Friends? They have ammo bandoleers on. They're pirates."

"That's technically true I suppose. They were both kidnapped from planets much like Vulcan. Poor worlds lacking the riches and machines you have. They were forced to become pirates or face death."

"They're still pirates." Manen insisted.

"However, Mike kept our daughter, K'Tla from being a…plaything for another human pirate by saying she was his. K'Tla has not been molested. Both of them protected us and gave us food and water. We intend to take them with us."

"We've been ordered…" Manen began.

"If these people have committed a crime, they should be judged by Vulcans. This is our planet, not yours. I must insist."

"I'm not going to stand around in the middle of a desert and argue with a Vulcan. We'll give you enough water to get the six of you someplace safe. Head back down the valley. There are Vulcan auxiliaries that'll be there to help you. And get rid of their ammo bandoleers. Someone might shoot first and ask questions later."

"Corp," said Rifleman Bont, who had walked to the top of a small rise. "There're five pirates ahead of us. They can't do more than stagger along."

Manen and his fire team left and Thabak was giving water to the two humans when he heard five single shots.

Sergeant Gorad, the head of the scout squad, had convinced Castle to have one of the ship's boats drop his squad ahead of the retreating pirates, closer to Ringo's ship. The boat snuck in at low level in the dark and dropped the squad off. In their chameleon suits, they'd be nearly impossible to spot, especially for exhausted pirates, desperate to get to the imagined safety of their ship. His team climbed to the top of a small rise to look around.

"We're in luck." Gorad whispered to his troops. "There's a truck about a click away from us. That has to mean pirates. Looks like the truck is stuck. They're working on the engine. The dumb fucks aren't paying attention to anything." He smiled to himself. "Anyone who has a truck is probably important. We could maybe get some good intel out of him." He examined the truck further. "It's got a canvas cover over the back and canvas over the rear exit. Might be people in there. We'll have to be careful."

The squad moved slowly into position for an ambush. They counted five pirates. One was behind the wheel of the truck, two were working on the engine and two were just standing there.

"I think the one standing on the left is a big shot." Gorad whispered. "He's better dressed than the rest. I'm going to try to stun him."

Normally, Gorad hated to use a stun gun. Too many times the target was able to keep shooting even if he was hit two or three times.

Gorad indicated which of his troops was to shoot which pirate and then they crept to within fifty meters of the pirates. At Gorad's command, they shot. Gorad was happy that his target dropped like a stone when he was stunned.

They rushed to the back of the truck.

"Anyone in there had better come out now, or you'll regret it. Move." Yelled Gorad.

The strip of canvas was pushed aside and someone came out. To the Tarkai's surprise, she was human, young, blonde and naked.

"Please don't hurt us. We'll do anything you want."

Gorad examined the young woman. She had been badly beaten.

"How many are there in the truck?" He asked softly.

"Twenty-four all together, sir."

"We won't hurt you. We're part of Chieftain Castle's command. We'll get you evacuated out of here and get you food and medical care."

The rest of the women came out of the truck. Eighteen were Vulcans and six were humans. Gorad thought they would be considered attractive by human standards, but he really couldn't tell.

"The man over there," Gorad said, pointing to the man he'd stunned, "is he an important person with the pirates?"

"No." said the blonde. "We're Lord Gregg's harem. Lord Gregg went ahead. That's Lord Abbott. He was in charge of disciplining us." She pointed to the many cuts and bruises on her body.

"He's of no use to us then."

The blonde walked over to Abbott and began kicking him. She was weak from hunger, dehydration and her injuries. She wasn't doing much damage. A Vulcan girl walked up to Gorad and pointed to the knife on his belt. He handed it to her. She walked to Abbott and knelt beside him. The other women followed her.

Gorad and his team waited there for three hours before calling in a ship's boat to remove the young women. Gorad was amazed at how inventive the women were.

"Chieftain Castle?"

He looked up to see Trip Tucker and his wife, T'Pol, standing there. He had set up his headquarters in a patch of desert. All he had were four radio operators and Sergeant Saava.

"Can I help you two?"

T'Pol nodded.

"I have been trying to coordinate the recovery of the former Vulcan slaves and the human slaves back to the town you set up."

"I know. Surgeon-Captain Renoir mentioned to me that you two, and the whole T'Okar clan have done a great job."

"Mebbe too good a job for you, sir." Trip said.

"Too good? How?"

"The people are talking about becoming part of my clan." T'Pol said. "Their home villages have been destroyed. Many have been killed, and they are frightened. I have tried to explain to them that you have the real power here, but…"

"They really don't know how working for humans might work out?"

"Something like that, sir." Trip replied.

"That's fine with me. I don't know anything about leading Vulcans, so we're even."

"We'll keep prospecting for dilithium crystals for you." T'Pol said.

"Fine. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a battle to run."

Castle grabbed a mic from one of the radio operators.

"Gorad, can you get that truck working? That'll save us a trip with the boats, and we can use a working vehicle."

Eventually, the surviving pirates were driven back to their ship. An attack would involve close quarters firefights that would probably kill as many, or more, Vulcans as pirates. Castle decided to settle in for a siege. The ship had landed on a bare rock plain, but there was a sandy desert nearby. Castle had his troops filling sandbags to build sangars, a sort of above ground foxholes. Little by little they surrounded the ship with squad sized bunkers. The siege dragged on. On occasion, small groups of pirates would try to sneak out and get past Castle's troops under cover of darkness. Since Castle's troops had night vision goggles and weapon sights, the breakout attempts were universally fatal to the pirates.

Rick brought his command group together.

"As you know, Vulcans have been sneaking away from Ringo's ship. We've had over two hundred so far. One of them had an idea that sounds pretty good to me."

Late at night the troops set up large Vulcan barrels well out of the range of the pirates' weapons. Then they filled the barrels with water. At dawn the pirates could see several humans, Vulcans and Tarkai drinking their fill and even washing. They could hear the pirates screaming obscenities.

"Sir, "said Sergeant Saava, "Surgeon-Captain Renoir has joined the people at the barrel."

Castle grabbed his binoculars.

"How did she ever get that tee shirt on, and those shorts, without ripping out a seam?"

"I don't know, sir. But she seems to be getting the tee shirt off quite easily."

Castle, Saava and all of the human males watched Simone.

"That's a rather interesting dance she's doing, sir." Saava said.

A shot rang out from the pirates' ship. It hit a hundred meters short of the barrels and fifty meters to the right. Simone quickly ducked down behind the barrels. She waited for a minute, then stood up, completely naked, wiggled her bare ass at the pirates and ran off to the nearest bunker. She got a standing ovation from both sides.

"Everybody had better be on the alert tonight. If they're going to come, it'll be then."

They did come, staggering along in the last stages of dehydration, but determined to find water even if it killed them. Kill them it did.

The next day Castle took stock.

"We've had more Vulcans slip out. They say there aren't more than a few hundred pirates left and they're dying of thirst. I think we can attack tonight without risking a massacre of the Vulcans or suffering heavy casualties ourselves."

The attack went in three hours after sundown. The pirates only managed to fire an occasional burst of fire as the Tarkai swarmed over their makeshift defenses.

Trip Tucker, being a starship engineer, led a team to the engine room. It was empty of people. He tried to call Castle on his radio, but the radio waves bounced off the engine room bulkheads.

"Send someone to tell Castle the engine room is secure. The anti-matter containment field is fine. Ringo isn't going to commit suicide and take us with her."

"Is everything all right?" A familiar voice asked.

"T'Pol, what are you doing here?" He demanded.

"I'm with my husband, as a wife should be."

"We'll talk about this later."

"Of course, husband."

Trip knew the talk would do no good.

Sergeant Saava was equally unhappy that Castle had insisted on going with the assault team headed for Ringo's quarters.

"We've looked everywhere else, sir." Saava said. "She must be behind this airtight door. That's her personal quarters, according to the Vulcans."

"We'll probably have to blow it open." Rick said.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the door was opened by a naked Vulcan girl.

"You can come it. It's all over." Said the girl.

Ringo was dead by her own hand, a large caliber pistol in her hand. Around her were her harem, all alive.

"She didn't try to kill you all?" Rick asked.

"She probably thought about it." Said a human woman. "But she was taking some kind of drugs. She didn't make much sense for the last hour or so."

Castle was sitting in what he called the throne room at T'Okar. He was facing T'Pol and Trip.

"We have an opportunity off planet." He told them. "We'll be leaving as soon as my troops and all of my supplies are loaded in the ship. I don't know when, or even if I'll be back. I'm leaving T'Pol in charge of the new, expanded T'Okar clan in my absence."

"Trip, you should be able to salvage the anti-matter from Ringo's ship without any trouble and sell it to JOM Cubed. Ship owners are always looking for anti-matter. You can salvage a lot from the ship itself. Some you can probably sell and some you can use yourself. Any dilithium crystals you find, sell them to JOM Cubed and use the profits as you see fit. When I come back, If I come back, we'll set up some kind of an arrangement."

"You are far too generous, Chieftain Castle." T'Pol said.

"But we accept." Trip said quickly.

Castle took one last look at the planet Vulcan as the Minerva left orbit.

"We're not ever coming back again, are we, sir?" Asked Sergeant Saava.

"We might. I'd like to see what those two do to the place in ten or fifteen years."

"I'll make a note on my calendar, sir."

THE END

Author's note: Next up is Kidnapped. The daughter of one of Rick's friends is kidnapped. However, the ransom drop goes horribly wrong. Can Rick and Kate save the day?