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.

"Will JOM Cubed be hiring us, sir?" Rick asked.

"Not a chance. JOM Cubed is incorporated on Nuevo Sonora in the Latin Expanse. They have very strict laws about private companies hiring mercenaries. JOM Cubed had enough trouble recruiting security guards for their operation. They do have multiple concertina rolls of razor wire and anti-personnel mines to keep any pirates out, but that's it."

"Will the Vulcans be hiring us then?"

"A bunch of pacifists? Not happening. One of my company commanders is going to go rogue on me and will set up on Vulcan. Three guesses who that is and the first two don't count."

"Yes, sir." Castle grumped.

"Don't sound so grumpy. You're getting enough trained Tarkai to give you a strong company, and I have a few surprises for you."

"A strong company to take on some five thousand pirates? I'll be outnumbered four or five hundred to one."

"That's the first surprise I have for you, Rick. Come on inside." Schram got up and headed inside. "And bring the beer with you."

They headed for Schram's office. When they got there, Rick saw there were eight men already there. They were in civilian clothes, but Rick was sure they were soldiers.

"Rick, this is Warrant Officer McRoberts and his team. McRoberts, this is Captain Rick Castle. You'll be working for him. I need you to tell him about your experiences on Vulcan."

McRoberts nodded to Rick and stood.

"Glad to meet you, sir. We've heard about you and the Tarkai and we're happy to work for you. We were initially hired by a consortium of insurance companies, shipping lines and the Brotherhood of Spacers to track down and kill Hoddy Ringo. My sniper team…" he gestured to two men, …" Sergeants Muller and Croft were to do the killing. The rest were backup."

"Eight men isn't a whole lot to go after some five thousand." Rick said.

McRoberts grinned.

"No worry, sir. The pirates signed up to raid unarmed colonists or herd captured spacers or passengers around. They never wanted to close with us. We could hear Ringo on the radio screaming at her people to attack, but they wanted to outflank us. They went as far out on our flanks as they could get, and we eventually lost track of them. "

"We got a shot at her, but one of her people walked in front of her at the last second and he got killed, not her. From then she kept slaves around her, mostly Vulcans but some humans, I think. We couldn't get a shot. She had them dressed in her clothes."

"Vulcans look like humans then?" Rick asked.

"Even from up close if you can't see their ears. They have pointy ears, like elves."

"Why did you pull out without killing her?"

"The Brotherhood managed to get a ship in orbit and sent down some drones to look over her ship. They found two large tears in the hull. One was maybe twenty meters long by two meters and the other was just a bit smaller. They also found the ship, instead of being egg shaped was bulged to one side. A sure sign the ship's keel was broken. The ship won't rise without a full shipyard to repair her and there isn't one on Vulcan. So, they pulled us out."

"Ringo is collecting dilithium crystals and selling them to smugglers. Sooner or later, she'll get off that damned planet and go back in business. Didn't they realize that?" Rick demanded.

McRoberts shrugged.

"Sure, but it wasn't costing them any money right now."

"Rick, "Schram said, "I'd suggest attaching McRoberts and his team to your headquarters as the experts on Vulcan. You'll have enough Tarkai to form a full company."

"Okay, McRoberts see Sergeant Saava. He'll provide you with all the weapons and gear you need. If you need something he doesn't have, come see me."

Once Sergeant Saava had taken care of McRoberts and his people, he went to the spaceport to welcome the new recruits. He stood on the ramp and watched the interface ship land. Twenty-seven Tarkai came out, carrying their gear.

The Tarkai were humanoid but covered with short fur ranging from light tan to near black. They had sturdy torsos and long legs and arms. They also had better senses than any human.

They saw Saava at once. He wore a new desert camouflage uniform that the whole company would soon be wearing. Around his waist was his pistol belt. On the right was a holstered 9mm pistol and two spare magazines. On the left was the long, double edged fighting knife that all Tarkai soldiers carried. His had been made by a master bladesmith and had been quenched in a pint of his own blood. On his head was the steel grey beret worn by Castle's troops in garrison. It featured a stylized castle with crossed Tarkai fighting knives behind it as insignia.

"Soldiers for Captain Castle's company! Form up on me. We're in a hurry. We have a mission, and you will perform well or I'll know the reason why!"

Castle was behind his desk doing the paperwork he hated. He became aware that someone was standing in front of the desk. He looked up and saw a woman with curly chestnut hair, killer cheekbones, hazel eyes and a dynamite body. She was dressed in shorts and a tight desert camouflage tee shirt. He could see her nipples pressed against the front of her shirt.

She saluted and dropped orders on his desk.

"Surgeon-Captain Simone Renoir, commanding Airborne Surgical Team 102, reporting for duty, sir."

"Renoir, I'm not sure this is the best place for you…" Rick began.

Simone suddenly looked devastated.

"Oh, pauvre Simone. Poor Simone. The handsome and gallant Captain Castle thinks that as a woman, I am only good for cooking, cleaning and making babies." She looked like she was about to cry.

"Captain Renoir, you're about as helpless as a pride of Zambesian veldt cats. But this is…"

"I have been fully briefed, mon capitaine. You will have only the resources of your company to rely on. You need me and my team."

"Welcome to the company, Surgeon-Captain. And could you wear a bra in the future?"

"Alas, we are going to a hot desert world. A bra would chafe my poor breasts. I would need a strong, tender man to rub ointment on them."

"I've been told that Sergeant Saava has very fine hands."

Simone saluted and left. He didn't see her stick her tongue out at him.

Trip loaded all of the food in the ship's storage lockers into boxes on the ship's forklift and then into the eight-wheeler. Skull, and Crossbones, were still there watching him.

"I'm not taking any of your food, guys." He said. "But the only way I'll ever get off this damned hot rock before I'm old and gray is to make enough money to buy a passage off. That means I have to become a dilithium crystal prospector. And that means I'll need food. Yeah, the crew will be pissed at me, but they're gonna have to go to work for JOM Cubed here and they'll get fed."

Neither Skull, nor Crossbones objected.

Trip next went through the personal supplies of everyone on the ship. He knew that all of them had their own supplies of better-quality food and drink. He hit the jackpot in Melody's room. Part of her job was to schmooze prospective clients. She had high quality food and drink and lots of it. The captain had apparently depended on Melody for his food and drink, as he had only a few snacks. Trip took those.

Then he went to hydroponics. Ike had several sacks of corn meal, dried peas, rice and best of all, lots to drink in his personal supplies.

"Bless you, Ike." Trip said with a laugh. "Eight cases of excellent beer, twenty-four cans to a case, six one-liter cans of Essen Lager, and five liter bottles of Guinness India Pale Ale."

Then he found Ike's hard liquor.

"Whiskey and rum? Twenty-four almost full liter bottles? Ike, I'm so pleased I almost feel like leaving a bottle behind for you. Almost, but not quite."

He thought about leaving the emergency rations behind. They were compressed blocks of dried plankton. They tasted like sawdust, but if you made a soup out of one and had lots of seasonings, they were better than starving. Barely.

So, he took them.

He went to Doctor Ochler's office and took everything the doc had. The doc had the bedside manner of a grizzly with a migraine, and everyone strongly suspected he watered down the medicines he gave to sick or injured crewmembers and sold the balance on the black market somewhere.

Next, he went to engineering and took all of his own personal tools, all of the ship's hand tools, all of the portable power tools and an emergency fusion power generator. He then loaded all of the spare parts and other materials he thought he might need into the forklift and took it to the eight-wheeler.

Then he went to the ship's armory. The ship had only small arms, but Trip didn't need more. He jimmied the gun store open. There were two 7mm battle rifles, three assault rifles firing a less powerful 7mm round, a 9mm submachine gun, a .55 caliber carbine, and a twelve-gauge shotgun. There were also six 9mm pistols, two stun pistols, plus ammo and stun grenades.

Had a soldier from the late 21st century come forward in time, he would have recognized the weapons at once. The first thing that the Triple Alliance had done upon taking over Earth was to forbid all weapons research. They didn't want to have anyone making any discoveries that would erode their overwhelming power over the rest of Earth. All other research had suffered as well. After all, the Triple Alliance reasoned, medical research might accidentally result in a new form of biological warfare. Chemical research could lead to an advance in chemical warfare. And so on and on.

The captain had appointed himself the law enforcement officer for the Enterprize. Trip found the captain had a protective vest with a 9mm pistol on the right and a stun pistol on the left. There were extra magazines for both weapons, plus a first aid kit, a canteen, a knife, a short range radio and a small butt pack with several first class emergency rations in it. A quick check showed there were three other radios.

Trip was about to take a battle rifle, the shotgun, the .55, a spare pistol and the vest and its attachments, plus ammo. Then he stopped and smiled.

He looked over at Skull, and Crossbones, who had followed him.

"You know, if I take all of this, there's damned little chance the crew is gonna come looking for me."

So, he loaded everything onto the forklift and put it all in the eight-wheeler.

Lastly, he went to the ship's computer and downloaded everything they had on the planet. That wasn't much, but he had a map and a vague idea of where dilithium crystals had been found before.

One useful thing he did find was that Melody had a portable universal translator in her quarters. The main part was small enough to fit in his pocket and there was a tiny earpiece that went behind his ear and delivered a translation through the mastoid bone. The UT could translate Vulcan. There were five earpieces there and he took them all.

He stopped halfway to the lower cargo hold.

"Damn! I must be getting old." He said, shaking his head.

He went back to his cabin and packed his clothes, PADDS, toiletries and all of his personal possessions.

He thought about checking the other crew's quarters but decided against it.

Now that the eight-wheeler was loaded, Trip looked at the map. It looked like straight shot due south to a Vulcan town of maybe fifteen hundred people. Practically a metropolis on this pitiful excuse for a planet.

He drove off of the ship and cheerfully waved at the ship in his rearview mirror.

TBC