Vengeance

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: For the last time! I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.

As von Tarlenheim ordered more lemonades and donuts to celebrate, Kate dragged Rick away. "This was all a set up! You knew von Tarlenheim was coming from the beginning. You knew about the Royal Navy ships! You knew about everything! And you let me worry myself sick this whole time!"

"No, I didn't!" Rick said. "I swear."

"You're a liar and you know how I hate lies." Kate had fixed him with a first class glare.

"I'm not lying." He took her hand and drew her towards a machine. He pressed some keys and a holographic presentation of the Europa Cluster appeared. "Let me explain. To begin with, what you and everyone believes is true: Units like Kampfgruppe von Tarlenheim, the Earl of Orkney's Regiment, Black Jacques Schram's Brigade and all of the rest aren't really independent mercenary units. They work solely for the United Kingdoms."

"Including your company." Kate sniffed.

"No, not at all. I really was entirely on my own. Black Jacques Schram likes me and thought he'd score some points with the Tarkai, so he provided me with some funds, encouraged others to enlist with me and told me where I could get more weapons. I was on my own, but it got Schram thinking. Look here." He pointed to the holographic map. "This is the United Kingdoms, the wealthiest, most industrialized, most technologically advanced and most militarily powerful star nation in the whole Europa Cluster. There are one hundred and two human inhabited planets in the Cluster. Oh, there are nineteen planets inhabited by non-humans, but let's leave those out for now. The one hundred and two planets have something like seven hundred and twenty separate human colonies on them."

"Why is that?" Kate asked.

"It's very difficult and very expensive to establish a new colony. Most are founded with only a couple of hundred thousand people. More may come later, of course, if the colony's successful."

"Now let's assume someone found an uninhabited planet exactly like Earth. Someone starts a colony in say, Virginia. Someone else comes along and founds a colony in Southern Africa. The first colony is struggling to establish itself, so they can hardly start a war against a colony so far away. They just have to live with it. And if someone starts a colony on the Black Sea coast, and one in Eastern China, same thing. Plus having neighbors can be a good thing. You can trade with your neighbors for things that you don't have. Now if someone comes along and plants a colony in North Carolina, that could lead to problems. The kind of problems mercenaries solve. Many colonies are too poor to have anything but a small cadre of professional troops and a lot of poorly armed militia."

"Okay, but what does that have to do with Tark?" Kate asked.

"I'm getting to that. The fifteen million people who went to the United Kingdom was unprecedented in terms of population, wealth, and military power. Most of the colonies in the Cluster are allied with, or at least friendly to, the UK. But then the Chinese came along and colonized the Han Worlds, over here." Castle pointed to three stars just on the edge of the Europa Cluster. "They claim to be independent colonies not at all connected with China back on Earth, but they're really run by some very nationalist Chinese government officials who want China to run all of human space. There are always colonies that are unhappy with the status quo on their planet, or factions in one colony who are unhappy. The Han Worlds will make friends with them by giving them money, advice, equipment, whatever they need or want. If things get serious, they'll provide their allies with weapons, advisors and even "volunteer" troops. And so we have the so-called Shadow War between the Han Worlds and the United Kingdoms. The UK can provide money, advice, weapons, advisors, mercenary troops and even regular UK troops to friendly governments."

"Castle, I know all of this. What does all this have to do with Tark?" Somehow Kate had managed to intensify her glare.

"The Han Worlds have found a new way to attack the UK and its allies. Piracy. They will provide a fast, armed ship to any group of miscreants who want to become pirates and attack anyone the Han don't like. Any paper trail will lead back to Earth and their ferocious banking secrecy laws and stops there. No way to prove Han involvement."

"I hadn't heard of any piracy." Kate said.

"Oh, it's all very business-like and low key. All you need is a fast ship with enough weaponry to take an unarmed merchant ship. You take the ship and put a prize crew aboard, then rendezvous with a merchant ship that's in on the deal. You transfer the ship's passengers and crew to the pirate's merchant ship and the cargo as well. The cargo can be sold legitimately with a few creative forgeries. There are plenty of places within or out of the Europa Cluster where you can sell the pirated merchant ship, no questions asked. The crew and any passengers are ransomed through a series of dummy corporations and legitimate law firms."

"Why would any legitimate law firm get involved?" Kate asked. Her parents were lawyers after all, and she knew about good law firms.

Castle shrugged. "Suppose you're a law firm partner and someone tells you they know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who has taken some hostages and wants to trade them for a ransom. You're a good person and you want to help. Most of the firms do the work pro bono and those that do charge don't ask for more than their expenses. Money gets transferred, people get released and everyone is happy. At least so far."

"This is eventually going to explain what's going on now?" Kate asked.

He nodded. "Here it comes. There are more and more pirate attacks. The solution is for merchant ships to travel together in convoys, escorted by a few warships. So, the UK has been setting up naval bases along its most important trade route. That's the one that leads from the Earth and the Core Worlds. Those are still the wealthiest and most technologically advanced worlds. Each base will have some kind of defense capability, an escort group for the convoys, and a group to go out and try to hunt down pirates. They started at Padua, then Karelia, then the Banat, Swabia, Pecs, Helvetia, Moravia, and so on. Eventually you get to Tark and move on until you get to the Republic of Prussia which is not only the UK's most powerful ally, but is the closest Europa Cluster world to the Core."

"Now Tark, and a few other planets, don't have anything even close to a space navy, but they do have location. Most colonies can at least provide a handful of frigates and some can provide fairly strong space navies. Until the UK and its allies can think of some way to stop piracy, they'll have to expand the convoy system to cover all of the Cluster."

"Couldn't they just send their own pirates after the Han Worlds?" Kate asked.

Rick smiled. "Maybe, but they sure won't tell anyone about it if they did. Anyway, after I left, Black Jacques Schram started to think about what a great location Tark would make for a convoy base. And it would put the Golden Life production in the hands of a friendly government. New Hanover is one of those colonies that are friendly to the Han. He suggested it to some people in the UK government and they thought about it. I didn't know they had something planned until the last time the Pink Zephyr came here. But just because something is planned doesn't mean it's going to happen. Any kind of sudden crisis and von Tarlenheim and Orkney's units and the UK task force are badly needed elsewhere and we're on our own. I didn't say anything to anyone because I didn't know until Hans sent me the one-word code, "Cheerio", that everything was in place."

"So, you didn't know but you knew! You could have told me."

Rick sighed. "How can I make it up to you?"

Kate just smiled.

Two weeks later, von Tarlenheim and Sir Kevin called Rick and Kate over to von Tarlenheim's headquarters. The two had been visiting the plantation owned by the Badens that O'Hara had found.

"We have news." Sir Kevin said. "A New Hanover frigate escorting a troop transport entered the system five days ago and was challenged by our task force. There was a polite conversation and they decided to go elsewhere. Yesterday, a fast civilian ship came in carrying some lawyers from the government of New Hanover and Geiser. They want to make a deal."

"You told them no, of course" Kate said at once.

"No, there will be a deal."

"That's awful. They're slavers, murderers, sadistic monsters who deserve…."

"Please, Captain Beckett." Sir Kevin said, holding up his hands. "This is one of over a hundred planets that the United Kingdoms has interests on. We can't keep two excellent armored units here indefinitely, There are already people wanting their services. The same with our task force."

"That's disgusting." Kate spat.

"That's reality. The deal won't be very favorable to them. We'll pay them a little for the spaceport they built and some other infrastructure, but that's it. And we have an opportunity to make the government of New Hanover more friendly to us and less friendly to the Han Worlds. The planters will be allowed to leave peacefully."

Kate was so angry she just glared and stomped off.

"That's the deal?" Castle asked.

"I'm afraid, Colonel Castle that my job is to do the best for His Majesty's Government. This is the best for us."

Castle nodded. "I guess I'm glad I'm just a soldier." He walked off after Kate. He found her sitting on a tree stump.

"We're still going to stay here for a year?"

Rick nodded. "I think it would be a nice place for a honeymoon."

"You do, Colonel Castle? Don't you think you're leaving something out?"

Castle feigned confusion. "What would that be?"

"Think about it for a while, Soldier Boy."

Castle dropped to one knee and held out a ring. "Katherine Houghton Beckett, will you marry me?"

"Yes."

The End

Author's note: I have ideas for three sequels to this story. I'm also still working on the sequel to Deadly Planet and the next story of Renaissance Italy's Lord and Lady Castle. I have a kind of an idea for a story about Special Force Major Rick Rodgers and his archeologist wife, Kate. Plus, I have been thinking about finishing off the story of Captain Kate Beckett, the 18th Century pirate queen. Oh, I also have an idea for To Love and Die in Manhattan, an AU take on To Love and Die in LA. I also have an idea for Kate Beckett to meet our favorite vampire, Simone Renoir. So, there's only one thing for it. I'm just going to have to live to be 130 years old to get all of this done.