make them feed us first. Maybe both and maybe more.
'After that, we'll drop some leaflets and let the pregnant women and the sick out. Then the Kosmos can care for them a few miles downstream.'
Pumbadeta, Sumer, 9/7/462 AC
The leaflets fell from the sky-specifically, they were dropped by Crickets-before sunrise. On one side they showed pictures and diagrams of who would be allowed out and where. The pictures showed one woman with a large belly, a man on a stretcher, and a very small child. The diagram was simply the place where Highway 1 met the encircling berms and minefields. More complex instructions were written on the back. Most of Pumbadeta's adult residents, male and even female, could read.
Fadeel was mixed about the prospect. Food was already scarce; this would reduce the number of mouths he had to feed. On the other hand, he was counting on the presence of large numbers of noncombatants, when the assault finally came, to sully the reputation of the coalition. Then he remembered:
This part of the coalition doesn't care a goat's ass for their reputation with the humanitarians. They'll kill without compunction. Better, then, to let go whoever will be allowed out, to stretch out the food that remains.
Three hundred thousand people, give or take, had been trapped when the siege fell on the city like a thunderclap. Of those, perhaps five or six thousand were truly sick. An additional ten or eleven thousand women may have been pregnant or nursing. And there were many small children.
Nothing like that number came out. Nursing women would be allowed to leave, but what if they had children over the age of six, which was Carrera's stated cut off? Would they leave those behind? For the most part, they would not. What about women with children who would be allowed out as well as children who would not be? They tended to stay behind as well. And the sick? If they were truly ill, they needed to be carried. Stretcher bearers from the legion were standing by to take their litters. Few men inside the town were willing to bear them to the demarcation berm.
In all, perhaps five thousand, or a few more, of the citizens of the town actually left. Then the wall closed down again.
As that wall closed, Fernandez and his people, supplemented by Sada's, descended on the refugees, pumping them, without violence, for any information they might have on the defenses and the defenders. Most knew little. A few were better informed.
'Why so few sick?' Lindemann asked. When Carrera explained, she volunteered, on behalf of herself and her workers, to go in and carry the deathly ill out.
'No… you would just be held and become hostages,' he answered, feeling a measure of grudging admiration. 'They get out on their own, or with the help of those inside, or they stay there. I'm still willing to airdrop medicine, remember.'
'What good is medicine without doctors to administer it?' she asked.
'Not my concern. But if you can talk Mustafa into letting Doctor Nur al-Deen-he's the enemy's overall number two, you know?- jump in by parachute, I'll be glad to let him do so. Course, I'll hang the bastard right after we take the town.'
Pumbadeta, Sumer, 11/7/462 AC
The air defense maniple that loosely ringed the city was useful only for low flying aircraft. For any that flew higher Carrera had Turbo- Finches armed with machine gun pods. These, with a top speed of only about two hundred and fifty miles per hour, were extremely poor interdiction aircraft.
On the other hand, the Castilla-built Hacienda-121 was a very good light cargo aircraft, but its top speed was only two hundred and twenty-five miles an hour. Thus, when the pilot of the circling TurboFinch saw the Hacienda kicking bundles out the door, he had little trouble closing the distance and investigating. The Hacienda was decorated with a Red Crescent, sign of the Islamic version of the Red Cross. The serial numbers on the side of the Hacienda indicated Yithrabi registration.
Since he was weapons free, meaning he could engage any aircraft that fit his rules of engagement, and since he was expressly instructed not to permit any airdrops or aerial deliveries into the town without prior authorization, he armed his gun pods. If he worried even in the slightest about his commander's reaction to his shooting down a civilian aircraft he had only to remember that this was the third anniversary of a very important date to that commander.
It was unlikely that Carrera would mind, today, if he dropped a nuke.
Before shooting, though, the Finch pilot tried to warn the Hacienda off with a burst that flew parallel to the cargo plane. The plane shuddered, as if the pilot were surprised, but quickly got back on course. It was as if the Hacienda pilot simply couldn't believe that anyone would violate the rules the Kosmos had set up to protect just such activities. At that point, the Finch pilot shifted slightly to line his guns up, and opened fire with a short burst of several hundred rounds. Perhaps a third of these impacted the Hacienda, which heeled over to one side and began a rapid smoking descent to the ground.
And that was the last attempt at aerial resupply of the town by any Kosmo organization.
'Don't you have any sense of humanity?' Lindemann asked, furious and in tears.
Carrera thought about that for a few seconds before answering, 'As you would define it? Perhaps not. Am I supposed to? If so, why?'
Fadeel was shocked, shocked at seeing the Hacienda go down in flames. He'd never believed any of his enemies would have the sheer… the sheer…
They're as ruthless as I am. And much better armed. I'd better figure a way out of here for myself and my key subordinates or I'm screwed.
The sun had set several hours prior, leaving three spark-bright moons to shine onto the planet. They would set about midnight. In those hours, Fadeel had massed just over three hundred of his mujahadin and a thousand unarmed civilians in buildings on the north side of town, at a place where the ground was a bit rougher and where a man, once free of the encirclement, might have a chance to escape. He told his followers that this was a raid with the purpose of getting into the besiegers' rear area and ruining their supply arrangements. Liberally doped with hashish as many of those followers were, there had been no questions.
Ordinarily, Fadeel would have waited until perhaps three in the morning to launch his raid. That would be the time when the enemy would be at his lowest level of alert. Unfortunately, that would also not give him enough darkness before sunrise to effect his escape. The attack would be at midnight.
The legion had purchased two NA-23s for the express purpose of converting them to aerial gunships. Eventually, there would be four in a deployed legion, twenty total for the entire force, but for now, two would have to do. These were just enough, with maintenance schedules, to keep one on station throughout the night, most nights. Instead of 'NA,' these birds bore the designation 'ANA'; 'A' for Attack.
Out the left-hand side of each of the planes stuck the muzzles of five tri-barrel fifty caliber machine guns. These were chain guns, driven by electric motors to very high rates of fire, eighteen hundred rounds per minute, per gun. Between the five of them, the planes could spit out nine thousand rounds in just sixty seconds. The guns were carefully aligned so that number three, in the center of the lefthand side, fired to the center of the beaten zone, number one fired high, number five low, and two and four in between. The guns were somewhat loosely mounted as a certain amount of spread was deemed desirable.
Modifying the planes had not been particularly cheap. It had seemed worthwhile, therefore, to give each a fairly sophisticated suite of sensors, especially low light television and thermal imagers. The thermals alone were an appreciable percentage of the cost of the final system.
The price had been worth it. Alerted of the assembling enemy by the ever-roaming RPVs, the one ANA-23 on station was waiting when the mujahadin and the civilians emerged from their cover.
The gunner for the plane tapped his monitor to mark one edge of the enemy formation. He then tapped the perceived center of mass, and then the other end of the group. A computer registered the taps and calculated a flight path and attitude for optimal dispersion of fire. This was fed to the pilot's console automatically. The pilot aligned his plane on the calculated path, heeled over and began his firing run.
Fadeel's men crept forward, driving the civilians before them, toward the enemy-held berm that surrounded the town. He and his select followers waited in the covering buildings for a path to be breached. Any minute now…
' Il hamdu l'illah! ' Fadeel exclaimed when the eye-searing lines began to burn down from the heavens onto his men. 'I never saw-'
