If there was going to be any substantial error on the bombing run, it was going to be along the axis of flight. Lanza played with his controls, hand and foot both, and brought the throttle down to reduce speed. A tone sounded in his headphones as he passed precisely through a checkpoint.
"Pilot to crew, five minutes. Stand by to roll."
"Chief to pilot, bomb crew standing by."
Lanza waited for another tone, the one that would tell him to begin the bombing run. It came quickly. He keyed his microphone again, saying, "Roll to the ramp."
He couldn't feel the bomb crew straining muscle to move the thing down the line to the ramp. He could and did feel the vibration of the bomb itself as it rattled along horizontally, then the final kachunk as the crew eased it into the down-angled cradle that held it locked in position on the ramp itself. Lolita nosed upward slightly with the rearward weight shift and Lanza adjusted the controls, his left arm pushing on the yoke while that thumb played with the trim button to keep her level. Another tone. "Releasing." For a brief moment he felt overweight as the plane ballooned slightly, then weightless as it dropped. Lanza's right hand adjusted the throttle to increase speed. No sense in hanging around, after all. Despite intel, the enemy just might have something in the way of air defense. Besides, he had to get well out of the way of Anabelle, coming in close behind.
Lanza turned hard left, flipping his night vision goggles down and looking towards the ground. He didn't expect to see the bomb hit the target; there was too much cloud cover for that. But just seeing the flash was satisfying all on its own. Besides, he knew that all bombs were one hundred percent accurate. They never failed to hit the ground.
"I love my job," he said aloud, as the flash of the two-thousand pounder lit up the clouds around him.
Fadeel heard the aircraft overhead, but distantly, as if they were a noise coming from another room. He didn't hear the whistle of the bombs until after the first explosion.
"What the…?" he asked aloud from his perch on the trembling minaret. Why would the crusaders drop the bridges?
Hastily, he descended from the minaret to where a few of his subordinates waited below. "Go to the bridges. Investigate."
Fadeel wasn't worried. What matter if they take out the bridges, he thought. The worst it means is that we get no more resupply by that route. The Kosmos will find another.
"X-ray Juliet, this is Lolita. Request bomb damage assessment on the bridges."
"One's down, one's still standing," Jimenez answered. "The northern bridge is the one down. Repeat on the southern."
"Wilco, X-ray Juliet. Lolita, out."
This time, both Lolita and Anabelle dropped. The southern bridge went down.
" Lolita this is X-ray Juliet. Both bridges are down. Go to your secondary targets."
"Roger, X-ray Juliet. Heading for food warehouse number one now. Note, X-ray, we've got two more birds inbound. The warehouses are priority targets for them."
"Roger," Jimenez answered. "So long as the food is destroyed, out."
The messenger stopped at the base of the minaret and gasped out, " Sayidi, they're going after the food stockpiles."
Fadeel's eyes went wide. What was wrong with these crusaders? Didn't they understand that the entire world would condemn them for destroying food? Didn't they care?
"By Allah," he whispered, a measure of truth finally dawning on him, "what will we do if the crusaders stop caring about their image among their undeclared enemies?"
Pumbadeta, Sumer, 2/7/462 AC
"Tighter than a houri's hole," Sada announced triumphantly, when Carrera emerged from the IM-71 helicopter that had carried him down to the landing zone west of the city where he planned to make his command post.
"It's cut off," Jimenez agreed. "So far, there's been no reaction. I mean, I expected something by now. A probe… some mortar fire… maybe a little sniping. But… nothing."
"I don't think they contemplated the possibility of being actually besieged," Carrera said. "If you look at it from their point of view, they had no worries. They had absolute political control of the town; their logistics were being handled by the Kosmos; and the FSC's coalition was obviously unwilling to risk the casualties."
"Big mistake on their part," Sada said. "Speaking of the Kosmos, Patricio, there's a representative of GraceCorps that wants to speak to you, a Ms. Lindemann. They've got a column of trucks loaded with food that we stopped."
"Fine. I expected that, or something like that, anyway. I'll speak with her."
Sada pointed at a long line of tractor-trailers, led by a whitepainted sedan. "She's over there."
Carrera didn't consider GraceCorps to be the enemy. Did he think they were stupid? Absolutely. Misinformed? Generally. Inexact? Especially. Hopelessly optimistic? Of course. But they weren't the enemy. They did what they did, help the needy, and they did it rather better than most of their sort. They were among the few Kosmos of whom it could be said, in his opinion, that they were more interested in doing good than in doing well.
So he was polite, unusually so for him in his dealings with the Kosmos.
Smiling affably, he began, "Ms. Lindemann, how can I help you?"
She smiled as well. "You could begin, sir, by having your men let us through."
He shook his head, as if with regret. "No… no. I'm afraid that won't be possible. This town is besieged."
Lindemann didn't seem to understand. "What difference does that make?"
"It means we've cut off all access. If you have medicine that might be needed by the inhabitants, I can arrange an airdrop. The law of war requires that. But no food is going in and no people are coming out anytime soon."
"You can't do that!"
"Why?" Carrera's face seemed genuinely puzzled.
"Food's a human right," she answered. "Those people will starve."
"So?"
She opened her mouth again, as if to speak. No words came out.
Carrera reached into his pocket and pulled out a small sheaf of folded paper. This he handed over, saying, "This is the law of war as regards sieges. I intend to abide by it completely. Read it, then come back to me. Note that while the country that has sponsored us, Balboa, is a signatory to the Additional Protocols, neither my organization, nor our principles, the Federated States, are."
Lindemann was at least somewhat familiar with the laws of war. After all, her organization often came in on the tail end of humaninspired and created destruction.
"You're required to let out pregnant women, the very ill, and very young children," she said.
"Really? What a surprise," Carrera answered. Then he asked his own question. "When?"
Lindemann looked confused. "When?"
"Yes. When does the law of war say I must let them go? I'll save you the trouble. It doesn't."
"But the garrison may not feed them!" she countered.
"That'll be their doing, not mine," he answered.
At that time another series of explosions rocked the town. Even at this distance, several kilometers, Lindemann and Carrera were rocked by the blasts.
"What was that?" she asked.
"We're destroying the food stocks in the town," he answered, calmly. "This is a siege, Ms. Lindemann, not a game. This is war, not a boxing match. Now, you can take your trucks back, or you can sit here, or you can do whatever you like… except resupply that city. That you will not be permitted to do."
"What about when the people try to escape? You know they will."
"Then, Ms. Lindemann, we will do what the law of war permits. Besides, before they get out they'll have to clear mines. They're not really equipped for that. We won't let them, anyway."
"You are going to let them out at some point, aren't you, Patricio?" Jimenez asked.