Chapter One - part four

   It started out with a patrol into Syria as usual. The U.N. was trying to take a shipment of supplies into one of the temporary aid centers. Those convoys had often had problems. Most often it was civilians just trying to survive who caused the trouble. Many of them were afraid to even try and reach an aid center. Getting close to an aid station alone was dangerous, but it also marked the locations of the people willing to seek aid and made them targets later too. There was seldom anything the Air Force could do when that happened. They couldn't fire into crowds of civilians and unless they did there was little for them to do. The U.N. ground forces had to handle the civilian side of things, but this time the civilians weren't alone. This time the convoy got caught in the middle of two sides of the battling groups. One side had taken control of the area only a few days before and they were now trying to exclude those who favored their opposition from any supplies the U.N. provided in an effort to force them out of the area. That had suddenly put the U.N. and the civilians in the middle of a very violent fire fight.

  James wasn't in the air when it started, but both he and Lt. Colonel Wilson were scrambled from standby and on their way in only moments. It took them only a few minutes more to reach the area. As ranking officer on site Lt. Colonel Wilson assumed command immediately. It was a mess down there. Buildings were burning, civilians were pinned down in the middle along with the U.N. relief force and even a couple of the convoy trucks had been destroyed. From high above it was a scene of pure confusion. It had to look worse from the ground. There didn't seem to be much separation at all between the two forces fighting and the U.N. with all of those civilians was right in the middle of the fight. Any attempt to fire on anybody from the air was likely going to affect everybody. Soon Lt. Colonel Wilson opened it up for suggestions as to how to deal with this. The U.N. force was between those groups fighting and couldn't fire either, not without firing directly into the civilians pinned down with them and those actually fighting.

   James had been surveying the scene and had noticed a set of building just beyond and above the U.N. convoy's position. Those building had once been apartments, but were heavily damaged and had been burned out. They were ruins and had been marked off to be leveled at the first opportunity. They were easily visible to everyone involved in the conflict below. James made his suggestion. "Sir, I have a suggestion. How about those collapsing building above their position? What if we go in low and slow to hit them with our pulse cannons. It won't take a lot to bring them down and if we go in at low enough power the sound of those pulses hitting should make a big impression. Then we could come back over and hit the dust cloud and debris with lasers. They can't miss that display and it might be enough to send the fighters running for a deeper hole. I know we are trying to keep things quiet, but they have to find out sometime, and this looks like a good time to me." He remained silent waiting for his answer. That took several minutes, but it finally came. The fighting wasn't easing any at all. In fact it was getting a lot worse. When the answer came, it was simple. "Form up and follow me in. First pass level those building with the cannons. Then swing around and come back in fast and hit it with lasers. Break off in pairs after that and make a sweep over each side of the fight. I want everyone to laze one target as close to the fighters as possible without hitting anyone if possible. We will go east side and you go west on that pass. Then pull up and circle to see what happens."

   They came in as slow as James had ever flown his jet. They came in too low to be seen until they were on top of them and that was when they opened up with the cannons. The firing pattern of four F/A-48's with two pulse cannons each firing at full power was awesome to say the least. The bursts lasted only about five seconds, but combined that was over 300 pulses. The building almost seemed to be vaporized. It had just been turned into gravel in five seconds. There wouldn't have been the sound of explosives or gunfire as people knew them either. It would have started as a sudden hum and then just a sound like giant hammers pounding the building to pieces. When they came back the dust cloud was raising enough to reveal the huge pile of rubble. That rubble suddenly flared into lines of flames as laser fire hit it. There could be no doubt as to what had just been done now. A high speed run and laser shots in the direction of the combatants did the rest. Silence had fallen on the confusion below. The fighting was over. Those fighting had simple broken and run. The civilians and even the U.N. forces were just looking around in stunned silence.

   That had been the beginning. After that several more incidents were used to showcase the awesome new weapons that were now patrolling the region. And though none of those were as big or dramatically done; they were just as effective. One short burst of fire from either the lasers or the pulse cannons was more than enough to discourage most fighting. The people who were fighting still didn't know exactly what they were facing or what it was capable of, but they were wary of finding out. The ghostly image of an F/A-48 in flight just added to the fear. Still they did continue to test them on a regular basis. It seemed that sooner or later they would force the fight enough to make the weapons be fully used. That wasn't the only problem for the new flight of F/A-48's though. It seemed that once they started to make their presence felt, even the allies became wary of them. The world news reports and questions about them didn't help.