Deborah and Walter launched a solar powered intelligence drone, while nobody was watching. The drone ascended to 5 kilometers altitude and then flew to the north, where it orbited over the coastal plain and the mountains east of Haifa. They could see, in real time, objects as small as 10 centimeters. Adelle proved to be an excellent intelligence analyst.
“I count 847 chariots parked outside of Hazor. I see men leading horses to the chariots and getting them hitched.”, she said.
“I’ll tell Barak. Walter, what do you want to do?”
“I want to go with you”
“Alright, but I want to be clear that I am going to be noted in history, not you”
“You are a political and spiritual leader. I am a technical advisor. I know my place”
“Okay, beam both of us up”
“You are out of range for another 33 minutes”
“Alert me when we are in range. Also, alert me when the chariots start to move.”
“Understood”
“Deborah out. Well, looks like we wait.”
“That’s the hardest part of war”
“What?”
“The waiting. You know that they’re out there, but you also know that you are where you are supposed to be. You have to wait for them to come to you. And you know what else? Sometimes, they know that you are where you are supposed to be, and they don’t want to attack you on your terms. So they wait for you, and you wait for them. In your first and second world wars, the men traveled on ships. That was awful waiting.”
“We did that with the Soviet Union after the second world war. We had rockets underground, rockets in submarines, bombs in airplanes. They had rockets underground, rockets in submarines, bombs in airplanes. At least, with the airplanes, the pilots had to keep in practice, and I assume that the rocket men drilled. But it wasn’t the same thing. Waiting, waiting, for a nuclear armageddon that never came”
“How long did that last?”
“From the early 1960s until at least 2013. Oh, we negotiated arms limitations, so there weren’t as many nuclear weapons as there were before, but there were still nuclear weapons. We spent trillions of dollars, waiting, waiting, waiting for a war that never came”
“It’s ironic - we can travel thousands of meters per second, and we are up against a foe that can travel a meter or two per second, but we have to wait for him to come to us”
“Walter, I do believe that this is going to be your finest hour”
“Really? Why?”
“This is what you really wanted - you are helping to create an army that is going to win a war. Your strategic mind has created a plan to offset your disadvantage in weapons. Your martial arts skills have allowed you to create a superior fighting force. You have better intelligence.”
“So, I’m going to fight a war and win?”
“Yes. Don’t gloat too much, that’s rude”
“We have to wait for King Jabin’s army to reach us. It is about 150 kilometers and they can do about 50 kilometers per day. The chariots can’t outpace their supply lines, or else they will starve. If they are lucky, they can steal food from the people whose land they are invading. But a wise commander will not risk crippling his forces fighting for food. It may take longer to steal the supplies than it would to simply carry them along. He will take supplies with him. True, that will slow him down, but normally the defenders don’t know that the offense is coming. Sisera doesn’t know that we know that he is coming.”
They sat there in silence, watching the soldiers of King Jabin getting on their chariots.
Deborah and Walter walked into Barak’s camp near Kedesh, on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.
“We see King Jabin’s army leaving Hazor and traveling west. We think is going to go to the coastal plain and then come up the Kidron brook”, Deborah told Barak.
“How do you know?”, Barak demanded.
“I have word from the Lord. I am a prophetess”
“When will they get here?”
“In about 3 days”.
“Then I should deploy my troops from Zebulon in Japhia, my troops from Issachar in Shunem, and the troops from Naphtali on Mount Tabor”
“That’s right. Remember that chariots have the advantage on flat, hard, ground. We are going to have the advantage of the high ground, attacking downhill. Issachar should be particularly effective because they will attack from the southeast, with the sun at their backs.”
“Won’t Zebulon be at a disadvantage for the same reason?”
“Well, yes”, Deborah said.
“But it can’t be helped. We don’t want Sisera to flee to the north. We want him to go back the way he came. However, if Sisera is attacked on three sides, I doubt he will be to mount much of a defense.”, Walter assured him.
Barak stood up. “I will send messengers to Zebulon and Issachar with instructions. Then you and I and a thousand men will go up Mount Tabor. We will be ready in three days”
Walter woke up with the rest of the army. He felt awful, sleeping on the ground. He found Deborah in a tent, woke her.
“Time for our intelligence briefing”, he said. He pulled a tablet computer out of his pack.
“Adelle”
“yes”
“What is the status of the Hazor army?”
“They have 836 chariots parked near where the Kidron enters the sea. I estimate they have 1700 riders. I estimate they have another 500 people providing logistical support. I count 450 carts carrying supplies”.
“Show the latest imagery”
The tablet showed a map of the region just north of Carmel. Walter slid his fingers over the tablet and the view expanded. They could clearly see the camp. About 3 kilometers north, they could see what used to be a village - now destroyed.
“Why didn’t we intercept them sooner?”, Deborah asked.
“Because we want to use terrain to our advantage. If we attack them where they want us to attack them, we lose the whole country. No, we wait for them to come up the Kidron and then we attack them when it suits us”
“We could have saved that village”
“Saving that village might have cost us the war”
“I never wanted to be a soldier”
“Command has some very painful feelings that go with it. You’re fortunate: Barak has to make these decisions. They weigh heavily on his shoulders.”
Barak walked in. “What are you saying?”
Deborah answered him. “We are having a conversation with God.”
“What is that in your hands?”
Deborah and Walter looked at each other. Busted! “Barak, this must remain our secret. This is the view God has of the Hazor army. They are camping near Carmel and the Kidron. They will move today. They can only move so fast, and I think that they will make camp here. Then they will attack us tomorrow morning”.
“Show me Mount Tabor”
Walter wiped his finger across the tablet. Mount Tabor came into view. They could see the Israeli camp.
“Show me Japhia”
Walter wiped his finger across the tablet again, this time to the west. The village of Japhia came into view. The Israeli army was camped just east of town.
“Show me Shunem”
Walter wiped his finger across the tablet again, this time to the south and a little east. He found Shunem, but the army was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is my army?”
Walter picked up his Medallion, pushed the red button”
“Adelle”
“yes”
“Where is the part of the Israeli army that went south and west from Issachar towards Shumen?”
“They are camped 8 kilometers east of Shumen”
Walter wiped his finger across the tablet again and again.
“There they are”
“They are too far away”
“That’s good, the Hazor army is still a day away. Your army has all day to get to Shunem.”
“I will send a messenger to tell them to move faster. I would like to get Shunem early so they are well rested for tomorrow’s battle”
“Remember, this thing has to remain our secret. Nobody else but the three of us must know about it”
“I will remember”
The next day dawned clear and bright. Walter again felt awful after sleeping on the ground. The physical discomfort of campaigning was beginning to disillusion him about infantry. There was not a cloud in the sky. He went to Deborah’s tent.
“Time for our intelligence briefing”, he said. He pulled his tablet computer out of his pack.
“Adelle”
“yes”
“What is the status of the Hazor army?”
“They are camped along the Kidron valley, about 10 kilometers south of Japhia and about 8 kilometers northwest of Shunem. Their camp is more linear than last night’s camp.”
“That makes sense - they’re in the bottom of a valley”
“The rain is going to hit them particularly hard”
Deborah pulled out her medallion
“Adelle”
“yes”
“What is the status of the satellites with the transporters?”
“All satellites are operational”
“Thank you. Deborah out”
They watched the army of Hazor mount their chariots and carts and start off on the easy grade to the northeast.
Deborah and Walter found Barak in his tent.
“Barak, Sisera’s chariots are moving toward us”, Walter told him.
“When do we go to meet them?”
“When the rain starts”
Barak stepped out of his tent and looked up at the clear, blue, cloudless sky.
“What rain?”
“God is going to make it rain”, Deborah said.
They looked southwest down the valley.
In the distance, perhaps 6 kilometers away, they could barely see a cloud of dust from the advancing chariots. Barak conferred with his lieutenants. “Why should we exhaust ourselves running towards them? Let them come to us.” He told them.
They saw a cloud of dust to the left. It was the troops from Issachar running down the hill towards the northwest. They were attacking too soon, however, there was no way of stopping them now. Then they saw a cloud of dust on the right. The troops of Zebulon had seen the troops of Issachar attacking, and they took that as their cue to start their attack.
Walter gave Barak some assurance: “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”
Barak responded “Now would be a good time for the rain to start”
Deborah walked back into her tent, pulled out her medallion, and pushed the button.
“Adelle”
“yes”
“Start the rain”
“Understood”
The satellites closest to the battlefield started transporting water from the Halys river in Turkey to the air over the battlefield. In a few minutes, water started to flow in the bottom of the valley. The Israeli troops, on foot and on the high ground, were relatively immune from the effects of the falling water. The iron chariots, by way of contrast, were mired in the mud. Furthermore, the water in the streambed was muddy, so it had greater buoyancy than fresh water would have. It moved rocks downstream. The horses tripped over the moving rocks and fell. There were two horses tied to each chariot, and if one fell, the other would, too. The chariots were not designed to withstand transverse forces, so they fell apart. The army of Hazor was prepared to fight on chariots, and were not prepared well for hand to hand combat. The Israeli troops, well trained by Walter, were extremely well prepared for hand to hand combat. The slaughter was terrible.
At the bottom end of the valley, Sisera’s chariot was also stuck in the mud. But the Israeli troops had not reached him yet. He told his driver to turn around and escape, so that he could raise another army and return with a larger force. However, the water, mud, and stones were faster than his chariot, and he found himself on foot.
Sisera ran away from the battle. He could see his troops running after him, and the Israeli soldiers running after them. He decided to head uphill, away from the main force. Finally, exhausted, he stumbled into the camp of Heber, the Kennite. Heber was out tending the flocks, but Yael, his wife, was in the camp, weaving.
“Please, could I have some water?”, he asked her.
“Would you prefer some cream? It’s fresh from the sheep.”, Yael offered.
“Oh, yes, please”.
“My name is Yael, wife of Heber the Kennite.”
“I am Sisera, the general of King Jabin’s army of Hazor”
“A general! Well, this is quite an honor. Your king and my husband are friends. What brings a mighty general of Hazor to the humble camp of a Kennite?”
“I led my army to capture Mt. Tabor, but we were defeated because we were in a wadi when it started to rain”
“Rain? Why the sky is cloudless! What rain?”
“I tell you, it rained, and the wadi flooded. My army was washed away. I alone escaped”
“I see men in the distance coming towards us. Could they be part of the Israeli army, looking for you?”
“Hide me in your tent! Quickly! If the men come here, then tell them that you have not seen me!”
Sisera entered the tent. Yael covered him with a blanket.
Exhausted by his running, stomach full of rich cream, and snug under the blanket, Sisera fell asleep. Yael quietly picked up a tent stake and a mallet. She put the tent stake against Sisera’s skull and drove it through his head and into the ground with the mallet.
“My husband may be friends with your king, but you are no friend of mine”, she told the dead body.
The Israeli soldiers entered the camp.
“We are looking for soldiers of Hazor. Have any come through here?”, their commander asked her.
“Are you looking for Sisera, their general?”
“A general! Yes, we are”
“He’s in the tent, hiding from you. But take your time, he’s not going anywhere”
The soldiers entered the tent. They came out a moment later, dragging the body.
“This is Sisera?”, the commander asked Yael.
“He said he was”.
“Who killed him?”
“I did”
“Why?”
“I used to be a daughter of Naphtali. The army of Hazor raided my village. The king gave me to Heber, my husband, his friend. He raped me so I could not go back to my own people. So, I remain here with him. But I remember who I was, and this is my vengence”.
“Have you heard of a woman named Deborah?”, The commander asked.
“The judge and prophetess? Yes, I have”
“I think she would like to talk to you. Would you be willing to go to Mount Tabor to meet her?”
“I think I will stay here, if you don’t mind. If my husband finds out that I have helped you, he might be angry at me. But I would like to talk to her sometime”
“I will see what can be arranged. Men: bring the body to Barak. Yael, peace be with you”
Four soldiers picked up Sisera’s body and carried it off to the east.