March 16th
Laghima Island
0603 hours
Bedford emerged from the officers' quarters, feeling the ache in his stiff limbs from the previous day's journey. Ambling across the grass outside, he began swinging his arms to loosen them up. He now held slightly more sympathy for those who had to ride one of those creaky transports into battle.
After the more rustic surroundings of Kyoshi Island, the bustling airfield jarred his senses with the activity. It was a few moments until familiarity took hold, bred from the past few years of living on base.
A freshly-arrived EC-47 wheeled down the runway towards its assigned spot, engines trundling at low power as it taxied past a row of Hurricanes parked wingtip-to-wingtip on the grass. Service crews rushed from their shelters to secure the aircraft and assist the disembarking aviators. Across the landing strip, the voices of scores of exercise gear-clad troops rang as they engaged in their daily run, feet pounding the sandy shore. It could have been any mid-sized Allied base in Europe.
"Good morning, Colonel." Major John Borowski put up a salute. "It's good to see you in one piece."
"Morning, Major." Bedford acknowledged his executive officer's gesture.
"How was your trip, sir?"
"Long. But let's not talk about it. How's the battalion keeping? Are the men holding up?"
"To be honest, it's been a tough while for them. The NCOs are doing well to pull them together. At least they know there's a plan in place. God knows what morale'd be like if we didn't know how to get out of this."
"What else's been going on here ever since I left?"
"Not much," Borowski replied. "The recon birds have been coming and going, but the rest of us haven't had much to do until Dog and Easy were put on standby. I already had my damn harness on when the stand-down was given."
"Fortunately, that situation resolved itself." Bedford finished his stretching and straightened up, brushing the wrinkles out of his jump jacket. "Would you know what time the meeting's at?"
"0900, sir. They're looking forward to hearing from you, or so they tell me."
Production Facility "Item"
Hu Leng Valley, Fire Nation
0832 hours
Professor Moto of the Royal University of Science was not the scrawny academic which War Minister Qin had expected. Instead, the person who sat behind the desk was stone-bald and heavyset, a bull of a man whose shoulders were almost too wide for the small office. Inked in crimson upon his hairy forearm, bared by the rolled-up sleeve of his robe, was the flame-and-spear design of the 34th Division.
"War Minister Qin." Moto stood, coming to the side of his table to give a cursory bow. His footsteps made a strange clatter, and Qin instinctively glanced downwards. Moto's left leg ended at the knee, and below it was a wooden stump, flattened at the bottom to support his weight.
"Professor," Qin said. "I'd prefer to keep this meeting as concise as possible. I am due back in the capital in the late afternoon."
"Fine," Moto grunted, hand resting on his table to support himself. "Let's get straight to the point then, Minister."
"The extraction process from the water. How is progress?"
"Slow," Moto admitted. "But not entirely unfruitful." He slid his desk drawer open and held up a small rubber container, the size of his index finger. It resembled a miniature version of the air envelope that was to be fitted to the airships. "This sample was taken this morning from a storage tank in the yard."
"Is that the gaseous substance which you speak of?"
"Sadly, not quite. If it were pure qing, this receptacle would be floating in midair and the project would be complete. The samples we have retrieved all seem to have some impure gas mixed in with the qing. Think of it as iron ore. The metal must be separated from the worthless material it is combined with. It is the same here."
"How are you sure that your sample is not just water vapor?"
Moto absently rolled the rubber container between his fingers. "The gas is highly flammable. In fact, when exposed to fire, it burns hotter than a bender's regular flame. I call it progress."
"Fine, then." Qin sighed dissatisfiedly. "What are your plans for the future?"
"We gather as much of the impure gas as possible. Once we have obtained a sufficient amount in the storage tanks, we can seal them, disconnect the lightning rods, and I can get to work trying to separate the qing from the so-called 'ore'."
"And how long will it take?"
"Once the wet season sets in, I will have the lightning necessary for the initial process. By the end of the rains, I should have enough of the ore. It may take me up to six months to fully separate the useable qing gas, when I find the suitable method."
Qin was counting on his fingers. When he came up to eight, he stopped short. "But that's two months after the end of summer! Two months too late!"
"Your airships can still fly by heated air, minister. Less efficiently so, but that's not my concern. The next generation of them, however, will be kept afloat by qing. They'll be faster, with no more need for boilers and more room for crew or additional weaponry."
"Is there truly no way to speed up the process?"
"If you could procure for me a lightning bender, I could produce the ore in a matter of days."
"A...a lightning bender?" Qin was aghast. "You want the Fire Lord himself to come over here and...and blast lightning into your infernal contraptions? Are you a madman?"
"If this project is so important to your grand plans, then why not? In fact, I'd even welcome the Princess Azula to do it if she were available."
Qin threw back his chair and rose to his feet. "I've listened to enough. For your sake, I won't be repeating the last part when I make my report to the Fire Lord."
"And I thank you for that." Moto raised a cordial hand to bid Qin farewell. "Have a good journey, minister."
Laghima Island
0902 hours
"Colonel Bedford, Colonel Carwell." Brigadier Swales held out his hand. "Welcome back."
Bedford shook it. "It's been some time, Brigadier."
"Pleasure to see you again," greeted Carwell.
"I'd like to commend your fine work, gentlemen," Swales continued with a warm smile, gripping Carwell's hand. "You've been invaluable."
"Thank you, sir." Bedford found his designated seat near the front of the table, with Carwell to his left. Borowski and Di Santo sat on his opposite side, the latter with a thick file on his lap. "Shall we begin?"
All in all, there were nine officers crowded around the rough-hewn table inside the log cabin. Of them, five were American, including Captain Henning, the most senior of the three destroyer commanders. Brigadier Swales, Wing Commander Bassett, and Captain Barry made up the British contingent, leaving General von Weiss as the sole representative of the Germans.
Swales cleared his throat, rustling the sheaf he held. He peered at Bedford for a few moments, then plunged into the matter at hand. "Good morning. A week ago, we agreed upon Colonel Bedford's recommendations. We now have a definite plan in place. It must be completed no later than the twenty-first of August. In the interest of keeping everyone on the same page, we will run through whatever planning we have completed and the supply situation. We will begin with the former.
"The plan we have lies in three distinct phases. Colonel Carwell is responsible for the first of them. Explain your goal, please."
"It all boils down to this, Brigadier," Carwell said. "I will be taking a four-man team deep into enemy territory. We will assasinate the Fire Lord and his daughter, the heir-apparent."
"And what of your preparations?"
"The rest of my team will be recruited from the Kyoshi Warriors. In a month's time, their basic training will be complete and I will be able to select the ones who suit the mission best. I need another two months afterwards to practice alongside them so we can work as a unit. By mid-June, we'll be ready for insertion."
"I suppose it's our responsibility to figure out how to get you there in the first place. I'll task intel and operations to work on that." Swales looked at Di Santo. "You were telling me, Captain, about an important event during the first week of August?"
"According to historical records," replied Di Santo, "there is a religious ceremony known as the 'Twin Sun Festival', an important celebration of sorts. The Fire Lord and his court are expected to be present on that day. My prisoner interrogations have confirmed that the incumbent still observes this tradition. This year, the date falls on the second of August. Colonel Carwell, that's your deadline. If you haven't taken out the Fire Lord before that day, there's your chance to do it. It's a public event. He'll be out in the open, and his heir-apparent right with him."
"Obviously, the first phase is the most complicated component. We can't finalize the details until we can have access to whatever information and aid the Earth Kingdom has to offer, if they agree to help at all." Swales held up a finger. "I'd like to discuss our diplomatic overtures to Ba Sing Se in a little while. As for now, I want Wing Commander Bassett to explain the second phase."
Affixed to the far wall was a large map, five feet by three, a magnified depiction of the Fire Nation islands. Though based on the work of Air Nomad cartographers centuries before, it was no artefact. Uncovered by aerial recon, the intricate web of the enemy infrastructure was laid out on the board. Factory complexes, lines of transportation, military installations, and population centers dotted the map, marked clearly and laid out within a grid, sectioned off into hundreds of squares for easy reference.
Wing Commander Bassett stood in front of the board, pointer in hand. He rested the tip of the rod on Royal Caldera City.
The capital sat on the southern edge of the Shanji Plain, the low-lying flatlands which were the agricultural center of the Fire Nation. From its position on Mount Agni, it dominated the sprawling web of rice paddies, cornfields, and fruit tree plantations which comprised the vast majority of the entire country's food supply. It was apparent how the monarchy had been able to establish control over the rest of the archipelago hundreds of years in the past, before they were able to entrench the idea of their preeminence firmly into the hearts and minds of the people.
Such an arrangement would have been impossible without a ready supply of freshwater, and the Fire Nation was no different. The Shanji Plain was irrigated by the Lai Hao River, which ran from the mountain streams in the northeast, down past the slopes of Mount Agni, and continued all the way to its mouth, where it emptied into Sunrise Bay on the opposite side of the island.
"The operations plan calls for the the capital to be severed from all means of enemy reinforcement, resupply, and communication," said Bassett. "I have here a list of nine targets which will be 67 Fighter's primary objectives. These are the three bridges spanning the Lai Hao which connect Caldera City to the western part of the island, two major rail depots, the Royal Defense Force base south of Mount Agni, two divisional encampments west of the river, and, of course, the Fire Navy's main anchorage at Sunrise Bay."
"Sounds like it'll take some significant firepower," Bedford observed. "Can it be done with the amount of ordnance we have?"
"The only antiaircraft-capable defenses they have are those trebuchets and catapults," replied Bassett. "They're meant for surface-to-surface combat. Not the ideal platform to shoot at fast-moving fighters with. Even then, they only have these weapons emplaced at Sunrise Bay and on their warships. Inland, they're totally bare.
"Without ground fire, my pilots can approach targets while flying low and slow. That improves accuracy measurably. Sunrise Bay will be a harder nut to crack, and the lads'll have to come in hard and fast, but there we only have to sink enough warships to clog up the sea floor and render the naval base unusable. Perhaps we could also disrupt their command-and-control a tad when we bomb their head office. Hopefully a few of their admirals will be hanging around."
"Which brings us to the final phase of the plan," Swales said. "The ground invasion. We will take and hold their capital, their seat of government, economic center, and symbol of nationhood. Colonel Bedford?"
Bedford took his place in front of the map. He studied the Royal Plaza, the landing point for all those who arrived at the capital from the sea, from the lowliest traveler to the king himself.
Recon had shown that it was heavily fortified. A network of towers, bunkers, and battlements which overlooked the plaza from atop its north, west, and south sides provided positions for its defenders to pour fire, catapult rounds, and ballista bolts down upon anyone who pushed west towards Mount Agni. It would be a brutal and attritional fight if it was attacked frontally, even with the help of artillery and air support.
The Fire Nation's dispositions were sound. They were dug in right on top of the only available approach to their capital, able to channel any attack, no matter the size, through the relatively narrow confines of the Royal Plaza. While the assault floundered in the heavy crossfire, they could bring in reinforcements almost at will through their rail and road lines which spanned the Lai Hao.
But the AEU had what none of their previous opponents possessed: the ability to strike them from a direction from where they could not possibly anticipate an attack. The situation was almost a book-perfect representation of why parachute doctrine and close air support was conceived of in the first place, almost thirty years before in the bloody stalemate of the Western Front.
"Gentlemen, I propose a two-step assault. On D-day, I and my battalion will jump on the Shanji Plain." Bedford laid his finger down on a point just north of the capital, where the level terrain was ideal for a parachute drop. "We will link up, advance south towards Mount Agni, maneuver around the side of the volcano, and hit their fortifications from the rear. Their defenses are all oriented towards a seaborne attack. We'll catch them on the blind side and clear them off the top of the plaza, opening up the docks.
"If the air force succeeds in closing Sunrise Bay, nothing can interdict a landing. While my battalion holds the plaza and the slopes of Mount Agni, you can load up the LSTs with supplies and reinforcements, sail them all the way from here down to Royal Bay, and put them ashore. The way will be clear for the Germans, the engineers, the MPs, and the Kyoshi Warriors to land safely and begin the push into the capital itself."
"What will the opposition be like?" asked von Weiss. "What numbers will your paratroopers have to contend with when they arrive?"
Bedford locked eyes with Di Santo, a wordless order to explain. The intelligence officer rummaged through his file, hunting for the relevant information.
"They have two divisions just west of the Lai Hao," Di Santo responded. "From what the Bird Dogs see, maybe ten thousand infantry and a hundred light armored vehicles. But If the RAF does their job, all they can do is sit and stare from across the river. Sure, they can try to repair the bridges if they're not too badly damaged, but they'll have to bring their sappers right within range of our machine guns and mortars to do it."
"What if they make a crossing farther north?"
"The closest bridge is twenty miles upstream, General. They could bring their infantry north, make a crossing, and hook back towards Mount Agni, but only their infantry."
"What about their armor? Can they not use their vehicles in a counterattack?"
"The prisoners say that their tanks have a maximum range of fifteen miles. They can move pretty fast once they get going, and the armor is about as good as a halftrack's, which means it can resist almost all bending attacks, but their range is completely hobbled by using coal power in a relatively small platform. Not enough room for fuel, you see. From what I understand, armor is brand-new for them and they're still working out the doctrine. Currently, the FN uses them as breakthrough weapons, since they're great for breaching entrentched troops. Good for defending bases, too, since it's basically a moving pillbox that spits fire. Obviously, it's not a good platform for our idea of mobile warfare."
"So," Bedford continued, "their infantry will be exhausted from the long walk, without their armored support, and marching in tight columns right through flat rice fields. We can stop them."
"What other forces do they possess in and around the capital?"
"The Royal Plaza garrison is around battalion strength," said Di Santo."That's including the ones manning the towers on the road leading up to the capital. They'll have a complement of tanks, probably no more than twenty.
"The problem is the city itself, more specifically, the governmental district surrounding the Fire Lord's palace. The king has a personal bodyguard, the Royal Firebenders, the real cream of the crop in their military. There are about five hundred of them. On the bright side, you won't have to worry about armor. Almost all of the streets are too narrow."
"The responsibility for taking the city falls mainly to us Germans, does it not?"
"It does, General," Bedford replied, all too straightforwardly. "You'll have the military police company and the rest of the Kyoshi Warrior platoon for support, and I can detach small, specialized units, like bazooka teams or heavy machine gun crews, on an ad hoc basis. But I need most of my battalion up on top of the mountain to secure the perimeter, and the engineers need to be alongside to help us dig in."
von Weiss sank back into his seat, running a hand through his graying blond hair. "Then we will do it. However, I need to be in direct control of my men, right there on the ground, as Colonel Bedford will be."
"You're asking to act as a battalion commander?" Swales was incredulous. "I can't have our two most senior infantry officers running around the front lines in harm's way!"
"There's no way around it, Brigadier," pressed von Weiss. "Most of the officers in my contingent with any experience went home after the 3rd Armored Division released us from captivity. Hauptmann Reiner of II Company was the only commissioned man present during the Normandy campaign. The other company leaders only saw the last three months of the war. My platoon commanders have even less experience.
"The enlisted men are in better condition, since most of them have seen heavy combat at one point or another. Of course, I could strip the squads and platoons for their senior sergeants and brevet them into commissioned roles, but I do not want to deprive the men of their local leadership. I prefer to keep things as they are, provided that you will allow me to alleviate some of their shortcomings by commanding them."
"Fair enough," said Swales, brushing his mustache displeasedly. The idea of placing into the fray the one man who had practical experience in division-level planning didn't quite appeal to him. "Make sure to stay out of direct danger. And I need you involved with Bedford's mission to Ba Sing Se beforehand. If he successfully makes contact, you're the best person to liason with the Earth Kingdom high command."
"Thank you, Brigadier. And I wouldn't be worried about my safety. Unlike Colonel Bedford, I have neither the fitness nor the motivation to be running up and down the slopes of a mountain."
Kyoshi Island
1017 hours
"Cease fire on the line!" bellowed First Sergeant Turner. "Cease fire! Unload and safety your weapons!"
Sarah Ralston hastened to obey the command from the assigned rangemaster. Still on one knee, she dropped the empty magazine of her M1A1 carbine and left it in an empty pouch by her side, then locked back the bolt to ensure the chamber was empty. Engaging the safety, she unlocked the stock and folded it against the side of the weapon.
She was on the near end of the firing line, and Turner was along quickly to inspect her handiwork. Fox's company sergeant passed on with nothing more than a nod, which was good. She had heard him on more than one occasion tearing a strip out of some hapless young trooper for carelessness.
The ringing in Ralston's ears began to subside. Gunfire wasn't quite as loud as dynamite, but it was nonetheless painful to listen to, especially in this quantity. She was sharing the range with one of Fox Company's platoons this week, and they were able to produce a resounding, skull-rattling wall of noise.
Sergeant Turner waved the all-clear, and the line of shooters emerged from behind the bulldozed berm to retrieve their targets. Ralston had set hers at a hundred-fifty yards away, and she studied the result with a critical eye.
She decided that she wasn't a bad shot. Every one of her fifteen rounds, quickly dispatched, would have been fatal. With her limited experience of just one magazine a week with her carbine, it was acceptable. After all, she was no stranger to guns.
"Morning, ell-tee." It was Ryan, who held his shredded silhouette target by his chest. His hair was still damp from leading the company's jog through the drizzle earlier. "How's that weapon working for you today?"
"I find it quite useful, actually." Almost like second nature, Ralston threw the sling over her shoulder and hiked the carbine onto her back. "It isn't a bother to carry and it doesn't get in the way. I can't say the same about the Lee."
"Yeah, that's one of the problems with a full-sized rifle. Real pain to haul it around if you've got other things to do. Hell, I wonder how the Colonel manages with his BAR? His back must be killing him."
"If that's true, he certainly doesn't show it."
Shading his eyes against the glaring sunlight peeking from behind the overcast, Ryan glanced at his wrist. "What's on your agenda today?"
"Not much. In the afternoon, I'll be taking a work detail to the marketplace to assist the locals. The roof's leaking, and Colonel Bedford told me that we should be helping the people as much as we can, unless there's something urgent you need done."
"You can go. There's nothing urgent that needs to be done today...hold on a second..." Ryan put up a finger to interrupt himself. A young trooper wearing the insignia of a Technician Fourth Class had sidled up to him, muttering a few words to his captain which were inaudible to Ralston. The technician held out the handset of the radio that was strapped to his back.
Ryan took the handset. "Fox Red, this is Fox Six. Go ahead."
Unaccustomed to the garbled chatter of a transmission, Ralston was only able to catch scattered fragments. From the call signs, however, she recognized the sender: First Platoon's observation post up on Hill 154, overlooking the north beach. For more context, she chose to take stock of Ryan's reaction.
The paratrooper was unworried as he listened to the message, meaning that there was no emergency. But to save on batteries, the outpost only transmitted if they had observed something out of the ordinary. Ralston had an idea of just what it was.
Her hunch was confirmed by Ryan as he dismissed his radioman. Before he spoke to her, his eyes unwittingly flitted skywards for a moment, idly searching in the wrong direction. "Looks like the Colonel's little friends are back."
It was a few minutes later when the behemoth—the only word Ralston could associate with such a creature—touched down beside the great statue of Kyoshi, bearing four riders on its back instead of the previous three. The visitors were once again swamped by the villagers, an excitable, chattering mass which refused to dissipate for a while.
She followed Ryan up to the edge of the crowd. He puffed out his chest and fixed a smile, evidently not keen on comprising the entire welcoming committee. Taking a step to the left, she put herself alongside him as the crowd parted.
"Good morning, Avatar," Ryan said. His laidback drawl was gone. "I'm Captain Ryan. I'm in charge of keeping the island secure so you can train properly.
"Hello, Captain." The bald-headed child with the strange blue tattoos glanced around, as if he were expecting someone else. "Is Colonel Bedford around? I need to talk to him."
"He and Colonel Carwell were called back to HQ yesterday. I can get a message to him, if you want."
"I think I can wait. When does he get back?"
"He's expected to be here tomorrow night, Avatar."
"What's all this about 'keeping us safe'?" snapped a belligerent voice. "We can take care of ourselves."
Ralston wasted a few moments searching for the speaker. It was the fourth rider, the one she'd never seen before, a dirty, barefoot girl who only came up to her chest in height and did not even appear to be a teenager yet. Did the fabled Avatar drag an errant street urchin into this business?
There was something else. The girl had to be blind, or almost completely so. Ralston recognized the milked-over irises from one of her great-uncles, who had lived his entire seventy-seven years without seeing the light of the sun. Yet this girl walked on as if everything was normal, winding through a flock of straggling islanders without much effort, or even care.
"Captain," said Aang, "this is Toph Beifong, my earthbending master."
Ryan made a choking sound, which he attempted to disguise as a cough. He managed, however, to swallow his instinctive remark. After all, he had his orders. "Welcome to Kyoshi Island, Miss Beifong."
But as the Avatar's motley entourage went off to find their quarters and left the range of earshot, Ryan turned away to face Ralston. "For the love of God, I hope that kid knows what he's doing."
"I'm praying, Captain, that Colonel Bedford knows what we've gotten into."
Laghima Island
1227 hours
Lunch at the airfield was always a major enterprise. With over three thousand mouths to feed, hungry in a way which only overworked young men could be, a hastily-cobbled assortment of cooks and mess staff from three Navy ships, two battalions, and an air wing had been assembled to provide nourishment.
Fortunately, there was plenty of raw material to work with. An island previously populated by a majority of vegetarians was unlikely to drive the local marine life away due to overfishing, and the fishing teams came back with nets full to bursting. Also, a century of near-abandonment meant that the woods teemed with game, from wild chickens and feral hogs to strange antelope whose species were unrecognizable but were quite tasty on the grill. Seasoned by salt panned from the ocean and chili peppers foraged from bushes, and supplemented by baskets of fruit plucked from the trees, the problem lay not with supply, but in the sheer logistics of it all.
The units who had cooking equipment available had pooled their resources, setting up a single large field kitchen down by the eastern end of the runway. Unfortunately, the number of people needing to be fed was rather disproportionate to the ones who prepared their food. As a consequence, the lunch service took six hours from beginning to end and handled the men in batches of five hundred at a time.
There was no question of actually sitting down at a table to eat. After getting free of the long mess lines, the men would have to find whichever place they could to put down their trays. Three enterprising paratroopers, part of the hunting party who had brought in today's meal, were using the hood of the jeep in which the latest bag had been transported.
As Bedford drew nearer, the hunters stiffened, abandoning their meal and drawing themselves up to attention. It was the first time in three months that they, along with the majority of their battalion, had laid eyes on their commanding officer.
"Afternoon, fellas," Bedford said lightly. He stepped around them, lodged a boot on the back fender of the jeep, and pushed himself up. The ever-familiar smell of stale blood met his nose. The unwashed bed of the jeep was still stained with it, having been piled high with the antelope carcasses which now floated in the brackish stew.
Dog and Easy Companies had chosen that patch of grass by the parked rows of Army C-47 transports to have their meal. The battalion headquarters staff had elected to join them, and so scores of privates, noncoms, and officers alike milled about in that remote, shaded corner of the base.
The rolling tide of ten dozen different conversations ground to an immediate halt. Nearly four hundred paratroopers stared uneasily at their CO, returned from a long absence for the second time in two years. The last time it had happened was due to two rounds from a Volksgrenadier's submachine gun deep in the Belgian countryside. His reason now wasn't quite so dramatic, but arguably just as important.
"Ten-hut!" Sergeant Major Marlon Henson announced sharply. To a man, the throng of airborne men snapped to attention.
"As you were." Bedford gestured for them to stand easy. "I don't intend to interrupt your meal.
"This morning, I received confirmation from Brigadier Swales and the rest of the joint command. Second battalion is going to do what we're trained for. We're jumping right into their fucking capital and we're going to do what the Russkies did in Berlin. We're going to end this war right in their back yard, and once it's done, we get to go home."
Bedford studied the faces of his men. The younger ones were elated. Many of them were replacements, filling the ranks of the fallen, the grievously wounded, and the lucky ones who survived the war and chose to return home.
They had only seen the dying embers of the war, only ever heard the stories of Salerno, Ste-Mere-Eglise, and the Salm River. Here was a chance to employ the back-breaking training they had received at Benning and Bragg, to earn the coveted star of a combat parachutist, to prove themselves to the peers who had done it all.
Scattered in the midst of the grinning young troopers were a select minority, mostly the senior sergeants and a smattering of officers. They took the news in with the calm resignation and quiet confidence of those who had done it all before. Back into the crucible they would go. These men would be the backbone of the operation, the ones who would lead the less experienced troops and hold them together when they made their jump into the unknown.
Few of them knew Bedford on a personal basis, since he'd come up from Fox Company, in command of which he'd started the war. But they knew that it was on Fox that the former battalion CO, Colonel Vandervoort, had leaned upon when there was a tough job to do, and they'd seen the oft-repeated story of "Harry's Long Run" with their own eyes.
"There's no official date for D-day yet, but word is we've got five months to prepare," continued Bedford. "I don't want any one of you breaking a leg when we hit enemy ground, and I don't want wasted ammo, either. So it's time to iron out the kinks.
"Major Borowski will be in charge for most of the exercises. I can't be there until near the end of the preparations. I've got some more diplomatic bullshit to get through to pave the way for our little operation. But when I get back, we're going to hop right into our planes over here and ride right into war." Bedford raised a clenched fist, a cold, vicious smile stretched across his face as he lowered his voice to a low murmur "And we're going to kill every miserable little fucker who stands in our way of getting home. Airborne!"
The reply came as a single, roaring chorus of four hundred voices, rising into the overcast noon sky. "All the way!"
1313 hours
"Let's discuss supply, shall we?" Swales put aside one stack of notes in favor of another, sheets covered in detailed inventories and pencilled calculations. This was his own line of work, one he was much more comfortable handling than playing at Patton and Monty. "Let me start with what our infantry have.
"In September last year, General Eisenhower ordered the 82nd Airborne Division to withdraw from occupation duty in Berlin and begin a transfer to Norden. This was part of a move to reconstitute the First Allied Airborne Army and concentrate them in a series of airfields around northern Germany to serve as a shock force in the event of a conflict against the Soviets."
"So that's* why we were transferred," said Bedford. "I thought Ike just wanted us to make way for Eleventh Armored." The reasoning made sense, though. Replacing light infantry with a tank division would be better for defending West Berlin in case the Russians tried something, and freed up the airborne for a counterblow.
Bedford's battalion had been sent in advance to help prepare Norden for occupancy, but instead of a base fully outfitted for the arrival of ten thousand paratroopers, they found a rudimentary facility, a former Luftwaffe training field inhabited by the very bemused airmen of the 67 Fighter Wing. It was a snafu as big as peacetime could make it. The Navy engineers who had prepared the airfield for RAF use had not been notified that more would be coming, and once they had finished they were reassigned elsewhere, disappearing into the chaos of rebuilding a shattered Germany. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the 82nd were held back until a solution could be found.
"The paratroops' consignment of small arms and ammunition arrived by sea," Swales continued. "The troops themselves did not, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you see things. At the time, I held a grudge against them for having left us to deal with their mess. It was, as you all may recall, a uniquely difficult logistical problem."
"And now, Brigadier?" von Weiss prompted.
"I still begrudge them. If the Airborne were willing to make the best of the situation instead of remaining behind in Berlin, I wouldn't be here. Then again, they could well be fighting a full-scale war against the Bolshies as we speak, and I prefer this situation to being continually nagged by Field Marshal Montgomery on whether the headquarters company of First Guards Armored has enough fuel to make it across the Rhine."
"Due respect, sir, but aren't we getting away from the discussion?" Bedford asked.
"My apologies, Colonel." Freed from the realm of operations planning, if only temporarily, Swales' little story was a slight overindulgence. "Norden was a difficult place to resupply by road. The road systems leading north to the town were all heavily bombed by air power during the last push into Lower Saxony and have not yet been repaired. High Command realized that the Airborne would need their supplies readily available in case of emergency. Since they could not provide a constant chain by land, the US Navy was prevailed upon to deliver it by sea in the form of a lump sum. In short, we've got enough ammunition to keep a division self-sufficient for eight weeks of combat."
Bedford tried to keep his satisfaction hidden. Eight weeks— logistics people tended to think in weeks rather than in days or months—for a division of nine thousand was almost a year and a half of fighting time for the thousand or so infantrymen of the Allied Expeditionary Unit. Even with the intensive training exercises which he would order Borowski to schedule, there was more than enough to carry out the operation.
"Brigadier, are you sure about your calculations?"
"Positive," Swales replied. "Accounting for it all was quite a significant effort, in fact. Boxes and boxes of rifle and pistol rounds, mortar shells, hand grenades, high explosives, radio batteries. Spare weapons, parachutes, tinned rations. Anything a light infantryman could want, in the same condition as when they came off the production lines in America. They're all stored in the old Luftwaffe ordnance bunkers, safe from the elements. General von Weiss, Colonel Bedford, you will get your supplies, and plenty of it."
"That's a relief," von Weiss said. The nightmare of the Ruhr Valley still lay in the back of his mind, of the seemingly-endless waves of American armor and mechanized troops swamping the besieged town of Bad Lippspringe. The 103rd Infantry Division had desperately held on to their corner of the encirclement for a week, paying a bloody cost to stay the crushing tide of Bradley's green wolves from closing the pocket on the four hundred thousand doomed soldiers of Army Group B.
It was von Weiss' very own Bastogne, an ironic fate for the men who'd helped lay siege to the 101st Airborne in the first place. But there was no legendary stand against the rolling tide of panzergrenadiers, no relief column from Patton. The guns ran dry on the eighth day, and there were no more options left but to lay down their arms and march to Paderborn to surrender to the 3rd Armored Division.
"There is some more good news," Swales continued. "Fuel-wise, we were left well off, both in the aerial gasoline and the naval diesel. The Germans left behind vast tanks for their airbase to sustain training and combat for the three fighter wings assigned there. The American Seabees who converted the base for our use also installed diesel storage for their own ships.
"Of those stocks, we have consumed approximately four-sevenths of the gasoline and half of the diesel. However, the vast majority of the fuel-intensive recon overflights are complete. Our stores of film are almost expended, anyway, unless we strip the gun cameras from the fighters and personal sets. We have also decreased the rate of LST relays to Kyoshi Island. The savings from the lowered operations tempos will be enough to put us over the top, with six weeks to eight weeks to spare, depending on how much we'll be leaning on Bird Dog for comms work. That's a guarantee."
"That's it for the infantry, and the gas for the boats and planes." Bedford nodded. "So far, so good. How about aerial and naval ordnance? What are we looking at?"
"In those departments, we're not so fortunate," Swales thumbed through his papers. "The Navy ships have plenty of fuel, but they have absolutely zero ammunition in reserve. Norden Naval Station was never intended to be operational for over a year. There was no provision to resupply ships except for refueling.
The destroyers can support the assault with their artillery, but once their magazines are empty, there's nothing left. If the convoy runs into an engagement, there will be even fewer shells to go around."
"If we have the choice," Henning offered, "in the scenario of contact with enemy shipping, we could try to start off with torpedoes and anti-aircraft cannon, so the more versatile naval artillery can be saved for ship-to-shore support. Of course, that's only if we have a choice and aren't forced into a situation where we have to use our guns."
"Thank you, Captain," said Bedford. "I appreciate it. Anyhow, as long as the ammo is there, my weapons company has a battery of six eighty-one millimeter mortars. They're not as powerful as your five-inchers or land-based one-oh-fives, but they're decent medium fire support."
"As for the RAF," Swales continued, "they could be worse off. Since they've mostly been grounded, spare parts aren't really much of an issue, and 67 Fighter had enough supply on base to fight for three weeks of high-intensity combat.
"But unlike the infantry, there's no question of overstock. It's enough for the critical targets, for Sunrise Bay, the bridges, the rail depots, and for the bombings of the enemy units around the capital. But there'll be almost none left over except autocannon rounds and a handful of bombs. I suppose that they'll serve well for close air support during the land phase, but we cannot strike their production facilities."
"Damn," Bedford grumbled. "That capability could've been a good bargaining chip for the Earth Kingdom. We could dangle the fact in front of them that we're able to smash the enemy's production and choke off their warfighting capability. If I were them, I'd be falling over myself to make a deal."
"That is the end of our discussion of supply," announced Swales. "I trust that everyone has internalized the details. There is only one more thing to talk about today. Colonel Bedford will be heading to Ba Sing Se to make contact with the Earth Kingdom sometime next month, and we have yet to plan it out. Colonel, do you have any idea how you could get there? The sea lanes are infested with Fire Navy patrols. A parachute drop, perhaps?"
"Too risky," Bedford observed. "Looking back, the first contact at Kyoshi Island was a little too much of a risk, and even then they were in a peacetime standing. I don't want a rock to the guts before I can explain myself."
He thought for a moment, fingers drumming against the surface of the table. Swales set his eyes on him, waiting for the response.
"You know, I could always hitch a ride with the Avatar."
Author's Note:
Out of the game for more than three months, yes, but not out of the game completely. I doubt that you want to hear my excuses, so I'll give none. I'm updating on a strictly irregular basis, after all.
This turned out to be a very exposition-heavy chapter, in which I gave the long-awaited breakdown of what exactly the AEU has to fight with. I'm obviously not a logistics guy, so please forgive me for being vague and not getting down to the nuts and bolts of how many gallons of fuel or how many boxes of .30-06.
Qing is Chinese (at least I think it is) for hydrogen. If there's a better translation out there, than please do share. Until then. I'm sticking with the legendary lazy man's crutch which is Google Translate.
Is Bedford really embarking on the classic self-insert dream of dancing around the Earth Kingdom on Appa with Gaang in tow? Find out in 2021, when I finally get off my ass to write that particular chapter.
Happy belated New Year, guys. Thanks for stopping by, and catch you later.