Author's Notes:
"I do hope, however, (and am relatively confident) that the next chapter will be out quicker than this one."
- rodsantos, 11 July 2021
lol.
Previously on Operation Eclipse:
After the disaster at the Su Oku River, Qin manages to mollify Azula with a report on the crashed AEU fighter-bomber. Meanwhile, the Rough Rhinos are sent into the Earth Kingdom's badlands on a pacification campaign (read: low-level genocide), and Bedford continues on his journey to Ba Sing Se with Aang and his friends. Frustrated by the Avatar's seeming inability to learn earthbending, Bedford relates a story from his war in Europe to prove a point. The reception is mixed.
Content warning: Brief but graphic descriptions of the Holocaust.
April 16th
10 miles southeast of Han Tui, Earth Kingdom
0604 hours
It had been an early start that morning, breaking camp without a meal or a chance to freshen up. While the site of their rest stop had been reasonably safe, they had figured that the sooner they were out of Han Tui's catchment area, the better. Easier to leave than to risk even the low chance of making contact with an errant enemy patrol.
Another day of flight would see them across Earth Kingdom lines and into the safer portion of their journey, swinging northward towards Ba Sing Se to complete their circuitous route around the Si Wong Desert. Two days after that, and they would be at the great city itself, leaving Bedford to conduct the business he had been entrusted with.
The flight was quiet, save for the light whistle of the warm breeze drifting past. Nobody aboard the bison was in much mood to talk. Sokka and Toph were still groggy from their curtailed slumber, which was just about expected. Nobody needed sleep quite like an adolescent. The other two were different, though. Neither of them had said a word to Bedford since last night. As the group packed up, Katara had shot him a single, tight-lipped glare of cold contempt, conferred briefly with her drowsy brother on the proper course, and mounted the reins in silence. The Avatar himself had scarcely spoken at all, withdrawing into a lotus position with his back to Bedford, and had yet to stir.
Still trying to digest his advice, no doubt. Bedford had neither intended nor expected the blow to land softly. It was harsh, all the more so because of the Avatar's tender age, but regrettably necessary. This was no ordinary child with ordinary responsibilities, and war cared little for youth.
Bedford adjusted the brim of his cap to shield himself from the glare of the rising sun and settled against the back of the saddle, reaching into the bag beside him. Inside was a stack of typewritten briefing papers, which he had only gotten halfway through during his spare time.
...urban area contained within the agricultural zone is divided into three districts, separated by economic status into roughly concentric rings. The outermost and by far the largest among these is the Lower Ring, housing the city's poorest classes. Estimates place the population of this area at over 4,000,000 (over 20% of est. world population) at a density of around 70,000 per square mile, a number which vastly outstrips any other city in this world and even begins to approach modern urban areas such as Manhattan—
The drizzle of rain on his exposed skin interrupted his reading, and his first instinct was to push the documents back into the bag. But it wasn't water which fell from the sky. As his fingers brushed the topmost page, he painted a gray streak across the paper.
Bedford tore his eyes away from the page, glancing up. Countless thin strands of charred wood and blackened grass swirled past, dancing on the easterly wind. They were flying through a cloud of ash, spewed out by some massive blaze and kicked upwards by the wind. It showered down on them like confetti at some macabre festival, settling in his hair and on his lap.
Not far behind the ash came the choking reek of smoke, stinging Bedford's nostrils and throat. In the seat ahead of him, Sokka broke into a barrage of coughs. This was no mere brush fire. The air smelled of destruction, and that of a human toll.
"What is it?" Toph turned left and right, but she was so far removed from her element that she had no hope of knowing what lay below.
"The Fire Nation," Every one of Sokka's words was laden with deep loathing. "It has to be. There's a village down there—no, it used to be a village. It's all gone. They burned it down."
"I'm taking us down, " said Katara, tugging at the reins. "Come on, Appa."
The quick descent only doubled the effect of the headwind, forcing more of the smoke into Bedford's lungs. He winced, but otherwise managed not to show any outward signs of discomfort. The others began to cough and wheeze, only curtailed when Aang raised his hands to put up a slow but continuous stream of air to push the smoke away.
They landed in the scorched remains of what had once been a modest vegetable field. Despite the total ruin of the crop, the plough marks were still clear, hacked by hand into the unforgiving earth. It must have been back-breaking work. Bedford doubted that the place had possessed so much as a single ox to help them farm.
Bedford grabbed his automatic rifle from the saddle and jumped down from the bison's back, feeling the shriveled greenery disintegrate under his boots. He flipped off the safety, bringing the weapon to his hip.
"Stay alert," he warned, as the others joined him on the ground. "They might still be around."
Katara secured a spare skin of water to her belt, glancing around as if she were searching for an excuse to use it. Her brother gripped a long ivory war club, flexing his fingers around the handle.
"Someone might still be alive in there," said Aang, continuing to airbend. "We have to help them."
"We'll sweep the village for survivors." Bedford looked over at Katara. "You can handle anyone who's wounded, right?"
She nodded tersely. Her shoulders were tensed, prepared to fight.
"All right. Everyone, stay close behind."
Bedford took his first steps towards the village, scanning the line of ruined huts for any sign of a threat. He held the muzzle of his weapon low, but ready to be brought to bear in an instant. Aang and Katara stayed directly behind him, while Sokka and Toph walked along on either side.
The crackle of smoldering wood grew louder with every stride, but that was the sole noise in the dead silence. The only movement came from the blowflies, a seething, quivering black mass of decay which parted as they strode through, but continued to circle overhead to await their next turn at the vast feast.
Aang's airbending saved them the worst of the stench, a small mercy in a place which had seen precious few of them. It was the only thing which kept them moving forward, advancing ever closer to the heart of the destruction.
An incomprehensible tangle of bodies lay before them, hacked and slashed and burnt. People who had lived their last moments in stark terror. Bedford didn't believe in ghosts, but if they did exist, he knew their wandering souls would haunt this place for eternity.
The Avatar and two Water Tribe children had seen something like this before, Bedford realized, else there would have been a stronger reaction from them than quiet revulsion. Of Toph, he was less sure. Though spared from the sights, she clearly understood what lay around her. For the first time since he had met her, she had lapsed into stunned silence.
Bedford was far from a stranger to death, even on this scale. But on the battlefield, death had always served some sort of purpose. This was meaningless brutality. The Earth Kingdom had long given up on this strategically irrelevant land, stripping this atrocity even of the cold, calculated advantage which had given the massacre at the Air Temples at least a modicum of objective sense.
Then it was hatred which has motivated this attack. Irrational, illogical hatred which drove them to wipe out a village. He had seen cruelty to this extent before, too, though only once. Not since the final days of his last war...
He pushed the memory down. He couldn't dwell on it, not now.
A pile of mud bricks lay across the path, fallen from the wall of a now-destroyed hut. Bedford pushed with his toe, and the top bricks slid away with a rattle. Underneath was a body, temporarily buried by the collapse of the home onto its resting place.
It was a woman. Even in life, she had already been gaunt and careworn, with scarcely enough flesh on her bones to rot. Scorch marks trailed down her face and limbs, where flaming bits of thatch roofing had rained down on her. The cause of death was easily apparent. There was a gaping hole in her chest just below the sternum, an entry and exit wound so large that Bedford could see through her.
In the brief moment before the air could blow it away, Bedford's nose caught the scent. A raw, sweetish reek of decay, intermingled with burnt flesh. That was what turned his stomach most. The familiar smell of nourishment but horribly perverted, twisted beyond all sanity.
Ludwigslust. He was there again. He was back in that warm springtime day under the bright German sun, when the gates of hell were revealed to be but a simple barbed wire fence.
The camp had been abandoned by its guards, leaving the inmates to succumb to starvation and disease. The men who had run this this place—no, not men, for someone responsible for this could scarcely be human at all—had not even afforded these prisoners the mercy of a bullet, so hasty were they to flee from the advancing Allied troops.
A thousand hands reached out in supplication, begging for meager scraps of food. Emaciated men in tattered prison uniforms, their heads shaved down to the scalp, staggered towards him in their desperation for deliverance. Many stumbled to the ground exhausted, failed by their weakened legs. Some never got back up.
Bloated bodies, purplish-black, strewn on the ground like gravel on a dirt road. They rotted where they had fallen, slowly melting in the pitiless heat. None of the living had the strength to move them, much less bury them.
The buildings were hardly better. Dozens of men packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, shivering under thin blankets. Their eyes had sunken from extreme dehydration, and the air rattled in their lungs in a way which told that they would not take many more breaths. Across their chests and necks burned the lethal red rash of typhoid.
Yet there was one thing on that day which had clung most tightly to the back of Bedford's consciousness for nearly a year. Not the gaunt men who wandered listlessly through the dusty yard at the center of the enclosure, nor the scores of the diseased far beyond saving, nor even the unburied bodies, for he had long gotten accustomed to those sights. It was the cannibalism which had shaken him to the core.
At the end of his first round of the camp, Bedford had found three delirious inmates hidden behind a guard barracks, huddled around a makeshift campfire. One of them clutched at a severed thigh bone, holding the dripping meat over the flames. Pale tendons still hung from one end, from where it had been crudely hacked from the knee joint of some long-dead prisoner. The other two tore strips from it, ripping flesh away with bony fingers and rotting teeth. It was their last, desperate resort to fend off starvation.
"...Colonel? Colonel!" snapped Toph. A hand gripped his forearm, dragging him from the depths of his memory. "What's wrong with you? Your heart's beating like crazy."
Bedford's sight slowly began to clear. His knuckles had gone pale on the stock of his weapon, grasping it fit to break.
"There are people in there." Toph released Bedford's arm, pointing out a hut fifty yards to the front. It was still reasonably intact. "Two of them, but one's fading fast."
"Anyone else?" asked Sokka.
Toph shook her head grimly. "Nobody. Not alive, anyway."
Aang pushed past Bedford, forging ahead of the group. He stood before the entrance of the hut, peering into the dark interior. "We're not your enemy!" he called out. "We won't hurt you!"
"Who are you?" challenged a voice, but it was hoarse and weak, barely audible over the buzz of the flies and snap of the smoking embers.
"I'm the Avatar, and these are my friends. We're here to help you."
A lone figure emerged from the doorway, limping into the sunlight. A middle-aged woman, hunched and weathered beyond her years by the sun and the grit. Her whole left arm up to the shoulder was wrapped in grimy rags, and she held an improvised cane for support.
"Water," she rasped. "Please, sir."
Bedford unscrewed his canteen and offered it to her. She took it with a trembling hand and tipped back her head, gulping down half of the container. Water trickled down her face, dripping from her chin.
"What's your name?" asked Aang.
"Yaling." She doubled over from the exertion, leaning heavily on her cane. "But there's no time for that. A man's dying in there, and there's nothing I can do to help him."
Unhooking the Army-issue flashlight clipped to his belt, Bedford switched it on. The thin beam cut through the darkness of the hut's interior, revealing a single dusty room. At the center was a man curled up on a wicker mat. His body was buried under a pile of hempen sacks and scraps of rough fabric, leaving only his head and neck exposed. The sleeping face sticking out from the cocoon was pale, deathly so.
"Took a sword to his side." Yaling pulled down the improvised blankets. A long slash had been carved from the top of his hip to halfway up his ribcage. "It's a deep cut. He'd lost a lot of blood before I'd found him."
Katara knelt by the bedside, loosening the drawstring of her water skin. She pulled a long stream from it, letting it hang in the air for a moment. The water began to glow brightly, radiating a white light which lit up the cramped room, then it flowed downwards to settle over the open wound.
"Sorcery," the village woman gasped. "You must be blessed by the spirits, girl."
"No, ma'am," said Katara. They were the first words she'd spoken in hours. "Just waterbending. Some of us can heal."
Yaling stood over the bed, anxiously hovering over her patient as Katara continued to probe with her bending.
"I boiled some water to wash the wound, but we didn't have much. The bastards threw Old Man Wei's body into our well just before they left, and the flies got to him. That water's good as poisoned now."
"Don't worry. We can get you some more to drink." Katara briefly glanced up from her work, addressing the two closest to the door. "Aang, Toph, can you get the other water skins from Appa?"
"You got it." Aang nodded resolutely. Toph followed him outside without a word; even she appeared to be in no mood to argue.
"I've been trying to feed him," continued Yaling, when they had left, "but he can't keep anything down. Nothing around but a few handfuls of rice and a couple of lentils, anyway. They burned the rest. He complained of feeling cold, so I threw whatever I could scrounge over him. A few rice sacks, some clothes. I wanted to sew his wound shut first, but..." She regarded her injured arm with disgust.
"I'll see to that later," Katara promised. "And your leg, too."
"Don't bother. I'm tough. It's Deng here who needs your help most." Yaling looked at the man on the mat, whose skin was still cast in a bloodless pallor. She sighed, shaking her head. "He saved my life, you know. One of them came for me with a sword, and he pushed me out of the way, but he caught the blade in a bad way."
"You've more than repaid him. Without your care, he would have died yesterday."
"No, no. It's the least I could do. Not after what he did for me." Yaling shifted slightly, wincing as she twinged her leg. A hiss escaped through her gritted teeth, and she pounded a fist against the wall. "Not when there are fifty-two people lying dead outside that door who I couldn't help, including my husband and his wife."
"I can give you something for the pain while you wait," volunteered Bedford.
"That would...that would be good."
"Give me your arm." Bedford unzipped his first aid packet, selecting a little cardboard box the size of his pinky finger. Inside was a collapsible tube with a clear cap. "The uninjured one."
"What is that?"
"It will sting a little." Bedford admitted. He pulled off the cap, unsheathing a gleaming needle. "But it will alleviate some of your discomfort."
"What's a little more pain?" Yaling held out her good arm. A quick jab placed the syrette just above her elbow, and Bedford squeezed the tube to release the small dose of morphine.
"Give it a little time to take effect." Bedford tossed the tube and the box over his shoulder. "Now, tell me. How many Fire Nation men came?"
"Five. They came riding these enormous beasts, like giant lizards, but with long horns. I saw one of them gore a woman straight through."
"Benders?"
"One of them was a firebender, that I'm sure of. I got caught in one of his blasts. Lucky it was only my arm. There was at least one more with a blade —that's how Deng got slashed—and another who carried these strange little sticks. Like firecrackers, but much more powerful. One of those things brought a wall down on me. Beat my leg up real good and knocked me cold. When I came to, everyone was either dead or gone, except for him."
A flash of recognition spread over Sokka's face, which Bedford noticed. "You know the men who attacked this place?"
"We've tangled with them a few times," replied Sokka. "They're a Fire Nation cavalry group, really nasty people. The same day we met you, they burned down Chin Village."
Bedford remembered the intelligence photographs. The gutted buildings, the blurry mass of the dead piled on the empty cobbles. Over 700 estimated dead, Captain Di Santo had written. Entire settlement rendered completely uninhabitable.
"They had infantry support that day," said Bedford. "Two, maybe three hundred men, pulled from a local garrison. Seems like it's just the five of them out here now, though."
The glow of the healing water faded. Katara straightened up, refilling the container at her hip. "Now, he's not out of danger," she explained. "Not nearly. But he's a lot further from death. He only had a few hours to live when I got to him, but now he's more stable."
"Thank you," breathed Yaling, relaxing against the wall. The morphine was beginning to take effect, and some of the pain etched into her lined face had drained away. "I'd already lost hope."
"Don't thank me," replied Katara. "My job isn't done yet."
Aang and Toph returned, each bearing an armful of water skins. Most of them went to Katara, who set to work again on Deng, but Sokka took one from Aang and handed it to Yaling. She drank greedily, though not as desperately as before.
"What now?" wondered Sokka, taking a slug from what little remained in the container. "You two can't stay here, there's nothing left for you in this place. You'll have to come with us."
"He's right," Katara agreed. "I need some more time with Deng to make completely sure that he'll live. I'll have to keep healing him as we travel."
"Are we wouldn't be a burden?" pressed Yaling.
Aang placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You don't even need to ask that. We have space on our flying bison for both of you. Do you have anywhere you can go? Family or friends who you can stay with?"
"Ro Tien, Avatar. It's a few days' journey from here on foot. We should be safe enough there. It's on friendly land, just beyond the border. I have family there, a few cousins and their children. I'm sure we could lodge with them while Deng recovers, and I could find work in town."
"That sounds like a plan." Aang looked from Sokka and Katara to Toph, waiting for an objection. None voiced any. His gaze shifted, lingering expectantly on Bedford.
Bedford turned to Yaling. "You'll guide us there? Your town isn't on any of our maps."
"Of course, sir. I think I can recognize the way from above."
"Then let's get moving. The sooner we leave this godforsaken place, the better."
Kyoshi Island
0824 hours
"I told you sunrise was too early!"
"Never hurts to be punctual."
"You kicked me out of bed while the moon was still in the sky, and for this? Were you trying to goad him?"
"I thought he'd be wide awake! He's a grown man!"
"Whoah, slow down." Akiko shook her head in confusion. "What exactly did you two just do?"
The three Kyoshi Warriors sat together on a grassy patch just beyond the fence of Keum Village, fresh from the early morning jog and a quick meal. Behind them rose the bustle from the still-ongoing breakfast service.
Suki looked over her shoulder to check if the subject of their conversation was safely out of earshot. He was sitting at the table beneath the statue of Avatar Kyoshi, sedately munching on his serving of scrambled eggs on toasted bread. Even if he cared to listen, there was no way he could hear them over the din.
"We caught Carwell—" she began.
"You caught him, " Rena interrupted. "I was just standing there because you made me."
"Yeah, whatever you say. We caught Carwell at a bad time this morning," Suki pressed on. "We had to tell him that we were in, right? That we were going to join his mission. I figured the best time to talk to him was early, before muster. So we knocked on his door, and—"
"He came out with his face lathered in soap, and one of those cleaning brushes in his mouth—you know the ones they use for their teeth? And he glared at us like this..." Rena mimicked the expression, contorting her face into deep and weary lines. "...and he listened for a bit. Then he slammed the door. Didn't say a word, just left us standing there like idiots."
Akiko snickered as Rena wrinkled her nose, further accentuating the mock grogginess. She grasped at the air, miming throwing a door shut.
Suki risked another glance back. Chewing down the last bites of his meal, Carwell rose from his table and added his tray to the growing stack by the end of the mess line. He brushed the crumbs from his hands and looked up expectantly. Locking eyes with her, he began picking his way through the throng of men.
"Damn, here he comes."
"Where were you, anyway?" Rena asked Akiko. "Did you even accept the offer at all, or did you just show up here and hope he doesn't notice?"
"I went to Carwell after sunset yesterday. You know, a reasonable hour. I didn't want to wait around while you two were dithering."
"You thought we'd back out?" challenged Suki, snapping her head around to stare at her.
"No, I figured you'd say yes eventually. Just didn't know how long it would take."
"I wish you'd waited for us." Rena frowned. "They called us in together. It would've been right if we'd accepted together. We could've shown the Colonel that we're in this as a team."
"The opportunity was too good." Akiko placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'll make it up to you, I swear."
"Come on, he's here." Suki elbowed Akiko in warning. The three of them jumped to their feet as Peter Carwell strode across the grass towards them. He looked refreshed, clean-shaven, far from the haggard man who had stood in that shadowy doorway at the crack of dawn.
"Good morning, Colonel," they said in unison.
"Good morning, warriors." He put on a polite smile, motioning for them to stand easy. "First thing's first. Suki, Rena, I'd like to apologize for earlier. Seventeen years in the Army, and early mornings still don't agree with me. Of course, that's no excuse for being rude."
"No, sir, it's our fault," replied Suki. "We shouldn't have intruded on you at that time."
"Look, if you have concerns about our mission, my door's always open. Especially if it's as important as what you had to say this morning. If it's not so urgent, you're still welcome to come, but I'd prefer if you waited for a convenient hour. Understood?"
"Yes, Colonel."
"Now that's settled, let's begin." Carwell motioned for them to gather round, and they stepped forward. "You're already familiar with our mission. I'm sure you've been thinking about it for the past day or two. You may feel that the details are a little vague. In all honesty, I don't know much more than you do.
"Our people back at headquarters are working on a full plan as we speak. They're clever, and I trust in them to come up with a good one. When they give us more information, I guarantee that you'll be the first to know. Until then, we need to make sure that we're ready to carry out whatever they have in mind for us.
"Good news is, much of what we'll be practicing will just be a refinement of what you already know. You're already used to fighting as a four-man team. There'll be a few alterations and nuances here and there, but the rest is more or less the same. For the next few days, we'll focus on learning our parts in this team, and how they work together."
Reaching into his breast pocket, Carwell drew a folded piece of washi paper. He opened it, extending it between his fingers to the warriors. Suki took it from him. The surface was brittle to the touch, and the edges bore the mark of water stains. Gingerly smoothing the sheet, she held it up to the light.
An ink-brush portrait stared back at her. A narrow face, sharply-pointed beard, haughty cheekbones. His long black hair was drawn up into an elegant topknot, held in place by an ornate hairpiece.
If this truly was who Suki suspected it to be, he was much too young. She had envisioned an old, hunched cripple barking orders from high atop his throne, not this handsome, vital man with dark and scheming eyes.
"Fire Lord Ozai," said Carwell, confirming her intuition. "The most powerful man in this world."
Rena leaned in for a closer look and whistled appreciatively. "He might be an evil piece of work, but he sure is handsome."
"I doubt he's as pretty in real life," Akiko humphed, bending down over Suki's shoulder to see for herself. "If the artist didn't paint him perfect, they'd probably throw a bucket of pitch over his head and light him off like a candle."
"Ladies, please." Carwell held up a hand for silence. "Let's try not to be so flippant when we're discussing killing a man and his daughter, as necessary as it may be."
Rena and Akiko shared a regretful glance and quickly clammed up. Carwell took the picture back from Suki, returning it to his pocket.
"So," he continued. "We need him and his daughter Azula dead in one blow. Kill only the Fire Lord, and the princess becomes ruler. Kill only the princess, and all we get is an angry father. It's very likely that we may only get one chance. If we're to make the most of it, we have to study our roles in this team diligently."
A rifle team four hundred yards away, Suki recalled. It was no great surprise why Rena had been chosen. Akiko was a capable shot, too, which left Suki as the odd one out in the group. She doubted that the ungainly submachine gun hanging by her side was precise enough for this kind of work.
Whether or not Carwell had noticed her uneasy glance towards her weapon, it was to her he spoke first. "Suki, you'll serve as our scout. You'll be our eyes and ears out there. We've practiced it before, remember?"
Suki racked her brains, struggling to recall Carwell's training course. They'd never explicitly practiced scouting—"recon", as the Americans seemed to call it—working from the basis that the Warriors already understood how to do it.
"The practice attacks in the woods, sir?" It was the only exercise she could remember which had involved her needing to locate the enemy.
"Yes. See, it wasn't just about finding the enemy and fighting him. It was an exercise in judgement, too. You had to figure out his number and disposition, and whether to attack or evade. You're going to be our eyes and ears out there. "
Suki may not have been a sharp mark with a rifle but stealth and observational skill were second nature to any Kyoshi Warrior. "I can do that, sir."
"Rena and I," Carwell continued, "will be our team's snipers. We will engage our targets and eliminate them. If everything goes to plan, we'll be firing the only two shots of this mission."
"Do you really think I can do it, sir?" Rena looked up at Carwell expectantly.
"I need you to tell me that, Rena. There's no reason you can't. You're the best shot in the platoon. But there's no use having a sniper who doesn't believe that they can hit the target when the time comes."
Rena swallowed hard. She stared at her feet in silence, uneasily twisting the sling of her rifle around her thumb.
"Of course, we're not expecting an ideal situation. It's nice when everything falls into place neatly, but..." Carwell shrugged. "Well, it almost never happens. Circumstances can change in ways you can never imagine. That's why we plan for contingencies. All of us will learn each other's tasks as well as our own."
His gaze had settled on Akiko. "That goes double for you. In case one of us is unable to complete the mission for any reason, I need you to be able to step in."
"So I'm an understudy, sir?" Under the warpaint, Akiko's expression was as inscrutable as ever, but Suki had known her long enough to look beyond the exterior. That slight dip of her broad shoulders, the inquisitive rise in her voice that was just a mite abrupt.
"A backup? No, not just that. More a..." Carwell paused thoughtfully. "...a left hand. There's no use getting into a fistfight if you can only punch with your right. You'd find yourself flat on your back in no time."
Akiko looked slightly more pleased at that. She was left-handed, after all.
"Right." Carwell clapped his hands together. "Enough time for talking. Let's get to work."
Ro Tien, Earth Kingdom
1122 hours
The quarry was an jagged gash in in the landscape, hewn into the the side of a steep hill. The valuable stone which had formed there had long since been cut out and carted off, leaving behind a manmade crater wide enough that Bedford figured he could bivouac his entire battalion inside without anyone bumping elbows. It was bound on its longest sides by sheer walls of grainy rock, still pitted with the scars of long-abandoned mining, The west side sloped more gently towards the bottom of the pit, where it had functioned as a ramp for the minecarts to haul away their load.
Bedford was perched atop a boulder on the crest of the hill, one of many scattered all around his immediate surroundings. Instead of creating a slag pile like their counterparts back home might have done, the miners had thrown the discarded rocks up out of the quarry, where they had landed across the hilltop and the rear side. Over time, some had slid back down from the crest, settling on the front slope. The whole area was now covered in them, from brick-sized stones to thick slabs as large as Willys jeeps.
From where he sat, Bedford held a bird's eye view of the town. Ro Tien was spread out before him, lying in the shadow of the industry which had once been its life and purpose. A dusty little mining community on the frontier, a place which would not have stood out in Colorado or Arizona at the turn of the century. The main difference, however, was that Ro Tien had been better suited to sustaining itself when its quarry had run dry. There was fertile farmland skirting the town, vegetable patches and fields of grain stretching out in measured rectangles. It was no lush paradise, but its people certainly had a better lot in life than those of the squalid hamlet at the group's last stop.
He scanned the skies, searching for any sign of the returning Appa. Sokka and Katara had taken the beast into town to drop Yaling and Deng off. Seeing nothing, he glanced back in the direction of the open pit. Two bobbing specks were outlined against the gray stone of the quarry floor, one in bright orange, the other in green. The Avatar and his earthbending teacher had headed down there thirty minutes ago for another session.
While Bedford was too far away to overhear them, he suspected it was largely the same song and dance which had gone on for days now. The angry little blind child barking insults, clumps of earth flying around, the Avatar huffing and puffing to no avail. It really was getting tiring now for all involved.
There was no point in watching any further. Not today, not until the Avatar somehow found a breakthrough. Taking a slug from his canteen, Bedford finally turned his attention to the stack of briefing papers on his lap, neglected since the early morning. At least there would be one member of his travelling party who would have a productive afternoon.
Three miles west of Ro Tien
1129 hours
The official excuse on Colonel Mongke's orders was that the town was the logistical center for the resistance, distributing food and arms to the roving bands of rebels in the hills. Mongke didn't believe a word. Both the Fire and Earth armies only maintained supply lines out here for the sole purpose of supporting little troop- and squadron-sized stations scattered up and down the frontier, forming a loose screen between the Earth Kingdom defensive line and the more vague Fire Army concentrations to its west. The Earth savages had greater concerns at hand than to waste energy supporting the desultory and disorganized bandits in the Tei Khay.
The orders did allow Mongke to visit one such station for reinforcements. His own rank, backed up by the seal of the regimental commander at Han Tui on the order scroll, had quickly quashed any protests from the lieutenant who commanded the post. The Rough Rhinos had come away with eighteen firebender infantry, now marching in two even lines behind Mongke's trotting mount. The other four riders of his cavalry team rode on the flanks, two on each side of the column.
Getting here had been an uneventful trudge. The Earth Kingdom watchposts, like their Fire Nation equivalents, were designed to spot large troop movements, regiments and divisions advancing towards the line. Slipping past them with a mere force of twenty-three men had been straightforward—they had barely even needed to slacken their pace.
In the distance, Mongke spotted the sharp outline of a steep hill, jutting up from the low knolls along its front and sides. The sight confirmed they were in the right place. Ro Tien would be just beyond, hidden behind the high ground. By the time the Earth Kingdom relief force arrived, if they came at all, they would find nothing but a smoking ruin. Mongke and the rest would be long gone, behind the frontier and beyond pursuit.
One last town. One final day before he could leave this assignment behind and return to some proper soldiering. There would be some in his group who would bemoan the fact that their work here was nearly over, but Mongke did not share the same sentiment. In his opinion, the sooner he shook the dust and ash of this place from his boots, the better.
It had been Aang's idea to come down here. Toph had to hand it to him. She'd expected him to beg off today. There was even a perfectly good excuse, one she wasn't sure she could have refused if he had brought it up. That village back there...
As the memory stabbed through her mind again, she swallowed down the rising nausea. She couldn't let it overpower her again today. While hurrying back to the bison to fetch water for Yaling, she had thrown up. Only Aang had been there to see her moment of weakness.
Damn him for his cursed pity. She could sense it in the air, without ever needing to know the expression on his face. It was that same sick feeling she knew was in her parents' hearts every time they looked at her.
She had seen death before, as hard as her parents tried to shield her from it. Last year, an early round of Earth Rumble Five had featured two local amateurs with bad blood. One had carried on an affair with the other's wife. As the bout wore on, he had started taunting the other with the vivid details. His opponent went for the head.
Toph had caught him, pulling up a chunk of the platform to break his fall, but it had been too late. That brief brush with his body had shaken her. She knew there should have been a person in her grasp, sensing the shape, the weight, the lolling limbs. But without the constant beat of his heart, the rush of air in his lungs, there was nothing there but a motionless, mangled heap of meat and bone.
This morning in the village, she had felt it again. They had had left fifty-two of them behind in that village. Fifty-two people whose footsteps should have filled the world around her. Fifty-two rotting sacks of flesh, dissolving into the earth.
If Aang had wanted to take his mind off things by reuniting that poor woman and the wounded man with their family, she couldn't have blamed him. But no, he had asked the Water Tribe siblings to handle it, insisting on another day of training instead. Maybe he was stronger than she thought.
"Get ready," Toph ordered. Aang settled into stance. Knees bent rigidly, feet planted wide apart. Perfect form, as always, but form had never been his problem.
"Don't move. Don't even think about moving an inch." She scanned her surroundings, searching for the right thing to practice on. It took her several moments. Picking out one rock in this place was like trying to hone in on an individual singer among ten different opera companies.
There. A boulder, poised at the lip of the pit, needing just a little push to get it going. All it took was a single crook of her finger.
The boulder came free with deathly silence. The shallow divot it rested in had suddenly flattened out, severing its only restraint. It began to roll, slowly at first, but picked up speed with every revolution.
Aang stiffened. She could feel him tense up, hear his heart pound hard and fast, but he didn't shift, didn't even flinch. He was following her instructions perfectly.
But as the boulder tumbled over the lip of the pit, Toph felt no control taking hold of it. Even as the Avatar strained to exert his will over the stone, she knew there was nothing stopping its plunge towards him.
Aang's heart was nearly pounding out of his chest now, yet he still stood firm. He had, or at least, was trying to have complete faith that he was going to turn that boulder aside, In a way, that was good. She had spent the last weeks drilling the idea into his mind that he would only be able to bend earth properly if he showed it no weakness. On the other hand, he was about to be squashed flat, and for once, he wasn't going to do anything about it.
The boulder was a foot away from Aang's head when Toph cleaved it in two. The halves speared off to either side of him, shattering into hundreds of pieces on the hard floor. Gasping for breath, he collapsed to his knees. So the confidence had only been a facade. In the space of the seconds, the world's hopes had almost been dashed to bits by an overzealous Avatar and his equally foolhardy earthbending teacher.
Toph sighed, defeated. Running her hands through her damp hair, she pulled up a flat pad of rock from the floor and flopped down on it. Normally, this was the time where she laid into him, but she couldn't find it within herself right now.
"Can we do that again? I think I almost got it this time!" The strained optimism in Aang's voice was fooling nobody. She doubted if he even believed it himself.
"I just don't know anymore, Twinkletoes." She was surprised by how measured her voice could be. "That last one was a pretty close shave."
"But I did everything you told me!"
"I know, I know. It's not your fault." Unused to her leniency, Aang's indignation had melted into silence. Toph forged on into unfamiliar territory, struggling to find her next words. "I...I was wrong last night. I...I called you, well...weak, and other things. I shouldn't have said it."
It was this damned day, a day which kept on turning her world upside down. She was never wrong, and she never apologized.
Aang stood there in silence, digesting her apology. She waited, trying to ascertain his reaction. His breathing was slowing to rein his heartbeat in. Suppressed frustration.
"So what's wrong?" he said, finally. "You?"
"I never said that." There were limits to her humility, even today. "Maybe we just don't work well together. We're not the right fit. Maybe airbenders need a different way of learning earthbending, I don't know. I should have realized it sooner."
"What do we do now?"
"I don't want to be a burden." She had anticipated the question. "You can leave me here. I can find my way."
"No. We had a deal. I promised to take you to Ba Sing Se. But once we're there, we're done."
Toph nodded. That was reasonable. Maybe a bit too reasonable than she deserved, for someone who had wasted his time, and the world's.
"For what it's worth, Aang, I hope your next earthbending master is the right one for you."
The familiar shadow of the flying bison swooped in over the quarry around lunchtime, kicking up a whirling cloud of dust as it came in for a landing. The two passengers disembarked with practiced efficiency, dragging down one of the meal baskets between them. Once on the ground, they paused for a few moments, each pulling items from the basket before tying it shut.
After a brief conversation, the two split up. One walked down into the quarry to bring the others their meal. The other turned in the opposite direction, trudging uphill.
It was the Water Tribe boy, Sokka. Bedford could see him plodding his way up the slope, carefully balancing a woven platter of food in each hand as he stepped over stone piles and weaved between tall rocks. About halfway up, he spotted Bedford and redoubled his pace, dragging his feet through a thin dusting of scattered pebbles as he cut across the incline towards him.
He emerged on the hilltop coated in dust and perspiration, still holding the platters up high. "Lunch, Colonel, " he said, looking up to where Bedford sat.
Bedford relieved him of his load, laying the two wicker plates on the surface behind him. Reaching over, he took Sokka's outstretched hand and pulled him up. The boy scrambled to the top and found a seat, swinging his skinny legs around to dangle off the side.
"Katara told me to bring you food," he explained, twisting about to retrieve one of the platters. Placing it on his lap, he unceremoniously began tucking into the small pile of dried meat and fish. "I brought us all I could carry. The others are bringing the rest of the basket to Yaling after lunch. Call it a moving-in gift."
"I'm surprised your sister wants anything to do with me," Bedford remarked, again silently cursing his own unfortunate timing last night. If there was any way he could have anticipated stumbling across that village, he would have held his tongue.
"She doesn't," agreed Sokka in between mouthfuls. "But she doesn't want you to go hungry."
"That's awfully generous of her."
"She didn't actually say that, though. Not in those words." Sokka waved a strip of salt pork in mock declaration. "She told me you might go and butcher another village out of rage if we didn't feed you."
"Ah. I see."
"I told her to calm down. It was a fable. You just have a weird way of getting your point across." He chuckled weakly. "Girls, huh? When they get something in their head, it doesn't matter what you say."
"I could've explained myself to her, you know." Bedford reminded him mildly. In truth, he was irked that the kid had tried to speak on his behalf, but there was no need to bite his head off for attempting to stick up for him.
"Trust me, she'd never hear it from you. Maybe last night, but now? After that village? No way."
"So how long will she stay angry with me?"
"Two, three days. That's how long it takes for her to see sense."
The sooner she cooled off, the better. It was probably for the best not to be feuding with the Avatar's own waterbending instructor. "Fair enough."
"Unless you actually butchered that town." Sokka cracked a toothy grin, clearly trying to lighten the mood. "Then you'd really be on her bad side."
The boy was waiting for him to laugh. Hearing no reaction, he watched Bedford's face to see if the quip had landed. Bedford raised his eyes to his blue ones, meeting his gaze with dispassionate, unblinking silence.
The joviality drained instantly from Sokka's face, giving way to ashen realization. "You..."
There was no point in lying. "I did."
"Why?"
"I already told you why. It was the right decision to make. They hated us, and they sheltered our enemies."
"How can killing unarmed people be right?" Sokka stared out over Ro Tien, as if imagining the town ablaze, shattered to the last brick. "I know some of them murdered those airplane crewmen, but you didn't just go after those people. You fired at everybody in that town for hours, guilty and innocent. That's not justice. How is that any different from the Fire Nation murdering all those Air Nomads just to get at Aang?"
Bedford looked him up and down, appraising him. "You're smart enough for the real answer," he decided.
"What real answer?"
"Your friends wouldn't understand. Maybe I shouldn't expect them to. War is cheap to benders. They throw around some rocks, blow some flame. Sometimes they kill the enemy, sometimes they subdue him without shedding blood. But a nonbender like you, you understand where I'm coming from—"
"No," Sokka snarled.
"I'd like you to hear me out—"
"No," he said again, venom leaking from his words. "You listen to me. I met someone just like you. He lied to us, too. Much more charming than you could be. He claimed he was a freedom fighter, trying to save the people of his valley from the Fire Nation. Aang and Katara were taken in. He told them that the enemy was trying to burn down the whole valley, and got them to fill a reservoir with water from a creek. 'Fight the fire,' he said, but I wasn't convinced.
"I caught him trying to blow the dam. He was going to flood the whole valley and sweep away everybody, Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. He nearly killed me for trying to stop him, nearly killed hundreds of people."
"You have to understand me, Sokka," Bedford urged, but the boy recoiled from him. "I wish no harm towards you or your friends, or to anybody outside the Fire Nation. If this town was occupied by the enemy and needed to be freed, I wouldn't resort to such methods. But in the enemy heartland, where every man, woman, and child would gladly see you dead, things have to be done differently."
"I let myself get dazzled by your fancy weapons. No more. I won't let you use us. I don't know what your twisted mind is planning, but if you think unarmed people are your enemy, there's no way I'll ever help you."
"I'm planning to bring balance. I'm going to relieve your friend, the Avatar, of that burden. It's too heavy for a child like him to bear. All I want is cooperation and understanding, so that I and my men can go home afterwards. Surely that's not too much to ask for."
"I'm stupid for even listening to you." Sokka pushed himself off the boulder, landing on his haunches. "Don't ever ask me or any of the others again."
Bedford sighed. He had thought that he had at least one willing ear among the Avatar's circle. Clearly, he had misjudged the situation.
"When this is all over," he promised, "you'll understand."
But Sokka was no longer paying heed to his words. His hand had gone to his waist, where his whalebone war club hung. His knuckles were white against the handle. Bedford was already raising his arms to defend himself, convinced that the boy had lost his temper and was about to strike him, but Sokka's eyes were elsewhere.
Bedford turned round and saw it: a light cloud of dust, drifting over the top of that low hill to the rear. Figures began to emerge over the crest, more with every second. At their head was a tall cavalryman in a dark breastplate and dull red bracers, sitting astride a muscular gray-skinned beast with a long, swishing tail and three curved horns. A komodo rhino. Behind him marched two even lines of infantry, nine a side. They carried no weapons, marking them out as benders. On each side of the column rode a pair of cavalry, bringing the tally up to twenty-three men in all, unmistakably Fire Nation.
Sokka threw a glance towards the quarry. At the sight, he pressed a palm against his sweating forehead. For a moment, the fear was replaced by incredulity at their wretched luck.
"They're gone," he breathed, disbelieving. "They left and they took Appa with them. That means we're...we're—"
Bedford finished his sentence for him. "We're the only thing standing between the Fire Nation and Ro Tien."
Author's Notes:
First, some history. The 82nd Airborne assisted in the liberation of KZ Wobbelin on 2 May 1945. They came upon a horrific sight: over a thousand men had died inside the camp, and were left unburied due to the physical incapability of their surviving inmates to do so. Disease ran rampant, and there was little food or water to be had. Some inmates resorted to cannibalism to survive.
It's been over a full year since I last posted. I am hilariously bad at the whole "writing" part of "writing fanfic". It's easier to count the times where I wasn't stuck somewhere writing this chapter, as you'd only need to use one hand. I do have good news, though. I have another chapter ready to go after this one, around the same length. Full disclosure, it's actually the second half of this chapter. I planned for another 10k, but the wordcount spiraled a bit and I wound up deciding to split it. I'll post "Chapter 27" a week from now.
Why wait a week? It's a raw deal for you loyal subscribers, and I'd definitely feel aggrieved if I were in your shoes, but I need to get my engagement up, and twice the chapters means twice the chance of fresh eyeballs.
For the first time in forever, I can say "catch you next week!". Catch you next week.