Through the velde, through the Kopjes and brush, the sun punished all, native and Water Tribe alike. Thein Kyu and I sat beside one another on a rock in the one little crater deep enough to lay down in. Sort of back to back, sort of side to side, passing a canteen of water back and forth. The mountains to the east were behind us and if you squinted you could just make out the beginning of the Si Wong desert. No camo or netting to shade us as we were far from the Jian border now and would not leave a trace of our presence.
Sitting across from each other on a pair of stumps sat Koko and Peng. The two of them took turns throwing a knife as close as they could to other's feet in a game called mumbly-peg. This was important, you see - money was on the line.
"You guys really shouldn't do that," Said Chang, "It's dangerous."
"Shut up, dad!" They retorted in unison. Peng pulled the knife from the dirt and threw it with a cock of his wrist and elbow, embedding itself in the loam less than a centimeter from Koko's toe. She didn't bat an eye.
"It's sort of comforting to think that even on the other side of the mountains there's still just as much drought as back on the homesteads," Thein Kyu says.
Chang said, "My people pray to a spirit of the rain, Shangyang. A great bird, whose wings beat so strongly that they churn the skies and collect rainstorms. Alas, the rain goddess has not answered our prayers."
"I know of Shangyang," said Thein Kyu, "she is a servant of Yu Shi, but he has not answered the prayers for rain either. There are other great birds revered in my village, the Jian. They say it is a pair of birds, - mirroring each other but not opposites - each with one leg, one wing, and one eye. They are black and white, Yin and Yan, Hei and Bai, husband and wife. They fly together as one, or they will both falter and die."
Just then I heard a noise in the brush and tapped Thein Kyu on the shoulder. We both grabbed our guns and stood up, looking over the crater. Thein Kyu sees them first and says, "stand down, it's Buno and Hei Bai"
Coming in at a full gallop, Hei Bai rides his dragon-horse right to the edge of the crater. The creature rears up as Hei Bai pulls the reins, and the distraction slips the knife from Koko's finger's a moment too early. The blade embeds itself in the wooden stump, between Peng's legs and mere millimeters from his groin. Startled, he falls backward from the stump
"Hey! you flinched," Koko exclaims, "Pay up, mother f-"
"Enough!" shouted Buno. "I'll have none of this criminal degeneracy in my squad."
"I'll put another ten Yuan on Koko," Hei Bai says as he pulled at the reins of dragon-horse's snapping head. "Buttercup is a really good boy unless he catches scent of a jackalope within twenty klicks. Anyway, The car's in the village. Like the spooks said it'd be."
Buno said, "We'll leave the dragon-horses here. Take everything else. This operation is all riding on you, Peng. No matter what happens - no matter what happens - don't blow your cover.
The satomobile bombs that had been wreaking havoc through the cities were being built assembled outside the border and driven in. We had thought earlier that they were being armed in the cities. The town we were outside of was one of them. Huts, a generator or two, and only a thousand souls lived here. But there was a lance like ours sitting on the outskirts of every one of these towns for the last month, all with the same plan in place.
Peng drew the short straw. He wasn't water tribe, and as a former combat engineer he was the only one of us qualified in explosives. We couldn't stop all the car bombs, but we wouldn't have to. We were going to catch some that we could. Some were tampered with to be duds. Others would detonate at random. Peng was going to slip into the garage and put a timed fuse into the bomb. In ideal circumstances we'd wait for the cover of night. But if we missed our shot there'd be another dozen dead women and children in the Capital the next day.
So now we waited on the periphery, all in silence, and Peng journeys alone into the forest of stucco. For thirty agonizing minutes, I bite my lower lower lip till it bleeds. Thirty minutes later I breathe a sigh of relief. Then a gasp of terror. As we see him make it to the edge of the village and hop the split rail fence of an animal pen, troublemakers brandishing QBZ rifles appear behind him.
"Don't. Move." Hei Bai says.
"They'll kill him," says Chang.
"I said, don't move. Peng has faith, he hasn't broken his cover yet, neither will we."
The troublemakers shove Peng to his knees, and strike him with the but of their rifles. Still, he only puts up the meekest of protests.
"We'll save him," says Hei Bai, "but we'll need all the help from Thein Kyu I can get."
Thein Kyu smiles and nods, already guessing the con that I do not…
After a couple minutes of Thein Kyu explaining our roles to us, Buno and Hei Bai slink off to their dragon-horses. The rest of us stroll across the brush to Peng. Koko leads the way and I follow, the two of us having laid down our weapons and given them to Buno. Chang and Thein Kyu trail to either side.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! What is going on here?" Koko bellows.
"Who goes there?" the two insurgents shout, pointing there rifles at us.
"Fools!" shouts Thein Kyu. "Is that how you dare address a superior officer or a commissar of the Party?"
Koko airbends a gust of dust into one of the two insurgents faces. They both lie prostrate and kowtow to us. "We are so sorry, ma'am. Please, forgive us."
"This man before you is a spy." says Koko. "But he is not here to observe us. He came here to attempt to leave with a message, because someone in this village is not loyal to the cause and is telling secrets to this man. Bring out every one of your comrades in the village, including your Party member."
"Now," I said, "I will show you what we do to spies."
I approached Peng and smiled. I mouthed 'sorry,' but part of me wasn't. I made sure to pull my punches and kicks. Well, most of them. Had to sell it, after all. A few minutes later, after I had broken a sweat and had gotten tired of beating Peng, there was a crowd of fifteen or so of the troublemakers lined up outside.
"The Party member looked at Koko and asked, "what is an officer doing here? We weren't expecting any support from the Sovereignty?"
I point to Chang, and he kills the man where he stands.
"I am a commissar of the Party, and I will punish all who betray it or fail it," I said. "Some people have been disloyal, and clearly he has failed the Party in inspiring obedience. Whoever is disloyal to the party, and was giving secrets to this spy, I will find them."
"Everyone, pushups, now!" shouts Thein Kyu, "The first to collapse does not really want to give his all to the cause."
I have never before seen such terror in the faces of men. There arms were shaking before even the first exercise but none of them could stop. While Koko, Thein Kyu, and I inspected the men in front of us, Chang pulled Peng up from the ground and walked him at gunpoint around to the back of a building. There is a single crack of a gunshot.
"I didn't say stop doing push-ups!" shouts Thein Kyu.
As we inspect the men, he gives me gestures to specific individuals. I point for them to get up and Thein Kyu escorts them to the back of the building. More gunshots.
A minute or two later Thein Kyu and Chang pull up in large covered supply truck.
"We'll be taking this from you," said Koko. "you had better continue the mission as planned, or else there will be further consequences."
Koko and I opened up the flaps and hopped inside the rear of flat as Chang began to drive off. Tied and gagged were a half dozen troublemakers, with Peng holding them at gunpoint.
All in another days work. Hei Bai and Buno or whoever else would have to go through them one at a time. Thein Kyu had picked some that he knew were the bad eggs, but the most were ones he knew had wavering loyalties (if they ever really had any loyalty to the Party to begin with) and would give information freely, if not also turn coat like Thein Kyu and so many others had already. This was how we might just win this war. I peaked my head out the flaps and saw Buno and Hei Bai galloping behind our truck. Hei Bai shrugged his shoulders at me while he rode side saddle on his dragon-horse. I nodded and gave him both thumbs up.
"You can almost see it from here," said chang, pulling his scarf tighter around his face, "Si Wong rock."
Thinking about it made me shudder as well.
Two weeks drifted by since that operation. The fuse Peng planted set the car bomb off later that day, killing three of the troublemakers. It was only one of two dozen bombs in the last month that had been either blown up prematurely or failed to detonate at all. And very shortly after the start of this operation something amazing happened. The number of car bombings began to slow down. And now, for the last week, they had stopped in entirety. Peace had finally returned to the capital, as it was starting to return in the homesteads as well.
Maybe, just maybe, this is what winning looks like.
A colonel and his orderly ran around the camp handing out some sort of pieces of paper to all the soldiers on the base. I thought back to the start of the operation. To my conversation with Du Lin. The same night I had returned with Thein Kyu and Buno from Chang's farm.
I had thought it odd that I of all people was summoned to be present at these deliberation. Regardless of my past accomplishments, I was at the end of the day still a trigger puller. In so many words I had asked about this in the middle of a conversation we were having. Du Lin said, "I need an outside observer. I need point of contradiction and dissent."
Buno snickered trying to hold back is laughter. "As if you don't already have that."
"What do you mean? Aren't you and Hei Bai both Jian Water Tribe?"
"You see," Said Hei Bai, "Du-Lin believes in that legalistic society and harmony nonsense"
"And Hei Bai is a dirty hippy!" Du Lin blurted out. She cleared her throat and recomposed herself. "While Hei Bai and I may have our… differences, we are in agreement on most of the issues facing this nation. We cannot afford an echo chamber"
In the end, it didn't matter how much they believed the same, or differed in beliefs. There was Buno's tribal mysticism. That was unique among the 'old breed' of the Water Tribe; it cared only for itself. Then there was Hei Bai's Tao and Du Lin's legalism. These two beliefs had a feud with each other since the day of their inception. But none of that mattered because as far as the civilized world was concerned, they were all dead relics of the past. All were banned from existence within the Earth Kingdom under the label of the Four Olds
With the advance of modern technology, the world needed New Customs, New Culture, New Habits, and New Ideas. To make room for a new age of Progress, these old things just had to go. Among them were the spirits that inhabited this world. There has been more change in seventy years before and after the last harmonic convergence than in the whole ten thousand years before. And with the change brought by the invention of guns, humans were now stronger than the Spirits. In the past they flooded from the spirit world into ours, but now we drove them back. Where we once survived by the mercy of the lion turtles, they survived by our mercy. The portals could never be completely closed, but were sealed and guarded.
I mention this because only a few generations ago Korra opened the portals to unite the spirits and the humans. Korra's message to both worlds was simple:
Respect each other
Work together
Live in peace
Treat each other with fairness and equality.
I guess the world wasn't ready for that, even after ten thousand years. And one hundred and nineteen years later, it seems we're still not ready.
"What if they're right about the vote?" I said.
"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "How could they be?"
"Think about how they feel. Think about how I feel. They're contributing just as much and they love this country just as much but they're still treated as second class citizens. They serve this country in greater numbers than the Water Tribe, and die to defend it. It's no wonder the opposition so easily exploits them"
"What is so hard about this for you people to understand? Before the water tribe showed up this place was a dessert with a few scattered tribesmen. I remember when we were under Fire Nation rule and the biofilms and corrosion choked out the desalination plants. I remember when water benders would line up sometimes in the thousands and pump that fresh water from the bay to the farmsteads by hand, Hiro. We tilled the soil. We started the country. They came here. That was their choice to make, Hiro."
"Just like you chose to come here? They flocked here for the exact same reasons that you did, to get away from the Earth Kingdom and the Party. And I might remind you that this land isn't even yours, either. Otherwise, you wouldn't even be fighting this war right now. Don't forget that you built this country by standing on the backs of your natives laborers. and Fire Nation taxpayers. You're acting no better than your oppressors."
"So what if we do? That's survival. That's good statecraft. The human race is all about relationships, Hiro. And part of that system means that there are those who govern, and those who are governed. You speak like a naïve idealist."
"And you speak exactly like a politician." She bit her lower lip.
And then Thein Kyu interrupted, "Hiro you must understand that things here are not so simple. There was a time not to long ago when a different people than my own had lived here, and we, too, stole this land from them. This clay has passed through many people's hands many time. Now, I am sorry but there is something that Buno and I would like to discuss with Du Lin alone."
It had been one month since that fateful meeting. Du Lin started our operation to sabotage the and stop the bombers the next day. Now I was staring at a piece of paper in my hand. A ballot.
"Colonel, sir, what is the meaning of this?"
"Du Lin has called an early presidential election. By authority of her decree, she has mandated an end to educational requirements. All Jian citizens by birth, and all serving in the military, have been enfranchised. We vote tonight, because the whole military is being mobilised tomorrow for the protection of the population. Voting stations in the cities and buses to collect votes for the natives. Consider this your heads up."
So this was finally it.
The vote.
I waited till he walked away and incinerated the piece of paper in the palm of my hand. What should I care, this wasn't my country. If felt a chill of cold run down the back of my neck. I stared up to the sky, and came another on my cheek.
Rain.
First real rain since the start of this conflict, since the start of the drought. That night I fell into a heavy sleep.
The next morning - the most momentous days in Jian history since unilateral declaration of independence - looked like any other. I'm sorry to you, my reader. I really am. I wish I could speak of the turmoil in the cities and the jubilation and parties and celebrations. But for most of us soldiers, it was another day on patrol outside a village.
It had to be this way. Not a single terrorist had dared to attack the farms or villages. There was no car bomb that could be prepared fast enough given this out of the blue call to election. Every private company was shut down for the day with their losses subsidized. And every single reservist was mobilized to patrol and form perimeters.
As we watched the procession come from the capital to hand out ballots under the inspection of both Du Lin's government and the Party's representatives, I saw Chang begin to cry.
"I thought this day would never come" He said as both tears and raindrops ran down his cheeks. "That our voices would finally be recognized."
I think that to Thein Kyu this day was a lot more hollow. Like myself he had also destroyed his ballot. As for the others, I did not ask what they voted for, or if they voted at all. Again, as significant as this day was, it might have been any other if it weren't for the rain.
We watched over our post. And then we went home. And then the next day came the news. Du Lin had won in a landslide.
When we returned home to the FOB there was a celebration throughout the camp, not seen since the unilateral declaration of independence. Baijiu and traditional beer had been pulled out of hiding by the natives and the officers did not even pretend to look the other way.
Party lights and floating paper lanterns had all made a return, even if they were against usual operational security. "Hip Hip Hoorah! Forward together!" continued to be chanted through the camp. Not even the rain could put a damper on our jubilee
We shuffled wearily to congregation in the middle of the encampment and sat down at a table where we greeted with celebratory dishes. Chicken-possums feet. Gao Choi, BBQ. Boiled sea prunes (disgusting waterbender tripe). Fresh Kimchi courtesy of the local farmsteads. And of course noodles. I didn't even mind the rain, it felt cool on my skin, in fact.
"This is so good I could cry!" Hei Bai exclaimed between spitting out the bones of the chicken foot in his mouth.
"Ifthindskfsotooitisssrwaawywargharble," Koko said, stuffing an endless torrent of noodles down her gullet. Her stomach was a bottomless pit, surpassing even Buno.
Right on cue, Chang pulled the flask from inside his flak vest resulting in a scowl from Buno.
"Go easy on the hooch," said Hei Bai. "We still gotta patrol just as hard for the next few weeks in case of retaliatory attacks." His breath reeked of the sea prunes.
"Hey relax," said Koko after belching. "We've earned this."
And then there was a wave of gasps and comotion that spread from some point within the camp. Some officers were throwing hand signals across the camp to each other. Other's could be seen leaning over to whisper into one another's ears. Hei Bai stood up to survey what was happening. And then syllable by syllable we all started to har in bits and pieces what had just happened.
A chill of fear I first mistook for a raindrop ran down my spine. Today was supposed to be a day of victory. But everything changed when the Air Sovereignty attacked.
Without warning, their Airforce advanced group had begun bombing the east of the peninsula. Tian Five airdock was destroyed. The rest of their air force was mobilizing for complete air superiority within the next twenty four hours.
"Grab everything you have," said Hei Bai, "Pack your bags. And get set for your next mission. You all have fifteen minutes to meet me at the motor pool. We're driving the the east of the Capital. We're going to war."