We're getting close to the end...of Part I!

Chapter 16: Blue Lightening

Like a bird that never flew
Like a rose that never grew
We've got so much more to live
We've got so much more to do

The crew unwillingly packed up that night and the next morning. It took a lot longer to pack up than it had to unpack. The crew, so looking forward to land training, seemed downtrodden. The skies and the water reflected the depressed cloud that seemed to weigh everyone down.

I was with Iroh at the helm. He and a few of the engineers from down below were looking at schematics for some part of the engine. One of them was Zargo. "So we're still having problems with the electrical systems since the storm?" Iroh asked. They went on and on about valves and wires and crankshafts. If there was anything I hated in all of the areas I'd been learning about in my schooling, it was engineering. I tried to stay back as far as possible and just barely listened in. Rather, I was watching the men outside.

"The systems were fried during the storm. We've been running on coal for the past week."

Genji was practicing with another Earthbender. They were manipulating metal to help reinforce the bowsprit. Iroh had listened to Genji's idea about creating a Metalbender division of Earthbenders. The few who'd shown potential had been given to Captain Genji for training. I'd never seen such a proud look on his face before.

"In order to get the speed you're wanting to get to Republic City, we're going to have to fix the lightening engine."

Li and a few Able-Bodied seamen were running around carrying everything from tent rolls to crates of food. Nothing was being left behind on the island—even the docks were being pulled up one by one as ships were filled and ready to depart. I knew that Iroh was frustrated with how slow everything was going. He was a very detail-oriented, Type A personality that liked everything to run smoothly. He never let it show, but I could see it in the way that he tensed his shoulders or if there was a little crease between his brows.

"The Avatar is in danger. We need to get there as soon as possible. How long until the engine is fixed?"

I could read him so well after I'd gotten to know him. Most people just thought that he was this cool outer shell with not much else inside. Rather, he had quirks. Like when I did a Firebending move wrong, the corner of his mouth would twitch just a little bit. It made me work harder when I saw that unforgiving twitch. Or when I got something correct, more often than not, he would give just a teeny nod, barely perceptible if you weren't watching. Which, of course, I always was.

"It could be fixed today...if we find the problem, of course. We were planning on using our time at Red Sand Island to find the problem and fix it. We don't know how much we can salvage just yet."

When we were practicing, he liked me on his left. We fought as if we were the only two soldiers left alive on a battlefield and all we had left was each other. I saw little flicks of his eyes or a tilt of his head and I knew exactly what he wanted from he. He had me so well-trained that it was like I could read his mind...most of the time, anyway. He favored his left leg, which may have been why he wanted me on his left at all times. I couldn't read his mind about personal problems, so I'd never asked why.

"And you can't take it apart because...?"

"Well, sir, we're moving. While the ship doesn't always pull from the lightening engine, the rotors are moving and still sending signals to the electrical systems. One wrong wire cut and everyone in the room could be electrocuted."

It was my job to know him. It was my job to know that after a long day's work, he enjoyed a cup of jasmine tea. He didn't like questions asked about how he was feeling. Rather, he would give the information up if he felt that it was a pressing matter. That's why I'd never asked about his leg. He liked his socks to be warmed before bed and he didn't mind some lavender laid under his pillow or a cup of chamomile on the nightstand. I knew that he didn't sleep well on nights he didn't have something to comfort his raging thoughts.

"Damn it. Fine, take all the time you need. We don't need any men killed for trying to go a few knots faster. Just take all the necessary safety precautions and more."

He'd told me, once, that he didn't like to sleep. "Sleep is difficult sometimes for a soldier. You can close your eyes, but images are still burned on the backs of your eyelids." I'd taken to drinking a cup of chamomile before bed, too. Sometimes the cook would put a little something in it, like he knew exactly what kinds of demons Iroh and I were facing at night. The dead, although gone, could easily be burned into Iroh's eyelids. They were into mine.

"Huo," Iroh said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. I blinked out of my thoughts and stared into Iroh's gorgeous golden eyes. I'm going to miss looking into those eyes every day. "Snap out of it, kid."

I shook my head and nodded seriously at my commanding officer. Dang it, what did I miss? "Yes sir?"

Iroh's eyes flickered in a way that I knew meant, "He's just a kid, don't get annoyed." Of course, that didn't show on his face. I just knew him that well. "Get down to the engine room and watch the engineers fix the electrical systems. It'll be good for you."

I almost groaned like a cranky teenager—which, technically, for a few more days I still was. I turned twenty and into an old spinster in only a short amount of time. And yet I didn't care. I was going to act like the cranky teenager I deserved to still be able to be. "But Iroh, I need to help set the fleet on course and—"

A large, intimidating hand was dropped on my shoulder. I knew that that was a sign to shut the Koh up or I would be in a lot of trouble. "Huo. There is a big problem with the engines and I'm asking you as a personal favor to watch and learn. If you're ever stranded out in the middle of the sea with nothing but a shoddy electrical system and you don't know how to fix it, then I didn't do my job. Go."

I didn't grumble or moan or even think twice before I took myself out from under Iroh's heavy hand and followed Zargo down the many flights of stairs to where we held the engine room. Level three, it was, as there were two more levels below it. If there was ever a hull breach, the water would flood through two levels before ever reaching the engine room. Both of those levels could be sealed off, too, which was kind of genius and saved a lot of time to get the ship and its crew to safety.

I hadn't argued with Iroh because he was always so wise. I didn't know how a twenty-five-year-old man could be so wise, like he'd lived a hundred years and knew everything about anything. I knew that his great-great-uncle Iroh, the one he'd been named after, had been that wise. I knew that much from the books I'd been reading. His grandfather, the ex-Fire Lord Zuko, had gone through many trials to get that wise. Iroh was still young. He'd never faced hardship (that I'd known of) or heartbreak or anything.

So what made that kind of a young man so damn wise?

Zargo pushed open the door to the engine room. The heat of the room washed over me, making me forget about Iroh for just a moment and focus on my task at hand. I wasn't going to let Iroh down. I was going to learn something.

Men were running back and forth, trying to get everything ready for departure. Most didn't have their shirts on and those who did only wore scraps because of how warm it was. I was a Firebender—used to the heat. But even still, I started sweating under my light cotton uniform.

Zargo pulled his nice tunic off and was left in a wife-beater. I thanked Agni because the last thing I wanted to see was a man I thought of as my grandfather bare before me. "Let's go, kid." He slapped me on the back and pulled me along past the dozens of open coal chutes and the burly, sweaty men lifting shovels of coal into them to burn. He pulled me back, past the systems engineers and lots of people I didn't know the names of.

That was when I saw the mass pile of blackened charcoal that was the lightening engine. Shards of metal were sparking with electricity as men in rubber suits tried to pick up debris caused by what seemed to have been an explosion. Wires and control panels were torn from their original positions and strung all around the room. The ceiling even seemed to have fallen in.

I gave a small whistle. Zargo sighed, "Yeah."

"When you said that you couldn't find the problem..." I drawled as I stared at the wreckage before me, "did you mean that the problem was that the engine had exploded?"

"I'm an Able-Bodied engineer, laddie." The old man's gnarled, leathered hand landed on my head. "If I can't fix an exploded engine then I haven't earned my position, have I?'

He had a lot more confidence than I did. I looked around at the carnage and couldn't even speak for a moment. Then I just let out a big gust of air and snatched up the nearest unused set of rubber gloves that I could find. I pulled them on and glanced up at the intrigued old Able-Bodied engineer. "Well...where do we start?"

III

The ships had finally taken off and all Iroh wanted to do was sit down in his room with a cup of Jasmine tea and a recording of his favorite Tsungi horn player. There was still a lot to do, though, and he couldn't just sit down and relax when the Avatar was calling for his help. He had paperwork to send to the Republic City Council—no land training, extra time required abroad, more money for troops that hadn't been in his budget. Hamin had a new recruiting schedule that needed Iroh's signature for after his men graduated from training. He needed to get Huo certified in the third set and—

Iroh looked around his office and didn't see the boy. There was no cup of tea next to his bed and his clothes for the next day hadn't been laid out just yet. Even his normal pot of jasmine wasn't on the stove. The room felt cold and empty without his little companion.

The prince had grown a little attached to the boy over the last few months. They were like Tui and La—push and pull, yin and yang. The boy was a burst of life, full of emotion and energy. He balanced out Iroh's realistic wisdom and tempered training. The boy had passion and eagerness to learn while Iroh had patience and knowledge. He was smarter than a normal twelve-year-old boy. Then again, he'd been through more than most boys normally had to at that age.

Still, the room was quiet and cold without the boy's quiet evening presence. It was the time of night that they sipped tea while Iroh did paperwork and Huo studied his assignments for the day. They didn't talk much, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. Rather, it was companionable. Iroh didn't like that he felt a little alone.

I can't get too attached, he thought with a sigh as he put his pen down and rubbed his brow with one hand. The last time he had, he'd lost his second and child he'd thought of as his little brother. Huo was more than that. He was a companion, someone who'd saved the prince's life, for Agni's sake. He was too attached to even want to pull away. The correct tactic would be to assign the boy to another General once they docked at Republic City.

He couldn't do it, though. He was weak and he didn't have anyone who knew him anywhere near as well as Huo did. And Koh, he knew Huo, too. The boy loved sweets and music night. On nights when he couldn't sleep, he'd go out to the practice deck and work on moves that he hadn't been able to get previously. He was like a little mother hen, always taking care of others. Huo didn't think Iroh knew that the boy put lavender under the Prince's pillow at night to help him sleep, but the general knew—oh, he knew.

I probably should go and check on him. Iroh had sent the boy down many, many hours beforehand to help the engineers work on the lightening receptors in the engine room. He probably was so busy trying to do his best that he wasn't worried about being dismissed. Iroh took this as a chance to get out of his lonely, musty room and stretch his legs.

The corridors were pretty quiet, as it was past midnight. Only a skeleton crew was awake, besides the engineers. This was made clearer the closer he got to the third level. Hammers, flames, shouting, and more filled the metal hallways. The heat was building, too. Iroh hadn't been down there since before he'd almost drowned and Huo had saved his life.

The general pushed past the familiar coal chutes and the many men who fueled them. He went back to where it was even louder, where dozens of men were doing damage control on a lightening engine that looked a million times worse than what he'd expected. He wanted to get angry, yell, but it wasn't the engineer's fault. They explained that there was a lot of damage...just not this much.

"General Iroh, sir," the Able-Bodied engineer Zargo said with a salute. Iroh dismissed him quickly, not in the mood for formalities. "We didn't realize you'd be making a visit quite yet, sir. As you can see we're still working on—"

Iroh felt a tenseness in his jaw that made him have to take a deep breath. "I see it. Believe me, I see it." The prince ran a hand through his hair and just stared at the wreckage beforehand. "When you gave me a timeline of a few days, did you mean that literally or were you placating me? Because this doesn't look like a few days, seaman!"

Zargo was an older man, well-used to serving under officers and staff. He didn't back down from Iroh's obviously bad mood. "Follow me, sir, and I'll show you what isn't completely damaged." The old man handed Iroh his own rubber gloves and the boots that covered his sandals. "Don't want you to get a shock of your life, sir," he explained.

Iroh was led further back to where the lightening reactors were situated. They looked mostly whole, unlike the engine itself, which meant that yes, the reactors would work, the lightening just wouldn't go anywhere or generate energy for the ship and its rotors. Rather it would bounce around dangerously in the room and most likely kill everyone there. Metal conducted electricity like no other material. Hence the reason their electrical engine had been shorted out when the boat had been struck by lightening during the storm.

Zargo looked around with steely hazel eyes, assessing everything at once. "Reactors are stable. We've been disconnecting them from the main engine until we clear the room and assess more of the damage. It's almost clear to start replacing parts and repairing those that can be salvaged."

Iroh scoffed and looked around at the wreckage that was his ship. It was crazy to think that one bold of lightening to the wrong part of his ship could fry the room. It was amazing that no one had gotten hurt.

Iroh suddenly saw two pairs of legs sticking out from under a reactor. Zargo leaned down to them and said, "Hey, Lijan, you almost done with disconnecting that last reactor?"

The prince was surprised when a dirty Huo popped his head out from under rather than a seaman named Lijan. "He says he's almost done. He doesn't want to create a spark down here. That would be bad." Huo was covered in dirt and soot from head to toe. His topknot had fallen out at some point and he'd just pulled his hair back into a loose braid behind his head. He looked a lot like the first day Iroh had ever seen him. The boy stood up and dusted his pants off and stared up at Iroh with those same eyes that had looked at him that first day—tan, beseeching, wise-beyond-their years eyes. "I've learned a lot today, Iroh!"

"That's great, Huo." He smiled at the boy who smiled right back. He had straight, less-than-white but not dirty teeth that shined like a beacon in the dim lighting of the hold. "Any plan on how to get my ship up to speed with the rest? Can't have the rest of the fleet showing up and then the flagship three days later."

"Gotta get everything fixed first, sir," Huo said with an understanding frown. Whereas Iroh never showed much emotion, Huo wore his emotions on his face and his heart on his sleeve. It wasn't hard to tell what he was thinking.

"Hmm. Of course."

Smoke started rising out from beneath their feet and Huo's eyes snapped into the wise-beyond-his-years attention. "What the—" A bright blue spark lit up the room and it was only a split second that Iroh's heart stopped. "Zargo! Look out!"

Huo pushed the old man out of the way just as the reactor exploded. Iroh could do nothing but watch the electricity shoot through Huo, making the boy scream in pain. It was killing him. He's dying...there's nothing I can do! It seemed like a millennium of milliseconds that ticked by, Huo's pained expression burning itself onto his eyelids, his scream burning into his eardrums. Zargo lay inches away from the explosion. The man beneath the reactor, Lijan, was scattered everywhere. No hope to be saved, then.

This all happened within seconds. Iroh gritted his teeth and took a step back, resigned to losing two men that night. But then Huo picked his arm up and moved it through his stomach. Then the boy's other arm shot out the other side, creating a circuit between himself and two reactors.

Huo gave out a high-pitched scream as the lightening reactors used him as a conductor. The lightening flew through his body and brought the boy to his knees. The deafening scream that came from his throat sounded much older and more feminine than a twelve-year-old boy.

But those facts didn't tell him anything. Rather Iroh rushed over to the reactors and sucked the energy into himself, breaking the flow of electricity and releasing Huo. By that time, it was too late. Huo fell to his knees, a large burn mark spread across his shoulders, chest, and torso. Then he fell to the floor, completely unconscious.

Iroh had never felt so lost in his entire life.