Fluke
We left precisely when it was agreed we would-at sunrise. Its rays had just barely begun to creep over the forest to the east when our engines came to life, and the 62nd embarked on its final mission.
All things considered, our tank was optimally located in the formation, furthest from the wall, acting as the starboard guard of our formation. We'd departed still within clear sight of one another, the steel hulls of our nine other tanks perfectly in sight, reflecting the morning light off of their surfaces. As we'd begun to make our way northeast, however, we'd stuck to our instructions, and so had put distance between us until the other tanks had appeared like bugs on the horizon, then simple blots of lights, all until they could no longer be seen.
We would see their signal flares of course, but for all intents and purposes, we were alone.
It was a quiet ride for the most part, at least near the start, save for the occasional exchange of Gan checking in with me, his gunner though part-time navigator, to ensure we were on the right track. We were, as far as I knew. That was only near the start, however. The silence, that is. After a time, we'd began to grow bored, and so I asked, "How tall is their wall anyway?"
Gan shrugged from his driver's seat. "Least ten feet."
So he's opting for the smartass option.
"Whoaaaa, really?" I asked, mockingly aghast. "You sure?"
"What d'ya want from me?" Gan asked.
"I don't know. Entertain me."
"I look like a circus monkey to you?"
"Want an honest answer to that?"
He turned around to glare at me, and so I took the moment to say, "Eyes on the road."
That only made him more annoyed as he begrudgingly turned back around, an honest shame that he couldn't see my grin. "Nah, but seriously. How tall?"
"Don't know. How tall were Citadel's?"
"Fifty feet," I answered instantly, that being a detail I'd come to memorize a long while ago.
"Well, this is at least double that, so…"
"That's way more than double."
"I said, 'at least!' I don't know, I'm thinking maybe…one-fifty? Close to two-hundred maybe?"
"Seems kinda conservative."
"You wanna go out there with a measuring tape and see for yourself? Haven't heard your guess yet."
I hadn't exactly thought of a number or really anticipated my own contribution in the topic. I'd less wanted to talk so much as hear another talk if it meant disrupting the otherwise dominating tedium of hearing our tank's many parts moving in quick succession as we rumbled along north. "I don't fuckin' know," I said. "Two-hundred, maybe?"
"328 feet," Gunji chimed in unexpectedly from behind us. We turned to look at him, having thought him asleep. "Thirty feet thick, 565 miles long going around the city."
"Well," I said. Somebody's been learning on their free time. "Answers my next two hypotheticals, then."
"Where you'd learn that shit?" Gan asked.
"Heard some people talking about it," Gunji said with a shrug. "Just remembered them."
Gan scoffed. "Huh, so it's not for a lack of knowledge that you're fucking useless in here, huh? Just a coward, then."
Gunji said nothing in response, effectively concluding the exchange there.
Well, I thought. That killed the mood.
The rest of the ride passed in relative silence compared to then, the greatest vocal activity of the day. We ate our field rations as we rode along, careful not to spill our contents atop ourselves on account of the tank's rumbling. As the day passed, the earth made its full rotation and we began to lose sight of the sun beyond the wall.
That night, the moon stayed hidden behind the clouds. I couldn't tell we had neared the ruins of Ceheng until we were already there, our treads rolling over and crushing scattered debris beneath us as we trudged along.
"Spirits," I heard Gan say from the cockpit under his breath, and I would understand what he meant when I placed my helmet over my head and rose above my gunner bay's hatch to see for myself. To call it a ruin was by no means an understatement.
I'd never before seen, or, at least had remembered seeing what war could do to a place. I know that, allegedly, I'd lived through the Fire Nation siege of Citadel, not that I had any memory of it, and still did vaguely recall the construction efforts that followed. Citadel, however, had been occupied, and had been fortunate enough to have residents set on putting their lives back together, starting with the city they lived in.
Ceheng had no such thing-nobody left to piece it back together or give it a semblance of life. It was gone, and we rode over the ashes.
Gan flicked the gas-lit headlights of our tank on, showing the way ahead to ensure we didn't suffer a head-on collision with a structure, not that it would have stood much of a chance against us. There were hardly any true structures remaining as it was. Lone stone walls stood on their own without anything standing to guard behind, wooden homes sat crumbled on the ground like mere piles of sticks, and ash blanketed the ground as though a snowfall had just come in, reflecting the light of our lamps back towards us.
"Hell did this?" I asked. I assumed it had to be artillery as I'd seen what it'd done to no man's land, but an entire down like this, reduced to nothing to the point that it could just as easily have been part of the Earth's natural formations when observed on a moonless night? I couldn't comprehend that.
"We did," Gan answered. "Navy, I imagine.
"Get the Earth Kingdom away from the coast?" I asked, trying to imagine just what the reasoning had been for such wanton destruction.
I looked back to where Gan sat in his seat, shrugging in response. "Maybe," he said.
"Think the people living here got out?" Gunji asked from the rear.
Shining in our headlights as we navigated through streets littered with debris were also the remains of not just livelihoods, but lives as well, skeletons incinerated by the Fire Nation's shells decaying and turning to ash as the sea breeze picked at what was lost of them.
Maybe some had made it out, but I wouldn't pretend that the Fire Nation had given advance warning of bombardment before reducing the coast to slag, and I wouldn't pretend either that the Earth Kingdom had gladly opened their walls for those fleeing from the fire and blood.
"No," I said.
Ceheng was dead, us by the look of things, its sole inhabitants.
"Where are the others?" Gunji asked, obviously referring to the rest of our armored column.
It was a reasonable question to ask. Ceheng was meant to be our rally point, but by the looks of it, we were alone.
"Think they're hiding somewhere?" Gunji asked, his naivete taking over. "Waiting to see if we're friendly or not?"
"Hide where?" I asked, watching as our headlights traced over ruined structures by no means whole enough to conceal an entire tank such as ours. "Nowhere left here to hide."
"They'd have seen us by now anyway." Gan said. "Think we're just the first ones here."
'First ones,' he'd said. Not 'only ones.' I was unsure if it was meant to put us at ease, himself, or maybe just sell us all on a hope that things were still going according to plan.
There was no single right place for us to stop the tank, but we did eventually settle atop a small pile of debris that didn't include any human remains.
"Should we put up a flare?" Gunji asked as we attempted to search for solid ground to pitch a tent, eventually settling on simply tucking ourselves in the tank for the night.
"Best we don't," I said. "No idea who else is watching."
"But you said for yourself it was nearly impossible to find this place. Others could have missed it to, might have passed by, or-"
"Which is why the plan accounted for this," Gan interrupted Gunji. "And the reason for rally point 2. We don't find 'em here, we'll find 'em there. Now get some sleep. I got first watch."
Gunji's sight lingered on Gan for a time before he surrendered the argument, and returned to a familiar enough spot to crawl up in the tank's maintenance bay. I shut the hatch behind him as Gan climbed up the side of the tank to find a seat on the bow where he would commence three hours of watching before, I imagine, my turn came after him.
"Really think we'll find 'em there?" I asked quietly, not overly worried about Gunji overhearing on account of the fact that I'd closed the hatch behind him.
"We better," Gan responded, less keen on quieting himself. "Don't imagine we got much of a chance trying to get through those mountains alone. There's a reason the East Fleet's covering the coast. Not even the Dragon of the West could stretch his host past the mountains."
"So you really think then that a few extra tanks would make all the difference?" I asked.
Gan didn't answer immediately, though after a small moment of pondering, confessed, "No, but I'd much rather try to outrun a few of our own tanks that a mountaineer brigade's worth of Earthbenders. Fuck."
"Why you think we didn't run into any?" I asked. "Earth Kingdom, I mean."
"Fuck if I know. Busy with the others maybe? Thought maybe they already got everyone? Don't know what to tell you."
"Others could've been slowed down," I said, trying desperately to convince myself. "Had to find a longer way around."
"Yeah," Gan agreed, tired, just eager to let his mind latch onto a possible excuse that didn't spell out disaster for us. "Probably. Just get some sleep. Gunji'll wake you for last watch."
"You sure?" I asked, knowing well that it meant Gunji's sleep would be the worst of all of us, three hours asleep now, three awake, then another three asleep if he could manage, by and large, the worst watch to take–the middle.
Gan shrugged in answer. "Who gives a shit? Bitch'll just sleep through the ride tomorrow anyway."
I scoffed, already knowing he was right, and indeed he was.
We were back on the trail tomorrow morning with sunup, still alone, not a single other tank having arrived to Cehend during the night. It'd taken another convincing speech from Gan alongside my reassurance to put Gunji's mind at ease into believing we would find some others at the Fire Navy resupply outpost, waiting for us already, likely having simply missed Ceheng on the way there.
We all knew ahead of time the ride was going to be a boring one in the incident we were not destroyed out of nowhere by an Earth Kingdom ambush. We kept ourselves vigilant, of course, for at least most of the time. My attention had, at some point or another, switched to the message we were set to bring to General Iroh.
"Hey," Gan said, getting my attention as I began unsealing the communique. "What are you doing?"
"Want to see what exactly's got us this far out," I answered as I gently peeled off the wax seal in which Daimyo Deming's house sigil was embedded.
"Dragon's eyes only. Think they won't notice that shit?"
Gan had the tank moving straight ahead as he looked over his shoulders to stare at me, an unmissable glare in his eyes that suddenly changed, however, the moment I produced a flame from my fingertips, and he understood. I could just as easily reseal it whenever I pleased.
"Oh," he said simply, turning back around as I let out an amused chuckle and finally unfurled the message.
It was encrypted alright. The briefing had mentioned that it was, and that the general possessed the required key to decipher it, but, notwithstanding, I was curious. It wasn't quite the instant conundrum that I'd expected, encoded with a code I actually recognized rather quickly-one that we'd studied ourselves back in Citadel. It was one that swapped out military ranks with animals, movements with verbs such as "hibernate," "hunt," "climb," etc.
Hell's a key needed for here? I moved along in reading until I was about four words in, and things began to no longer make sense.
What had been one code no longer seemed to apply if the result was any indication. I skipped ahead to the end of the communique, curious to see what I knew to be a recurring motif in our nation's reports that we really should have considered omitting by now, and I found it.
I knew what the code would translate to–"Hail Fire Lord Azulon," but it didn't read that, not in plain text nor in the code found at the beginning of the text. It was a different code, alternating every few words.
"Get it figured out yet?" Gan asked.
Though he couldn't see, I shook my head, and said, "Alternating code."
"What's that mean?"
"Switches every few words."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning code's useless after three words," I said as I scanned through, trying to find what the possible indicator for the code switch may be, imagining that may have been the ultimate purpose of the key.
Behind us, Gunji was stirring awake, pushing himself up from the floor of the tank to ask, "What's happening?"
"Fluke's asking for a court martial," Gan said from the driver's seat.
"Just tryna find out for myself what's so important to have us driving all this way."
Gunji got up to look over my shoulder at the communique in my hands. "Isn't that supposed to be encrypted."
"It is," I said. "Multi-coded."
"You find the switch indicator?" Gunji asked. I looked to face him. So he knows a bit about this, huh?
"Looking now," I said.
"Try numbers," Gunji suggested, crawling his way through the tank's chassis to reach me.
"Numbers are encoded too, but…"
"But numbers can only have so many code variations," Gunji finished my sentence for me, and we both seemed to know the exact cipher commonly used for numbers in the Fire Nation–the "i-ro-ha" 10-digit chart.
"Give me chalk," I said to Gunji who promptly retrieved a small stick of it and handed it to me, allowing me to create a simple ten by ten grid, common character combinations now amounting to numbers, dispersed enough throughout the message, and indicating indeed the switch in codes.
From there, it was a matter of simply figuring out the other codes. We'd remembered a good few from our time in Citadel, Gunji even more than me, but between the two of us, a fair amount of back-and-forth, we were getting through it at a good enough speed, nearly three quarters of the way through before a voice came from the driver's seat.
"Holy shit," I heard Gan say.
His words prompted me to look up from the message on the ground now sat between Gunji and me, and ask Gan, "What?"
He brought the tank to a halt. Whatever it was, it was important–something worth seeing at least. "See for yourself," he said.
I crawled back to my gunner's seat, undoing the latch that held the hatch in place, and so opened it to observe just what was so important, wondering if I would even be able to see anything on account of the setting sun.
I could.
I remembered when I'd first left Citadel, a little over two months ago. I remember how amazing the grass sea had first looked, the forest sitting in the distance barely ahead, but it was different now. There was now grass, no forest, nothing, but only directly ahead, a vast plain of blue.
Gunji was short up after me, poking his head through to see, saying, "That's-"
"The ocean," I finished for him
Though I knew it only by reputation, there was no doubt that that was it, sitting straight ahead of us to the north, spanning endlessly beyond. We'd all known it'd existed; I couldn't go so far as to say it was just a legend in Citadel, believed to be mere fantasy, but seeing it now with my own eyes, it may as well have been mere fiction before, as nothing could beat the real thing.
I refused to go back down into the tank as we continued to ride forward towards the next waypoint in theTaizigou area, not while there was sun still out, and not while I could see its last rays of light reflecting on the golden surface of the ocean. Gunji still picked at the encoded message on his own until the sun set low enough that I could hardly make out the sea anymore, and so retreated back inside the bowels of the tank to assist Gunji in our efforts.
We were getting close, that was certain, and by the time we'd reached out target, a small town within which our waypoint was said to be, we only needed to run it through one last code, and it'd be translated, but it would have to wait. We were here.
We didn't know the name of the village we were rolling on now, only that it was in far better a state than Ceheng. It looked rather untouched with that, as though the war hadn't come here in the slightest but for one minor detail–it was entirely abandoned.
The main street that passed through the town was wide enough such that our tank could go through. My helmet on my head for cover, I sat atop the tank, looking around for any sign of our allies. There was nothing.
"See anything?" Gan called out from inside.
"Nothing!" I said. "Not a person."
"Think they're hiding somewhere?" Gunji asked from inside.
"Our guys or theirs?" Gan asked.
I looked down inside to see Gunji shrug before saying, "People who lived here?"
I shook my head. "Don't think so," I said. "Place looks like it's been untouched for a while. Probably left when the fleet showed up and before they needed to use artillery to drive them out."
"What about ours then? Think they're hiding somewhere?"
"I don't see any tread marks!" I called back. "We're the first ones here!" First. I was sounding like Gan now, so hesitant to use a language centered around absolutes.
Gan brought the tank to a halt, if for any reason, just so that he wouldn't need to yell above the sound of our engine.
"Can't take the tank any further," He said. "Streets're too narrow. Fire Navy's got a supply outpost here. Most likely by the coast."
"Thinking we check it out?" I asked, looking down at him.
Gan was already on it, grabbing his helmet by his side and slipping it over his head. "Gunji," he said. "Stay with the tank. Fire a flare if anything happens."
"Anything like what?"
I crawled out of my gunner's bay to make room for Gan to crawl out after me. "Anything like our guys showing up or theirs."
"Okay," Gunji said, to which Gan just looked at me with an expression of annoyed disbelief, as though wondering how these were questions that still needed answering.
I waved it aside, and slid down the side of the tank as Gan came down after me, inspecting his sheath for his tankman's dagger, finding it there. We, as tankmen, weren't particularly well armed, but between the two of us, we had a bender in myself, which was of some merit, and though we had the moon to light the town, no longer hidden by the clouds, I proved the prior point of my ability and lit a flame in the palm of my hand to guide our way.
The nameless town wasn't large, not possibly housing over thirty buildings, but it was well-constructed, certainly having stood here for some time, well-maintained until being abandoned not too very long ago.
Though the supply outpost was our chief priority, that didn't stop us from inspecting the other buildings we passed as we made a b-line for the coast. All were abandoned, just just of life, but of anything useful, which was a damned shame too. I could've gone for some salvaged grub.
"Cleared the place out," Gan commented. Looks like even with the Navy, they had more than enough time to pack before leaving."
"Or it was the Navy's men that did the rest of the cleaning," I said, suggesting another possible outcome.
"Maybe," Gan said as we proceeded through the city. After some time, we stopped bothering with every other home. There was nobody here, be them Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom. This town's inhabitant count was now three, and we were all on a first-name basis.
The supply post in question, we found upon reaching the town's pier beside a seat that glistened in the moonlight in a fashion somewhere even more beautiful than during the day, was a single shoddy metallic hut with a stand out from likely meant for distributing supplies that now only sported a single sign with an arrow pointing north and characters that read, "Supply post moved north."
"Fuck's this shit?" Gan asked upon reading it as I entered the hut to find it completely empty as well. "Anything in there?"
I shook my head. "Nothing! Cleaned out!"
"Fuck's sake! We're low on fuel as they are and they abandon their posts?"
"Says it's moved up North."
"How far north?"
I shrugged. "Might just not have wanted it in the town. Exposed to squatters maybe?"
"What squatters?"
"None that stayed when there was nothing to be had."
Gan understood the logic. We all came from the same boat, having spent more than enough time back in Citadel jumping from one crooked hovel to the next depending on where there was food to be had. We knew the drill, and so I knew his groan was one of submission to our point.
"Fucking hell. This is bullshit. None of the others are here. I know the plan had a contingency for a few losses on the way, but…all of us?"
"They might just be lagging behind."
"Ah come on, Fluke," Gan scoffed. "Really believe that?"
I didn't. I shook my head.
Gan sighed, rubbing at his eyes, tired as he was from a straight near sixteen hours of driving. "Let's get back to the tank. We need to work things out."
Back at the tank, things were of a noticeably better atmosphere. Upon seeing us return, Gunji had lifted his head out of the tank to proudly declare, "I got it. Finished the code! Last double-code was actually pretty simple all things considered."
He slid down the tank to show me the message, but would end up handing it to me as Gan took him by the shoulder and led him away from me somewhere he had him all to himself, as though needing to ensure Gunji's focus was on him and him alone.
I listened in, though it didn't stop me from reading through the translated message that Gunji had etched onto the back of the message. So much for resealing.
To General Iroh, Dragon of the West, Heir Apparent to Fire Lord Azulon,
"We need to talk," Gan said in the meanwhile. "Rest of the platoon's not here. More likely than not, they didn't make it."
The 64th Division has re-established unit cohesion. Operational strength is maintained at eighty-seven percent.
"What?" Gunji asked. "Isn't…isn't it just-just possible that they're-"
"They're dead, or they defected, ran, doesn't matter."
Earth Kingdom positions block siege line cohesion. I am launching an operation to attack Earth Kingdom positions from the south with the 29th at the vanguard.
"So…what do we do?"
"Nothing," Gan said. "Command's expecting us to go through Earth Kingdom controlled territory alone, to deliver a single message. We're as good as dead out there."
My most seasoned soldiers will be at its head. We intend to attack on the first day of the new moon.
"You…you want us to just forget it then? Stop?"
We hope your division will join us from the north in our assault to ensure the greatest success with minimal losses to the Fire Nation.
"There's no other way. We're dead otherwise.
Hail Fire Lord Azulon.
I looked up from the message, and my heart dropped. Shit.
"We can't," I said.
The two turned to look at me, Gunji's eyes showing a confused relief as though wondering if he could let himself be glad at the prospect of our job being done, and Gan's showing a sudden hostility from the sound of me questioning him.
"What?" he asked.
I turned the message to face him so he may see himself. "64th's attacking the Earth Kingdom. Dragon of the West has no idea. We don't get this to him, the 64th's going to be alone out there."
"Fuck the 64th and fuck Deming," Gan said, refusing to even look at the communique. "Hope that dumb fuck's in the front and gets himself killed."
"He won't be," I said. "The 29th will." At that, Gan turned. "And we already know who'll be at the front there."
We did. All of us. We'd seen it happen for the last month, and had no reason to believe that anybody but the 59th infantry battalion with the 114th and 122nd companies of Citadel-born soldiers would be on the front lines of that battle, first into the breach, and first to die.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Gan said.
"Says so right here. You know it's not a surprise."
"That fuck," Gan said, taking the paper to me just to read for himself. Nothing he saw conflicted with what I'd said. Those were Deming's words, alright.
"We don't get this to General Iroh, there's no attack from the North. If there's no attack from the North, our guys are fucked. Danev, Mano, all of them. Our friends."
"If they're at the front anyway, then they're already-"
"We don't know that," I said, knowing where he was already going with this. It was an excuse he was creating for himself as he grasped at straws. "The only way they're dead for sure is if we do nothing. We need to finish the mission."
There was a silence that followed, Gan not knowing what to say, and me having already said all I could think to say. It would have persisted for much longer too if a faint, "I," came out from where Gunji stood. Gan and I both turned to face him. "I…I agree with Fluke."
"Really?" Gan scoffed. "You of all people want to do your job, risk your life?"
Gunji swallowed, and looked up. "They're our people. Our friends. Can't let 'em die like dogs, right?"
From the mouths of babes, I thought to myself as Gan sighed, realizing that if Gunji of all people was advocating for action, then he had no excuse. "For fuck's sake," he said. "Fine. We leave at dawn. Fluke, you get watch after me."
Middle watch, I understood. He was pissed off at me indeed.
I savored the sleep while I could.
Or, I tried to at least. I knew what was coming tomorrow, and I knew our odds. They weren't good. But the facts were clear. If we did nothing, the 114th and 122nd were as good as dead, and everybody I had left in the world along with them. I couldn't let that happen. None of us could.
And to think it was Gunji that'd sealed the deal.
Even while on my own watch, that fact still disturbed me. My eyes darted to where Gunji slept more than once during that night while it was my turn to keep an eye out. It was far from an enjoyable wait, sitting atop our tank waiting for reinforcements that would never come, my only comfort the scent that the sea brought with it-cool, refreshing, but still not enough to distract me from the fact that we were all that was left of the 62nd.
They were dead out there, I knew. Somewhere. How the enemy had missed us, I couldn't begin to know. Call it divine intervention, luck, it made little difference. I only hoped that whatever it was, it'd be enough to get us through tomorrow as well.
We'd been through enough already. We had the seven tally marks on our tank to prove it. How we'd made it that far, I still struggled to understand as a certainty, but we were alive, somehow, even with only half of a functioning tank, but we were driving directly into enemy territory tomorrow. We wouldn't make it with half of us. We were already at a disadvantage.
I woke up Gunji a few minutes before my watch was set to end and his to begin. He stirred at the feel of my boot nudging at his side, and turned on his belly to look at me, groggy and confused.
"Your watch," I said.
His gaze turned up to look at the simple clock inside our tank, and saw that it was still a few minutes before, but he wasn't going to fight it. Still, I wouldn't left the reason unsaid, and so said, "We need to talk."
The concern in his eyes was evident immediately. None of these talks had gone particularly well for him before, and so even with Gan out of the picture for now, terror still took over. I didn't let it simmer. This wasn't going to be a beatup on him as it normally was, but, as I said, just a talk.
"Thank you," I said. "For agreeing with me."
Gunji nodded his head, noticeably relieved, and said, "Of course, I mean. They're our guys. Can't just let them get killed."
"Even if it means we might," I said. "You know what's coming tomorrow; where we're going."
Gunji didn't say anything.
"It's one thing to say brave words, but following them up,-"
"I know what's going to happen tomorrow. I'm ready."
"Are you?" I snapped. "Said that half a dozen times before, and half a dozen times, you almost got us killed! You talk good shit, but when we're out there, you freeze!"
"I just…I get scared," he was speaking at little more than a whimper.
"We all get scared, Gunji! We deal with it; we don't, we die. It doesn't get any damn simpler than that! How many damned times do we need to explain this to you?!"
"You could try talking to me!"
"We tried talking! You didn't listen! You're the reason things got worse. Not us! You! It's well and good you have good intentions, but I don't give a shit! If we die tomorrow, nothing changes. General Iroh doesn't hear from us, and our friends in the 114th and 122nd die anyway! You continue to fuck up, to be useless, we're dead out there, and so are they?! Do you understand?!"
"I do," Gunji whimpered.
"Do you?!"
"Yes!"
I was fuming. He'd claimed to have understood so many times before, but nothing had changed then. There was no guarantee he understood this time. If anything, there was the guarantee that he hadn't, but what could I do? Kill him? Then we'd definitely be down a man. All I could do was believe him now, and pray that it wouldn't bite me in the ass tomorrow.
I said nothing. There was nothing more to say. I retreated to the tank, and shut it behind me. Tomorrow was the moment of proof, and if I couldn't rely on Gunji, then I would have to rely on myself, and for that, I needed as much sleep as I could get. It was easy enough. Gunji didn't make a sound all night.
He was similarly quiet when we set out the next morning. A part of me couldn't help but feel guilty over it as just yesterday, we'd been decoding ciphers together without a care in the world.
But today we were hit again with the stark reminder that we could be dead before nightfall.
"We'll find this supply depot first," Gan said, happy to call the shots and Gunji and I more than content to let him. "Fuel's low as it is. Won't last us to the mountains, much less through them."
I took it that he was glad for the only voice he could hear to be his own. It was less a matter of him loving to hear himself speak as much as it meant he wasn't hearing Gunji. He probably could have tolerated mine right now, but as for Gunji, I imagine he'd noticed that the kid was quieter this morning. He didn't mind though enough to ask. Less of him was a blessing he wasn't about to question.
We drove along the coast, allowing me to enjoy the morning sea breeze as it washed across the shore. In the distance, I could see now what I couldn't last night–The Eastern Fleet. Rows of metal ships in the distance, much too far to make us out as more than a simple spec, but to us, their grand hulls still observable even miles away as they were.
To our north was the sea and to our south, the wall. It was no wonder how it was that the Navy kept the northern coast besieged without a single soldier being on the ground. There wasn't much ground to cover from ground to shore, and so long as they had people on board with telescopic lenses keeping an eye on things, they could simply reduce the ground between the sea and the wall to slag at the slightest sign of movement. If Ceheng was any indication, then it'd already worked so far.
"That it?" I asked after roughly an hour of driving, scouting what appeared to be a shoddy wooden pier where the sea met land.
Following a brief pause, Gan replied, "I think so?"
He turned the tank to approach, and sure enough, the tattered flag was sign enough of it–this was the supply depot, and much like the other, it was abandoned.
"Well this is hardly any better," Gan complained as soon as we were back on our feet, ransacking the small hut warehouse I imagined goods were meant to be stored in. There was nothing. We would have thought the matter as simple as that until I was back outside, staring ahead at the wall of Fire Nation destroyers, and noticed a different blip on the horizon, considerably closer, and nearing. Fast.
"Hold on," I said. "Fire Navy patrol boat. Moving parallel to us."
Gan rushed out, noticing it too. "Shit! Gunji! Flare!"
Gunji, who'd been seated atop the tank, nodded his head and scurried inside.
Sooner rather than later, a flare was up-yellow. Appropriate given the circumstances.
It went up into the air, no clearer than the bright sky that it flew into, easily missable. The patrol skiff was not stopping.
"Shit," Gan said upon seeing this. "Need to get their attention! Fluke, can you fire a shot at them? Just a warning one?!"
"Not at this range, but the tank's hook can."
The realization was sudden in Gan's eyes, and no sooner, he was in a mad dash for the tank, with me right behind them.
"They stopping for us?" Gunji asked from the pilot's seat until Gan quickly ushered him back to his rightful place.
"No!" Gan yelled. "Fluke! Get me a mark on their position!"
I was already on the turret, adjusting my sights now acting as a spotter so Gan may be able to properly target the skiff. I turned my turret, watching as the overlay displayed my turret's angle in respect to the bow of the tank. "Sixty-seven degrees starboard!" I called out.
The tank moved to turn as soon as the instructions were given, and so I adjusted the turret to set my sights on the target. I saw it, still careening towards us. It would reach us perpendicularly soon and pass by us. We needed to act before then.
"Range?!" Gan called.
I looked ahead, trying to anticipate just how far it would have been if between Citadel's inner wall and outer wall. About a third of the way.
"350 yards out!" I said, giving a rough estimate. I heard Gan making the necessary adjustments, but forced my aim to shift along with the moving patrol skiff, not seeming to notice us. "3 degrees starboard, bearing on 4,..."
"We don't want to hit it," Gan reminded me as he adjusted the turret. "Just remind them we're here."
And so I made the necessary adjustments as well. "5 degrees, bearing on 6!"
The tank moved. "Adjusted!" Gan said.
The aim was good. "Fire!" I called.
He did.
The tank shook beneath us as our primary ordnance was fired, careening directly towards the skiff, landing only maybe ten yards in front of it, sending a high splash of water aboard its deck. It stopped in place. It sure as hell had noticed that.
"That work?!" Gunji asked.
"Oh," I chuckled. "They notice us, all right."
"Well what are they doing?" Gan asked.
I could hardly get a look at the crew from here, but still dead in the water as they were, I imagined they were debating just what the hell to do. Do they see us?
"Launch another flare," I suggested. "Make our presence clear."
"Roger that," Gan said before the tank shook again, softer this time, and yet another yellow flare burned into the air, this time unmistakable. They would see that one. And sure enough, they did. Their skiff turned, and so they headed towards us and their own supply pier.
"They're coming," I said.
"'Bout fucking time," Gan said with a groan, finally allowing himself to rest back in his seat, knowing he had perhaps a minute or two before they reached the shore. We reeled our hook back in, not about to waste the entire thing on a warning shot. I brought my hand up to my forehead to wipe the sweat aside, mopping with it some loose strands of hair that would need cutting sometimes soon before they started getting in the way. Maybe at the Dragon's camp, I thought to myself, wanting to think the amenities they offered had to be better than whatever passed for service in the 29th.
When the skiff began to approach the pier, we left our tank as well to help them settle in. It was the least we could do after nearly sinking them.
And before they were already docked, the insults were already being thrown.
"What the living fuck was that shit?!" the seeming captain called over the rustling sea as an aid of his threw a rope overboard for us to moor them in. "You fucking shot at us?!"
"Had to get your attention somehow," Gan said as he caught one rope and I caught another, trying them to the pier to keep the skiff in place.
"By firing at us?"
"Flares didn't work, so…"
The skiff now close enough to the wooden pier, it was an easy enough gap to cross for the captain, and so he stepped off, unsteady in his footing at first, likely on account of what I believed were called 'sealegs,' but soon enough straightened himself. "Well," he said. "You missed anyway, so no harm, no foul."
"We missed because we wanted to," I said. "You're welcome, by the way."
The navy soldier's attention turned towards me, and he chuckled. "Shit, they're getting younger and younger these days, huh?"
And I still almost put a hole straight through your fancy boat. I held my tongue however. I was smarter than that, and so paid no mind as the navy man turned his attention back to Gan, picked out rather easily as our 'commander.'
"Alright then," he said. "Out with it. What's so important that you had to shoot at me to get my attention before I get your names and file a citation or some shit?"
"We need fuel," Gan said matter of factly.
"Oh," the navyman said, widening his eyes. Well why didn't you just say so?!" He turned to face his comrade aboard the skiff. "Shuze! Our friends here need the fuel! Go ahead and offload our tanks. Spirits know we're not using it."
"Well you don't have to be a dick about it," I muttered under my breath, picking up on the clear sarcasm that, somehow, this Shuze of his completely missed.
"W-wait," he said. "Really?"
The navy man turned, eyes wide in disbelief. "No! Not really! The fuck?!"
"We have official orders and requisition papers," Gan said, motioning towards Gunji who still waited by the tank to fetch them.
"I don't give a shit if Fire Lord Azulon is carpooling with you," he said in spite of the fact that Gunji was already returning with the necessary papers. Gunji handed them off to Gan, who then handed them to the navy man, saying, "Orders are direct from Major General Deming of the 64th Division."
"I look like I know who the fuck that it?" he said as he took the paper, briefly scanning over the details only to hand it back. "Requisition orders or otherwise, can't just hand you this shit unless you want us to go all the way back to our ship, but, well, we really don't want to."
"You serious?" Gan asked. "You're going to disobey orders just because you don't want to bring this up the chain of command?"
"Yeah, that's exactly right," the navy man chuckled. "It's a long way back. Besides, I ain't exactly benefitting from this."
"You're not being court martialled. That should be benefit enough."
"Now why would I be court martialled?"
"For refusing to follow orders and properly turn orders up the chain of command. You think siege command will look kindly on this once we get to where we're going through the mountains?"
"Well how are you gonna get there without any fuel?" the navy man asked with a cocky grin that I was holding myself back from burning off his face. "Besides, if my being fucked is dependant on you getting through those mountains, then, well, I'm pretty confident about my odds."
"We can pay you," I chimed in. "That speaking more your language?"
Now, suddenly, the navy man was interested in what I had to say. "It might be. What are you offering?"
"Month's pay," I said. He was unimpressed. "From the three of us."
"Oh come on!" Gan exclaimed from beside me. I ignored him. What else are we gonna spend it on? Ordinarily, I wouldn't have gone so high right away, and perhaps bartered a bit, but this wasn't a matter of a few extra copper pieces nor a hot meal for the night. This was nearly five hundred men from back home on the line. I wasn't here to play games.
It'd gotten the navy man's attention, who now sported a growing smile. "I think I could arrange that. Simple top-off then? Fill your tank?"
"That'd do nicely."
"Great!" He turned to look at his buddy still in the skiff, Shuze, and said, "Prep 'em a barrel of coal. Don't skim off the top! I like these guys!" Now back to us, he said, "I'll be taking payment now."
Gan groaned, but obliged, calling, "Gunji! Bring him our money!"
He obliged, as ever, and retreated back towards the tank, quickly enough fetching his own I imagined before calling from inside, his voice echoing across the hull, "Where are yours!"
"Next to my seat!" Gan called.
"Mine's under mine!" I added.
Soon enough, Gunji was out with three pouches of silver pieces, our first on-field paycheck. I wasn't sure if that made it special, but all the same, it was the price that needed to be paid.
"Why thank you," the navy man said upon being handed the pouches.
"Shut up," Gan said, making the exchange before turning to Gunji to say, "Help offload the fuel."
The navy man stuffed two of the pouches beneath his armpit to enable him to open the third with ease, to which he responded, "Spirits! This is a month's pay for you?! I'm always tempted to give you the fuel for free!"
"But you won't," I said.
"Well, course not. Man's gotta make a living."
By extorting his comrades. I didn't say that last part of course.
"Tell you what," he said enthusiastically, stuffing the pouches beneath his belt. "I like you guys. What say I tell my boys to shell those mountains of yours? Help clear a way?"
"That something you can do?" Gan asked.
"Why of course! Gunners've been itching to shoot at something for weeks now anyway. They won't take much convincing."
"So you can't freely give us some fuel, but you can promise us an artillery bombardment?"
The man grinned. "Authority is a…a fickle thing. He's full of shit. But for your trouble, I'll even have the boys write something you want on the first shells we send towards the mountains. Could even be your names if you don't mind giving those to me."
"Go fuck yourself," Gan said, no part of him about to give the man anymore than he deserved.
It seemed though, that he misunderstood that as what we wanted written on the shells, and so said, "Genius. Boys'll love it. Fuel's yours, and we'll have those mountains aflame no later than two hours before noon. Have fun out there!"
Our business there was concluded, him returning to his skiff, and us to our mountain to await his supposed bombardment that would be arriving shortly according to him.
"And remember!" he said one last time as his skiff left the pier, leaving us with a full tank of coal. 2 before noon for fireworks! Won't wanna miss them!"
It was around two hours after noon when we realized no such bombardment was coming. We were left sitting where the land began to increment upwards to form the basis of the mounts we would be driving through shortly, untouched, bombarded, disappointing.
"Fuckin' Navy," Gan said.
He set the tank into motion, and we drove, beginning our journey into the mountains, on the only path that led through, and awaited whatever might come.
Citadel had been built on solid land, lacking much in the way of uneven terrain. The mountains, in that sense, were an entirely new experience, but not as we began to drive between them, following the path. From there, it felt like something all too familiar, walls rising to either side of me, blocking my view of what was beyond, and making me damn near terrified of what was atop.
Even inside the tank, I had my helmet over my head. I'd seen earthbenders pop out of the ground enough times by now to not think they could be hiding anywhere, the mountains the perfect spot for them to be hiding in.
But there were none. At least so far as I could see by this point. We drove directly ahead, through the arid mountain pass, with bated breaths. I could tell that we were a lot higher now than we were when we were by the coast.
The drive from there to the mountains hadn't been a particularly long one, perhaps only about two hours, but it was impossible not to notice how the earth had changed beneath us. First, we'd lost all sign of the sea. By that point, the path began to wind in on itself as our path took us over hills, through a small wooden area, and eventually to where we could finally see vast pillars of stone rising above the earth.
The air'd begun to grow colder by then, especially as we drove further into the mountains now, the cold wind rolling down the rock faces and directly onto us. We were fortunate for the fresh coal that burned in our steamer as it was about the only thing keeping us warm all the way up here, but all the same, the change couldn't be missed.
It was easy to focus on the cold when there wasn't much else to focus on, be them infuriating naval officers whose names we hadn't thought to get, or Earth Kingdom antagonists looking for the first chance they could get to bury us alive. We were alone with ourselves, and with the cold, and we were growing complacent.
Enough to the point that I almost didn't notice the faint glint from uphill, reflecting the light of the sun straight down at us.
"Woah woah," I said, getting Gan's attention. "Stop."
"Wait, what's going on?" Gan asked, stopping as I'd asked.
"Above us," I answered. "I see a light." It was a type of light I recognized, not a source itself, but a reflection. It was a scope. "We're being watched," I said.
"Shit," I heard Gan say from the cockpit. "Think they see us?"
"They definitely see us."
"They doing anything?"
I couldn't make out any figures from here, only the light their telescope reflected, but luckily, I had one of my own. I reached for it to my side, unfolded it, and soon enough was looking right back, but not soon enough. They were gone.
"Fuck," I exclaimed. "They're gone."
"Think they're coming down to get to us?" Gunji asked.
"Probably," I said.
"Let's not be here when they do," Gan said, to which our agreement went without saying.
We were on the move again, and this time, with a degree more haste. It wouldn't do us much good. We didn't make it very far before.
"Fuck me," i heard Gan say below, and turning my turret allowed to see just what it was that had us in dire straits. Ahead of us , the mountain pass had become narrower, allowing for a unique earthen bridge to stretch from one side to the other. Atop it however, stood what couldn't have been less than a half dozen Earth Kingdom soldiers, all benders, staring down at us.
There was no other choice to stop, and so we did.
"You shouldn't be out here all alone, Fire Nation!" an earthbender at the head of the group called out, his voice a loud enough boom to reach us, around fifty feet away as we were. "Turn your engine off. You try driving off, we'll crush you."
We listened to his orders. We didn't exactly have many other options. Where we were, it would have been the simplest thing for the assortment of benders to collapse the cliff walls to either side of us and crush us between them both. He wasn't bluffing.
"Turn your engine off," the soldier repeat, "step out of your tank, hand it over, and you might just get out of this alive!"
"Fuck!" Gan muttered, turning back to Gan. "Do what he says. Shut the engine."
"You fucking kidding me?" I hissed. "Really believe that shit?!"
"Fuck no! I'm buying us time!"
"Time for what!"
"For anything! Gunji, just do it! They want our tank. They'll avoid destroying us if they can kill us outside of it instead."
"Well that's reassuring," I said. "Fuck it, fine. Gunji, do it."
He did as we bid, shutting the valve that fed the steam into the engine, and moved to stifle the flame before the steam could build to the point of combustion. I stopped him, placing a hand on the Gunji's to stop him in place before he could do any such thing. The tank began to quiet immediately, its parts no longer moving and whirring from within.
"Good!" the earthbender said. "Now step out of the vehicle!"
"Why!?" Gan yelled.
"So we can accept your surrender!"
Gan looked back at me, trying to think of what to say next. "Ask them what are our terms."
"What are our terms!?" Gan yelled.
Gunji, meanwhile, didn't seem to be taking well me stopping him from preventing further steam buildup. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Get more coal," I said. "Increase the heat."
"Steam will keep on building! It'll implode!"
"Not if you release the valve right before it does," I said. The extra steam would mean a faster engine, faster treads, better chance of getting out of here alive. Gunji understood, eyes widening. He knows. I didn't wait for him to voice his understanding, and only added, "Now get shoveling."
He did, and I turned my focus back to the viewport of my turret and the exchange between Gan and the earthbending soldiers.
"The terms are that we don't kill you if you step out now!"
From this range, I estimated I could place a good enough shot that could at least take down two, throwing them off the bridge. Were I more experienced, I could have even blown out the bridge from the center, felling them all. But I couldn't get ahead of myself. Two it would have to be.
"Will we be eligible for prisoner transfer?!" Gan asked. Now he's getting it, I thought with a smile.
There was a pause from the earthbenders, likely trying to discern what the hell we were talking about. I looked back to check on Gunji. "How we doing?" I asked.
"Pressure's at 75 psi and climbing."
"Keep it building."
The earthbender was speaking again now. "The terms for your surrender can be discussed once you hand yourselves in. Now step out, or we will be forced to engage!"
"Gunji?" I asked.
"83." That was high. Very high, but I would wait. Just a bit longer.
"Get ready to hit the pedal, Gan," I said.
"Tell me when." He was talking back to the earthbenders now to say, "Okay! Relax! We're just shutting down the tank's other systems! You don't want it blowing up now, do you?!"
"We don't have time for this!" the earthbender said.
"90!" Gunji called.
"Start the engine!" I yelled.
"Fire!" the earthbender yelled, but it was too late. The steam valve had opened, allowing it to flow through our tank at unprecedented speed, spurring the engine to life. We were moving before the second was up, Gan's foot pushing the pedal to the metal. Two boulders of earth landed directly behind us as either side of the cliffside collapsed, and I made my move, firing towards the earthbenders. It was a good shot, catching two as I'd hoped.
One fell to the side, a burning crater severing his arm from the rest of him, now dead, and sending the other off of the bridge to the ground directly ahead of us. I heard his bones crunch beneath our treads as we ran him over. That was four down, but this ambush had been prepared. They were off the bridge before we'd cleared it, and so they sent it down atop our heads, ourselves just fast enough to beat it. I turned my turret to face behind me now, firing a blast of fire behind me, though missing.
All the same, they were behind us, left in the dust.
"Holy fuck," Gan said. "We lose them?"
My turret still trained behind me, I had a better look than any of them. All I could see was a cloud of dust. Only for a moment. Soon enough however, emerging from it, were four earthbenders, mounted on earthen platforms and tearing through the earth directly towards us.
"Nope!" I said. "They're on us!
"Fuck me!" Gan said. "Hang on!"
I moved to fire a shot behind us, but my aim was suddenly thrown aside by a sudden shift in the tank's movements. I turned my turret to observe what was now a steep cliffside, and us driving directly onto it, parallel with the edge. Above us, the mountain grew in steepness while below was nothing but a steep drop into a canyon I could just barely make out the bottom of.
Holy shit, I thought, my breath catching in my throat, as I struggled to stay upright in my seat, now being doubly sure to secure my safety belt. I was strapped in, unlike Gunji who, behind me as I saw as I turned my turret again, was clinging onto the wall for dear life.
The earthbenders were gaining on us, and fast. I supposed that a steel tank could only do so much to traverse difficult terrain while those chasing you rode on the rough terrain itself. Their mastery of the terrain fared no worse when the ground shifted from flat to a steep incline, navigating just as easily directly behind us.
I was familiar with the technique, and how to counter it. I fired a blast of fire, catching one of the earthen platforms near the base, collapsing it beneath its bender's feet. He staggered, fell, but was quick to react, bending the ground beneath himself to catch himself before falling too far into the canyon. He'd lagged behind the others, but continued the chase.
"They're still on us!"
"Gunji!" Gan called. "I need more speed!"
"We're already going faster than we safely can!" Gunji yelled. "I can't push it!"
Which left offense as our only defense. I fired again, my sights now trained on the higher of two earthbenders leading the formation. The attack struck the earthbender himself this time. Though he'd brought up a formation of stone to block the hit, the attack was enough to stagger him, drawing his focus away from his earthen platform. It faltered beneath his weight. He stumbled, and so his position crumbled, felling him, and collapsing atop the other earthbender below him. Both now fell amidst an avalanche of rock, neither recovering, both careening down to their deaths.
It was good, but not enough.
"Fuck me!" Gan said. "Two more!"
I turned my turret ahead, and sure enough, there they were, coming down from the top of the mountain on similar earth platforms.
"Gunji!" Gan called. "I need a hard break on my mark!"
"What're you planning?!" I asked.
"You'll see! Fluke, I need a mark for a hook between us and them!"
What? I didn't stop to question things however. I focused on my job. The earthbenders were coming down and fast, moving to intercept and block our way. It was a matter of determining where they'd be in relation to where we were now, and dropping a hook between us and them.
"Seven degrees port!" I yell.
"Firing!" The tank jerked left, then shook all throughout as the hook was fired. It latched into the ground. "Gunji! Break!"
And where I ordinarily would have expected nothing to happen, I felt the tank shake once again, and turned back to see Gunji at his post, hands on the handbrake having deployed it. Gan turned, and the tank was sent into a drift, held only upright by our hook in the earth. Te hook acting as our anchor, we turned, and Gan gave slack to the chain, now demanding as we were facing it again, on the exact opposite side of it as opposed to where we'd been when we'd launched it, "Gunji! Reverse!"
The tank shifted, and just like that, we were. Holy shit, I thought for a moment of disbelief as we pulled away from the chain, and watched as the earthbenders speeding down the mountain collided. Their platforms crumbled, and they were launched forward, one to the ground face first, dead on impact, and another into the canyon. That worked!
"Detach hook!" Gan ordered, prompting Gunji to do just that right on cue as I took the moment, facing the original earthbenders pursuing us to launch another blast. They were distracted enough with the sudden loss of two of their own that they hardly noticed me. It made impact with the one in front, killing him on impact, leaving only the original one who I'd attacked–the one who'd recovered, and now resumed his chase with extreme prejudice.
"Power to port treads!" Gan cried. "Turn us around!"
And once again, Gunji did exactly as he was told, on his mark, releasing the handbrake and halving the rpm of our starboard treads while placing emphasis to our port, allowing us to swiftly turn to our left, back in a full half circle so the enemy was to our backs once again. We drove, speeding ahead as I missed another shot behind me.
Soon enough, we back back on even enough land, the earthbender still behind us, now no longer alone. Two more had joined his pursuit from our right while one sped ahead to block our way, stopping directly in front of us. That was his mistake. I weakened his position with a sprout of fire, allowing our tank to plow directly through.
The passage was narrowing. Ahead of us, two more earthbenders on the leftmost cliff side, releasing an avalanche of mud, stone, and dirt ahead of us. We hugged right, our starboard tread even rolling along the wall as we drove at nearly a completely right angle, just barely evading the avalanche that landed behind us. I looked to our rear to see if that hampered the progress of our pursuers. It did not. They broke through, using the debris now as a weapon, sending a chunk of earth directly towards us.
"Evade left!" I called, and Gan did so, avoiding the first of the blasts, but not moving back in time to evade what came after. We were hit on our rear, launching us forward, bruising my chest where I was stopped by my safety harness, better, granted, than a collision with the back of my head against the wall of my turret.
The impact had completely punched through one of the tank's rear doors' hull, leaving Gunji exposed as the light flooded within
I regained my focus, attention still set on the earthbenders behind us. My heart was racing. They were on us, and approaching quickly. Any wrong move I made could get us killed. I had to act, and I had to act right. I put all my attention ahead as I created a wall of flame from the air that stretched from one valley wall to the other. I thought it might be enough, and it just barely was. Well, at least for one of them. Two broke through, including the original pursuer who still lived. One, however, was thrown to the ground, still alive by the looks of him, but out for the count. I sent two successive blasts of fire, both easily evaded as I gritted my teeth in disappointment.
"Hostiles ahead!" Gan said, and I turned my turret, seeing not only hostels, but a break in the earth. Another drop, the path taking us left. The enemy lay in wait, however, waiting for us. There was no other direct choice. It was either take the route available to us where they lay in wait above, or drop to our deaths. "Cover us, Fluke!"
I did what I could, firing at the first of the earthbenders who quickly enough blocked the blast, but still was rendered distracted enough for us to pass by. That same luck hardly pursued us for the others in wait. From above, half of them brought down the side of the mountain down on us while the other half removed the ground from beneath our feet, leaving only abyss.
Solid ground was just ahead. I tried to fire at our attackers in the hopes that I might buy us the time to close those final yards, but it was too little too late.
"Fuuuuck!" I heard Gan scream before no other choice was afforded to him but to fire our last hook above and forward at an angle.
I felt the ground beneath us fail, the only sign that Gan's last desperate effort had worked being that we stopped falling, caught in place, nearly completely vertical to our side as we rode along the canyon wall. "Reel us in!" Gan shouted as Gunji picked himself off the wall of the tank to reach above him towards the other wall to trigger the hydraulics required to drag us to our own hook.
We rode to our hook and over it, the chain being crushed beneath our treads as we rolled and we disconnected the hook, emerging back on solid ground through a cloud of dust, only to be met with more. We were clear but for a single moment before a shadow consumed us, and looking to our left and above revealed yet another avalanche, this one larger, stretching what appeared to us the extent of the entire valley, and with no escape. "Gan?!" I yelled.
There was no fancy trick up our sleeve. We couldn't outrun it. We couldn't blast it with fire. We could only-
"Brace!"
I did, placing my arms in front of my head as I leaned forward and prepared for the impact, and so it came.
There was an explosion, then another, then impact. We were thrown aside in an instant by the tidal wave of rock and stone. Where there was gravity and a sense of up and down one moment, it was gone the next. We flipped over, onto our side, then again, the bottom of our tank completely torn through, or was it the floor. A strap on my harness broke, torn through by a shard of earth, but I held on to keep myself in place as we spun again, then stopped, blocked by a hard collision to…somewhere.
I couldn't tell what was happening. Somehow, I was out of my seat. I didn't know if I was on the floor or roof of our tank, and where were the front and rear at that. I couldn't tell if we were still crashing even. I could still hear a loud thump, thump, thump, coming from outside, without rhythm, as though just the crashing of more boulders.
I tried to push myself up, but fell again. Something felt wrong with my arm. I felt movement beside me. I couldn't tell who it was. Gan? Gunji? I tried asking for a name, but realized only when I tried to speak that I had no breath inside of me. I was choking, all air knocked out of me. I struggled, fought for it, trying to breath, choking on my efforts, coughing, though just barely.
Still, that same thumping from outside. They're burying us alive? I thought, wondering how we hadn't been entirely crushed yet.
I crawled in front of me to try to get a grip on something, and found my seat. At least, I thought it was mine. There was no real way of knowing for sure. I tried to pull myself up by it, but then realized I was pulling myself down as a matter of fact. The rear of our tank was facing upwards, somehow, and so I looked back, just barely able to make out Gunji on the ground, in similar a struggle to me.
"Gunji?" I just barely said.
He was stirring, still alive somehow.
"Fluke!" I heard from behind me–Gan. "Cover…cover…" It's far too late for us.
Still that infernal thumping from upside, of different intensities, some feeling close, and others far, and then it stopped.
"Fluke," Gan coughed again. "Get…"
"I'm here, Gan!" I just barely said, wheezing from the effort as a great pain emerged in my chest. I turned back to look at Gunji, reaching forward to grab him and check to see if he was alright.
"Gunji!" I said, and his head turned to face me. He was alive. Thank the spirits. "You…you alright?'
"Fluke?" he asked.
I nodded my head.
"Where?" he coughed. "Where-?"
"The door!" Gan intruded. "Get it…we need to get-" he tried to rise, but fell straight back down. "Fuck!"
I understood his meaning though. I crawled upwards, towards the rear of our tank, dirt seeping through the breaches in our hull. I tried the knob to open it, but it wouldn't budge, completely blocked outside. "It's not moving!" I said.
"Fuck!" I heard Gunji whimper beside me.
"Try again!"
I did. "It's fucking blocked!" I yelled, now finally regaining my breath. That didn't stop me from trying however. I kept my hands on the knobs, trying to push with all my strength, which wasn't much, until something stopped me. There were noises. Outside. The sound of the terrain shifting around us. "Something's moving," I said, barely over a whisper.
"Fuck," Gan said. "They're back! Fluke, Gunji! Get away from there! Fluke! Get ready to fire!"
I was already on top of it, pulling Gunji back, deeper down into the tank as I took my place at the head, one hand on my chair to steady myself, and the other by my side, ready to send a punch forward at the first earthbender I saw. They were moving the rocks, alright, most likely to come to finish us off. We would be outnumbered. We would be outnumbered by a lot, but that didn't mean in the slightest that we wouldn't fight. I would be able to get the first two. I knew that much. Beyond that…
I chose not to think beyond that. Come what may, we would fight. My vision narrowed, one eye obscured by a tilted helmet, but it changed nothing. At least one had sight of the door as light now shone from beyond its hull breach. I saw movement. The fingers in my right hand loosened, flexed, and tightened again. I was ready.
I held my breath, and watched as the door shifted, the knob turned, and finally, opened.
I fired.
The world around me grew hot, but I fired forward all the same, the blast extending forward, through the breach, and out into the empty sky, failing to make contact with anybody,, leaving only empty sky in its wake.
There were no waiting earthbenders, no mass of soldiers ready to kill us. It was simply…empty.
The hell?
Then there was movement, two arms holding themselves out from just out of cover, and a yell that followed, screaming, "Woah woah woah! Friendly!"
I stayed where I was, heart racing, fist by my side ready to fire again, and damn near doing so until the figure who the arms belonged to showed himself, stepping out of cover, revealing a Fire Nation soldier, firebender's uniform and all, hands above his head.
"Easy there," his voice came through his mask. "We're friendly."
My eyes widened at the sight of one of our own, out here, somewhere…how?
The fist at my side lowered, less out of letting my guard down and more because I simply couldn't find the strength to keep it raised any longer.
"Come on," the soldier said, stepping forward, placing a foot into the tank and offering me a hand. I looked up at him still in disbelief, as though seeing a spirit from the other world having intruded into our own, offering salvation. Little other option afforded, I reached forward, and took it, pulled up and out of the tank, and was then greeted with the last sight I expected to see–a full battalion of Fire Nation soldiers.
Soldiers, tanks, trucks, picking through the debris, and all around us, craters in the earth, still smoking, not the handiwork of the Earth Kingdom, but a Fire Nation bombardment instead. The thumping.
"You boys made it through the meat grinder," the soldier said as he helped me back onto solid ground and I saw other troops move in to extract Gan and Gunji. "Spirits looked kindly on you all today."
"But our artillery didn't hurt!" I heard a soldier say from off to the side while I still struggled to make out just what was happening. Had they known we were here? Was it luck? What in spirits'
"We've had scouts watching these mountains for a while. When we saw their guerillas start crawling out of their caves, my guess to chase you all down, we knew we couldn't pass up the chance and so bombed them all to hell. We're looking for the rest of your column. Hoping we can find other survivors."
I shook my head. "Just us," I said.
"What's that?"
I coughed, clearing the dust of the debris field from my lungs. "We came in here alone."
A faint whir could be heard from behind me, and I turned to watch as Gan and Gunji stood on the sidelines, watching as a hook was connected from another Fire Nation tank to ours, driving forward to pull it out from beneath the ground, more a pile of debris now than anything else, but still sporting proudly on its side the seven tally marks. Eight now, I thought. Somehow.
"Spirits," the soldier scoffed in disbelief. "How?"
I didn't know how to answer, but would have said something at least before another voice interrupted the exchange, asking, "You got them out!?"
The soldier I'd been talking to turned and saluted in a heartbeat. "Yes sir!" he said. "This is it. They came in alone!"
Figuring my place here done, I walked slowly to where Gan and Gunji where, figuring I'd ask to check in on them, before I heard behind me, "That right. You two? You're not mine. What are you doing out here?"
I looked towards Gan, expecting him to be the one to answer, but he simply waved it aside, bidding that I do the talking. I turned, seeing a well-groomed man even in spite of the dirt and sweat on his face, but saw more importantly then the stripes on the man's pauldron-those of a colonel.
I saluted immediately. "Sir!" I said as a cough. "We're from the 62nd armored unit, 29th brigade, 64th division! We were given orders to deliver a message to General Iroh!"
The commander smiled, bringing out the near regal definition of his jawline before he let out a small chuckle. "Well congratulations then," he said. "I'm his son, colonel Lu Ten, and you three are some lucky sons of bitches."