Happy St George's Day to all my fellow English readers, and for that matter everyone else who celebrates!
Responses to Reviews:
RonaldM40196867: Unfortunately, yes. As long as tyrants have armies, weak neighbours to prey upon, and think they can get away with it, they will try their luck and so there will be war.
Zigzagdoublezee: Hopefully he is, for Yue's sake. To lose him on top of losing her home... And if not it leaves the North in the position of having the actual Avatar as head of state, as while Yue is supposed to abdicate she hasn't actually formally done it.
As Always, Please Review!
The Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se was for the most part a pleasant and ordered place, even in the midst of a siege. Spacious houses lay on wide, paved streets, with gardens for the inhabitants to unwind.
But one building stood out, breaking the pattern as it rose out of the vision of urban tranquility that surrounded it. It was made of red brick, and had several chimneys which rose high into the air, to almost the height of the mighty outer walls themselves. They belched out a dark black smoke which floated high above the city before eventually dissipating into thin air.
The Earth King had told the Yuad they might gain the tools to break the siege here, and so Yue found herself leading her friends through the gate and towards the entrance to the building.
They were clearly expected, because just before they reached it the doors crashed open, and a man in messy robes and glasses stood there.
"Avatar!" He said happily. "It's a pleasure!"
Behind him, a boy in a wheelchair rolled into view. He waved at them shyly.
"The Earth King sent us," Yue said, bowing.
"I'm sure he did," the man said, standing inside and inviting them in. "My name is Sai. This is my son, Teo. But you can call me the Mechanist."
A wave of heat hit Yue as she stepped inside, generated by rows of furnaces. As her eyes accustomed to the gloom, she was greeted by the sight of a workshop heaving with activity, with many and varied inventions of various sizes lining the walls. There were vehicles resembling giant metal carts on four wheels, strange looking catapults which seemed to be connected with rubber pipes to small furnaces, pipes running haphazardly up the walls, even a couple of Fire Nation tanks lying in various pieces across the floor.
It was something else which really drew Yue's attention though. Sat in the centre of the room was a vehicle which seemed to resemble a much larger Air Nomad glider staff, with space for someone to sit in the middle and an enormous pair of wings. The whole thing was made up of a wooden frame covered in fabric painted a dark green.
The Mechanist saw where she was looking, and smiled.
"Isn't she a beauty?" He asked. "Since the Air Nomads are in town, I took the opportunity to observe them flying on those glider staff things they have. Then I thought, hey, I wonder if I could scale that up?"
"Does it work?" Rinzen asked, eyeing it with a mixture of admiration and wariness.
"I don't know. I haven't found anyone willing to try!" The Mechanist said. "I did have an idea to put an engine in it, but such an engine would need to be light enough not to weigh the machine down, but powerful enough to provide enough thrust. I have reverse engineered the engines from Fire Nation tanks, even managed to improve them so they can be operated without the use of Firebending, but for the moment they're too big and heavy. So it's a glider for now. Hopefully one day though."
He pointed over to the metal carts.
"I did put those engines in those though. They're armoured carts, my own spin on a Fire Nation tank. I gave it wheels instead of tracks to make it faster, and easier to build. It's got a turret where someone can sit at the top and earthbend, and it's also got a cooling system of my own design, which will keep the crew inside cool even when being blasted by a fireball!"
Yue nodded politely. The Mechanist carried on, talking about explosive bombs that could be fired from artillery and which made a terrifying noise upon exploding, and submarines which could hide under the water and fire torpedoes or lay mines to attack the shipping that the Fire Nation relied upon to reinforce and resupply their armies in the Earth Kingdom. He had already made the former, and it had seen use, but the latter idea remained only in his technical drawings and notebooks.
"For now," he assured them with a wink.
He stepped onto a platform which was attached at each corner to a series of vertical poles, and gestured for them to join him. Then he pressed a button, there was a hiss, and the platform rose into the air, coming to rest on the second floor on a balcony overlooking the workshop floor.
"How much of this stuff can you actually make?" Sokka asked, curiously.
"Not much, if truth be told," The Mechanist said, looking down. "I have the full backing of the King, he's been throwing money and resources at me, everything I need, since I arrived in the city. He believes I can win him the war. But the blockade means there's only a limited amount of resources available to me, and we have to rely on skilled craftsmen to build what I design. Fortunately there are plenty of those in the city. They do their best, and I appreciate them, but we simply don't have access to the mass-production techniques that the Fire Nation does. Give me time and I'm sure I can work something out, but we're not there yet."
He led them into his office, which was full of masses of notes stuck all over the walls, and many more scattered across his desk. A large window overlooked the courtyard, allowing sunlight to stream in. He sat down and regarded them.
"What do you need from me?"
Yue opened her mouth to answer, but no words came. They had no actual plan for how to break the siege yet, so how could they know what to ask for?
"...uhhhh..."
Sokka saw her flail and jumped in.
"Well, we need something to help us break the siege."
"That's very vague," the mechanist raised an eyebrow. "Anything specific?"
"We... may not have thought ahead that far."
The Mechanist was about to say something, when Suki spoke up.
"We need an army," she said. "This is essentially a big fort, isn't it? I mean, , it's a city and lots of people live here, but it functions like a fort. So its purpose is to hold an attacking army in position because they can't afford to leave it alone without the garrison attacking them. That then allows a relief army time to get there."
"Well, that and they want the city for its own sake," the Mechanist said. "Impressive. You sound like you know what you're talking about."
"I've studied," Suki smiled in response. As a Kyoshi Warrior, Yue knew she was trained for war, but she hadn't known it extended to strategy to this extent.
"So I see. But your analysis leaves out one crucial point; there is no relief army. Every Governor within easy reach of here has been routed, their armies scattered. Nobody else is coming to save us."
It was then that the answer came to Yue. Her eyes widened as she clapped her hands.
"Yes they are," she said to the room at large. "Or they will be."
She bowed to the Mechanist, and then began backing away towards the door. The others followed, confused.
"Thank you for seeing us, I greatly appreciate it. But now I'm afraid we have to leave. i need to write a letter, urgently."