Zahckrael

He thought he was so much better than me. I could see it in his eyes as his royal crimson guard escorted him into my tent. My tent! Waltzing in here like he owned the camp, I was surprised he had the courtesy to wait until I asked him to sit. He walked into my tent ready. I had the entire day to await his arrival, but I still wasn't ready for this. He knew what my right hand had done and there was no going back from that. I had no scape goat in the form of the 107th, I would be forced to reprimand Zor'ak, and I was short of troops now that the 107th wasn't in my command anymore. Not like it was that many troops. Most of them had apparently been wiped out in the battle. Damnit, Zor'ak. If you had asked me first, I would have told you to wait, yes, but I would have given you more troops. You didn't have to go behind my damn back for this. One company. What was he thinking?

Lu Ten sat across from me, surrounded by two red-clad royal guards. What did they expect? Me to attack the prince's son? I may have been an idiot to have given Zor'ak as much power as I did, but that was just suicide. I wasn't that desperate.

"Zahckrael." He started, omitting any rank or title from my name.

"Lu Ten." I responded, doing like-wise. I only realized after the fact that it wasn't that smart a thing to do given my position, but I wasn't planning on appearing weak here. The fault wasn't mine save for my poor assigning of office. I'd hold my ground. It wasn't me he was after. Or was I?

Luckily, Lu Ten didn't notice, or rather, ignored my lack of professionality in omitting his rank and titles. "I trust you've heard about the battle that occurred two days ago?"

"I have. A glorious victory."

"Yes." He said, resting his chin on his hand with his elbow planted on the table, leaning towards me. "Glorious for the Crimson Battalion. Less glorious for the 107th, I hear. I saw the brawl with my own eyes. Devoid of proper weapons and ammunition and training, driven to a mad brawl they were lucky to survive."

"They drove the attention from the Crimson Battalion."

"Yes. I'm sure it was Zor'ak intentions all along to aid my forces which he obviously knew about despite the lack of communication between our camps for over a month now." What was he playing at? What reaction was he trying to get out of me? Was he even trying to get one? "Let me cut the bullshit." He said, interrupting his chain of thoughts. "And I'm hoping you'll do the same. We know this isn't about the battle. The men fought well and helped our forces in distracting soldiers that would have otherwise been attacking our front of the battle. This isn't about that, though. This is about a commander under your command who, according to what you told me, disobeyed orders and launched this attack on the listening post with only a single company."

It was a dumb plan. There was no denying that. "As I said. He went against direct orders."

"So you directly gave him orders not to attack the listening post then?"

I sighed. He would know when I saw lying and when I wasn't. "I never told him not to attack the listening post. When we established our camp, I ordered both Zand and Zor'ak to not act without my go-ahead. So yes, he disobeyed direct orders."

"So the fault lies in this Zor'ak then?

"Yes."

"How do you plan on dealing with this?"

"I can't lose him as an officer."

"Why not?"

What kind of question was that? Would he execute his most senior officer for a single act of incompetence? Maybe he would. "I can't afford to lose him. Who would replace him?"

"Promote an officer."

"I-I"

"Look. I can't order you to execute one of your officers. You outrank me, but we know who holds the power in this room. I'm merely here to offer you advice. Advice you'd be wise to heed. Zor'ak will drag this army down. He has been for the last few weeks now. Yes. I've questioned his company and they've confessed that this wasn't the first of Zor'ak's 'illegal' operations. Surprised? You shouldn't be. This is what happens when you remove a dog's leash. They're loyal to you while they're attached but the second they're free, they run off in search of prey. And assuming they catch a good-looking prey, they may even bring it back to present to its master. The fact you've received no trophies from this dog of yours is proof enough of his incompetence. His actions are getting Fire Nation soldiers killed. Over half of his company was slaughtered!"

"I know."

"You know?! Those were Fire Nation citizens who weren't even supposed to be in that part of the warzone. They died because a glory-hound of an officer was unsatisfied with his station and believed himself better than you. He disobeyed direct orders and now our nation had suffered the price. This cannot be tolerated."

"I know."

"Then deal with it. I sent you the hawk, but I want to say it in person. The 107th is in my command now. Here's the form of reassignment from General Iroh. The 107th has attached to the Crimson Company. Maybe now they'll finally have a competent superior."

I didn't bother arguing. I was stubborn, but I knew when I was beat. This would go by quicker if I said nothing. I sat there and said nothing. In time, Lu Ten left and walked to the flap of the tent before turning around and saying "Oh. And say congratulations to Lieutenant Zand for me. His scouts excelled perfectly, and I've promoted the crew of unit 350 to sergeants. The form of promotion is attached to the form of reassignment. You have good men in this camp. You'd be wise to put them to use. And not under the command of an idiot like Zor'ak."

"What of the siege, sir? Now that the listening post and the surrounding area has been secured?"

"You'll get a hawk in 3 days' time with the battle plans for the siege. I myself don't know the precise details of the operation but allow me to advise patience and to get your artillery ready. This war is far from over.

With that, the prince's son left to gather his own troops and return to his father's camp. The second I no longer heard his footsteps, I burned the forms he had given me. He may as well have literally rubbed them in my face. I outranked him, yet he came in here, acting like he owned this camp ad my men and tried to humiliate me, leaving me with the mess of Zor'ak to deal with. What would I even do with him? I can't execute him and can't remove him from command? What do I even do?

I'll deal with him later. I opened the letter attached to the promotion forms that I had removed and saw the new sergeant rank patches inside. 3 of them. One for each crew of unit 350. As much as I hated the little shit, Lu Ten, he was right about one thing: I did have good men in this camp and they deserved to be rewarded. Now how would I reward those 3 turncoats who decided to aid Lu Ten in the battle of the Listening Post? I burned the rank patches, igniting them in a fire in the palm of my hands and stood up from my seat, grabbing the map from the wall, now showing the are between our two camps as friendly territory and noticed the new pings of suspected enemy activity brought to us by intelligence and message interception from Earth Kingdom messengers who didn't yet know about the battle.

I saw the pings of Earth Kingdom activity north of our camp, far away from friendly territory and made my decision as to where unit 350 would be headed next. Lu Ten was right. Loyalty was a problem in this camp. Right now, the bigger threat was soldiers loyal to an opponent rather than those seeking personal glory. Zor'ak would have to great. I had 3 unfaithful tanks crewmembers to deal with.