Zek

"Gordez spotted a fishing boat due south southeast. I want you to take Luke and check it out, see if they know where the nearest town is. I don't want any delays. Check it out, ask what you need to, and come back here right away, got it?"

Did I get it? We've been at sea for almost 3 more weeks. We more tired, dirty, running low on water, fuel, and food. I was seasick again, Luke was quiet again, Boss was frustrated, Gordez was Gordez. I haven't seen land since we assaulted that raider base. If we stayed at sea any longer, we'd soon find ourselves dying of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Did I get it?

"Yes sir."

Did I also think this was yet another wild goose chase because Boss thought he saw something?

Yes again.

And soon enough Luke was with me on the small patrol skiff, getting it ready to detach and as hooked the winch to lower it down smoothly into the water. The rear bay of the ship had already been opened, the boarding ramp lowered enabling a smooth slide into the sea. Gordez was down too, taking a break from his time in the engine bay, which, for the most part, was presently idling as we rode currents and searched for land. Though the currents we were supposed to be riding didn't seem particularly active. For all intents and purposes, we were motionless. I didn't want to say we were lost, but we were definitely not found at the moment.

I got into the skiff, making my way into the pilot's seat as Luke soon followed. Once I saw he was seated, I gave the thumbs up to Gordez, and he pulled the lever.

We were pushed back from the hydraulics, the selfsame ones that would soon raise us into the ship, hopefully in only a few minutes, less than an hour, and Raava pray with something to tell us where we were headed.

We splashed into the sea below, the foam of the ocean brushing our sides as our engines spurred to life, I turned us around, and we headed off towards where Boss had claimed the fishing boat was.

Luke soon shifted to another seat near the rear of the patrol skiff, positioning himself as I saw through a rear mirror, near the sides, bending over the side before we picked up too much speed, dousing his face in sea water. I didn't blame him. It had been weeks before we last cleansed ourselves. We couldn't afford to waste what little drinking water we had left on personal hygiene. So we were all rather filthy at that time.

Luke picked himself back over the side, pushing back his hair over his brow, desperately needing a haircut. I felt my own hair with my free hand, still steering due south southeast. I could use one too. I felt my chin, soon feeling up the side of my face. A shave too would be in order. I put my hand back on the wheel, raising it back up only moments later to wipe the sleep out of my eyes. I could use a night back on dry land. Hell. I could just stand to be back on land as soon as possible. The sea was getting to me. Again. I thought I would be done with the seasickness by now, but that was as far from the truth as it could be. It came back in waves. Ha. Get it? Waves. I chuckled at my own stupid joke, the laugh catching in my mouth from the aridity that prevailed within me. I need a drink. I need dry land. I need a lot of things. Right now, though. I needed to lie down.

"Hey Luke?" I asked, already feeling guilty.

He looked up out of curiosity from where he was sitting, wiping off his face with his civilian's clothing that Boss insisted we wear so as not to intimidate the locals.

"Mind taking the wheel for me? I gotta lie down."

Luke got up, as I was hoping he would, relieving me from my post, taking the wheel as I handed it off to him, maintaining the course. He'd had practice driving it by now. A number of not nearly successful fishing trips on this skiff had taught him that much.

"How much longer you want me to keep going this way?" he asked, surprising me once again as he always did whenever I heard his voice.

"Until we see the boat."

"Boss tell you how far it was?"

"No," I groaned, lying down on the floor of the skiff. The waves were coming at us head on at least rather than at the sides. Made for a less nauseating ride, but all the time, the sooner we could get to some dry land, the better.

"You don't think there is a boat, do you?"

I sighed. Damnit, kid. "No," I said yet again.

There was a pause. I wasn't sure what Luke was thinking about in the lapse of time. I was trying not to worry about it. I was busy huddling on the cold steel trying not to let the late November air get to me. It was by pure chance it wasn't snowing at this moment. That would have been the icing on the cake. Literally. The silence was soon quieted, however, when Luke asked, "Why?"

"Because there was no island last time, no oncoming Fire Nation vessel the time before that, no plume of smoke the time before. Boss sees what nobody else does and what nobody else ever will. That's his skill, I suppose."

Then an additional silence ensued. Luke continued driving for a minute, until asking, "What if there was a boat?"

"'Was'is the key word. If a small fishing boat spotted a Fire Nation cruiser, I guarantee you, it wouldn't be sticking around to greet us for a nice game of pai sho and some tea. So even if there was a boat, I hesitate to believe it's still there."

Yet for some reason, after 10 minutes, Luke saw it, and when he woke me to point it out, I did too. So maybe I wasn't always right.

"It's still there," spoke Luke matter of factly, spurring me to shift from where I was laying on the cold metal bed of the skiff, half asleep and half awake.

I stood up, or, more so, attempted to, nearly being knocked over by the wave as they racket the boat front to back, only enabling me to rise on my third attempt.

Luke was almost up on the fishing boat, and from this close, it wasn't hard to tell what had them dead in their tracks. Their sail was torn, hull beat down to near splinters.

Luke pulled up the mechanized shift to, what in comparison to our coal run vessel, was no more than a canoe, with not particularly friendly passengers at that.

We came to our stop, anchored with the small weight that should serve to hold us down for at least the moment.

The passengers of the fishing ship, two of them, one old one young, likely a father son duo, made no effort to assist us as we loaded the ramp, steadied our vessel, and walked aboard. In fact, they seemed particularly displeased by our presence, despite their not particularly suitable state of affairs.

"Great job," spoke the older man first, sporting a white fisher's beard, soaked in grease and sea water, wearing only some torn leggings and a vest that revealed his pot belly beneath. "You caught us. Go ahead and finish the job."

Luke had stepped aboard behind me, noticeably minding his step. Keeping his distance from the water. I turned my attention back to the bigger subject, the father-son duo which was no longer disputable as the son, a boy I'd place at around 16, sported the same weathered features as his father, especially noticeable in the eyes. A sad look that.

"Sorry?" I said.

"Your other buddies already came along this way. Go ahead and finish the job."

I looked behind towards Luke, who merely shrugged at the implication. I turned back to the man.

"I'm sorry," I said again. "Who do you think we are?

"You saying your not with the pirates that already rolled around here?"

"No?"

At that sound, the 5 tons on the man's shoulders were suddenly raised to the heavens as he breathed the largest sigh of relief I'd ever heard and sank back down to the deck of his pathetic cog as his son neared to help him back to his feet as he said, "Ho boy. Here I thought my boy and I were goners."

"What happened here?" I asked, lending a hand to the man as Luke paced the deck, possibly assessing the damage taken thus far, hell if I knew.

"We were with some other fishers from our town. Biggest expedition in years. Decided to take our chances what with the war cooling down and took our chances. Got a nice haul too. Enough to keep us fed for months. But then pirates in boats like yours found us. Ran us all in separate directions, picked the rest of one by one, I assume. I have no idea how many are left, but I wouldn't be surprised if we were one of the last alive."

"How optimistic," I heard Luke mumble from the side of the vessel.

"Anyway," the man continued, ignoring the comment. "We're still here, and thought you were one of them, here to finish the job. Glad that's not the case."

"No kidding. How far off's your town?" I asked, remembering why we'd come out here in the first place.

"No idea, kiddo. Didn't have time to get our bearings as we were run off by them pirates, but I'm guessing land is in that a ways," he said, pointing to the boat's rear.

We had a map aboard, but it wouldn't serve to do much here. There was no land in sight in any direction.

"Well you're dead if you stay on this boat," Luke said from the bow of the boat. "You're not going anywhere in this."

"Thanks, kid. We realized. Which is why we're glad you came along. It's not much, but my village has plenty in the ways of salvaged war goods when the Earth Kingdom was forced out and the Fire Nation left. If you're not pirates or Fire Nation judging by your lack of uniforms, I should take you as mercenaries?"

"Something like that."

"Then in that case, if you help us load our goods into your small boat, we can check for land in that direction. With this thing, we can be there and back in less than an hour if it's as close as I think, and this baby is as fast as the ones the pirates use. Get us to our village with the cargo, and we can reward you."

"We appreciate that," I said, but right now, we need food and water. Not weapons.

"Well we need all the food we can get, but we have a freshwater stream that goes through our town to the sea. We can give you fresh water. Lots of it too."

I turned to Luke, who once again, in his usual style, shrugged, leaving it to me to decide.

We needed water. Food would have helped too, but we'd take whatever we could get. "Alright," I said. You have a deal."