Boss

"And that would be a Fire Nation blockade directly in front of us"

And so it was, no more than three miles ahead of us to the east, a moving double-layered line of fully armed Fire Nation battleships, one moving North, the other South. I put down the telescope, through which I was attempting to notice any helpful details: ship make, banners, anything.

Nothing.

"So it is"

"And we're turning around now, right?" asked Gordez. There was no hiding his blatant terror. As a navy man, he was no stranger to the threat posed by an alert Fire Nation blockade, especially one in such a defensive pattern. Not only did you have a nigh impenetrable wall of armor, but 2 layers of fully operational artillery, all poised to sink the first vessel that comes within half a mile.

Lucky for us, however, Gordez wasn't the only navy man among us. I was no stranger to blockades. As a Southern Raider, they'd become an everyday obstacle, blockades of all sides, Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe alike. Running a blockade was all a matter of speed and timing. Of shrouding your intentions until it came time to cut everything save the engines and exploit whatever gap you could. I handed the telescope back to Gordez and exited the balcony on the command bridge, returning to the actual structure, directed immediately towards the PA system.

"We are turning around, right?"

I flipped the switch that enabled the PA, opening the hatch to allow my voice to travel through the bowels of the ship. "Engine crew," I spoke into the mic. "Bring down engines to two thirds ahead. Stand by for full speed ahead."

"Stand by for-what?!"

"You heard me, Gordez."

"You told me, in your words, that if things looked too messy, you'd turn us right around. That if it looked like a situation we couldn't get out of, if our lives were in danger, you'd turn around!"

"Our lives are constantly in danger. And past that blockade, there is a war going on, and hundreds to thousands of people are caught in the middle of it between two sides that don't care about them. Somebody has to look out for them, and-"

"And that somebody isn't-"

"-is us. You really don't think that's our job, then? To protect those who can't protect themselves. I thought that's what soldiers were, Gordez. I remember you used to feel the same."

"I do feel the same! I do! But this is a Fire Nation blockade. Those are battlecruisers, armed with catapults, scorpions, maybe even cannons like ours! This isn't the Earth Kingdom or Water Tribe like you used to run. I've been a part of my fair share and I've seen more runners than I can count erupt in balls of fire and shrapnel because they didn't have what it takes. There's no outrunning something like this!"

I was starting to grow frustrated now. Gordez was my friend. My oldest one at that. We'd been together for almost the entire duration of the Siege of Ba Sing Se, and if there was anybody I thought I could always rely on to be on my side, it'd be him, but to see this now, him so easily able to abandon the people past this blockade, it hurt to say the least."

"We are not going to leave the innocents caught in the middle of this war for dead."

"I'm not saying we should! But we have to be smart about this. And what you're suggesting, it's going to get us killed."

"So what do you propose then?! We turn around. Dock somewhere else? Go by land? Even with Shanzi, it'll take weeks, and odds are, depending on where we dock, we'll either be caught by the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation armies. By the time we get to where we gotta go, they'll all be dead. The only way, is through this blockade!"

He sighed. He was close to giving up, which should have overjoyed me, but I myself, after hearing what he had to say, as we drew ever closer to the moving sheet of steel and artillery, was beginning to have my doubts. I was praying he'd say something more, give me something to work with, but when he didn't speak, I realized I'd have to be the one to ask. "Gordez, I-"

"We can try to sneak on through. I know these ships are out of date, that they've been decommissioned, but they won't fire on a vessel of their own make, at least not until they board it to find out our intentions."

"Even then it's a 50/50. Hell, probably worse. Anything more than a routine check, they'll quickly find out we aren't with them, then we'll be stuck fighting against the Fire Nation navy on our own ship. I imagine we could fight them off if we take the fighting to our superstructure, but-"

"But then we have the entire blockade to worry about. Even if we do manage to fight off a ship's worth of soldiers, which, let me just say, is a big 'if', we'd be blown out of the water by the dozens of other ships."

"So we can't let it come to fighting," I said.

"No. We can't."

"So what do we do, Gordez? I need you for this."

He stopped, leaning against the steel door that led to the command balcony, looking out of the windows to consider his options. He opened the door to the balcony, leaning against the rail, gazing out ahead as the shifting line of steel gray vessels. I followed, not precisely sure what he was looking at, until he spoke, "They have two shifting lines. They account for the space between the ships in a single line by having the second file fill the gaps. Gaps we need to get through. However, it's operating procedure that when an unknown vessel approaches, the nearest ship will break formation to intercept the incoming vessel to board it."

"Opening a gap in their blockade."

"In that incident, the blockade, seeing a hostile vessel trying to break through, will adjust their speed to try and fill the gap however possible, but these new battleships, they're slow, far slower than we are. We'd have to lure out one of their vessels to board us, and right before we allow them to get on, we haul ass and get through the gap they created. With any luck, the blockade will be more hesitant to fire on a Fire Nation vessel, giving us the time we need to squeeze on through. It's risky, but-"

"It's all we got."

I gazed out one last time at the obstacle that awaited us, and a mighty one it was, but despite the dread waving through me, I held on to that small spark of hope, and prayed it would come through for us as it had so many times before.