Boss

Kiu was worried. Not worried at the notion of a simple squad of Firebenders nearby, he'd dealt with more in worse conditions. What worried him, was that for once, he had no way of knowing what the Fire Nation was up to. We'd received the report of the Fire Nation entering the swamp just yesterday. He told me that we would discuss this tomorrow. Tomorrow was today now, and I sat in Kiu's command room, both of us looking at a map of the Eastern Nip, trying to make sense of something, anything, trying to yearn some form of tactical value from the Fire Nation deploying into the swamp.

"It's possible this has nothing to do with us," I suggested, after 30 minutes of staring at a bird's eye view of the region had taught us nothing new.

"Everything with the Fire Nation has to do with us, one way or another."

"There's an entire war going on, Kiu. We may be fighting it, but we're not key players. This could be some new strategy they have to attack the Earth Benders to the south, or hell, maybe even the water tribe."

"And either way, it's our concern to deal with. A blow to our allies is a blow to us."

"Because they care so much about us, is that it?"

I could see the words cut deep into him. It hadn't been my intention, but I knew all too well how resistance groups were treated by larger factions. They were cannon fodder. Their lives didn't matter, and in this moment, those lives were ours. I'd seen the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom alike use mercenaries, hired thugs, throwing them at problems that weren't deemed important enough to cost the lives of hundreds to thousands of their own men. So instead, they relied on people like us, whose lives didn't matter to them, with the promise of a big payday, and more than that, recognition, not like it ever came. A victory for us was a victory for them, and a defeat for us was a rogue element's destruction, not any form of less for them. "It doesn't matter what they think of us. If they're trying something, the Earth Kingdom has to know."

"You keep in close touch with them?"

"We would send birds until they got shot down. Then we'd send messengers until they got hunted down. Been hard to keep in close touch with them as of late, and I'm hesitant to risk any of my men to deliver a message."

I considered my options then. It would be easy to say nothing. To have Kiu just accept the state of affairs, that we were cut off, alone in the world, but when I weighed the choice, of just how little a message like this would change things, and what it would do to help us gain Kiu's trust, I made my decision. "Want us to deliver the message for you?"

"No, no. It's hardly worth the risk."

Damnit.

"Truth is, I don't want to risk anybody going across the Nip ever since our smugglers started getting targeted by the Fire Navy, and with new troop movements by the swamp, I don't want us going by land either?"

"You keeping eyes on the swamp? Seeing if anybody else goes in or out?"

"Yes."

He gave me no more than that. I understood. We weren't at that level. Not yet.

"With no Earth Kingdom supplies coming in though, we're going to be needing some other ways to supply ourselves, naturally."

"Naturally," I repeated, realizing he was likely transitioning into a new part of the conversation, likely one where I or my men would come in.

"We have some contacts in town, naturally, and occasionally, they'll leave dead drops of supplies they bought for us, but we're a bit tight on cash as you'd imagine. You know where on this map we're located?" he asked, referring to the Nip Sea placed on the wooden table in between us. I was confident I could guesstimate somewhat accurately and pointed somewhere between the marked maps of Shibi and Xinxing. "Close enough, but we're a bit more to the East than that. As you can see, we've got Xinxing to our East and Shibi to the Northwest. Caravans know about us, and they tend to steer away from our woods, preferring to take the route that actually takes them a ways into the desert. It's longer, but safer."

"Are sandbenders not a threat for them?"

"This close to Fire Nation territory? Not really. They wouldn't risk it. Besides, they have an armed escort, which is actually where you come in."

"In what sense?"

"The escort and the caravan don't originate from the same location. When one location dispatches the caravan, the other dispatches the escort, something about, if something goes wrong, it's not just one town that has something to lose."

"So we come in…"

"I want 2 men of your choice, along with 2 of mine, to intercept the escort. You'll seize their uniforms, hope they fit well enough, meet the caravan, escort them part of the way, then seize their goods."

That's it? That's the plan?

"You don't think I've thought this out, do you?"

"If you don't mind me saying, there's a lot being left up in the air."

"Try me."

"For one, is a 4-man escort what the caravan's going to be expecting?"

"Escort size varies from job to job."

"So we have no idea what we're getting into? And what makes you think they do? Do they not send hawks ahead of schedule to say how big the escort is going to be?"

"Oh, they do."

I scoffed. "And that's not an issue?!"

"No. We shot it down."

That caught me by surprise. Fair enough, but I still-

"1 tank, 6 infantry," he continued. "The caravan sent a hawk too. Dyes, silks, lots of it, enough to buy us a few weeks' worth of provisions."

"1 tank and 6 infantry is a bit more than 4 of us. And even if you shot down the message, won't that just raise suspicion when they don't get it?"

"Oh they got it. Just a different message. 1 tank and 2 infantry."

"So, you intercepted their communication, forged a new one to shroud our identities, and are sending a reasonable size of men to take over?"

"I like to think things through."

I grinned, "Sorry I ever doubted you."

"With age comes experience. I'm no newcomer to this."

My smile remained. "So I can tell. We have a location on where to intercept the escort?"

"Number of locations. We've mapped out the route they're likely to take and marked a few good potential ambush spots, but I'll leave it to the discretion of those we send to get the job done."

"Who are you picking on your end?"

"Haven't made the decision on your end, likely not Kai given what happened last time, and he could use the rest either way, I recommend you do the same on your end and pick somebody different, but that's up to you."

"What's going to be done with Kai, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, luckily for us, the Fire Nation wasn't led back to us."

"They could have been, though."

"Yes, so I intend on making sure that Kai becomes aware of the consequences of what he did. He has to be more careful."

"Removing needless casualties from the equation would also be pretty helpful, I would imagine," I added, unnerved by how Kiu seemed to be insinuating it was Kai's negligence that was the core issue, not going out of his way to take a life.

"This is war, and when you're fighting it from the shadows, the more enemies we remove from the equation, the better, I'd say."

I couldn't disagree with the logic, and the odds were good that, in their position, put against Earth Kingdom spears, I'd do the same, but there was a difference between maximizing casualties during a set encounter and going out of your way to take a life as Kai seemed to have done according to what Ka'lira and Zek had told me. Kiu obviously noted my lack of an answer, and so followed by asking, "Is there anything more you have to say?"

"No," I answered. "That'll be all."

"Good. Here's a map of the convoy's and the troop's movements and their appropriate timestamps. I have a separate one for my picks. Get this to those you have in mind and brief them accordingly. The troops are set to leave Xinxing in around 2 hours, so keep that in mind."

I nodded leaving, already planning on making sure Luke would be a part of this one. It'd been a while since he'd seen some action, likely due in part to the impression he'd left on the Separatists. From what I'd been told, he was particularly 'difficult' while being interrogated, antagonizing his captors, humiliating them, even managing to turn questions back around on them. It was hard to stifle the smile I'd had when I'd the reports. Damn kid was cut out for this more than half of this camp, that was for sure.

It was easy enough to assume that Luke would be by this camp's excuse for a library. I still had some trouble working my way there, but found it easily enough, certainly with more ease than I had done so last time. Sure enough, he was there, actually deigning to be sitting on the edge of the platform, legs hanging over the abyss, clearly not sharing the same terror of heights that I exhibited. I wanted to get this over with and try and get back down to ground level as quickly as possible. Gordez and I were planning on checking the Patriot out today, see how her repairs were coming along. It'd been a while since we checked on Zadok and Kosah. We wanted to make sure they were all fine and well. The Separatists were aware of their staying on the Patriot, and while they disapproved, they had no use of the two mechanics, and so merely acknowledged their presence, allowing us to deliver a week's supply of rations at a time to them. We'd make the appropriate delivery to them today, concealing just how loaded the patriot's stores actually were.

We'd "shared" our supplies with them, giving them access to our weapons, food, and medical supplies, as well as other armaments. I saw how they slobbered over the artillery piece, but when they suggested that they "appropriate" it from us so as to put it to better use defending the camp, Gordez had stepped in, noting how we were partners rather than a subject state, that what was 'ours' was 'ours' and we were only sharing what other supplies we had out of good will. We were damn near an altercation until Kiu had settled the dispute, saying they had no space to store a 2-ton artillery gun, and that there was no way on Earth we'd lug it up to the platforms above. So eventually, we'd kept the gun, and assuming Zadok and Kosah were doing their jobs well, keeping it in damn good shape at that.

Luke noticed me standing behind his, lost and thought, and joked, "If you plan on pushing me, I ask you at least cut to the chase." I smiled. I never was as good at humor as he was. I'd say I lost it in the war, but truth was, I never really had it. I could appreciate a good joke, but I'd be damned if I could ever make one. So instead of coming up with some witty retort as Zek would have done, I sat beside him for a moment, albeit somewhat further back so as to not allow myself to come within 5 feet of the edge of the platform, and asked, "What are you reading this time 'round?"

"It's a collection of accounts on the spirit world blending with the physical world. Paranormal instances and the like. Seems like we could add a few more thanks to recent events."

"You also believe that was the spirits?" I asked, somewhat scoffing, only realizing afterwards I may have come off as rather hostile in doing so, but lucky for me, Luke wasn't the type to linger on such minute details.

"He so answered, "Let's just say, with the things I've seen, I'd be insane to deny that they exist."

"I don't deny they exist," I defended myself saying, "Just that they have better things to do than to screw around with us for fun."

"You'd be surprised of that too. Turns out, spirit world is boring as hell. Not much room for conflict. Same way civvies go to the plays to get some action, spirits seem to be keen on doing the same for us, but I imagine simply watching gets boring for them."

"You talking theory or experience?" I was digging for answers, and he could see that well enough. He smiled, and shrugged it off with saying, "Hasn't been long enough since I was an edgy cunt for me to go out and paint myself as a psychopath again, but I'll leave it at saying that I've seen enough of them to become tired of them, and now that I think about it," he said, looking at the book and tossing it to the side, "I don't need any reminders of it. You got something for me?"

"You'll be happy to hear that the answer is 'yes', then. I also want Jadoh to tag along with you for this one. Is it too much for me to ask that you brief him rather than me? I'd like to get the hell off of this as soon as humanly possible."

"Well there is a quick way down if you hate this platform so much."

"Would it shock you to say it's not the platform I despise with every fiber of my being, but what's under it, or rather, lack thereof?"

He chuckled, "I guess not. So then let's get you off of here in the quickest way possible. What's the plan?"

I started, having already memorized the details myself, and proceeded to relay them to Luke, saying, "There's a Fire Nation convoy moving between the two nearby towns: Shibi and Xinxing. Convoy is carrying luxury items such as silks and dyes. Should be enough on the market to buy us enough food and other supplies to last us a few weeks."

"We intercepting the convoy?"

"Let me finish," I whined jokingly.

"Okay okay," he said with the same joking defensiveness.

"Way it goes with these two towns, by some older treaty or something, they ensure that the convoy and the escort don't originate from the same town to ensure there's no foul play or, in case of a loss, it's not exclusively one town that takes the blow to its manpower. The escort is originating from Xinxing and will be departing in around 1 hour and 45 minutes. The convoy is waiting in Shibi for the escort to arrive."

"We know approximate numbers of the escort and caravan?"

"We don't have any details on the caravan, but we know the escort is comprised of 1 tank and 6 infantry."

"Shouldn't be too bad, but I imagine they notify each other of how many to expect?"

"The Seppies already ran intel interference. The caravan will only be expecting 1 tank and 2 infantry."

He put the pieces of the puzzle together easily enough. "So, we're intercepting the escort before they reach the caravan, posing as their escort until they're far enough away from either town, then robbing them?" Smart kid.

"Bingo."

"So I imagine there'll be 4 or 5 of us in total?"

"4 in total. 2 of ours, 2 of Kiu's."

"We know the route the escort and caravan are taking?"

I risked vertigo to scoot closer to Luke to show him the map, a red line marking the escort, and a yellow one marking the caravan. The escort will be going through the woods as they don't view themselves as a high priority enough target to justify us to attack them. The caravan, on the other hand, will be travelling through the southernmost edge of the desert, favoring the clear line of sight it gives despite the delay."

"Safer that way, sure. And these markings? Timestamps for when we think the escort will be getting to certain markers?"

"Exactly. I imagine the Seppies have been watching these routes for a while."

"Odds are good," Luke said, "That once we do this, they'll shift things up."

"Possibly, but with any luck, they'll give the blame to the sandbenders rather than us, but if they don't, and they know it was us, make this count."

"Got it. I'll tell Jadoh. What are you going to be up to?"

"Going to check in on the Patriot, see how they're holding up."

"Mind doing me a favor then if you're already headed that way?"

"What do you need?"

"Mind taking that book about Chin I was reading and take it back there. I already finished it and wouldn't mind keeping it. Doesn't feel like anyone else here is really using it."

"Sure, which one is it?"

"Just check one of the 5 books that they have here, and you'll find it."

I chuckled. "On it, then. Go find, Jadoh and give him the details. I want the two of you briefed, equipped, and ready to go in 15 minutes."

"Got it, Boss. Say 'hi' Zadok and Kosah for me."

"You know, I think you're the first one to actually remember their names."

"What can I say? I'm just that considerate."

"I scoffed. "Just get yourselves ready."

Luke nodded, and he headed off. I found the book easily enough and went to find Gordez. Would be nice to get some time with him again.