Chapter 15

	The casket was heavy on my shoulder. Two by by, we walked in lockstep down thru the grounds of the Capitol building to the edge of the cliffs. Here we were, at the very start of the Dragon Tail fjord itself, the lawn at the back of the Capitol building. The six of us lowered the casket to the derrick where it was secured by block and tackle. We followed it’s descent as we made our way down the steepest flight of stairs cut into the cliff.

	Reaching the bottom of the steepest section, we retrieved the casket and began to carry it the rest of the way down, one step at a time. Hei Bai leading on the left. Du Lin leading from the right taking the place in our squad that belonged to Peng. Reaching the bottom we took our first step into the cool waters. Salt began to sting my nostrils. The sky was clear and the walls of the cliffs offered no protection from the high noon sun. Wading into the ocean would have been joyful if it weren’t for the occasion.

	We lowered the casket to the sea as the water began to reach up to our wastes. One by one each of us took one of our unit pins -- a great bird -- and placed them on the top of the coffin before pounding them in with our fists. Everyone except Du Lin, who watched us in both reverence and curiosity. A challenge coin from each of us had to suffice for Hell Money. The face of the casket was inscribed with the name ‘Kun’ in gold calligraphy.

	After bowing our heads in silence, it was Hei Bai’s responsibility as our only water bender to send Peng on his way. He gave a push, and the casket began to drift out on it’s journey down the fjord to the ocean. I looked up at the edge of the cliffs and saw a row of figures on either side staring down at us. Other water benders that had come as custom to pay respects. They began to rhythmically pull the casket down to fjord out to sea. Du Lin had told me that wherever the a ship in the fjord was or freight workers manning the derricks on the sides of the cliffs stood, once they saw the casket they would stop and do their part to move him out to sea, till he sank to bottom only Yue knows where several thousand Li from here.

	“Before the great thaw,” Du Lin told me, “it was cold enough on the ice that we would leave our dead out in the open for one entire year. All their loved ones could come and see and pay respects before the funeral pyre. Out here, we no longer have such luxuries. We’ve had to make do in new ways. I hope that this was still an honorable enough service for your friend.”

On our return to the frontlines I drove with Hei Bai. Once again, there was a long time to ruminate, to think about what we were getting ourselves into. I asked Hei Bai, “So what are we supposed to do, now that the Oni of Si Wong is dead?”

“Do you mean Peng?” said Hei Bai, “Peng is not the Oni, Hiro. You know it’s a made up fairy tail, right?”

“Of course I do! But you know what I mean.”

	“Peng was the Oni because people thought he was the Oni. But the Oni of Si Wong was never really Peng, not originally. It’s a myth. A legend. Peng was man. As long as people are given reason to believe in the Oni, their will be an Oni. People need legends, Hiro. Something to believe in. It doesn’t matter if it’s true, if enough people believe it, it might as well be.”

	The drive  was both long and exposed. Interdiction by aircraft taking the long route around the Wolf’s Teeth had started to make the other Jian soldiers paranoid. At first I was happy to enter the bunker, Fort 39. Second row of teeth. This massive pillbox was one nearly forts in total They were spaced out like a checkerboard in three lines running north-south along the 300 km of the Jian peninsula . Each were crewed (ideally, personnel permitting) by about 80 men. With many bunkers instead of a single line of defense, it became affordable to armor these bunkers to survive any known weapon on the battlefield. This meant a single division could hold back entire armies. But sitting under three meters of concrete, I can’t shake the feeling that I am inside a tomb.

	The men here are restless. The fresh garrison is now finding itself mixed with salty combat veterans of the insurgency. It reminds me of my time aboard commercial shipping, with narrow hallways and wrought iron bulkheads. Despite our proximity, we found ways to seek out our own quiet misery. For example, with triple bunk beds the berthing we were in slept eighteen men at any given time, never farther than seven meters apart. Each bed gave you about a little over sixty centimeters of vertical space, such that if you closed the curtain on the side of your bunk you immediately felt quite alone. I began to think in that space over then next several days, is this what it is like to lay in a coffin?

	Peng was never very cordial to me. But I was important to him, so I guess that means something. After all, he was one of us. But you can’t think about those sorts of things. It wasn’t worth it. I almost craved returning to combat, not just to get away from the the awful vinegar stench of so many men, but so I didn’t have to think about any of this.

	By the third day I had found what might have been the only other firebender in Fort 39. A young pilot by the name of Lieutenant Amarao. His parents had Jian citizenship and so while he joined the Jian military before the declaration of independence, he had never been a member of the Fire Nation. The two of us would spend our spare time in the mess hall. It wasn’t dining hours, so there was some degree of intimacy, but it was still filled with other soldiers playing cards or whatever to pass the time. The smell of tobacco stained the air. Among the other soldiers was Hei Bai who was using the space to clean his rifle, and was taking far longer than anyone had a right to.

“So… you’re a firebender but they never put you on the front?”

	“Well,” Amarao smilled, “I scored higher on the entrance exam than most, enough to make it to the officer corps anyway. I’ve always wanted to be a pilot, ever since I was a child. Maybe I even wished I was an airbender. But I was still terrified they’d put me in some bending regiment even though my technique is terrible.”

“As soon as they found out I was a lightning bender,” I said, “They put me right into special operations.”

“Yeah, and I’m a lightning bender too”

“Get out”

“But I have no technique. I’ve never once done firebending in anger. Never even got lessons as a kid. My parents said they didn’t want to encourage violence. But I was very good at flying.”

“So how’d you end up in the air force anyway?”

“My three kilometer time was over twenty minutes.”

“Oh, man,” I said “you didn’t stand a chance.”

Amarao burst out laughing, “Are you kidding, I was a varsity marathon runner in grade school.”

“The recruiter must have been pissed.”

“Yeah, but the test is the test. Nothing much he can do about it. How about you, joining the spec ops and what not.”

	“To be honest,” I said, “I’m not really sure why. At the time it felt like it suited me. And after the Si Wong campaign, well, what else are you supposed to do? Where else can you go? I don’t have any other education, and to start over again I guess… I guess it would feel like quitting. I don’t enjoy the violence. But I guess I don’t think about it much either. How’d you end up stuck in garrison like this.”

“I’m waiting for a time in which they can another plane and the manpower to get me evac’d back to the capitol. I was at the western Tian tower when it was stuck by the Sovereignty”

	“Oh Yue!” I exclaimed. A lot of the airmen there died. But Amarao must have been a good pilot indeed to be stationed there. Docking there was likely one of the only skills that was more dangerous than landing on aircraft carriers. Pilots would approach the steel tower head on at a fixed altitude and speed. Then, they would pull up. Straight up. Guided by constant communication from the tower’s air traffic control. The goal was to stall at exactly the position of of the arrester hooks. The crew would have only the moment that the plane appeared to hang in still in mid air to capture it. If this didn’t work, the pilot would have to abort

	To launch, pilots climbed into their cockpits with assistance. Their planes hung on conveyor from the tail like clothes at a dry cleaner’s. Take off meant dropping them nose first over the edge and pulling out of a dive. This gave the aircraft both speed and a nearly two kilometer altitude start, with only the docked airships starting higher. Amarao told me that when the tower was attacked, he was stuck in his plane in the take off position dangling over the edge. It was only the blast of a rocket that freed his plane just before the tower collapsed.

	Amarao did his best to try to shoot down the Air Nomad fighters with his interceptor, but it was no use against such numbers. He was quickly shot down himself and bailed into unsecured territory. “I ditched everything but the bare essentials and ran back for the the closest fort as fast as i could. And I mean that -- ran. I can’t outrun satomobiles, but on foot an unencumbered person will always outrun an encumbered one over distance. So I took the longer beaten paths where their patrol vehicles couldn’t follow. Being a marathon runner certainly helps, but the truth is as long as you pace yourself and have enough calories on board, a fit adult can run forever. You have to have the will to overcome the pain.” he laughed again, “I’m not gonna lie, the pep-pills help too!”

“Hey, Lieutenant.” Hei Bai called over to us. “When the fighting makes its way here, you’ll have to fight,too, ya know?”

“Of course, sir!”

“Come over here, Lieutenant.” Amarao obeyed. “You ever fire a rifle outside of basic?”

“No, sir.”

“If we get attacked, you better know to fight with the rest of us,” said Hei Bai, presenting him his rifle. “Demonstrate to me that you know how to field strip your service rifle.”

Amarao paused for a second and then began to push pins and fold the gun open, taking out it’s guts and levers.

“Good job, lieutenant. But show me you know how to remove the bolt from the bolt carrier.”

Hei Bai leaned in and watched intently as Amarao fiddled with the hunk of metal until he could get it to come apart into two pieces. “This one’s a little tricky,” said Amarao.

“Good. now show me you know how to put it all back together.” Amarao did so.

“God job, lieutenant,” said Hei Bai, “you might make a good soldier yet.” And then Hei Bai walked off, rifle in hand.

	I heard the sound of whistling across the room and saw Koko staring at me, wide eyed. She waved for me to follow her and reaching her she grabbed me by the hand and began dragging me off as fast as she could. I asked her what her deal was but she said, “we gotta tell Chang about this.”  We found Chang in his bunk and dragged into a hallway. Chang seemed disinterested about Hei Bai’s latest nuttery.

“So you really think Hei Bai doesn’t know how to field strip his own rifle?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Koko protested. “I really think something’s not right about him.”

“So what? He’s always been off. Why don’t you ask Buno or Thein Kyu about this?”

“Buno’s job is to enforce the will of Hei Bai, he’ll never tolerate us questioning Hei Bai. Besides, he’s a police reservist, not a professional soldier. Same goes for Thein Kyu, former terr and he’s in love with the guy.”

“And both of you are mercenaries. That makes me and Hei Bai the only real soldiers here”

“That’s my point. What if you are the only real soldier here.”

I said, “hold on. Maybe everyone is just on edge right now and getting antsy”

“Have an opinion, Hiro! Back me up!”

“Look guys,” said Chang. “I have more important things to worry about right now. I’m sorry.” And he returned to his quarters.

I also left Koko in the other direction, stepping over a pair of soldiers sleeping in the hallway. “Ah! Come on, Hiro!” she shouted. But Koko had a point. I wanted to know now. I’d go ask Hei Bai myself.

	I navigated my way through the maze of tunnels, twisting my way past the other people sleeping on the floor or leaned up against the walls on my way to Hei Bai’s room. As one of the higher ranking officers, I knew he had his own personal quarters. Finding the door with his name on it, I knocked, but there was no answer. I cracked the door open and took a single step inside.

	Hei Bai was right in front of me, but had not noticed. The record player, playing Cao Cao’s 5th, must have been too loud for him to hear me. He was… dancing? No. He was waterbending. His eyes closed. The water spun around him as he moved gracefully. Each and every sinew in his body moved perfectly. The water danced in ways I could only faintly remember seeing move before, when i was only a small child. It danced around and encircled him, making living shapes. Each step, each gesture, each movement was beautiful. I couldn’t explain why. On the stand in front of him was a manuscript written in what I first thought was a foreign language. No, it wasn’t. But it was written with characters and in ways that I could not recognize. I began to cry.

	Noticing me now, Hei Bai snapped his gaze to me. Before I could say anything, the water crashed to the floor and Hei Bai and pulled me fully into the room with him. His speed was like a bullet and in an instant he had spun me across his body and thrown me to the floor. One hand upon my throat and the next ready for a killing strike.

“It’s me! It’s me!” I shouted. He let his grip on me relax until I was able to come back onto my feet.

“You are not allowed to tell anyone about what you saw today. Understand? Answer me!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. now tell me what you’re doing here.”

I swallowed, “It’s nothing, sir. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

“I am here. Ask it.”

I had to lie now, “Just wanted to know about the state of the war. I heard that a whole armor battalion had penetrated the southern defenses.”

“Not a battalion, Hiro. Nearly a whole tank brigade.”

“They’ve broken through already?”

	“No, they haven’t broken through. They’ve been allowed to pass,” Hei Bai said. “Those tanks will need supplies to keep functioning. Those forts they thought they could bypass are now springing to life and shelling their supply lines or sending their garrisons out to attack their rear. The Earth Kingdom lost a brigade of tanks without them getting to fire a single shot.”

“What happens next?”

The battlestations klaxon sounded then, answering my question. “Are we under attack?” I asked.

	“No,” he said, “but our nearest sister is. Come hear this.” Hei Bai turned off the record player and turned on the speaker patched to the radio receiver outside. It was was the sound men’s voices singing the Party anthem ‘The hills of the world are clothed in Green.’ On every station, on every frequency, it played the same broadcast.

	“They’re out there. All of them, right now. Now they will have to attack every fort one at a time until a corridor is open large enough to get a division through without being shelled to pieces. That could take months, and the people of the Earth Kingdom are getting hungrier every day,” Hei Bai said as the the walls started to echo with vibration. “Don’t, worry. That’s outgoing, not incoming. They can’t hit any of these forts without taking fire from at least five others.”

Responding to battle stations, I followed Hei Bai as he gathered up Buno and the remainder of the squad. We went to the armory where we saddled up in full battle rattle.  And then… nothing.

	We stood at our post, awaiting an attack that didn’t come. The constant thud of outgoing shells could be both felt and heard. News trickled in from passing soldiers. Guesses at the number of troops or tanks knocked out. How many guns the fort still had in working order. Whether infantry had reached the inner-most defensive line. Somewhere, west of us, were four hundred thousand Earth Kingdom soldiers with the Avatar’s blessing. I shuddered.

As we were being relieved for the evening, Major Anaaya, the commander of the garrison, ran to us shouting “Hey! Hey! This man’s a lightning bender, right?”

“Me?” I said, looking to Hei Bai. He shrugged.

“Come with me right away, we need your help.” She pleaded in her unexpectedly soft voice.

“Well, go on then,” said Hei Bai

	I followed her through the maze of hallways and people to the top of the fort. These hallways had become even more cramped since I had walked through them this morning -- the garrison had already begun building barricades of concrete and sandbags in the very hallways themselves. Climbing up a ladder to the cupola atop the fort, I was greeted by a friendly face who pulled me up to my feet.

“It’s good to see you, Hiro,” smilled Amarao.

“You too, sir.”

“Ah, cut it with the ‘sir’ing, save it for the Major.”

	“Take a look through this periscope,” the Major said. I looked through a viewfinder and in the twilight I could see plumes of dust and dirt shooting into the sky. These forts were spaced such that if two men stood atop them, they’d be able to see each others faces over the horizon.

	The Major said, “Their tanks have halted for the moment. They’re pounding our sister fort with just about every artillery battery the Earth Kingdom has. But this,” She said, pointing at the machinery in the center of the cupola, “is a Fire Nation battleship railgun. We outrange anything the Earth Kingdom has, we just needed someone to operate it.” I looked to Amarao.

The two of us prepared ourselves as the gunnery crew buzzed around us and machinery sprang to life. I stood to the left of the gun-cathode, with Amarao to my right. We both settled into a wide horse stance, and focused on our breathing.

“Gun loaded!” someone shouted. “We have a firing solution,” shouted another.

The Major said to us, “The modulator will limit the amperage to the correct amount, so just give us as much juice as you can.”

I closed my eyes and focused on the energy within my body. It was warm and radiated from belly like the core of the sun. As my breathing slowed I could feel my heart rate slow and I could feel the blood moving through my muscles and my skin.

The Major dramatically swept her long silky hair behind her and shouted,“Fire!”

	Together, Amarao and I sprung from our horse stance, leaning into the machine as if we were punch with both arms. The electricity flowed through us, into the machine and around and around our bodies. My hairs all stood on end as I could feel the power redirecting from my hand, down to my shoulder and thu my core, back up to my other hand and into the machine. There was a tremendous sonic boom.

Our payload, a canister that would unfurl like a flower a kilometer from our target, showering the area with tungsten balls like BBs from a scattergun. A minute later, the voice came over the intercom, “They’ve stopped firing on us for now. Good guns, thirty nine!”

The gun crew began to cheer. They patted us on the shoulder and rubbed our hair as we climbed back down the ladder to the bowels of the fort. “You guys aren’t so bad for foreigners,” some said.

	But the excitement ended quickly. The battle raged on outside. And inside. We were on the front lines of it, doing the best could. Passing munitions to the gunnery teams, even loading the cannons when their crew got tired. It was an endless task, with no signs of progress. By day, the universal artillery guns would fire howitzer shells on targets beyond the horizon. By night, they were trained at the sky. Instead of a cloud of ack-ack, the guns would form a 'steel curtain.' The payload would open up at ten kilometers. Inside was a steel cable five hundred meters long with a parachute at one end. Falling slowly to the ground, any planes attempting to fly over us would have their wings ripped off or the cable wrapped up in their propeller.

	For nearly a week this went on. Shelling back and forth. I could never sleep well. I kept waking up in cold sweats. I’d break into them while awake, too. I could tell the difference between outgoing and incoming by the shaking of the walls and the flickering of the lights. Walls had begun to crack in some places under the stress of four hundred millimeter bombardment, but we held together. When the assault on our fort finally came, all my fear disappeared.

	Our squad geared up and awaited direct orders of battle together. The assault on fort 17 had begun in earnest. But now our fort and fort 40 were being attacked with tanks, assault guns, and waves of infantry. Meanwhile forts 16 and 18 were under heavy barrage of artillery. “Why would they do this?” I asked. “The Earth Kingdom forces attacking us and fort forty are going to bet shelled by us and three other forts, each.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Hei Bai said. “They’re expendable. This is just to stop us from shelling the spearhead at fort seventeen.”

	Soon enough we were rushed up to one of the casemates on the side of the fort with a machine gun nest. The gunners had been firing at in fixed trajectories not unlike artillery, meant to blanket the area. Now they came so close and in such numbers the gunners now could aim right at them. We all scrammed, feeding cases of ammo to the gunners and changing out barrels when they became red hot. Making things difficult were the tank defenses. Rows of posts like tomb stones to physically stop tanks. Problems is, they make cover good from bullets too. Not from artillery, though.

	Soon I could see them close enough to make out their forms, while only a kilometer away the assault guns with their 140mm cannons pummeled us. As I ran to fetch the next box of ammo, I was thrown over across the room. I looked up and could see the moon and stars where there were none before. “Is everyone OK?” I screamed. I couldn’t hear any responses, I had been deafened an hour ago. No one seemed to have any major injuries.

	I went to the edge of the now blasted cupola with my rifle to shoot at the encroachers, but was repelled by stinging white smoke. Must have been precise fire from one of those assault guns to cover their advance. Through the smoke was a series of screaming noises and infernal red glow as rockets at the base and top of the fort took flight. They carried no warhead but unspooled hundreds of meters of concertina razor wire behind them. How many soldiers did it trap? How manys soldiers did it land on and decapitate or entangle? I shuddered.

	I could still hear the constant blasts of our mortars and artillery through the smoke. As it began to clear, A single soldier had nearly made his way to the sloping base of the fort. He paused for a moment and looked up before turning to flee. In that moment, I saw hundreds of bullets from many angles fly towards him and cut him down. Explosives tossed his body around, throwing it into the coil of razor wire and more explosions landing around him shook it some more for good measure.

What good was courage? Was he a bender? Neither could make a difference. No one could survive this. This place on earth had been transformed into an area as incompatible with human life as the bottom of the ocean. By Yue, not even the Avatar could survive here.

	Under the cover of smoke was not just the waves of infantry, but the baby mecha tankettes. Little armored vehicles the size of satomobiles. They had spindly legs like a mecha tank, but had little tread bogies on the end instead of feet and would glide over the battlefield instead of walk. They’re spindly legs navigated between the tank traps as they rolled through the mud. From a distance they looked and moved like water striders.

	I moved through the bulkhead from our compartment of the casemate to the to the adjacent one. The mecha tankettes were shrapnel and bullet proof, but could never withstand a direct hit from even the lightest of artillery. The light field gun next door could make quick work of them. I saw immediately that the earlier explosion had mangled the telescopic sights, but the gun itself was intact. The occupants of this room were not so lucky.

	Without gun sights, I had to make due. I opened the the breach of the gun and aimed it at my prey through the bore. As I reached back to find a shell, I could finally see Buno behind me, yelling into my face trying to get my attention. “Leave it!” he was shouting. “Leave it we have to go!”

	He pulled me to my feet and I dusted myself off and ran after him. Our whole squad was running down through the interior of the fort. Hei Bai said, “They’ve finally done it. Earth bender sappers blew a hole clean through the front of fort seventeen. The adjacent forts are sending all available combat teams -- we’re going to hold off the enemy inside long enough for them to scuttle the fort.”

	Snaking through the bowels of the fort, the bottom most parts of the contained many large tunnels and passageways connecting each of these forts to one another. Some of these tunnels were large enough to drive three satomobiles side by side, which I know for sure as that is how we travelled through them. We passed an exodus of soldiers from the fort transporting the many wounded.

	At the end of the tunnel we climbed up a pile of sand to the ladder that passed up a conduit with hatches at each end like one on naval ship. All manner of men and women ran around us and passed us as Hei Bai looked for whoever knew what was going on and had them point out directions. Following them, we came to a long hallway with a sandbagged fighting position. There they had a tripodded, belt fed, automatic grenade machine gun, loaded with 40mm scattershot rounds. At the controls sat a young Native soldier. His hands were trembling. His face had gone pale.

“Hey!” said Hei Bai. “Are you hurt?”

	“N-no, sir” he responded. I looked to the end of the hallway, where it made a ninety degree bend. The whole wall was painted red, and at the bottom of that wall was a pile of goop and shreds of uniform, twisted guns and crumpled helmets. To the left of the soldier was a pile of brass, some of it still warm.

“The breach in the wall is right passed that corner, isn’t it.”

“Yes. I’m the only one they had to cover this hallway, but I think this is all of them for now,” the Native said.

“We’re here to relieve you.”

“There’s another passage around the corner that they can reach right next to the hole. That passage is guarded, but they’ll need to be relieved too.”

After taking a brief moment to weigh all his options, Hei Bai shouted, “nuts!”

	Not wanting to split up our small squad, we’d have to take up defenses at the breach. Stepping over the remains of the dead, we rounded the corner and ran for cover in the hallway. The opening felt massive. We were at once hit with a wave of hot air from outside. The sound of the bombshells so close to us became deafening and we could feel the gusts of wind with every explosion.

	We were all huddle up against various crates and boxes of supplies, with Chang at the front with a heavy machine gun and Thein Kyu huddling beside him to feed him his ammo. Hei Bai checked his watch for the dozenth time. The lights in the hallway had been turned off and if it weren’t for the stars outside it would have looked like a black void opening up towards us

“Once the charges are set on our cannons, their Major should be the last of the garrison to clear, and then we’ll follow him. Just another five and a half more minutes.”

If they were putting charges on all of our fixed guns and evacuating from them, that meant those guns weren’t protecting us from the enemy.

“Here they come!” Buno shouted as the first figures materialized from the haze to stept over the jagged concrete and twisted rebar.

	We all began firing wildly and those of us who had them only stopped to throw grenades or to reload. As Thein Kyu did his best to feed the gun, Chang had given up the pretense of aiming and sprayed the weapon as one would water a flower bed with a garden hose. An unlucky soldier by the edge of the hole had tried throw grenades of his own and had been clipped in his elbow, dropping the bomb outside by his feet. And then the world seemed to become calm again.

“How much longer?” asked Koko.

At that moment Chang stood up to look back to Hei Bai for his answer.

Ka-pwing!

Chang collapsed backward to the floor. I think I screamed.

A moment later Chang began rolling around clutching his head and dented helmet. Then I saw the silhouette of the man with the flamethrower at the end of the hallway. My heart skipped a beat. I think I screamed again.

	In the blink of an eye Koko punched forward with her airbending, the blast of wind soaking the man in his own burning kerosene. A moment later, I had summoned a bolt of lighting which arced its way to the tank on his back, rupturing it and coating the whole end of the breach in flame. Inside the fire, the man curled up like a spider.

As we all took a breath of terror and relief, Buno said, “I think it’s time.”

It was then that one of the mecha tankettes rolled up on it’s spindly legs and stretched up, straightening its joints. Its carapace rose up to fill the hallway. Its insectoid turret turned its gaze toward us and opened up with it’s proboscis-like machine gun.

“It’s definitely time!” Hei Bai shouted as he jumped and scurried down the hallway like a startled cat.

	All of us ran around the corner, slipping on the pile of blood and gore as the bullets licked at our heels. Running thru now empty halls, I reached the escape hatch first. I twist it open and jump in, falling nearly ten meters on the pile of sand. “Clear!” I shouted back up the shaft as I roll out of the way and wait for the others to repeat the process. After we all make it down, one of Native soldiers waiting on us bends the pile of sand up into the shaft and we close and lock the hatch at its bottom.

	Returning to our fort, the combat has stopped yet I’m greeted with carnage. The wounded of our forts 39 and 17 spill out into the hallways. It is beginning to smell like a slaughterhouse. Those from fort 17 that do not have physical wounds still look more ill than I have ever seen a man before. The next several hours I am shaking with anxiety. Waiting. Not sure if it’s over or just taking a little intermission.

Hei Bai approached me as I sat with the wounded, slumped up against the hallway. “I have another mission for you,” he said. “Another one only a lightning bender can do.”

I followed him through the hallway till we reached a flight of stairs winding downward. It was guarded by soldiers with heavy machine guns, barricaded and sandbagged, barrels pointing down the stairs.

	Hei Bai said, “It didn’t take them too long to remove all that sand and get the hatch unlocked. Sooner than I thought it would, at any rate. They haven’t made progress. Yet. There’s many service tunnels connecting the forts. We’ve flooded what we can, but due to limited water could only flood it waist high and froze it solid every time they’ve tried to move troops through. It’s been successful, up until now.”

“So what do you need me for?”

Their engineers are clever. This latest tunnel they’ve tried to get through? We flooded it, and then they poured in so much salt we can’t get it to freeze.”

“I understand. Tell them to turn off the lights in the tunnel.”

I walked down stairs into absolute darkness. I could hear voices whispering to each other and the movement of water. My footsteps echoed off the walls.

The soldier closest to me opened fire. His bullets ricocheted off the stairs and in the strobe of his muzzle flashes i could see of sea of EKA faces ready to spring from their hole.

“Did we get him?” a voice whispered

“Shut up!” whispered another.

Taking another step down, I dipped my toes into the water...