Chapter 50: Luke
It always was an experience in itself to turn Shanzi on, letting her motor come to life all around you as the small lights in the tank flickered on with the engine's hum to life.
In front of me, yet even more mechanical might was sounding as the forward ramp of The Patriot lowered until stabbing into the mucky earth below us. I heard Ka'lira climb into the tank behind me as she maneuvered her way past the gunner's seat into the passenger area next to me, finally settling into place and taking out the empty sheet of paper we were supposed to map the terrain on as we went ahead.
"You ever been in one of these before?" I asked Ka'lira.
"Once or twice. Zek would drive me once and a while."
I grinned. Of course he does. "Well I don't drive like Zek. So you may want to buckle in."
She accommodated my wish willingly enough, setting down the paper and quill on the dashboard as she reached around her to strap in both one brace around her shoulder, and the other around her waist.
When I heard the sound of the buckle, I let Shanzi's might come to life as we moved ahead, rolling naturally down the ramp without the aid of any engine, and came to a crashing halt on the earth terrain, but we weren't some primitive ostrich horse-drawn carriage. This was a Fire Nation tank, and the treads rolled against the mud, digging their talons into the deep earth, gaining traction where there was none, pulling us ahead off of the beachhead, into the shroud of the forest ahead of us.
I could see next to me that Ka'lira was still trying to become acclimatized with the sudden change in atmosphere she found herself in, the motion all around her, almost sickening. I knew the feeling, remembered my first drive back in Citadel. I was too young for the infantry then. Those tanks were my only way into the war and out of that forsaken city. Didn't mean I didn't find myself fighting outside of the tank more often than not, but I wouldn't have changed a thing. It got me away from Citadel, and that's what mattered.
We rolled ahead in the mud. I only realized a few minutes of grinding riding that I still had the handbrake on and that I was in the complete wrong gear. Yeah. It's been a while.
As we drove ahead now, I could see that her shock wasn't coming from her unfamiliarity with the vehicle, but, as she confirmed with a later question, possibly my driving. "So, how long have you been driving these?"
I grinned to myself. Enough. But I wanted to mess around with her. "Oh I was trained in how to use these. Don't worry."
"In how to drive, right?"
"Oh not at all. I was the gunner. You know, one who shot people while others did the driving."
She went green. "Oh."
I chuckled to myself as Ka'lira struggled to find a stable surface on which to draw her maps, but the silence of the tank, silence being a funny word considering the ear-shattering sound of the engine, was starting to get to me. So I yelled over it to ask, "So you and Zek. What's going on there?"
It was worth the struggle it cost my lungs just to see her go red on the other side of the tank as she tried to remain nonchalant when asking, "What do you mean?"
"I mean. I don't want to have to worry about where I'm sitting in this tank."
I didn't think that it was possible for her to get redder, but in that moment, she did, and the lines between red from embarrassment and red from anger became very blurred.
"What?! No! Me and Zek! No! And definitely not in the tank! Not that we, I-."
It was becoming all the more difficult to keep myself from bursting into laughter, but, inevitably, I failed, and I broke down into laughter that showed itself through my driving as I failed to keep a straight path, only getting her all the more angry with me.
"You know," she said. "I really didn't realize that your naturally, non-depressed self, was a complete asshole."
I allowed myself to laugh yet again. It felt good. Being able to do that. I'd forgotten the last time I'd laughed. Had it been something Danev said? Maybe even something Reek said? "Yeahhhhhhhh. Sorry about. I finally remembered how much fun it is to fuck around with people. And how did you know that I didn't always used to be a depressed piece of shit?"
"Zek would tell me about it."
"Awwww. He would tell you stories about me. That's sweet."
"There wasn't much else to do when we were cleaning your bed of your piss and sh-"
"Okayyyyy. That's enough to that. Did not need to hear that."
It was me who was going red, and her who was laughing now. "That was mean," I said.
"That was payback."
"Fair enough. Sorry, if it's not too late."
"You're forgiven."
"Can we at least have the mutual understanding that what happened in my room stays in that room?"
"It's not me you have to worry about. Zek's the loudmouth."
"Well fuck me, then. The one person on this ship I can't keep quiet."
Ka'lira chuckled. "I'll talk to him. Make sure that incident doesn't become ingrained in our codex."
"I'd appreciate that."
"So if you don't mind me asking, what was going on in that head of yours for the last 6 days?"
"That…is a great question."
"What, you don't remember?"
"Oh, I remember, but to try to describe what I saw and what I heard in there, well, I'm not ready for you to look at me like I'm a complete fucking lunatic just yet, you get me?"
"That's fair."
It was a wonder how Ka'lira was balancing the difficult tasks of making conversation, handling the terrain and the rickety nature of the tank, and still managing to be inscribing an accurate map, at least, I assumed it was accurate, because we'd already been coming quite a long ways in the tank. If we continued off in this direction, we should still be going north. I wonder where the nearest town is.
As more time passed, it was her to bring up conversation, mostly starting with how I got into the war. I kept out some of the more intimate details, talking about how I was rescued by the army from the slums in Citadel and put in the army.
"You didn't get a choice then, to join the army?"
"You mean if they asked me if I wanted to join or not, not particularly."
"And you don't feel any kind of anger for that? Despite everything that happened in the war?"
"If I wanted to look at everything that's happened in my life with the gift of hindsight, the first people I'd blame would be my parents, whoever they are, for bringing me into this world in the first place, but at the time, the army seemed like the better life, and as far as I'm concerned, it still was. Whatever it took to get out of that city, I would have done."
She nodded, moving the topic along to "So how did you meet these guys? Boss, Gordez, Zek?"
Real clever. Putting Zek at the end there. Very aloof.
I decided not to play by her rules and save some time by going straight to the point and saying, "It was Zek at first who really made me feel welcome. I wasn't exactly the most receptive at the time though. I'd just lost my first squad and the few friends I had there and wasn't exactly the most willing to make any new friends any time soon." Then I decided I wasn't done screwing with her. "Besides. Their more nocturnal activities. I wasn't too fond of. Granted, I hadn't been at war nearly as long as them and hadn't been driven to such desperation just yet."
"Wait. What do you mean?"
"I'll ask that you don't judge them too harshly. You're in the trenches more months on end, years in some of their cases. You have needs, you know? And sometimes, those needs are put into practice, no matter how abnormal they may seem. Not that I'm judging. I'm just saying-"
"Wait wait wait wait. You mean they-? With each other? Do they still? Not that it matters to me, but-"
I was trying to just stare ahead at the road, focusing on the most minute details to try to keep myself from bursting out in laughter again, but it was simply not going to happen, and my guise went down, proceeded by me just bursting into another pulse of laughter.
"Wow. You are such a dick. You're aware of that, right?"
"Oh, I know. Man, I've missed this."
I saw her roll her eyes from the corner of mine, getting distracted by the amusing sight to the point that I almost missed the hazard of the tree falling down directly in front of us. I brought us to as sudden a stop as I could, sending us both colliding with our seat restraints which, thankfully, were on.
"Well." She said. "That was sudden."
"Bit too sudden, yeah?"
I tried putting us in reverse, but we were locked in place, I couldn't move.
"Why aren't we moving?"
"No idea." I looked outside through the small hatch. It looked clear enough. "Stay here."
I unbuckled myself from where I was seating, clambering over the driver seat to the gunner's hatch, opening it with my left hand while unsheathing my sword with my right, and I stepped out, looking down at the treads that were caught in a metallic chain that had gotten caught in the machinery. What the hell?
"What's the problem?" Ka'lira asked from behind me. I told you to stay inside. But it was too late. I heard the bushes rumbling to my right, my left, above me. I drew my sword, but it would do no good against the 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 14, and counting figures as they emerged from the bushes and the tree branches, drawn bows trained on my position. A split-second awareness told me not to form a flame in my left hand. I didn't know who these people were, but something told me they weren't friend with the Fire Nation, and that gave me hope. A hope that eroded when Ka'lira yelped for help as she was dragged off of the tank, and I felt a blow to the back of the head tat sent me to the ground, with darkness in my eyes.
Weekly Power Status
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