War Girls Read online

  Onyii and Agu arrive at the space beneath the strut where they are hidden from the aircraft and the aerial mechs above. Their Igwe bob in the water, the tops of their shells just peeking above the surface.

  Onyii’s door opens, and she climbs out to stand atop the giant robot. Even though most of it is underwater, she feels its massive expanse. Were it fully above water, she could take more than one hundred paces and not reach the end of its shell.

  Agu goes straight to the ladder. Onyii follows, taking some of the personal ammo from the cockpit of her Igwe. Her abd takes a moment to try flexing his fingers again and getting his arm to work like new, but he ends up just pushing the fingers of his broken hand into something that can grip a ladder rung. Then he begins his climb. Onyii follows after him, ready to catch him should he fall.

  When they reach the platform, wind buffets them. They crouch low. They are ready. They make their way, quickly and quietly, along the grating that rings the strut until they get to the vent. Onyii slings her rifle behind her back and, with a single jerk, tears the vent off. When it stops clattering, she freezes. Bootsteps. The enemy is near. The footfalls start up again. This time, faster.

  Holding her rifle close to her side, Onyii shimmies into the enclosure, while Agu, on one knee, aims his rifle in a sweep, ready for whatever’s coming around the corner.

  “Agu!” she hisses, once she’s in. “Oya, come!”

  He does one last sweep before edging himself in feet-first. Onyii is almost at the end of the vent, where it opens up onto a generator room, when she hears gunfire. Agu.

  She shimmies her way forward, but Agu shouts, “Onyii, get back!” Then the place fills with silver-flecked purple gas. A chaff grenade. More gunfire, then an explosion.

  The vent buckles, then collapses, and Onyii slides down, unable to catch anything in her grip, legs flailing, until she crashes through the vent’s gate at the other end and lands on her back. She has her rifle out in front of her, aimed at whatever’s waiting for her here, and finds herself staring at the other end of Kesandu’s rifle.

  Kesandu barks out a laugh like she can’t believe what just happened. A moment later, Agu comes hurtling through the vent. He lands in a roll and comes up with his rifle at the ready.

  “The chaff grenade,” Onyii says.

  Agu gets to his feet when he sees he’s among comrades. “I fired it back out at them. And sent a small projectile after it that pushed out the smoke and let the wind outside take it. When the vent collapsed”—he points above—“that is closing off the airflow.”

  Chinelo and Ginika and Obioma look at Agu with surprise, then at Onyii with playful admiration.

  “Well, it seems they have bonded just fine,” Obioma says with a smirk.

  Onyii steps forward, and that’s when she sees, around a corner, the huddle of hostages sitting on the floor. Ngozi and Nnamdi stand watch over them. “Show me the dead one,” Onyii says.

  Chinelo leads her down a passageway and around another corner, and there, slumped against a wall, is a young woman in a torn jumpsuit. Beneath her jumpsuit, she wears skintight body armor. Onyii kneels down, puts her fingers to the Nigerian’s neck to feel for a pulse before tearing away at the partially ripped suit. She raps her knuckles twice against the young woman’s chest and feels the toughness of her armor. Not strong enough to stop one of their bullets.

  Onyii freezes. Those eyes. Her hair is different, which is why she almost didn’t recognize her. But when she sees the dead woman’s face, she knows it instantly. The memory rolls over her like a tsunami. Onyii, caked in mud, lying in the forest grass, her legs a tangled and ruined mess in front of her. Smoke hisses from the disabled ibu mech behind her. She’s on her back as she watches a Nigerian clad in all black drag Ify away. And then this one stands over her, rifle aimed. She waits for the others to leave, then fires into the air. She spares Onyii’s life.

  Onyii looks at her now, the pool of blood still wet beneath her. Her name was Daurama. Then Onyii wipes any and all emotion from her face.

  “Let’s go,” Onyii says, leaving Chinelo to guess at what’s going through her war-sister’s mind.

  The two of them rejoin the others.

  “Has a decision been made?” Onyii asks, then jerks her head in the direction of the internationals.

  Chinelo takes her aside. “This place was supposed to be guarded only by enemy soldiers, if at all. We thought we’d just be dealing with mechs and synths. But they can be our way out.”

  “And you don’t think the Nigerians will kill them anyway and blame it on us?”

  Chinelo’s brow furrows.

  The oyinbo begins to shiver.

  “Look,” crows Obioma. “He is shaking like a leaf.”

  The other hostages have their heads bowed in defeat. They will find no kindness in Onyii. Ginika joins Onyii and says in a quiet voice, “If we let them go, they report back to their handlers and we are exposed.”

  Chinelo’s frown deepens. “And if we kill them, we cause an international incident, and all the goodwill the prime minister has fought to get us with the Colonies evaporates.” She is their leader, and Onyii feels all their heads turn to her, waiting.

  To the others, it may seem as though Chinelo is the very picture of calm, but Onyii can see her struggling with the decision. She may be able to fool them into thinking she is their calculating, strategic leader, always ready with the answers to their questions or the solutions to their problems. But Onyii sees a girl who wanted nothing of this, who had no desire for bloodshed or gunfire, who picked up a rifle only reluctantly.

  This is what war does to us, Onyii tells herself.

  Chinelo straightens.

  “What is it?” Onyii asks her.

  “They’re getting closer.”

  And Onyii knows that Chinelo’s bees have detected the movement, that they are tracking the course of the enemy soldiers storming the facility. They’re running out of time.

  While Ngozi and Nnamdi stand watch over the hostages, the others get into a tight formation.

  “Were you able to transmit the intel?” Chinelo asks.

  “No.” Onyii shakes her head. “Down below, our signal was blocked.”

  Chinelo waves her finger at the ceiling. “And they’ve jammed our signals here too. We can’t reach the outside world.”

  “So the intelligence we have fought so hard to get dies with us, then?” This from Kesandu. She tries to sound courageous and sarcastic, but her voice wavers. Ngozi shoots her a look Onyii can’t read.

  “Chiamere,” Onyii calls. After a brief glance at his sister, the abd walks to Onyii. Onyii snakes her cord out from the back of her neck and plugs into Chiamere’s outlet.

  “What’s wrong with Agu?” Chinelo asks.

  Without looking up, Onyii responds, “He was hurt when we were down below. He sustained damage to his arm that affected his nervous system. I can’t plug into him anymore.”

  “Then how will he share the intel?”

  Onyii looks up from the top of Chiamere’s head. “Remotely. Once one abd has it, they can all download from their shared consciousnesses on their closed network.” When she finishes, she disconnects from Chiamere and holds the loose end of her cord out to Chinelo. You’re not a synth, but you’re almost more machine than human. Onyii doesn’t want to say it out loud, to even suggest that Chinelo is anything like the abd, that she is anything other than a red-blood, even with all her tech. So she just holds the cord out silently, waiting for Chinelo to take it.

  Chinelo does, then plugs it into her own outlet at the back of her neck. Onyii feels the information flow from her to her friend like water in a river. When it’s finished, Onyii’s cord pops out of Chinelo’s neck, then recoils back into Onyii’s.

  “All right,” Kesandu says, when it looks like everything is finished. “Now what? We’re still trapped.”


  “We can fight our way out,” Onyii says, “or—”

  They all freeze.

  Chinelo and Onyii look at each other, then out into the middle distance. Their comms are receiving a message—the same one. On a holoscreen projected in front of them is a face. The face of a young man whose silver dreadlocks fall down past his shoulders. He wears a black bodysuit just like the one worn by the dead Nigerian soldier. This one glows with life. On the screen, the young man’s face and shoulders are bathed in multicolored light. He’s broadcasting from inside a mech.

  At the sight of him, Onyii sucks in a ragged breath. Her body seizes. The line in her shoulder where her flesh ends and her metal begins chills and burns at the same time. Those eyes . . .

  Her mech crashing. Her arm laid out on a tree stump. A lightknife flaring to life. A single downward slice. It was him.

  “My name is Shehu Daren Suleiman Sékou Diallo, comman-ding officer of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Kato Mobile Defense Unit, A Class. I am offering you the chance to surrender. Free the hostages and leave with your lives. Or else we will be forced to destroy you.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  The quiet of the courtroom is what Ify remembers the most. After all the lights and the cameras and the loud noises of this new city called Abuja, it was the quiet of the courtroom Daren had brought her to that struck her.

  The courtroom is cavernous. Arabic script lines the walls and arcs over the domed ceiling. The floor is covered in geometric patterns that remind Ify of lessons she vaguely remembers reading through on a broken tablet in the camp. Benches fan out on both sides of the central walkway, and toward the front, there is a table and a set of chairs on each side facing what looks to her like a throne. Next to the throne, on both sides, are two large chairs with cushions so plush they look like you would sink into them if you sat down. In each chair sits a bearded man clad in glistening robes. All of the men sitting in the chairs have a cap on their heads to match their gowns. Purple and deep blue and orange, each dressed in a different color.

  Daren, holding Ify’s hand, stops at the end of the path. Around the room stand guards with guns at their waists and green-and-white sashes across their chests. Daren bows his head briefly, then says, “Honorable qadi. Asalaam wa aleikum.”

  The man in the center, adorned in a silver djellaba with a single green stripe down the center, nods to acknowledge him, “Wa aleikum es salaam.” Then he raises his chin to address the few people scattered throughout the courtroom. “We are gathered here today in the High Shari’a Civil Council of Abuja to determine a matter of kafala. Petitioner, state your claim.”

  Daren lets go of Ify’s hand and takes a single step forward. “I, Officer Shehu Daren Suleiman Sékou Diallo, soldier and mobile-suit pilot of the Nigerian Armed Forces, wish to adopt this young girl into my family.”

  The man at the center looks to Ify. “Child, what is your name?”

  Ify snaps out of her daze and says, first with a soft voice, then louder, “Ify.”

  “And what is your family name?”

  “I . . .” The question hurts her heart, and she loses her words.

  “Honorable qadi, this child was rescued from enemy forces. Her family was murdered by terrorists. She . . . she has no family name.”

  The man frowns. “Is she a Muslim?”

  The moment catches Daren off-guard. He puts a hand to his heart. “She is prepared to submit to the will of Allah.”

  “Do not be so swift to speak for her, young man. If she is to join your family, she is to join the wider family of Muslims all over the world.” He leans forward in his seat. “Child. Are you a Muslim?”

  Ify cannot come to an answer. She does not know. She knows that Onyii had taught her to hate all Nigerians who were not Igbo. She knows that Onyii had once told her all Hausa were dogs, beasts that could never be called human, that the Fulani were made of metal and evil, that Igbo gods had cursed them for praying to Allah instead of to them. But she also knows that Daren was kind to her. That he saved her from that airplane crash. That he is with her now.

  Tears pool in her eyes.

  Daren raises his head to the judge. “Honorable qadi, are we not taught that the poor and the orphaned are to be the first to receive help if we can offer it? This child has no one but us to care for her.” He quiets. “She may not be my blood, but I will love her just the same. Call them by the names of their fathers; that is juster in the sight of Allah. But if you know not their father’s names, call them your brothers in faith, or your trustees. But there is no blame on you if you make a mistake therein. What counts is the intention of your hearts. And Allah is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.” He steps back and is once again at Ify’s side. “I will give her my family name.”

  She can’t stop staring at him. Love. That is what he said. He will love her.

  The judge leans back in his chair. “Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter? And He found you wandering, and He gave you guidance. And He found you in need and made you independent. Therefore, treat not the orphan with harshness.” He does not take his eyes off of Daren. “You are prepared to accept this child as your kin?”

  Daren nods.

  “Raise your hand and repeat after me.”

  Daren raises his hand.

  “I swear by Allah,” the judge begins.

  Daren’s mouth moves to follow.

  “I swear by Allah that I will protect and care for this orphan child as is my duty under Islam, as proclaimed by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. I will keep her safe. I will feed her the food of my house. I will give her the clothes from my back. She will be to the world as if she were my blood. I swear to keep her as close to me as two adjacent fingers on one hand. I will love this child as the children of the Prophet, peace be upon him, were loved by him. This, I swear before Allah.”

  When Daren finishes, he looks down to Ify, and now tears pool in his eyes. “Ifeoma Diallo,” he says, almost like he’s trying the name out on his tongue, seeing how it fits.

  “Diallo,” she says back. Already, she feels at peace.

  CHAPTER

  33

  Onyii makes sure to memorize the young man’s features, the shape of his face, the length of his hair, the color in his eyes, the light shade of his skin. She imagines the look on the brigadier general’s face when she brings back this commanding officer’s head. The thought of finally killing the dog who maimed her, who has haunted her dreams ever since she was a child with a rifle . . . it takes all of Onyii’s effort not to let the smirk form on her lips.

  “Fulani dog,” Kesandu sneers. Onyii glances behind her to find Kesandu glaring at the projection. A rage she’s never seen in the girl before. Her shoulders heave. Her hands tighten on her rifle. Veins rise on her neck. “You know nothing but how to kill. Women, children. It’s all the same to you.” She takes two steps forward, coiled, lumbering movement. “And you do it so often that you do not even remember them. But with each village you raze, each town you bomb, each camp you raid, you create a thousand new enemies. This is what happens when children have to watch their age-mates die. We will overrun you. And we will win.”

  The Nigerian officer’s face remains impassive. He looks as though he has heard this sort of thing many, many times already. “I did not expect you to negotiate,” he says. “But I wanted the record to show that I did give you the chance to surrender.” Then the screen vanishes. The transmission ends. The others begin to confer, but Onyii continues to stare at where the screen had been. It pleases her to have an individual face to focus on now. She is no longer fighting a teeming mass, an entire nation. She can direct her rage, her violence, at this one. If she kills this one, maybe she will be satisfied. She repeats the vow she made all those years ago, this time with the name of her tormentor: Shehu Daren Suleiman Sékou Diallo, I will kill you.

  She turns to find Kesandu fighting
to get herself back under control. This man must have hurt her personally too. Maybe he led the bombing campaign of her village. Maybe he was the soldier who orphaned her. Maybe Kesandu is like Onyii and only needs a single face on which to focus her hatred. One target to bear it all. One person on whom to revisit revenge for all she has suffered.

  “Do you think we have time?” Onyii asks Chinelo.

  “Not much,” Chinelo says back.

  Agu steps forward, the scar still bright on his shoulder. “They will not bomb the facility while their soldiers are in it. The soldiers are for the surgical strike and to secure as many hostages as they can before killing some of us. Then they will bomb the facility to ensure we all die.”

  “We are innocent!” shouts one of the oil workers again. “This is not how you bring about peace!” Ngozi hits him with the butt of her rifle, and blood spills from the new wound at his temple.

  “Peace is not given,” Ngozi says in a voice as hard as the metal of an Igwe. “It is taken. For so long, they have visited violence upon us. It never starts with machetes. It starts with shutting the Igbo out of government. Then it becomes giving all the good jobs to the Hausa and the Fulani and the Yoruba. Then we are accused of crimes we do not commit. Called animals. They say we infest this country. Then we become the reason the Sahara grows larger and more and more of Nigeria turns to desert. We are blamed for the drought. We are blamed for the radiation. Then we are thrown in jail. Then we are murdered.”

  Onyii watches Ngozi’s face tighten her tribal scars. They make her look regal. Like the tribal royalty to which she probably once belonged.

  “We have tried peaceful protest,” Ngozi continues. “We have tried marching. We have tried registering even those Igbo in the hinterlands to vote in the elections.” She speaks not like she’s reciting from an article or from some downloaded history but from life experience. She speaks like someone whose parents argued politics over the table at family dinners, like someone who was carried in her father’s arms during those peaceful marches. She speaks like someone who knew a period before war. Before it all turned to violence. “You do not meet hate with love. Some will say that when a hateful person makes you hate, they win. But those people will never say what exactly it is that that hateful person wins. They will say that if you resist hate and meet it with love, that you win. But they never tell us what we win. We see with our eyes. We see that the only thing we win is death by machete. Isolation. Massacre.” Her frown deepens. “They did this.”