War Girls Page 6

  Then, like a crow taking flight, she vanishes into the forest.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Ify wakes as they are dragging her through forestland. Pebbles and twigs catch under her. Scratches bloom on her cheeks. All is darkness around her. Her eyes eventually adjust to make out the shapes of trees and the silhouettes of some of the soldiers, who are careful to stay out of the moonlight. She can’t hear war sounds anymore and wonders how far from the camp they’ve dragged her.

  A dream. It must have been a dream. Onyii on her back with soldiers standing over her. Onyii slowly getting smaller and smaller as Ify was dragged away. Smaller and smaller until the fog swallowed her up. Then the gunshot. No. It must have been a dream. Onyii is still alive. Ify has to get back to her.

  That’s when she remembers she’s trapped.

  Her hands are pressed against her chest, her ankles clasped together. She can only wiggle and barely that. Whenever she tries to move her head, to shift her gaze so that she sees something other than ground, pain pinches the back of her neck.

  The world is so black without her Accent. She tries to shift her jaw and get it working again, but the forest remains dark. There’s none of the telltale hum of life.

  The soldiers dragging her stop. The one holding up her legs lets go of the net’s end. Ify’s ankles smack the ground, and she yelps. The collar around her throat burns her. She grits her teeth and tries not to make another noise, tries not to anger the thing they’ve clipped around her neck. She just lies there, trying to slow-breathe her way through the pain.

  For some time, no one moves. Ify tries to raise herself. Wherever the soldiers are, they must be standing as still as the trees—stiller, even. A slight wind knocks leaves from tree branches overhead. Ify wants to call out, to curse them, to shout for help, to proclaim the greatness of Biafra, anything, just to make a defiant noise, to show them she won’t go quietly. But without her Accent, she feels defenseless. Powerless. She’s just a little girl.

  She smells morning before she sees it. A sweetness in the dewy grass beneath her head. Then warmth. Through the trees, along the horizon, blue begins.

  They arrive at a clearing, and the air seems to shimmer. She gasps as the distortion morphs into an aircraft.

  Its silver wings stretch out from its top and then bend to dig into the ground like anchors. It has a sleek oblong body, large enough to fit at least a half dozen land mechs. The back door unfurls itself like an elephant’s trunk, revealing a yawning emptiness.

  The Green-and-White that had been dragging Ify reaches down, then stops. The soldiers freeze. Then they all look to each other, and one of them darts off into the forest. Ify tries to focus her hearing, tries to remember if she’d heard anything or imagined it. But it’s not long before the soldier returns, holding a War Girl by her hair, so high that her feet dangle and swing above the ground.

  Ify’s eyes widen. The girl she saved. What is she doing here?

  Metal bands hold the girl’s wrists together behind her back. The soldier who caught her looks to the one who had been dragging Ify, then at the others. Ify realizes there are now five of them. They all trade looks, and Ify realizes they’re all talking, only not out loud. Like she does with Enyemaka. Did with Enyemaka.

  The girl catches Ify’s eye, and they stare at each other. The girl’s lips are pursed shut. She can scream, Ify realizes, but she won’t. She won’t give the enemy the satisfaction of hearing her scream. Blood streams from a wound on her head, runs over one eye, but she manages a defiant look, every so often squirming in her captor’s grip.

  The soldiers look at each other, one shakes their head, another nods insistently, and their silent argument continues. All the while, Ify and the girl hold each other’s gazes, and Ify tries to squint her forgiveness at her. Tries to tell her without moving her mouth that she’s sorry for the anger she felt and that she’s glad the girl is still alive and that maybe now she will make an effort to learn her name and maybe they can grow close and even in the northern bush they can—

  The girl is dropped to the floor, and the soldier holding her pulls a pistol from their waist and shoots her once. In the head.

  “No!” Ify screams through the pain lancing her neck. “No!” Tears blur her vision and slide down her cheeks. This feeling of fire burns up to her face and through her head, so that it feels like she will burst any moment. When she opens her eyes again, even though the world is hazy with pain and tears, she can see that the girl is gone. Likely dragged into the forest and not even given a burial.

  They’re going to kill her too, Ify realizes. When one of the soldiers stands over her, she glares at them and lets herself be filled with rage and hate. Her chest heaves with each breath she takes.

  The soldier takes off their mask to reveal a face like Ify has never seen before. Hair in silver locs comes down to the soldier’s shoulders. Their eyes are many-colored, irises cut through with gold and brown and green. Like hers. And their skin. The soldier’s skin is brown. Sand-colored. Light. Like hers.

  “It’s all right, Kadan. Little one.” The soldier squints, then reaches through the netting to wipe tears from Ify’s cheeks with rough, gloved fingers. “Soon, you will be home.” The soldier speaks with a type of voice Ify has never heard before. Deeper. Lower. And the soldier’s face is shaped weirdly. No oval, but a flat chin and a sharp jawline. She’d seen boys in holos from her tablet. In movies always getting into trouble and being saved. They looked like this. But those were humans. These are Fulani or Hausa.

  The soldier squats all the way down to Ify’s level, rifle slung across its back, then reaches for her collar. “You have to promise me,” it says in its weird voice. “You have to promise me that when I take this collar off, you will not scream.”

  Ify wants to ask if the soldier will kill her. She can’t believe it speaks like her. But she manages a nod.

  The soldier touches the collar, then taps a sequence into a keypad on its wrist. The collar lets out a puff of air, then falls into the soldier’s hand.

  Her throat still feels raw, and she can’t move any of her limbs, but she asks, “What are you?”

  The soldier looks up at the others, then lets out a chuckle.

  Ify’s eyes go wide with bewilderment. This isn’t a beast, not some type of hairy animal. Not like what she was taught Nigerians looked and sounded and smelled like. But it’s clearly an enemy. “What kind of animal are you?” Maybe if she can get its name, she can study it, learn it, find its weakness.

  The soldier smiles at Ify. It looks like a version of what Onyii might have looked like had Onyii been born the enemy. But then again, these things aren’t born. They’re made out of evil and metal.

  Lights come on in the aircraft, and gusts of wind begin to blow as its engines power on. The soldier swings Ify onto its shoulder and walks lightly to the opening. She wants to fight, to bite and kick and scratch, but the energy has left her. She can’t stop thinking of the girl they murdered, the girl whose name she’ll never know. The girl who has left her to this future she must bear all alone.

  A soldier emerges from the forest. The one who they had left behind with Onyii. The one who had killed Onyii. No. Onyii’s still alive. I have to get back to her. She needs me.

  The soldier sets Ify down on a metal bench and presses a button that loosens the net so that it falls away. The other soldiers sit on benches that line both sides of the craft. The back door curls itself shut.

  “What kind of animal am I?” It chuckles as shadows swallow its face. “I’m a boy.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  In the memory, the ribbons on the bedposts in the girls’ dormitory are pink. And Onyii sleeps with her textbooks beneath her pillow. She hears about how children who do that sometimes get teased, but none of the girls in her school tease her. Today, however, when she wakes up, she sneaks a small tin out from under her pill
ow. Inside are pieces of wrapped-up toffee.

  She spent the whole night dreaming of Adaeze, who was a few grades above her and thus slept in a different dormitory. And all last week, as Ada didn’t show up for class, the girls whispered about what might have happened to her. Then Onyii had found out what Adaeze had done. Onyii listened, enraptured, as the rumor made its way through the dorm and found her, the rumor that Adaeze had watched her brother enlist in the New Biafran army. The rumor that Adaeze had wanted to join him but that families were limited to sending only one child. And, besides, who would wash the laundry and clean the home? But Ada had snuck her way to their encampment. And when they found her, a soldier took her outside to the front gate and called her parents. Her parents had sent an older sister to come get her, but Adaeze had said no and sent her back home. Then a brother-in-law, her sister’s husband, had come to collect her and had reportedly grabbed her arm to drag her away, but she had found a sharp stone and cut him. Finally, Adaeze’s mother had come to the army camp’s front gate and had wept, begging Ada to come home. But she had refused. To give Adaeze’s mother some relief, the commander had told Ada’s mother that Ada could be sent to a camp run by and for women. Ada would be surrounded by people just like her, and her mother would not have to worry about the things that happen to girls in war.

  It’s this thought—a camp of women warriors—that fills Onyii’s head as she leaps out of bed and readies herself and dresses in her clean school uniform. She’s dreaming of the front lines even as she bursts into her principal’s office and drops a piece of toffee on his desk. The principal looks up from his paperwork and smiles and says, “Happy birthday.”

  Onyii giggles. “It’s not my birthday,” then she’s out the door.

  She hands a piece of toffee to all of her classmates in science class, and those girls follow her to her mathematics class, and by the end, they are all howling and hugging her and weeping into their palms and begging her not to leave. They all know what she wants to do and where she wants to go.

  But she is going to fight.

  “Why should I sit and waste my time?” Adaeze had told her one afternoon in a courtyard well before she had made the decision to leave. “I don’t want them to build this new country without me. And I’m tired of having to maintain all this hair.”

  Onyii had beamed at the older girl. Looking at her, she had never seen a more beautiful sight.

  A different memory takes her. Onyii is flying. Her mech shudders around her as she tries to escape the bullets firing at her from every direction. On her screen, Adaeze’s mech darts and arcs and spins, trying to shake the enemy mech chasing her. Onyii tries to get the Green-and-White in her sights, but every time her reticle settles on it, it dodges.

  “I can’t shake it!” Adaeze shouts over their comms system.

  Onyii’s mech rattles her bones. She grits her teeth and powers forward, trying to get closer to Ada and the mech chasing her. She almost doesn’t notice the beeping until it’s too late. She spins just in time to catch the enemy mech that had charged at her. But the force of the blow sends her careening through the air.

  Her mech goes dark. But she can hear the wind outside, howling around the tons of metal she’s trapped in as her mobile suit hurtles toward the ground. Just as she’s about to hit the treeline, her mech comes back to life and the thrusters stop her fall. Above her, a single mech hovers. It’s a machine with no face, no eyes, no mouth, but she thinks she can see it grinning.

  She tries to find Ada, but the mech that rammed into her charges for her. She darts out of the way. “Ada!” she calls out.

  Static.

  “Ada!”

  The enemy mech is on her tail. She weaves and dodges, but it’s too fast. Missiles screech past her. For the first time, she feels fear. It seeps into her bones. Makes her hands shake on her gearshift. It makes her heart trip-hammer in her chest. Don’t let it conquer you. That’s what Ada had told her during their training. As soon as you feel fear, you’ve lost. But Onyii can’t stop it.

  Her mech is slowing down. Bullets stitch along its side. Explosions boom through the sky. Each noise makes her want to cry.

  “Little udene,” she thinks she hears someone say just as the enemy mech closes in on her.

  Suddenly, it appears in front of her. A transmission beams into her visual display, intruding on her comms. It’s the enemy pilot.

  She sees his face. His silver eyes. The silver braids running down past his shoulders. He’s so young. As young as her.

  “Little udene,” he says again. There’s a giant hammer-like object in his hands. He raises it.

  All of Onyii’s training leaves her. She raises her hands, foolishly. As though her mech will follow her movements and block the blow.

  But the enemy swings, and all Onyii sees is darkness.

  * * *

  Onyii wakes up with a start.

  Softness, fabric against her skin. A chill. But she can feel threading all around her. She opens her good eye. Through the canopy of leaves, starlit sky overhead, slowly breaking with dawn. She blinks. Static, then voices. Familiar voices.

  She’s in a blanket.

  They’re carrying her in a blanket. Her sisters. Then it all comes rushing back to her. The attack on the camp. Her mech landing in the forest, the Green-and-White who had spared her life as she lay bleeding and broken on the ground. Them dragging Ify away.

  Ify.

  She starts, then moves to get out of the blanket.

  A screech pierces the night. They drop her.

  Pain rips through her back and neck. But after a moment, she grins. She wants to laugh. Pain. Pain means she’s alive. Pain means she isn’t paralyzed. She lifts her right arm and slowly turns on the ground to see that it’s connected by a wire to the back of Chinelo’s neck. Onyii’s grin widens. Chinelo’s okay.

  “Onyii!” Kesandu calls out from Onyii’s left. “Onyii, can you hear us?”

  Chatter drowns out the rest of what Kesandu might have said.

  Onyii tries to stand upright. Her legs have been straightened by splints. She looks up to Chinelo, whose bees swarm around her head.

  Chinelo stoops down. “Onyii,” Chinelo whispers, grateful, then wraps her in an embrace. “We thought we lost you.”

  Kesandu stands next to Obioma.

  “Chineke,” Kesandu curses. “We thought you were dead-oh.”

  Obioma looks at Onyii as though she’s watching a ghost grow skin and bones right in front of her. Like she’s afraid of Onyii. Onyii glares at her with her eye.

  Chinelo smacks Obioma on the back of the head. “Are you mad? Are they cooking fried rice inside your brain? This is your sister. Look like you are happy to see her.” Obioma rubs the back of her head and offers a sheepish grin.

  “I am happy-oh,” Obioma says beneath her breath. “No need to fire the back of my head like that.” She looks to Onyii. “Sister, we are happy to have you back.” She grows shy again. “I did not know we could fly mechs the way you fly yours. If I can learn to fly like that, I will be very happy.”

  Onyii smiles at the little girl. Only a few years older than . . .

  “Ify.” Onyii leaps to her feet. Her legs buckle beneath her. Before she can stagger to her feet again, Chinelo is by her side, putting an arm over her shoulder.

  “Rest, Onyii,” Chinelo tells her quietly.

  Onyii breaks away. “No. Ify. They took Ify.” But she has no energy left.

  Chinelo leans in close and pulls a gel packet from a pouch at her waist. A steroid boost. “Here, have another one of these,” she says, sliding the packet into Onyii’s mouth.

  Energy fills Onyii. She feels herself become more solid. She feels like she’s gained control over her body. She can stand unassisted now. But she’s still woozy.

  “I gave you one after I repaired your arm and connected to you. It was enough to brin
g you back, but you are still very weak.”

  Onyii brings her face close to Chinelo’s. “I need to find Ify. Give me something stronger.”

  Pain shines in Chinelo’s eyes. But she pulls a vial out of her breast pocket and hands it to Onyii. “It’s Chukwu,” Chinelo says, hesitating for a moment before handing Onyii the vial of crushed crystals. Chukwu. What they call the precious minerals they mine from the ground to power their machines. What they call the powder they grind it into and ingest. The energy of the supreme being that gives strength to all things. Onyii has heard of others who did it, who said it felt like inhaling the universe, who then died soon after. “Just a little. It will give you more strength. But we need to get you to a healing bath. We might still be able to salvage one. Rest, then we’ll get Ify.”

  Onyii looks at the vial, then turns her back to the others. She bites off the top, then tips its contents onto the back of her hand. Glittering powder. When she sniffs it into her nostrils, fire bursts to life between her ears. All of a sudden, everything is in high definition. It is almost too much. But then the burn subsides. Her shoulders relax. She can see. As though she still has both eyes.

  For a moment, she thinks about making a run for it. But then she looks back at the others. The Nigerians didn’t kill Ify. They took her. That means she’s still alive. They will get her back. Onyii inclines her head toward the edge of the forest. “Oya,” she says, suddenly the leader again. “Let’s go.” The Chukwu surges through her, and it’s almost a struggle to keep from breaking out into a run or attacking the nearest object. So much strength and power sits inside her.

  Chinelo disconnects from Onyii’s arm, and the cord snakes its way back into Chinelo’s neck. Together, they walk.

  Then, there it is in front of them.

  Smoke billowing in columns throughout the camp. Blood and shell casings all over the ground. The gutted husk of an enemy mech lies on its side, crushing the infirmary. A pilot lies slumped out of the broken cockpit window.