War Girls

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  Onyii’s smile softens, and she settles into a space to the left of Chinelo’s seat, where she’ll be out of the way. “There is a door at the bottom of this room that I believe is pressure-activated and—”

  The Igwe rocks and shudders, then Onyii sees through Chinelo’s screen that the Igwe has a giant laser rifle in its hands. Without warning, it pulls the trigger. Steam rises, hissing from the water. The metal of the trapdoor groans as heat and radiation melt it apart. Then a massive crash as it falls away and water rushes into the chamber.

  They dive under and swim in tight formation.

  When they break the surface, the sky is purple with dusk. The dying sunlight makes the water around them shimmer.

  “And where have you parked your car?” Chinelo asks.

  Onyii points back toward the facility. Their Igwe turns and cuts a path straight toward it. Panic creeps into Onyii as they get closer. Agu and Golibe cruise just behind them in Golibe’s mech. Relief floods into Onyii when she sees the familiar sight of their mechs’ hulls breaching the surface of the water, bobbing up and down like beacons.

  Chinelo comes to a stop beside one of the mechs, and when Onyii opens the cockpit and steps out, she sees Agu on the other side doing the same. They share a look before hopping into their Igwe.

  When she’s back inside her own cockpit, lights come to life around her.

  With her comms, she dials into Kesandu’s frequency. “We’re all set. Agu is sending Kalu the coordinates to the hangar n—”

  “Where is she?” The voice bursts through her system. Static, then Daren’s face appears before her. Furious. He has lost all composure. “Where is Daurama?”

  Onyii maintains her calm. It fills her with satisfaction to control him like this. “The hostages are carrying C-4 fused to their bodies. I have the detonator. You will let my comrades and I go free or I will detonate each and every one of those hostages.”

  “Where is Daurama?” he screams. “Where is—”

  She ends the transmission. “Let’s go,” she says to the others. They break out from under the shadows of the facility, and just as they are about to rejoin the others, the water bubbles beneath them. “What?” Onyii whispers to herself. “Chineke!” she shouts. “Scatter!”

  But the last of her words is drowned out by the cannon blast that shoots out from underwater and tears through Nnamdi’s mech. Ngozi gets out of the way just in time, but the left half of her Igwe is melted. They all transform into their humanoid molds and jet into the air.

  “What was that?” Chinelo shouts over their comms.

  As they ascend, the water swirls beneath them, then up bursts an Igwe like they’ve never seen before. It has legs, arms, a cockpit, and a head, but the rest of it is a cascade of scales and armor with jets shaped like angel wings sprouting from its back. Attached to one arm is a laser cannon, while the other hand holds the shaft of a massive hammer. The enemy Igwe speeds toward her. Its body is torqued. He’s going to swing that at me, Onyii realizes just in time to slip out of the way.

  Her Igwe’s reflexes still surprise her. She is not used to being this agile, to having the controls obey her immediately, to having a machine submit so readily and so fully to her will. In one motion, she twists in the air, flicks a rifle into her hands, and fires at the enemy Igwe’s head.

  But it’s gone.

  “What is that?” Chinelo asks, backing away with Chiamere to give them more space for combat.

  “I am your god,” the enemy pilot says before speeding down toward Ngozi’s damaged mech, which isn’t able to transform and stays stuck in the water. That voice. It’s him. Daren. “This Alusi model is the avenging angel that will bring about peace.” It torques its body, readying its hammer once again, poised to strike a defenseless Ngozi when Obioma rams her Igwe into it.

  Obioma and Daren splash along the surface of the water, jets firing then cutting off then firing again so they can stabilize themselves. When Obioma is upright, she extends her mech’s arms and fires missiles from her wrists. The missiles twirl toward him. But he swings his hammer up, sending the missiles high into the air before they detonate so loudly everyone’s mechs shake and rattle.

  “How is he that fast?” Onyii murmurs in shock and awe.

  Chinelo charges forward, a sword in her mech’s hands, and swings. The Alusi catches her blow and flings her away, firing from the Gatling gun that appears on its shoulder. Bullets riddle Chinelo’s Igwe. Chiamere dashes down from the sky, where cloud cover had hidden him, using the shield on his mech to deflect the bullets and keep Chinelo safe. He detaches a hatchet from its catch on his leg and swings. The Alusi smacks away the blow, but Chiamere flips his mech, lands on the water, and charges forward. Each blow sends sparks into the air. The two dance over the lagoon, their jets keeping them afloat. Agu aims himself at the Alusi’s back and readies his own hatchet.

  The Alusi wraps its arms around Chiamere and flies into the air. Agu misses and pitches forward. Onyii flies into the air after the Alusi and Chiamere. As she gets closer, she sees it squeezing Chiamere’s mech at the waist. No . . . his cockpit.

  She pushes her engines to send her even faster. Chiamere’s mech struggles in the Alusi’s grip, pushing and striking, denting the metal, but the Alusi won’t let go until something loud snaps, and metal grinds together. Chiamere’s mech stops struggling. After a moment, the Alusi lets go. Chiamere’s mech plummets into the water. It lands with a massive splash. A column of water erupts into the air.

  There’s barely a moment of silence before Chinelo screams over their comms and charges forward, a bladed staff in one hand, her blade-studded chain uncoiled on her opposite wrist. She flings the chain forward at the Alusi, but it dodges it, then charges forward with its hammer. Agu sends a volley of missiles at it. It tries to get out of the way, blocks the missiles with its hammer, but the blow knocks it sideways.

  Onyii can’t stop staring at where Chiamere has fallen. Chinelo’s abd. Gone. Then it takes her. That rage. She welcomes it.

  Agu rushes through the smoke from his missiles. He and the Alusi clash in the air. Each time their weapons meet, a boom sounds over the water.

  This Alusi is trying to defeat all of us. Then: I will kill him.

  Conscious thought leaves Onyii, and she blasts herself forward. She flicks her rifle into her hands and fires. Agu and the Alusi break apart. Onyii charges through the space between them, shifts in the air, clips her rifle back to her thigh, and detaches a pair of scimitars from her other thigh.

  They take a moment to consider each other, Onyii and the Alusi. Then they charge. Finally, her chance.

  Their first clash sends a shock wave through the air that ripples in the water. A boom follows. Onyii breaks away, charges again. Just as she expects, the Alusi raises the hammer to block. Onyii catches the shaft with one of her scimitars and flips it away, then, with her other scimitar, slices cleanly across the Alusi’s chest.

  A gash opens up on the Alusi as it flies backward.

  Onyii continues her onslaught. The Alusi, with one arm, tries to time its hammer swing. But Onyii is too fast, spinning in the air to dodge it, then jabbing her scimitar through the Alusi’s elbow. She pulls away. A shower of machinery falls into the water. She jabs again and again, but it won’t drop its hammer. Its Gatling gun spins on its shoulder. Onyii cuts her engines and drops into the water just in time to avoid the volley. From underneath the Alusi, she dashes upward, scimitars ready. Too late, she sees the laser cannon aimed directly at her. Daren must have flipped it around.

  She tries to adjust her engines, but she can’t get away in time. The barrel warms with light. This is it. She was so close.

  Something crashes into her.

  She hurtles through the air and rotates to see a mech caught in the blast, paralyzed in the column of purple and pink and red energy. Almost immediately, parts of it disintegrate. Obioma lets out a cry.
Her abd. Her abd is the one who knocked Onyii out of the way. Obioma, in the distance, flies straight for the Alusi.

  “No!” Onyii shouts. “Obioma, don’t!” But she’s too late.

  The Alusi swings its laser cannon in an upward arc, the blast slicing straight through Obioma’s Igwe.

  The sight of Obioma’s Igwe falling toward the water in two jaggedly cut halves snaps Onyii out of her haze. How is he this powerful?

  Out of nowhere, Golibe’s mech crashes into the back of Daren’s Alusi. Its arms wrap around it, pitching it forward just as Ginika rams her Igwe into its chest. Together, they hold Daren still.

  “Go!” Ginika screams. “We can’t hold him forever! Go now!” Then, in a quieter voice, so low Onyii thinks she’s not meant to hear it, Ginika says, “Golibe, let go.” Ginika’s mech tightens its arms around Daren’s Alusi. “Let go, Golibe. Escape. That’s an order.” The Alusi flexes. Ginika’s losing her grip. “That’s an order!” she screams.

  The Alusi flexes again, and an electric pulse explodes from it. Ginika’s Igwe goes dark just as Golibe’s mech darts out of range.

  He disabled her!

  The Alusi’s lights shut off for a second, and it dips before it powers back on again, swinging its hammer in one swift spin, crushing Ginika’s cockpit and slamming her into the water.

  Golibe stops and turns, and his entire mech seems to tremble.

  “Do it.” Chinelo’s voice snaps Onyii back into the present.

  Then, a moment later, an explosion so loud they hear it from this far away.

  The oil facility. All heads turn in its direction. The struts are a mess of fire and collapsed metal. The C-4 explosives have been detonated.

  The Alusi spares the rest of them a brief glare before it jets away, straight for the burning facility.

  Chinelo’s voice cuts through Onyii’s daze. “Come on!” she orders. “This is our chance.”

  “Kesandu,” Onyii murmurs. “Kalu.” They must have died on the roof of the strut. Onyii remembers how Kesandu said goodbye to everyone in that generator chamber. Like this would be the last time.

  “They died protecting us.” Then a pause. “Ngozi? Ngozi, can you hear us?”

  Static. Then, through the static, a faint “Yes.” Then, “But my Igwe is too weak to move. The propulsion system is damaged beyond repair.”

  Chinelo’s Igwe flies down to Ngozi and hovers above the water. “Here, join me.” Chinelo’s cockpit opens. Ngozi climbs out the top of her mech, then takes Chinelo’s outstretched hand and joins her.

  Onyii looks around. The waters have nearly stilled. Beneath the surface lie so many of their comrades. Dead. All those lives, all those histories. The love they dared feel for each other in the midst of all of this. Gone.

  The remaining Igwe fly away into the night that has fallen over the lagoon. As much as Onyii tries to convince herself, this does not feel like mission accomplished. Her hands shake on her gearshifts.

  They don’t stop shaking until the Biafran coastline comes into view.

  When they land on empty coast and climb out of their mechs, Onyii descends the steel ladder as fast as she can, scrambling for the bushes, where she vomits. It pours out of her. All of it. Even when there’s nothing left, she retches. Her whole body shakes.

  What is this? she keeps asking herself. Is this grief? Is this fatigue? Is this fear?

  No. She can’t afford to let it be those things. The Demon of Biafra never felt those things. Only rage. That’s what this is. Rage.

  Her body stops shaking.

  CHAPTER

  36

  Ify’s eyes flutter open. When she wakes, the sky is purple-red with dusk. Fog fills her head so much that the first time she tries to get out of her chair, she nearly collapses onto the floor. What happened? She shakes her head and immediately regrets it. Where there had been quiet before, there is only ringing now.

  She looks around. The watchtower. How long has she been here?

  She’s still wearing the helmet. Gingerly, she takes it off her head, then slips out of the chair and crawls forward to the front end of the flexiglas encasement. She has to blink a few times for her vision to clear, but when it does, she sees the streets filled with people. Every single person in Abuja is outside now. But none of them are moving. They are all staring upward at one of the dozens of billboard screens littered throughout the capital. Each of them plays the same thing. But Ify can’t hear a word.

  She shifts her jaw to activate her Accent out of habit, then stops. The memory of what happened to her is still too real. The pain, the overwhelming flood of sensory input, the way it had almost overpowered her. She puts a finger to her ear, and it comes back with blood.

  Images come to her that must have been from some sort of dream. The inside of a mech cockpit, controls glowing back at her. The ease and calm of piloting on instinct . . . Onyii. Ify’s eyes shoot open. She was in Daren’s head. She saw Onyii. And Chinelo. Then she remembers what must have been a battle. Laser beams firing and tons of metal clashing against tons of metal and screaming. So much screaming. By Allah, it wasn’t a dream.

  She looks to the billboards. Images of giant mechs in flight over a lagoon. Explosions everywhere. Then a Biafran woman appears on-screen, wearing a mask that only shows her eyes. Saying something. But all Ify can focus on are those eyes. . . . Onyii. The woman’s mouth moves soundlessly.

  So many questions.

  The camera switches to a broadcaster who stands on what looks like the edge of the forest. A chyron strip moves at the bottom of the screen: “Biafran terrorists attack abandoned oil facility. Take hostages.”

  Behind the broadcaster, the news camera reveals a row of armored mechs with their cannons trained toward the facility. In the distance, the horizon shimmers and shifts. Water. They must be right on the edge of the shore.

  Ify hears footsteps behind her.

  Armed police rush in. One of them tackles her to the ground and presses his knee into her back, while two more aim their rifles at her face. What is happening?

  She screams out in pain as someone twists her arm behind her back. Tears spring from her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she cries. “Ow! What is happening? What are you doing to me? You’re hurting me!” She says it over and over, “You’re hurting me!” until one of the soldiers shouts, “Shut your mouth, udene!” Which stuns her into silence.

  One last officer steps in. She first sees only his boots, then is able to turn her head slightly to see him standing over her with a tablet in one hand. “Ifeoma Diallo, you are under arrest.”

  “Under arrest? For what? What did I do?”

  “You have been charged with providing material assistance to terrorists and hacking Nigerian surveillance to disseminate enemy propaganda in violation of security code one six two, subsection four b. The crime is treason, the penalty for which is either solitary confinement for a period of fifty years or death.”

  Ify’s eyes go wide. She thrashes against the soldier on her back, even though fiery pain shoots through her shoulder. No. No, this is all wrong. There must be some mistake.

  “Daren!” she shouts. “Daren! Where is Daren? Daren, please help!” It turns into an anguished scream. “Daren! Daren, please!”

  “Shut up your mouth!”

  Anger seizes her, chills the blood in her veins. “You are making a terrible mistake,” she hisses. “I am a member of the A Class and personal aide and secretary to a commissioned officer of the Nigerian Armed Forces. I am the highest scorer at the academy and the youngest contributing member of the Nigerian Consortium for Social and Technical Sciences! If you know what is good for you, you will get off of me now!”

  The officer on top of her relieves the pressure just long enough to haul her to her feet and slap her across the face.

  Tears run down her face.

  “Th
at is enough,” says the officer with the tablet in a quiet voice. The one who announced that she had been charged with treason. “To me, you are none of those things. Your school marks, they do not matter. Your closeness with our government, it does not matter. You are an Igbo who we rescued and to whom we have shown kindness, and you have betrayed that kindness in the worst way possible.”

  “No, I am n—” She realizes that if she finishes that sentence, she will be denying her life among the War Girls. She will be denying Onyii, denying the family that she had had before she was brought here. And she realizes she can’t do that.

  The charging officer frowns at her, waiting. When she says no more, it seems to confirm something for him. Something dire. And all the protest leaches out of Ify’s body. “Restrain her,” he says.

  One of the officers pulls a device from his belt and, with a flick of his wrist, gets it to unfold into a pair of braces that he fastens over her forearms so that they are held close together in front of her.

  The officers lead her out of the chamber and back to the lift. Questions mob her. But beneath them all, a single thought: I was so close. To Daren. To Onyii. All she’d wanted was to reach them.

  All she’d wanted was peace.

  CHAPTER

  37

  “Push harder.”

  Chinelo’s voice arrives metallic and monotone over the intercom in the far corner of the large training room. Three months since the mission at the oil derricks, and this is the only way Onyii has heard Chinelo speak. Hard and without feeling. She and Onyii stand on the other side of the glass in an observation room, looking down on Golibe. The boy, shirtless, spares them a glance before bracing his hands against a large metal sphere as big as him. Sweat drips into his eyes, slides down his chin, and runs paths over the wires connected to his patchwork chest and back and shoulders. He flexes, fingers splayed.