How to Lose an Arm and Find a Heart - Part I

Part I: LOVE AT GUN POINTThe thing about Lieutenant Mary Ikechukwu Donald was that she had thought her heart had been hardened. Beep, went the monitor. She had thoroughly convinced herself, from helmet to boot, that there wasn't living space for love in her heart. Beep. But... She inhaled. The string stung like a needle, perhaps because it was. The nurse drew the weapon out of her skin. Lieutenant Mary, the daughter of Adam. Operation Tafiya ba nesa was the ground on which she sowed the seeds of her infamy. Operation Pa Igbó saw her bootprints pressed upon the head of terrorist leader Shehu Mafarauci. By Operation Kunan daji, she was already leading a squad of her own. She was feared by enemies, adored by comrades, though not without men who envied her prowess. Mary winced as pain shot through her left arm. She turned to look at it. Her arm ended at the elbow. She raised her hand and stared at the stump. Strangely, she smiled. Sure, she'd lost an arm. Her dominant arm. The arm she used to fire her gun. But when she recalled the circumstances that led to it, she smiled. He saved her. She saved him first, but she still owed her life to him. How desperately that clumsy engineer had cut through her flesh with her own combat knife. It hurt like hell, but better hurt than dead. The mass on her arm wasn't going anywhere. There were tears in his eyes as he cut away, and he screamed like a bearded baby. A soldier must be strong. That was what she had been taught. So she hardened her heart. Operation New Dawn was the stream that cracked it. At 1900 hours, night had fallen over the quiet town of Talukumbo. Her men at her heels, Mary led with her NAR-27 Viper at the ready, combing through the knee-length maize field. A vandalised tetrium processing plant. Abducted engineers. Others stranded. The processing tower came into sight. Carefully concealed by the refraction of their uniforms, Mary and her men advanced. Mary signalled. The men halted. Then they scattered. Mary remembered the battle being fierce. Many a bullet flew too close for comfort, the wind brushing against her ears occasionally. Her NAR-27 Viper fired rapidly. The Talukonawa mercenaries quickly succumbed to the superior firepower and concealment of the Nigerian Army, the terrorists firing at nothing. They had probed deep into enemy territory, hidden, a drone hovering above the perimeter in search of the hostages. A beep sent her checking the device on her wrist. The hostages had been found. If only she had known that she would rescue the man who now called the softness of her heart home.

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