Zanele crouched in the ditch, radio held up to her ear. On the other end of the call, Tongana and her northern friends traded updates on the battle. From their shouts, Zanele was able to piece together the tide of the chaos. The CSF had appeared with two more choppers, but one of them had just been brought down. Tongana and her new northern friends were landing somewhere. They had lost two cargo choppers, but the landing hadn't been thwarted, and more importantly, none of the casualties had been from Bonde Wakulima. So far, the Sabers had not shown their faces.
The news was good, but Zanele did not allow herself to hope. The battle wasn't over. Enough could still go wrong.
Down the ditch, among the crowd of fellow survivors, Adwoa finished updating Tongana on their position. Soon, Tongana and her new friends would be over to protect them, and Zanele could finally give up command of the militia to someone who knew what they were doing.
A deep, harsh buzzing noise approached from over the tree tops, and at first Zanele was optimistic, then something about the sound put her off. It was the noise that had been haunting her all day, the voice of death.
Zanele didn't want to believe it.
The CSF attack chopper poked up from the canopy, and Zanele stared straight down the barrel of its autocannon. She opened her mouth to order everyone to run before they got butchered, but the words piled up on her tongue. She ducked.
The autocannon opened up, and bullets splashed the dirt, perforating the ditch. Zanele sensed death, but couldn't tell if she had heard it, seen it or simply imagined it.
Panic seized the air. Women scrambled out of the ditch, others hunkered down and little voices shrieked. The autocannon cut loose again, and Zanele cringed as the stream of oblivion passed dangerously close to her, deafening her with the thundering noise, showering her with dirt and pebbles thrown up by the bullets. Something struck her in the back of the head, and she twitched, sure that she had been shot. She pawed at her skull, but couldn't find any break. Just a rock. It was just a rock.
For the second time, the autocannon stopped firing, and Zanele regained her senses just in time to see the last of the survivors disappear into the forest, leaving Zanele with the battered corpses of the ones who had been hit. A part of Zanele wanted to get up and run after them, but now, more than ever, it seemed pointless. All her efforts had accomplished so little, and if she died, she would never have to fight again. She would be done with helicopters and guns and machetes. She would be done wondering when she would run out of food, or how many women she would lose tomorrow. And maybe she could even meet the people who had already died. She could see Mapula and probably her brothers, and maybe they would forgive her. She could see her friends, too. She could see Hazi and Amrita and Simdula and even Sami, that poor savage. That would be good.
Someone called on Zanele's projector, and the device automatically answered the call, opening communication. For the first few seconds, the noise of the chopper's rotors blotted out anything that came through the speaker. Then the attack chopper roared past, and Zanele could hear again.
"Zan!" screamed a male voice though the speaker. "Zan, where are you?"
"Morgan?" For the second time today, Zanele couldn't believe her ears. "Morgan, it's me. I'm still alive." For what that's worth.
"Come on, where are you? I'll come get you!"
"Don't bother. I've failed. Just go find someplace to hide. Tongana'll find you."
"But what about you?"
"Just leave me."
"But you're not safe!"
