“That is as it should be. The past, the present, and the future often collide with one another,” Nehanda said. “You have but a single destiny to fulfill: your own.”

The fire dances in the night, blowing in an unfelt breeze while Nehanda begins her night song.

ROBIN’S WAR JOURNAL NOTES

Fela Buhari

Rank: Commander

Complexion: Dark and brooding

Hair Status: Bald (though always in need of a shave)

Born: The Dreaming City, Muungano

Special Note: Recent graduate of the Thmei Academy.

Campaigns: None.

Anitra Gouvei

Rank: First Lieutenant

Complexion: High yella with freckles

Hair Status: Braids

Born: Mars colony, Bronzeville

Skills: Named the Tananarive Due Endowed Professor in the Humanities at Spelman College; sniper, her weapon of choice being the DMX-3000 rifle.

Special Note: Has a strange fascination and hatred of Kappas.

Campaigns: Returned home after the Shango incident; officially has 144 kills attributed to her; played a leading role in the Bronzeville rebellion.

Robin Townsend

Rank: Sergeant

Complexion: “Highly melanated”

Hair Status: Afro puffs

Born: Titan outpost, Arkestra

Special Note: From the secretive lineage known as “the Keepers of the Belt.”

(Also, do not call her RowTow.)

Skills: Studied at the Thmei Academy; combat specialist with knives; minor in surgery. She nicknamed her modified talon Busta.

Favorite Quote: “I will cut a bitch.”

Epyc Ro Morgan

Rank: Captain

Complexion: Blackity black black

Hair Status: Bantu knots

Born: First World outpost

Special Note: Rumored to be a descendant of rebel leader Astra Black.

Skills: Accomplished pilot; combat and tactical specialist.

Campaigns: Operation Bumba; Operation Obatala; the Yemaya Campaign; the only known survivor of Operation Hellwalk.

Chandra Elle

Rank: Second Lieutenant

Complexion: Mocha latte

Hair Status: White mohawk (earning her the designation “the militant Ororo”)

Born: Indianapolis, Indiana, O.E.; emigrated to lunar outpost First World.

Skills: Communications specialist.

Special Note: Silent Negro.

Campaigns: [classified].

Glossary

GLOSSARY

agoze—initiates to ways of sorcery

Aje—a woman who wields myriad arcane creative biological, spiritual, and cosmic powers

akata—wild cats

Alkebulan—the Motherland

Asante sana—“Thank you very much”

Asè—the power to make things happen

Asili—natives of Alkebulan

bagirwa—revered priestess, spiritual head of the Niyabinghi

balafon—a kind of wooden xylophone or percussion idiophone

Basotho blanket—a distinctive form of woolen tribal blanket traditionally worn by Sotho people and unique to the Kingdom of Lesotho

bembe—a drumming party to call down orisha into the body of an initiate

Black Caesar—a device used to pirate link streams

Black Dove—a line of oracles, the Libyan Sibyls

boerewors—a type of sausage

CAP—current aspirational phase

chakram—a gold band that lies in a flat circle about the neck; when activated, it becomes a bladed weapon

djemaas—from North Africa (à la palavers of West Africa)—disputes worked out in public; collective self-criticism

ekpu—ancestor figure

emi—spirit

fashioning—manipulation of nanobots into objects

funkentelechy—the use of emi to direct nanobots for fashioning

gbedu—big drum

gbeto—soldiers/hunters

glyph—site-to-site transmitter

Griot Circle—policing force, story investigators