# Chapter 13: "The Weight of Morning"
The investigation team arrived at Camp Falcon three days after the incident. Two majors from Defence Headquarters in Abuja, a United Nations legal advisor, and a military psychologist whose name tag read "Captain Dr. Taiwo." They set up in the conference room that had previously been used for storing excess rations, transforming it into a makeshift tribunal where the fate of Second Lieutenant Elisha T.J. Oriade would be decided.
Elisha sat in his quarters, still technically under confinement but not yet formally arrested. Through the thin walls, he could hear the investigators interviewing his men. Each soldier called in, each story told. He wondered what version of events they were constructing, whether they understood that he had given them no choice but to follow.
A knock interrupted his thoughts. Captain Dr. Taiwo entered without waiting for permission—a small woman with sharp eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
"Second Lieutenant Oriade," she said, settling into the room's only other chair. "I'm here for your psychological evaluation."
While giving a salute he replied "I'm perfectly sane, Captain."
"I didn't suggest otherwise. At ease" She opened a notebook while gesturing him to sit. "Tell me about the moment you decided to conduct the second raid."
Elisha studied her for a moment. Unlike the others, she seemed genuinely curious rather than judgmental. "There was no single moment. It was... cumulative."
"Cumulative how?"
He thought of Pascal's hollow eyes when describing the trafficking network. Of Joseph Mbeki's tears when reunited with his grandson. Of the neat ledgers they'd found in Jubek's compound, cataloging children like inventory.
"Every child we saved revealed ten more we hadn't. Every traffickers we stopped revealed a dozen still operating. The system—our system—was designed to manage the problem, not solve it."
"And you decided you could solve it?"
"I decided I could remove seven specific problems permanently."
Dr. Taiwo wrote something in her notebook. "You use very clinical language for what happened."
"Would you prefer I dress it up? Call it a 'kinetic action' or 'neutralizing combatants'?" Elisha's voice carried an edge. "I killed seven men. They were human traffickers selling children. Both statements are facts."
"How do you reconcile this with your training? Your oath to uphold the constitution?"
For the first time, Elisha smiled—a thin, bitter expression. "My oath was to protect Nysaria and its people. Those children although not our people. The constitution assumes a functioning state that can deliver justice. What do you do when that assumption fails?"
"Most officers would say you work within the system to reform it."
"Most officers haven't held a six-year-old girl who was being sold to a brothel."
Dr. Taiwo paused her writing. "The trauma of what you witnessed doesn't justify—"
"I'm not traumatized, Captain," Elisha interrupted. "That's what you're here to determine, isn't it? Whether I snapped, suffered a breakdown, lost my ability to distinguish right from wrong? I haven't. I made a calculated decision with full awareness of the consequences."
"And you feel no remorse?"
"I feel..." Elisha searched for the words. "I don't feel like a hero, Four years spent at the Academy, we debated hypotheticals. And six months here, I've written reports about atrocities while being told not to act. For one night, I acted. Sixty-nine children are alive because of it."
"Seven men are dead because of it Second Lieutenant Oriade."
"Yes."
They sat in silence for a moment before Dr. Taiwo asked, "What would Captain Okafor think of your actions?"
The mention of his old mentor made something flicker across Elisha's face. "He would say I forgot the principle in principled pragmatism."
"And would he be right?"
"He would be speaking from the safety of an academy classroom, not a Yongoan mass grave."
Dr. Taiwo closed her notebook. "Lieutenant, I'm going to recommend you for administrative discharge rather than court martial. Not because I think you're traumatized, but because I think you're dangerous. You've crossed a line that military service requires you not to cross. You've decided your judgment supersedes the system itself."
"The system might be broken."
"it is" she agreed, surprising him. "But you're not the one authorized to fix it through violence. That way leads to coups, juntas, and exactly the kind of military adventurism Nysaria has suffered for decades."
After she left, Elisha was summoned to face the full investigation panel. Colonel Baanjidu was there—his old mentor from the Academy, flown in specifically for this case. The disappointment in his eyes was worse than any anger could have been.
"Second Lieutenant Oriade," Colonel Baanjidu began formally, "the panel has reviewed the evidence. Fifty-seven children rescued in an unauthorized operation. Seven adults killed in what amounts to an extrajudicial execution. These are the facts, are they not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you have anything to say in your defense?"
Elisha stood at attention, his voice steady. "Sir, I request you ask the rescued children if they feel justice was served."
"That's not how military law works, Oriade."
"Then military law could be phased for the reality we face, sir."
The UN advisor, a pale man with a Ywedish accent, interjected. "Second Lieutenant, you understand that your actions could compromise the entire peacekeeping mission? That host nations only accept our presence because we operate under strict rules of engagement?"
"I understand that those rules allowed children to be sold while we watched, sir."
"That's enough," Colonel Baanjidu said sharply. "Second Lieutenant Oriade, this panel finds that while your actions resulted in humanitarian benefit, they constitute a gross violation of military discipline, international law, and the rules of engagement. We are recommending administrative discharge, forfeiture of all benefits, and permanent exclusion from military service."
Elisha received the verdict without flinching. He had expected worse.
"However," Baanjidu continued, his voice carrying an unusual note, "given your exemplary record prior to this incident and the... humanitarian outcomes... the panel has agreed to an alternative resolution."
The room seemed to hold its breath.
"You will receive an official reprimand. You will be transferred immediately to a domestic posting—no foreign deployments for a minimum of 12 months effective immediately. You will undergo mandatory counseling with military psychologists. And you will be assigned to administrative duties where your... impulses... can be properly supervised."
Elisha blinked, struggling to process this. "Sir?"
"You're not being discharged, Lieutenant. Though perhaps you should be." Baanjidu's voice hardened. "There are those in Defence Headquarters who believe officers like you—principled but prone to independent action—can be valuable if properly channeled. I disagree, but I've been overruled."
As the panel filed out, Colonel Baanjidu lingered. When they were alone, he spoke informally for the first time.
"You don't understand what you've started, Elisha."
"Sir?"
"There are elements within the military—powerful elements—who see your actions differently than this panel. They see an officer willing to do what's necessary, regardless of political constraints." Baanjidu's expression was grave. "They'll be watching you now. Testing you. Trying to determine if you're their kind of officer."
"I don't understand—"
"Good. Keep it that way. Serve your punishment, do your administrative work, keep your head down." He moved toward the door, then paused. "And Elisha? What you did in Yongo—it's already spreading through the junior officer corps. Some see you as a hero who finally acted while the system dithered. That makes you dangerous in ways you can't imagine."
"I just wanted to save those children, sir."
"You are no hero, neither of us are, Intent and outcome are rarely the same thing, Lieutenant. You've planted seeds you can't control. Pray they don't grow into something that destroys everything you claim to believe in."
That night, his last in Yongo, Elisha stood outside the medical tent where the rescued children were being treated. He didn't go in—orders were orders, even now—but he could hear them. Some crying, some laughing, the universal sounds of children slowly remembering how to be children.
Hassan appeared beside him, one of his soldiers who'd followed him on both raids. "Sir, the men wanted you to know... we'd follow you again."
"That's exactly why I'm being discharged, Private."
"Still."
They stood in silence, watching the Efrican sun set over the camp. The same sun that had risen over the aftermath of violence three days ago, indifferent to human concepts of justice and law.
"Do you regret it, sir?" Hassan asked quietly.
Elisha thought of the Academy, of his younger self on a rusty balcony in Lagos dreaming of serving his country with honor. That boy would be horrified by what he'd become. But that boy had never seen children's bodies stacked like firewood, never heard the casual negotiations for human lives.
"Ask me again in ten years, Hassan."
The next morning, Elisha was on a transport plane back to Nysaria. He still wore his uniform, but it felt different now—heavier with the weight of what he'd done, lighter without the certainty he'd once carried. The reprimand letter in his breast pocket felt like it was burning through the fabric. In his other pocket was a single photo—not of his platoon or his commissioning, but of the sixty-nine children they'd saved, taken by an aid worker the day after the first rescue.
As the plane lifted off from Yongoan soil, Elisha closed his eyes and tried to imagine what came next. Administrative duties. Psychological evaluations. Two years of being watched, tested, contained. But also—and this thought came unbidden—two years to think, to plan, to understand what Baanjidu's warning really meant.
The Dutch businessman in the seat beside him made small talk. "Military?"
"Yes, sir."
"Coming back from deployment?"
"Peacekeeping mission."
"Noble work. Thank you for your service."
Elisha said nothing. Noble work. If only the man knew.
The businessman returned to his newspaper. The headline read: "UN PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN YONGO REPORTS SIGNIFICANT RESCUE OF TRAFFICKED CHILDREN."
No mention of the methods. No mention of the cost. History, Elisha realized, would remember the outcome, not the process. The saved children, not the broken rules. The humanitarian success, not the institutional crisis it had triggered.
His phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number: "There are more of us than you know. Officers who understand that sometimes action must precede authorization. Your time in administration won't be wasted. - A friend."
Elisha deleted the message immediately, Baanjidu's warning echoing in his mind. But the words lingered. More of us. Officers who understand. He thought of his debate years ago with Emeka Okafor about "ghost rules" and principled stands. He'd been so certain then about right and wrong.
Now, flying home with blood on his hands and children's lives in his ledger, he wasn't certain of anything except this: the system needed changing. Whether from within or without, through proper channels or through... other means... that remained to be seen.
The plane flew on, carrying him back to a country he'd sworn to serve, wearing a uniform that no longer felt like it fit, his service pistol soon to be replaced by a desk and paperwork while shadows in Defence Headquarters decided what to do with an officer who'd proven himself capable of anything.
Outside the window, the Efrican continent sprawled beneath them—beautiful, complex, troubled, resilient. Like Nysaria itself. Like the sixty-nine children starting new lives. Like the transformation happening inside him, slow and inexorable, shaped by forces he was only beginning to understand.
Baanjidu had said he'd planted seeds he couldn't control. But perhaps—and this thought came with a clarity that surprised him—perhaps that was exactly what Nysaria needed. Seeds of change, growing in the dark corners of its institutions, waiting for the right moment to break through into the light.
The sun climbed higher, indifferent and eternal. Another morning after another dark night. And Second Lieutenant Elisha T.J. Oriade, reprimanded but not broken, returned home to serve his punishment and wait for whatever would come next.
All he knew was this: blood no dey wash blood.
But sometimes, blood saves what water cannot.
And mosttimes, that's enough to begin.