Aimie Runyan - Daughters of the Night Sky

The tunes were happy, the party enlivened as Oksana had commanded, but for the voices silenced, our music would never be quite as rich.

Oksana had dubbed our new craft Snowdrop for the sweet little white wildflowers with deep-blue stripes in the center. We painted a chain of the flowers about the cockpits just as Taisiya and I had done. We’d added a slogan on each side: Revenge for Taisiya on one and Revenge for Sofia on the other. Daisy now belonged to someone else, and I thought it was just as well. I didn’t want to fly her with another pilot.

The October air had fangs like January as Oksana aimed the plane to the west. Most of my flying hours had been spent in a state of semiwakefulness, eyes opening and closing like a camera that never quite focused properly. After weeks with better sleep than I had known in two years, I felt as though the scenery soaring past was almost in too-sharp detail.

“Five minutes out,” Oksana called over the interphone. I looked around in the weak light to locate a landmark and found my bearings. Oksana deftly maneuvered the plane as though this were her hundredth sortie as pilot and not one of her first.

The first mark that night was a munitions tent, which I spotted with ease, despite the shadow of night. I took my flare in hand.

“You’re on course. Five… three… marked! ”

Oksana whistled into the German camp on the stalled engine, deployed the bomb squarely on the marked target, and pulled up to a higher elevation as the engine roared back to life and we maneuvered to return. The rat-a-tat of antiaircraft guns sounded seconds after we made our target, the searchlights now running, hunting frantically for the offending invaders.

Oksana circled back over the camp instead of taking an evasive course back to base.

“What are you doing?” I asked over the interphone. I would have called a course correction to her, but she knew she was well off course. There was nothing inadvertent about her actions.

“We have another bomb. I’m going to use it.”

“Got it,” I said. “There’s a convoy of trucks to the north of the camp. Good a target as any.”

She headed northwest, narrowly evading the searchlights’ blinding ribbons of death. She banked left, dove low, on course to drop her payload on a row of German trucks.

“Pull up,” I called over the interphone. “You’re at least twenty meters below the threshold.”

Ignoring my warning, she deployed the second bomb before she climbed to a safe altitude. I could feel the heat of the blast bounce the plane upward as the bomb made contact with the ground below. The trucks lay in ruins, their fuel tanks making smaller explosions as they ignited. Oksana deftly pulled us up and whipped back onto course for our own camp.

The craft shuddered as we flew, and I scanned all the instruments—such as they were—for any signs of imminent engine failure. I sniffed as intently as a dog waiting for his table scraps, seeking out the first whiff of smoke. Though it would do little good. If the craft was going to catch fire, it would go up quickly and we likely wouldn’t have a chance to land before it became engulfed in flames. In the best case we’d be forced to land in German territory. I doubted my little army-issue pistol would do much good against well-armed German sentries and had little desire to test that theory.

I wanted to growl over the interphone at Oksana for her carelessness. That same mistake had nearly cost Taisiya and me our places in the regiment, and for good reason. I stilled my tongue, knowing she’d respond better to cool logic on the ground, but it cost me every ounce of restraint I had not to hurl insults about her stupidity and that of all her relations—living and dead—over the tinny contraption.

We landed forty minutes later, my knees wobbling as I hopped onto the ground from the wing. We didn’t usually exit the aircraft between sorties these days, but it was clear we needed a mechanic’s assessment. I motioned needlessly to Polina, who was already approaching as I ran my hands over the linen. The scorch marks on the underbelly showed we had possibly been within mere centimeters of disaster, but there didn’t seem to be much damage beyond the cosmetic. I pulled Oksana by the crook of her arm away from the bustle of the ground crews.

“What was that , Oksana?” I asked in a low growl.

“War, Katya. In case you haven’t noticed.”

“You completely disregarded the safe limits of our aircraft. Not to mention my own warning.”

“I saw an opportunity, Katya, and I took it.”

“And you nearly took our plane down,” I said, thinking of where I might be if I had accepted Vanya’s offer. Someplace safer than the cockpit of a plane with a masochist as pilot. “Do you think a dozen trucks are worth an aircraft and two crew?”

“We need to get back in the air,” Oksana said, turning away. “Polina finished her check.”

“Do you want me to find another regiment?” I asked. “Because I will tolerate many things, but never recklessness. And I sure as hell won’t fly with a pilot who is too stupid to listen to her navigator.”

“You will fly the rest of our mission tonight.” Oksana’s tone brokered no refusal. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

We flew seven more sorties that night, and, as though sensing the anger shooting from my eyes through the back of her helmet, she didn’t deviate from the safe limits prescribed for the aircraft.

On our way back to the barracks by the early-morning light, I pulled her aside once I’d regained enough sensation in my face to be able to speak.

“We have to talk about what happened on that first sortie.”

“It’s simple, Katya. I had an extra bomb. I wasn’t going to waste it.”

“So drop it, but not when we’re under the safe ceiling. That was nothing short of stupid, Oksana.”

“Katya, we have to take risks to end this war.”

“A calculated risk is fine. I don’t mind aggressive flying, either. What I do mind is recklessness. It wasn’t even a particularly stellar target. To waste lives and resources like that isn’t just reckless; it’s dishonorable.”

Oksana paused and turned her head to look at the crews who were stumbling into the barracks to catch some sleep. “You were lucky out east,” she said. “Kiev was one of the first cities they came to. Do you know what it was like?”

“No.”

“They rounded up people—Jews mostly, and handicapped people, and anyone who spoke out against the Reich or fought back. They slaughtered them. By the thousands, Katya. Families. Children. I promise you, no matter how bad things might get in Miass, they will never be like those days when the Germans steamrolled through Kiev unchecked. Stalin did nothing to protect his own people. Probably thought Hitler had done him a favor until the fighting got too close to Red Square. Don’t talk to me about recklessness and dishonor. I’ve seen what they can do, and I make no apologies for what I did.”

“You will not settle a vendetta with me as your navigator, Oksana. I won’t do it. I am prepared to give my life for my country, but I’m not going to throw it away if I don’t have to.”

“They would cut every last one of us down, Katya. Don’t think they wouldn’t.”

“I know. But you have to be responsible for this unit. Did Sofia ever pull such tactics?”

“No, but as commander and as pilot, I can do as I please. I don’t answer to her anymore. Nor to you.”

“You said yourself that you need me. And now, more than ever, I think you do. But if you want to try leading without my help, keep on doing as you are.”