Aimie Runyan - Daughters of the Night Sky

I discarded my flight suit like the others and tried on the uniform my mother had made. It was loose at the bust and waist but otherwise contoured to my shape like an expertly tailored garment. She’d made it to fit me as I was before the war. Before I was made lean by labor, exhaustion, and rations that were sometimes more sparse than we might have wanted.

“Twirl,” Oksana commanded. “Let’s see your mother’s handiwork.”

I obliged with a slow spin, and as the woolen skirt settled around my knees, I imagined the warm fabric was as close to an embrace from my mother as she could send by post.

The men who would come to share our aerodrome arrived three weeks later, bringing with them the worst of the winter snows as well as ice and crosswinds, two of the only conditions that could ground us, so we found ourselves thrown together without the distraction of missions to keep us occupied for close to two weeks before the conditions finally improved. Polina kept the mechanics running, making sure that every blemish on the planes was attended to and every system in perfect order. Renata had the armorers taking stock of our munitions and discussing their strategies for minimizing loading times between sorties.

“We’re glad to share the space with you, Major Tymoshenko,” the commander of the male regiment said after seeing the regiment in action for a number of days. I attended their meetings as her deputy, while he had two or three underlings scuttling about after him. “We hope our presence will be of some benefit to you. Teach the girls a trick or two, you know.”

Oksana said nothing, letting him come to his own conclusion about her assessment of his remarks.

“You run a very efficient outfit, I’ll admit,” he said, unable to hide his reluctance.

“Were you expecting otherwise from a guards-designated regiment?” Oksana didn’t fold her arms imperiously or stare at him with disdain. She merely moved a stack of his papers from the desk in the command area she’d claimed as her own and placed them on the empty table perpendicular to her workspace.

“I meant no offense. It’s just that I’m not used to working alongside regiments run by women—you understand, Major.”

Oksana sat and cast her eyes down at a document of some kind rather than looking at his face. “Major Grankin, are you used to working alongside regiments run in accordance with the regulations set forth by the Red Army?”

“Naturally.”

“Then nothing will come as a shock to you during our time cohabitating this space. That is precisely what we are. If anyone has led you to believe that our regiment operates under any different circumstances than your own, you’ve been misinformed.”

“Very good, Major.”

“And one more thing, Major Grankin. I expect exemplary behavior from your men when they are in the company of my regiment. I haven’t the time or the patience to discipline your men or see to it that you do so properly. Are we clear?”

“Crystal, Major.”

“Good. Now we’ve finally got good conditions for the night. I would suggest you use this time to observe how my mechanics and armorers prepare. You might find their tactics useful.”

He opened his mouth for a moment, then snapped it shut and turned on the ball of his foot and left, presumably to overlook the proceedings at the airfield.

“That was simply beautiful,” I said, putting my hand to my heart for dramatic effect.

“Consider it a preemptive strike. He hadn’t shown much in the way of the usual swagger you see in officers, but it was only a matter of time. I simply let him know where he stands in the hierarchy here.”

That night Oksana and I led the first sortie. A male crew across the field from us would follow three minutes later. We didn’t hit targets of any stellar value but did manage to drop our payload practically on top of their barracks. We could see soldiers spilling out of the building like grain from a silo, brandishing their pistols and shooting uselessly at the sky as our engine roared back to life. We held their attention just long enough to let the next crew drop their payload, and were back on course for our own base before the Germans were able to retaliate effectively.

As we landed and approached the staging area, we could see Polina barking orders and weaving her efficiency from the loose threads of chaos she was handed each night. She was always a model of competence and poise, and the presence of our male guests clearly had her running at peak form. I flashed a smile at Oksana once she had killed the plane’s engine and turned her head with a grin. She was a fine commander, but I wondered if it wasn’t our mechanic who was really running the regiment.

Renata brought us steaming-hot tea before seeing to the outfitting of new bombs, and we remained tethered into our seats as we drank. From what we could see when the first male sortie had been completed, the men exited their cockpits as soon as their wheels hit the frozen turf. They smoked, drank coffee, ate their dinners, and made small talk as each mechanic and each armorer refueled, reloaded, and fixed any damage incurred on the previous sortie. One pilot, one navigator, one armorer, one mechanic—just as we did in the beginning.

By the book.

By the end of the night, we’d pushed every crew to the point of exhaustion but had more than done our part in ruining the evening for the Germans encamped so nearby. The best part was that despite working at our maximum levels, we didn’t lose a single crew.

“How many sorties did your men complete this evening, Major?” Oksana asked Grankin by way of greeting after we’d helped Polina and Renata with the nightly maintenance.

“Oh, I don’t think we kept an exact tally,” Grankin said, airily dismissing the question.

“Really. I would expect a commander in the Red Army to keep exacting records. We endeavor to log every sortie each of our crews takes. Moscow prefers as many details as we can provide. Is the same not true for you, Grankin?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” he blustered.

“Sixty-eight, sir,” a short man with a squeaking voice supplied from behind the major.

“There, you hear? Sixty-eight. What do your meticulous records say you’ve done tonight?”

“Eighty-four,” Oksana said without referencing a ledger of any kind. “Not our best, but not bad.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Well done. Your crews are remarkably dedicated. How do you do it?”

“Indeed they are dedicated. If you want to emulate their performance, your men will have to get by with a great deal less socializing while planes are being turned. Just as a start.”

Grankin stormed out of the tent, his face as dark as thunderclouds. His underlings followed him at a healthy lag.

“I wouldn’t want to be part of that regiment just now,” I proclaimed as Oksana leaned back in her chair. She gave a full-throated laugh and rested her boots on the edge of the desk, radiating self-satisfaction.

“Nor would I. They seem like nice-enough boys, but they haven’t the hunger my ladies do. That can’t be taught or disciplined into anyone. It comes from decades of being told we can’t do a thing while knowing we can. They’ll never have that.”

“No, they won’t,” I agreed. “More’s the pity. It’ll be just as well when we move on.”

“Well, we’re going to have to make room for a man in our ranks,” Oksana said, her face falling a bit. “We’re getting a male radio technician. They only have one who can be transferred to us, so we’ll have to make do.”

“Well, one man can be henpecked into submission, I suppose.”