Aimie Runyan - Daughters of the Night Sky

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It was more than twenty-four hours later before I found our camp due to the blanket of snow, the snarls of roots and branches on the forest floor, and my slow progress as I tried to make my passage as silent as possible. My attempts to avoid the attention of any German sentries made for an arduous slog through the Polish wilderness. With each step farther from the German bases, I grew more certain that Oksana could not have survived the journey. Her orders had been just, and they had very likely saved my life.

We’d been written off for dead, as two other teams had seen our crash. They hadn’t seen us deploy our chutes, and even if they had, any attempt to recover us on the German side of the front would have been a suicide mission.

“If we’d seen you—” Svetlana began.

“You would have stayed put or risked your life for no purpose,” I scolded, sipping from the piping-hot cup of tea that Renata refreshed as soon as it began to empty. Her mother had procured a tin of fine tea leaves from the factory where she worked. A token of appreciation for her daughter’s service to be sent to the front. It was as fine a black tea as one might see on the tables of the highest government officials, perfumed with just the right blend of spices. Renata knew me well enough not to ruin the effect by adding any milk or sugar.

“I can’t believe you walked all that way,” Polina mused for the sixth time, inspecting the damaged skin on my feet. She wrestled with calling a medic to look at them, but I refused to let her, pulling rank despite my own objections to the practice. I’d endured weeks of convalescence after losing Taisiya. I couldn’t bear it a second time while mourning for Oksana.

The women should have been in their tents, attempting to eke out a few hours of sleep. If not sleep, at least some rest before another afternoon repairing planes and another night keeping the Germans from their objectives. Their faces were all the same—haunted. They had once been innocent girls, but they had seen too much. Lost too much.

I remembered Sofia’s orders to me after we’d lost Darya and Eva in training. We had no piano, but I still crated my violin from camp to camp, finding space in my duffel and ensuring its safe passage on the trucks and Jeeps that carried our supplies while we flew overhead. I retrieved the case from my corner of a tent, not allowing myself to look at Oksana’s possessions, which were still as she left them. Tending to them would be a chore for another day, when I had more strength to sort through the treasures she’d found worthy to take with her.

I rejoined my sisters in arms and for the first time in many months put my bow to strings, playing simple tunes that I hoped were a reasonable interpretation of the Ukrainian folk songs Oksana would have learned as a girl in Kiev. The girls who knew them sang along, reluctantly at first, more enthusiastically as I kept playing. We raised cups of Renata’s good tea in a toast to Oksana and her service. She may have seemed joyless in life, but I hoped that in some way she could take joy in this celebration as we honored her as best we could.

As the light grew weak, the women migrated toward the aircraft, the armorers fitting the bombs, the mechanics fueling and making a final check to ensure each plane was airworthy. Polina hung back, waiting for me as I stowed my instrument. I arched a brow at her, for usually she was leading the mechanics and overseeing every check.

“I hoped I might have a word with you,” she said, casting her eyes down.

“Of course, Polina. What can I do for you?”

“You know I’ve been with the regiment since the start, yes?”

“Naturally. You’re the best mechanic we have, and my mechanic on top of it.”

“That’s just it. I’ve served as a mechanic for three years now. I want to serve on a flight team. I don’t have the hours to be a pilot, but I could be a navigator. No one knows the systems better than I do.”

I nodded my agreement. She knew the planes so well there was no way she would be anything less than an exemplary navigator.

“I was hoping I could serve as your navigator, Captain. Since we’ve been working together this whole time. I assumed you’d be given command, and as such, you’d be taking up your own plane. I’d be honored if you’d even consider me.”

The reality of her words hit me. I couldn’t be certain command would be mine, but that decision would be made soon. A plane would be mine if I wanted it—that much was sure, at least. I finally would have command of my own plane—the thing I’d dreamed of since I was a ten-year-old child in the fields of Miass. Now that it was mine, I wondered if it had been worth all the loss and sacrifice to have my wings. The question seemed too large. And irrelevant. The plane would be mine, and I could either fly it or make a mockery of all that sacrifice.

I looked at Polina’s hopeful face and imagined my own in her stead when I’d first shaken Sofia’s hand at the academy. I was awestruck by Sofia’s bravery then, dying to join her ranks. Polina wanted the same things now as I did then.

She would be more valuable on the ground as our lead mechanic. It would have been prudent to ask her to keep her place, but I couldn’t stifle her dream any more than I could have stopped dreaming my own.

“Get a helmet and a flight suit,” I said. “I want you ready as soon as we’re given orders.”

Three days later we got word that Oksana’s final wish was to be granted: I would be commander of the regiment, and promoted to major for accepting the position. Mama and Vanya would be proud, but the last thing I wanted in recompense for Oksana’s loss was a new title.

I had to stop myself from taking my place in the rear cockpit after hoisting myself up onto the wing. I slid into the front, less gracefully than I might have hoped, and strapped myself in. I waited for Polina to slide into place and fasten her own harness before I started the engine. My hands were steady as the plane roared to life, and I ascended into the night sky under my own power.

From the rear cockpit the view was generally of wing, windshield, and the back of the pilot’s helmet. In front the view was of propeller and the vast reaches of the sky. It wasn’t like a truck, where you could see the road in front of you. If you wanted to see your target, you looked over the side, sometimes banking the plane to get a better view. I couldn’t see straight ahead, but my view upward was unobscured and spellbinding. As we soared the thirty kilometers to the German camp, the blue velvet expanse of the night sky stretched before us, encrusted with stars shining like diamonds under candlelight.

There was no light below, making the tapestry above a breathtaking display. My father used to point out the constellations when I was a girl, and I found myself wishing I’d paid more attention. One of the few constellations I still recognized blazed ahead of me—the Pleyady —the Seven Sisters. A star for Oksana, Sofia, and Taisiya, who I hoped were somehow looking out for us. And one for Polina, Renata, and me, the six of us bound by our service. The seventh? The Polikarpov that took us on our missions each night and who was, as Sofia had once wisely said, the fifth member of each crew. Separated by life and death, but always united in duty.

I felt no pleasure, no satisfaction, as I dropped my payload on the German camp, but felt secure with Polina in the seat behind me. I knew now how sincere Vanya, Taisiya, and Oksana had been when they said how much easier the task of piloting was with a good navigator in tow. She was my eyes and ears when I needed them. She allowed me to concentrate on the task of maneuvering the craft as we returned through the midnight-blue abyss back to the safety of our camp.