Despite her short stature, she packed a lot of muscle in her lithe frame, and she kept me in my seat regardless of my attempts to get out. I shouldn’t have been surprised at her strength, given the sheer weight of all the equipment she had to lug around all day. Hell, the cylinders full of compressed air we used to start the planes were at least sixty kilos each.
I gave up fighting her and slumped against the seat. “I can’t go. I’m a total wreck.”
“You’re a fantastic pilot, Nadya,” she said. “Take a few deep breaths. It’s a panic attack. Nothing more.”
“Maybe I’ll be better tomorrow, but not today.”
Klara cackled like a mad woman. “Are you daft? You leave now and Kazarinova will never let you up again.”
She had me there. Still, even though I was in the cockpit and talking to her, my mind continued to latch on to the final moments of my last sortie. “I can’t get her out of my mind,” I confessed. “All I see is pain, and terror, and Martyona dying over and over.”
“Find something beautiful about it.”
The unexpected response snapped me back into the moment, and for what felt like forever, I stared at her, thinking she had to be making an awful joke. “You can’t be serious.”
Her eyes told me she was. “There’s beauty in every moment,” she said. “If you can find it, you can survive it, react to it.”
“Are you sick? There’s nothing beautiful about watching someone burn to death,” I said with venom.
“Not in her death, no,” she said, quietly. “But there can be colors you like, maybe the way the wind felt if it was cool. Maybe grab on to the fact she stuck with you until the end.”
“She did do that,” I said, my voice trailing. Though it was a sliver of light in an otherwise pitch-black moment in my life, to focus on that and nothing else felt like I was cheapening things, as if I were pretending it never happened, or worse, she wasn’t worthy of being grieved over. And if I convinced myself of that, I feared one day I’d forget her completely.
Klara took her hand off my shoulder and eased away. “It still hurts, I know,” she said. “But you’re already better. I can see it.”
The tremble in my hands lessened, and I could think clearly enough to takeoff. “Clear the propeller.”
Klara leaned in and gave a brief hug. “Come back to me safe, Nadya.”
I smiled at our ritual. In my panicked state, that was something beautiful to cling to, a friend at my side. She dropped down, and I started the engine.
A few short minutes later, I was cruising my fighter a thousand meters over the landscape. Valeriia had the lead, and the new girl, Alexandra, flew on the opposite side of me in our V-formation.
Even though all three of our planes had two-way radios—something I was grateful for this time around—the three of us spoke little during the flight. Valeriia gave the occasional altitude and heading adjustments, and Alexandra gave the acknowledging reply. I think astonishment that I was actually up in the air kept me quiet more than anything else.
The rendezvous with our VIP near Tolyatti occurred without a hitch. The major was being flown in a PS-84 transport craft, which was an American DC-3 built in a Russian factory. Its fat, white fuselage and giant wings made it an easy target should it ever fall prey to the fascists, and the lack of defensive armament demanded an escort at all times. But neither machine guns nor fighters were required to see the plane safely to Kazan. We landed at the city without incident, and after we refueled, I dared to think this would be an uneventful day.
That changed when we returned home, refueled, and launched again.
“Tighten it up, ladies,” Valeriia said once we were in formation. “We’re going hunting.”
I knew this day would come, but as we climbed thousands of meters above the earth, I wished it would have come later rather than sooner. Valeriia’s plan was to head southwest, patrol along the Don, and refuel at a secondary airfield before coming home. For anyone else, it would have been a standard—though extended—mission. For me, however, it felt like the same, ill-fated flight Martyona had taken me on.
As we flew, I checked my six and scoured the sky for any sign of the Luftwaffe. Thankfully, the clouds were few and we could see all around us. The tips of my fingers went numb in the cold, and my arms ached. I alternated sitting on each hand to try and warm them up, but it didn’t help. The more we traveled, the worse the pain grew, and the more it grew, the more I feared I’d get Valeriia and Alexandra killed by not being able to fly. I wanted to dive away and run from this stupid war.
I snorted, disgusted with myself for such thoughts. I could hear my grandmother now, telling me over and over how God saved me, put me back in the pilot seat for a reason, and all I had to do was trust in His plan. Years ago I wouldn’t have questioned such beliefs—even a few months ago. Yet here I was, barely able to function, wondering how terrible things were about to become and how ridiculous it was to think any of it was part of some grand scheme.
“Contacts, ten o’clock low,” Valeriia said. “Looks like a flight of three Stukas.”
“Vis,” Alexandra replied. “I see two escorts above them, five hundred meters.”
“God, don’t let this turn out like last time,” I whispered, leaning forward for a better view.
The pair of Messers flying escort had their unmistakable bright yellow noses that somehow felt brighter and angrier than last time I’d seen them. The Stukas that were under their protection were single-engine dive bombers, painted an olive green with an inverted gull-wing design. The planes were known to be slow and able to take a beating, but they were most famous for their sirens’ wail during an attack. I’d never heard one, but from all accounts, the noise terrified those on the ground, for it meant hundreds of kilos worth of explosives were being dropped.
“Nadya, do you see them?” Valeriia said.
“Copy. I have vis.”
“Alexandra, hit the bombers and stay fast,” she ordered. “Get them to jettison their loads. Nadya, you’re on the 109 on the right. I’ll take the left. Diving runs only. I don’t want anyone bleeding speed in a turn.”
Valeriia rolled into a dive, and the two of us followed. My fighter cut through the sky as it dove toward our prey. I sighted my enemy and prayed he would remain oblivious to our presence. Though I was too far to see his number, I wondered if the man I was attacking was Yellow Eight and if this would be the day my metamorphosis from failure to avenger would be complete. As hopeful as I was, I was equally terrified it was him and this flight would end worse than my last on account of how many kills he had to his name.
Four hundred meters away from the Messer, I eased my thumbs over the triggers. At three hundred, eagerness at my first kill took over, and I fired.
Tracers flew from the barrels of both machine guns and my 20mm cannon. My rounds zipped harmlessly through the sky. I’d given too much lead. The Messer jumped to the side, dodging my aim. I swore as I pulled the stick back and climbed into the sky to set up for another pass. I looked over my shoulder to see what my opponent was doing. He’d already brought his plane back on course, but he couldn’t take a shot. I was too high and too far for him to risk it. If he nosed up, he’d lose speed, and when he lost that, he’d be picked apart by the three of us, exactly how those fascist bastards had picked apart Martyona.
“Good job, Nadya,” Valeriia said. “Bring it around and keep them busy.”
Though I’d blown the attack, I smiled at her praise. It was nice to have a voice complementing rather than criticizing me. “Pulling into a hammerhead now.”
At my command, my Yak-1 pointed its nose at the heavens and climbed until it ran out of speed. The plane shuddered as the engine could no longer hold it in the air, at which point, my fighter stalled. I kicked my pedals, giving maximum left rudder. The nose of my craft slid sideways, allowing the engine to pull the plane nose first toward the ground.