like a cat. Nina’s heart squeezed, even as a chorus of groans rose up from the other pilots running to their own U-2s in Yelena’s wake. “God rot you, Yelena Vassilovna,” Dusia Nosal gasped, reaching her own plane. “Long-legged cow—”
“I love you too, Dushenka,” Yelena cooed, blowing a kiss as she dropped into the Rusalka’s cockpit, and Nina grinned, jogging behind with the navigators. First pilot to her plane every night earned the right of first takeoff, and Yelena had the longest legs in the regiment. Unless someone tripped her off the line (Dusia wasn’t above sticking a boot out), the Rusalka had first takeoff five nights out of seven.
By the time Nina threw herself down into the rear cockpit, Yelena was already belted in and running checks. “Start up!” the call came from the ground.
“Starting up!”
“Swing prop!”
The propeller swung, caught, bit. The noisy little radial engine started up, sneezing smoke. The Rusalka rumbled out even as Nina was checking her compass and map. They’d only been in the mountainous region a few weeks, but this was a world different from the summer nights they’d flown at the southern front. Here in the Caucasus the winds could come screaming out between the steep mountain peaks and fling a U-2 into a cliff face in a heartbeat. And if the winds didn’t get you, the heavy, gluelike mists might. Two U-2s had collided in one of those lethal mists last week. Only one survivor.
The lights along the field flickered on, marking a makeshift runway. So close to the front line, Nina could hear the crackle of not-so-distant ground fire and tracer fire, yet as soon as they lifted off there would only be the midnight-blue horizon stretching ahead, the endless blanket of stars. No clouds tonight, just a sliver of moon—a perfect night for flying. Not for sleeping, Nina thought with a wolverine flash of teeth as the Rusalka began to pick up speed under Yelena’s hands. Their target was troop bunkers, every one packed full of German soldiers freshly arrived at the front. “Let’s give the new boys a warm welcome, ladies,” Major Bershanskaia had said in briefing that afternoon. Nina had looked around to see every sestra wearing the same feral grin. No one sleeps tonight.
The U-2’s undercarriage lifted off the crushed grass, and the Rusalka soared. Nina’s heart soared with it—no matter how many dozens of times she’d done this, it was always the same liquid-sweet catch at her throat. She took a moment to savor the icy rush of the air, and then it was back to business. Yelena was waiting.
“East a hair . . . aim for the southwest pass . . .” The Rusalka twitched to each of Nina’s directions as she scanned the surrounding mountains. Some navigators relied on flares, pitching them over the side and setting course by the falling red glow, but Nina scorned flares. Map and compass, moon and stars were enough for her.
The first bombing run always passed in a flash. It was thirty minutes’ flying before reaching the target, but it seemed like only seconds passed before they were descending through a wisp of cloud like silver veiling. “One minute,” Yelena called, leveling out, and Nina went marble still. It was teeth-chatteringly cold up so high, autumn winds biting cruel and sere in the open cockpit, but whenever they lined up for a run, Nina flushed as warm as though she stood before a roaring fire.
The Rusalka hit an updraft, steadied. Then the world fell away into stillness as Yelena cut the engine.
That was the moment Nina loved best, when the U-2’s nose dropped and she began her weightless glide downward. Like a rusalka plunging down into the glassy dark of her lake, Nina thought, webbed fingers catching the currents of the water as Nina’s gloved fingers caught the currents of the air . . . Silent, invisible, undetectable, until far, far too late. Those yawning German soldiers below had no idea what slid toward them out of the night. You’re on our ground now, you stupid little boys, Nina thought. You have your Führer and your Fatherland, but we have the Motherland and she has us.
“Six hundred meters,” Yelena called. Nina poised her hand. A buzzing drone filled the wind as Yelena kicked the engine back to life; they were low enough Nina could see lights below, dark shapes of dugouts, German trucks. The instant they began to rise, Nina flicked the release. Their payload of bombs dropped