Collaboration with @silmarilz1701
Svetlana knew how to play the game. She'd been caught in the political drama of Stalin's inner circle since birth. The only child of one of Stalin's closest friends, she grew up in the limelight, scrutinized by frie...
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7 April 1943
Camp Mackall, Georgia, United States
They'd been members of Easy Company for nearly four months. And yet despite the time, Sveta felt that not much had changed. Her platoon had stopped their heckling sometime around the end of Fort Benning a month previous. Evidently they'd found a new target. Or perhaps someone had stepped in?
Doubtful. Winters had helped Zhanna some, something she felt grateful for, but she'd gotten nothing but cool cordiality from anyone. Not that she minded.
Sveta disliked Sergeants Martin and Randleman least. Her platoon sergeant, Harris, annoyed her. Several of the men from Zhanna's platoon irritated her too, like Guarnere and Liebgott. Talbert talked too much. Several men in her platoon suffered from that. Luz, Perconte, Muck, Hoobler, and Sisk all prattled endlessly. It made her beyond grateful to retreat to the closet she and Zhanna called home every night.
At first, being stuck into a literal supply closet had angered every fiber of Sveta's being. When they'd arrived at Camp Mackall and Winters had shown them their accommodations, even he had seemed apologetic. He'd frowned, and taken a few deep breaths, his shoulders sagging as he explained that it had been the best the battalion could do. Only his kindness to Zhanna had spared him from her choice words.
It couldn't have been over ten feet deep. Some shelves had been removed, but the nails that had held them fast stuck out at random places along the wall. A flickering light bulb hung down from the ceiling by about fifteen centimeters. At night they had a pull chain made of fraying cord that shut it off.
Sleep eluded her many nights. Outside, in the massive brick barracks building for the officers, footsteps would echo in the hall. Light would flood through the bottom of the door. Even on days when her muscles ached and her eyelids drooped, it made things difficult.
Zhanna never complained. Not that she ever complained about anything. With her, she would either be silent and do as told, or be silent and defiant, ready to pull a trigger if it meant keeping her goal on track. At least they'd completed step one.
They had their wings. Every time Sveta got in the air, in the belly of those planes with the door open to the sky, wind rushing through the cabin and shaking the craft, she felt happy. It had been a long time since she'd felt that way. She'd almost forgotten it. The way her cheeks could sting from smiling, the gentle pace her heart would beat, the smoldering warmth in her chest.
Four months in, and Sveta had finally found it tolerable in America. She could ignore most of her platoon. As long as she kept a close eye on Nixon, she'd not found any other nosy threats. Every so often she'd have short, cordial conversations with Martin and Randleman in training. Four months in, though, the universe had decided she'd had enough happiness.
"Lieutenant Winters said he trained with the 82nd," Zhanna told her. She sat with her back against the wall on her cot, polishing the rifle she held so dear.
