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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After months in America, Zhanna had grown used to jumping out of planes.
It was not enjoyable but a necessary evil. Those wings that were now proudly displayed on her chest meant that she would be going home. But she still had a long way to go.
Sveta had quickly built up the appearance of the perfect diplomat, something Zhanna had seen many times. She would throw it up, like a brick wall. Impenetrable and ever present. She had been trained to recognize it, know when to hide behind the imposing figure of her friend, cowering in her shadow so that Svetlana Samsanov could release her fire. Zhanna was happy to let her be the one to fight. It meant no one expected her to fight.
In the Red Army, she had been able to hide behind Sveta. Keep her head down and her finger on the trigger, bringing in the kills while her friend kept up appearances. In the American army, in the Airborne, Zhanna was left alone. So she had fallen into the only role she knew. The cowering girl who hid in shadows and didn't meet eyes.
This gave her a wonderful escape. As the men grew used to her presence, the joking stopped being quite as threatening and more of a habit. A jab at her height in morning formation and then they sat in easy silence. A joke about her assumed heritage and then they would let her join the line to get her gear. They didn't trust her and the gazes stayed suspicious but they were used to her.
Comfort meant security but that didn't equate to her safety. So she stayed on her toes and pushed herself just as hard, if not harder. Once Sobel saw that kitchen duty hadn't dulled her resolve, he resorted to the only way he could humiliate her. The men were prepared to turn on her at any moment and as the training drew to a close, tensions were growing. Sobel was, at least, a cunning man.
One of the final pieces to their training was a two day maneuver that would present a mock landing and troop movement. They would jump into the deep pine forests of North Carolina and then mobilize according to orders. Zhanna knew how to follow orders. Zhanna knew how to jump out of planes. But these orders were like nothing she had ever had to do.
They landed, like they had practiced. They moved in a pack, like some sort of animal, that would be easy to follow. Easy to see. There was no real purpose to their movement, not that Zhanna could see and she tried to find one. They trekked all night, in circles it seemed. Before finding a place in a ditch, kneeling in mud and sodden pine needles with only the dawn's dim light to see by.
It seemed Sobel's leadership proved just as underwhelming in application as in practice. Sobel couldn't read a map. That was one mark of many in a list Zhanna kept mentally tallying. He couldn't read a map. He didn't know his north from his south. His officers were carrying most of the weight. Zhanna shuddered. These men wouldn't survive a real fight following this captain's orders. Their bayonets might be spotless but they wouldn't fulfill their purpose if the soldier who carried it was killed because of negligent orders.
