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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Sveta stood silent. She looked at Zhanna, face turning from red to purple to a gruesome yellow in a few spots. Heat filled her body. "
Go inside," she finally said, falling into Russian. "I'll find a medic for you."
Then it was just her and the enlisted. As the door clicked, she turned on Lipton. She didn't even try to hide her fury. She let them see it. Let them be scared. It would only make her job easier.
"Who?"
Lipton hesitated. With a quick glance at Muck, he tried to explain. "Lieutenant Casmirovna got caught up in a fight between Sergeant Guarnere and Corporal Liebgott."
Sveta felt herself trembling. Gripping her fists tighter, she forced it down. She had to control it. At least, she had to control it for now. "Why was she there?"
"She got lost, ma'am," Muck said. He gestured back down the hall, where the door to the deck sat. "Me and Private Malarkey took her to the platoon. To keep her from getting more lost."
"Who hit her?" They didn't answer. Sveta took a small step forward. "Who hit her," she repeated, putting emphasis on each word. "That's an order."
"Sergeant Guarnere, ma'am," Lipton supplied.
Guarnere. That jackass. Sveta bit her cheek. Then she looked down the hall. She could taste the blood in her mouth as it took all her practice not to say more. Guarnere. With a nod, Sveta turned back to them. "You're dismissed."
They left without saying more. Neither saluted, but she didn't expect it. They were men. American men. After nearly a year dealing with them in training, she had come to tolerate them, even respect them, but not like them. Now they'd lost even that. Especially Sergeant Guarnere.
If the enlisted thought they had seen what she was capable of, they were sorely mistaken. The name Samsonov meant something to the American Brass. It meant something to the Soviets. She didn't have any power to change her circumstances, but in those circumstances, she could wield her name as a weapon.
After the enlisted disappeared, she took a few breaths. At her hip she felt the familiar weight of her side-arm. Sveta had it on her, always. Her heart pounded in her chest. Guarnere. Fists weren't the only weapon. Sveta had been a soldier longer than these boys and she'd been fighting in the Soviet political sphere for longer than some of them had known what a weapon was.
Sveta knew fear. She'd seen it in the faces of the women around Stalin for years. She'd seen it in her own face since 1935. And Sveta made it her mission to see it in Guarnere's face before the end of the day.
"Private!" She called out to a runner who passed by in the hall. When he turned, slightly startled, she looked him over. Tall, dark haired, blue eyed. A bit underfed. Sveta nodded to him. "Find Lieutenant Winters or Lieutenant Welsh. Tell them Lieutenant Casmirovna requires medical attention, that she's in our quarters. Immediately."
