is the author of a wildly popular series of novels detailing the adventures of Kitty Norville, a radio personality who also happens to be a werewolf and who runs a late-night call-in radio advice show for supernatural creatures. The Kitty books include Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty Goes to Washington, Kitty Takes a Holiday, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, Kitty Raises Hell, Kitty’s House of Horrors, Kitty Goes to War, and Kitty’s Big Trouble. Her other novels include Voices of Dragons, her first venture into young adult territory, and a fantasy, Discord’s Apple. Vaughn’s short work has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Subterranean, Inside Straight (a Wild Cards novel), Realms of Fantasy, Jim Baen’s Universe, Paradox, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and elsewhere. Her most recent books include the novels After the Golden Age and Steel; a collection, Straying from the Path; a new Kitty novel, Kitty Steals the Show; and a collection of her Kitty stories, Kitty’s Greatest Hits. Coming up is another new Kitty novel, Kitty Rocks the House. She lives in Colorado.
In the vivid and compelling story that follows, she takes us to the front lines in Russia during the darkest days of World War II for the story of a young woman flying the most dangerous of combat missions, who is determined to do her duty as a soldier and keep flying them, even if it kills her—which it very well might.
My Dear Davidya:
If you are reading this, it means I have died. Most likely been killed fighting in service of the glorious homeland. At least I hope so. I have this terrible nightmare that I am killed, not in the air fighting Fascists, but because a propeller blade falls off just as I am walking under the nose of my Yak and cuts my head off. People would make a good show of pretending to mourn, but they’d be laughing behind my back. My dead back, so I won’t notice, but still, it’s the principle of the thing. There’d certainly be no Hero of the Soviet Union for me, would there? Never mind, we will assume I perished gloriously in battle.
Please tell all the usual to Mama and Da, that I am happy to give my life in defense of you and them and Nina and the homeland, as we all are, and that if I must die at all I’m very happy to do it while flying. So don’t be sad for me. I love you.
Very Sincerely: Raisa
“Raisa!” Inna called from outside the dugout. “We’re up! Let’s go!” “Just a minute!” She scribbled a last few lines.
P.S. My wingman, Inna, will be very upset if I am killed. She’ll think it’s her fault, that she didn’t cover me. (It won’t be true because she’s a very good pilot and wingman.) I think you should make an effort to comfort her at the very first opportunity. She’s a redhead. You’ll like her. Really like her, I mean. I keep a picture of you in our dugout and she thinks you’re handsome. She’ll weep on your shoulder and it will be very romantic, trust me.
“Raisa!”
Raisa folded the page into eighths and stuffed it under the blanket on her cot, where it was sure to be found if she didn’t come back. David’s name and regiment were clearly written on the outside, and Inna would know what to do with it. She grabbed her coat and helmet and ran with her wingman to the airfield, where their planes waited.
The pair of them flew out of Voronezh on a routine patrol and spotted enemy planes even before reaching the front. Raisa breathed slow to keep her heart from racing, letting the calm spread to her hands to steady them, where they rested on the stick.
“Raisa, you see that? Two o’clock?” Inna’s voice cracked over the radio. She flew behind and to the right—Raisa didn’t have to look to know she was there.
“Yes.” Raisa squinted through the canopy and counted. More planes, dark spots gliding against a hazy sky, seemed to appear as she did so. They were meant to be patrolling for German reconnaissance planes, which only appeared one or two at a time. This—this was an entire squadron.
The profile of the planes clarified—twin propellers, topside canopy, long fuselage painted with black crosses. She radioed back to Inna, “Those are Junkers! That’s a bombing run!”
She counted sixteen bombers—their target could have been any of the dozens of encampments, supply depots, or train stations along this section of the front. They probably weren’t expecting any resistance at all.
“What do we do?” Inna said.
This was outside their mission parameters, and they were so far outnumbered as to be ridiculous. On the other hand, what else were they supposed to do? The Germans would have dropped their bombs before the 586th could scramble more fighters.
“What do you think?” Raisa answered. “We stop them!”
“With you!”
Raisa throttled up and pushed forward on the stick. The engine rumbled and shook the canopy around her. The Yak streaked forward, the sky a blur above her. A glance over her shoulder, and she saw Inna’s fighter right behind her.
She aimed at the middle of the German swarm. Individual bombers became very large very quickly, filling the sky in front of her. She kept on, like an arrow, until she and Inna came within range.
The bombers scattered, as if they’d been blown apart by a wind. Planes at the edges of the formation peeled off, and ones in the middle climbed and dived at random. Clearly, they hadn’t expected a couple of Russian fighters to shoot at them from nowhere.
She picked one that had the misfortune to evade right into her path, and focused her sights on it. She fired a series of rounds from the 20mm cannon, missed when the bomber juked out of range. She cursed.
Rounds blazed above her canopy; a gunner, shooting back. She banked hard, right and up, keeping a watch out for collisions. Dicey, maneuvering with all this traffic. The Yak was fast—she could fly circles around the Junkers and wasn’t terribly worried about getting shot. But she could easily crash into one of them by not paying close enough attention. All she and Inna really had to do was stop the group from reaching its target, but if she could bring down one or two of them in the meantime … One second at a time, that was the only way to handle the situation. Stay alive so she could do some good.
The enemy gunner fired at her again, then Raisa recognized the sound of another cannon firing. A fireball expanded and burned out at the corner of her vision—a Junker, one of its engines breaking apart. The plane lurched, off balance until it fell in an arc, trailing smoke. It waggled once or twice, the pilot trying to regain control, but then the bomber started spinning and it was all over.
Inna cried over the radio, “Raisa! I got him, I got him!” It was her first kill in battle.
“Excellent! Only fifteen more to go!”
“Raisa Ivanovna, you’re terrible.”
The battle seemed to drag, but surely only seconds had passed since they scattered the formation. They couldn’t engage for much longer before they’d run out of ammunition, not to mention fuel. The last few shots had to count, then she and Inna ought to run. After those last few shots, of course.
Raisa
