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.

Zhanna's heart raced, crouching in that grave of a defensive position. It was packed with soldiers and guns and she couldn't find Sveta. She couldn't find Sveta, just rows of khaki uniforms and a heavy musk of nervousness. They had always been together when sent on mission. The damp leaves sent a heavy chill setting into her bones. Nothing to the extent of Russia's frigid winters but Zhanna shivered still, despite the long sleeved undershirt she wore. She shivered, glancing frantically around for Sveta as the cold started to numb her fingers and tighten her chest. A spotter and a sniper were nearly inseparable. But Sveta wasn't in her view and Zhanna couldn't sit in this coffin any longer.

Zhanna knew how to follow orders but she also knew how to ignore them. She wasn't an infantryman, or a paratrooper. She was a sniper. And snipers didn't sit in foxholes, waiting to be found. Snipers watched. Snipers shot first.

No one was watching her as she dug her fingernails into the soft dirt and hoisted her body over the side of the ditch. She could barely see out of it, standing on her tiptoes and she grunted as she scrabbled for purchase. Crawling like the rats that had lived in the alley outside of her home in Stalingrad, Zhanna thanked her lucky stars that no one paid attention to her. She might as well have been invisible.

A few hundred meters from the dugout position that Easy Company had holed up in, she found the perfect place to hide for a lookout. The oak was gnarled, offering hand and footholds, and the leaves were sparse but not barren. She would be concealed but her vision wouldn't be obscured. Settling against the trunk, Zhanna surveyed the forest from her newfound height, relaxing at the familiarity. In Russia, she had found boulders, cliffs, trees and sometimes, tall grass, to shroud herself in, providing cover.

Lifting the rifle to her shoulder, it fit snugly in the hollow of her arm. The familiar weight set the hammering in her chest at ease. She was in position. She was a sniper. And through the scope, her trained eyes caught movement.

In training, Zhanna had been taught how to make her own hides, using leaves, grass and grease paint. The forest was a painting and the camoflauge, an extension of it. She had also been taught how to identify them and, while these were good, Zhanna could identify at least ten lumps that didn't quite fit into the canvas of the forest.

Ten lumps that would be directly in Easy Company's path if they moved out, as Captain Sobel was now instructing them. As if their position, however unsettling, wasn't the most decent tactical position in miles. As if, by risking his men's lives, Sobel would be able to scrounge up enough intelligence to figure out how to read a map.

Zhanna fought with herself for several moments. This wasn't real but seeing the men pack up and assemble into a tactical pillar twisted something in her mind. These men didn't know how to disobey orders. These men didn't know how to stay alive. They followed in blind faith. She couldn't let them walk into the ambush.

Climbing back down from the tree, Zhanna's breaths came in short gasps as she ran to catch up with the already advancing company. They didn't wait for her, or even notice when she rejoined them, not until she called.

"Captain Sobel!"

He turned, from the front of the pack, where he led. Zhanna wasn't sure if she could call that leading but he was putting on a good show. Sobel's face darkened as he watched her approach, his lip curling as he said. "Lt. Casmirovna, what the hell were you doing?"

"I was staying alive, sir," Zhanna said, with uncharacteristic vigor. Sobel looked around nervously as the words sent a ripple of whispers through the ranks. Some of the men chuckled at her words but they didn't understand the urgency.

"Lt. Casmirovna, I suggest you watch yourself," Sobel snapped. "And stay with the company."

"Probably didn't want to get her skirt muddy," Someone whispered behind Zhanna. She looked down at her khaki skirt, stains already mottling the fabric. She shivered at the damp feeling of the dugout slowly freezing her over.

"You are walking into an ambush, sir," Zhanna said, already regretting her decision to save this group of Americans who had never cared for her. This wasn't furthering her goal. This wasn't an order she needed to follow. What had she been thinking, sticking her neck out for these men?

The laughs and whispers stopped. This wasn't Europe, this wasn't real, this wasn't war but a heavy blanket of sobriety fell over the company. As if her words had brought some newfound layer to their mission. This wasn't a trek in the woods. This was war.

"Lt. Casmirovna, fall into formation."

Just like that, Sobel dismissed her warning and any concern for his men. It shouldn't have surprised her, and Zhanna wasn't really shocked. She was disgusted. She had forgotten that mankind could be so indifferent. Zhanna fell into step beside Winters, ignoring the heavy stares on the back of her head and she seethed silently. It wasn't anger at Sobel as much as at herself.

She didn't meet Winters attempts to catch her gaze, but kept scanning the treeline. Any moment now they would cross paths with those soldiers she had seen. Any moment now, Sobel would see she had been right. Not that it mattered. He would never respect her but it would prove to the men that she didn't just carry the rifle for show. It would prove to them everything Zhanna had worked so hard to earn. Even in America, the land of possibility, she had to prove herself.

The pine needles muffled the sounds of their footsteps but didn't completely conceal them. The clinking of metallic buckles and trinkets set the hairs on Zhanna's arms raising. Any moment now.

"Where did you see them?" Winters murmured, almost imperceptible.

She didn't answer for a moment, her own footsteps stalling as she scanned the underbrush. Zhanna's hands shot out, grabbing Winters and the only other soldier around her, Muck, and yanked them to their knees, letting out the barest trace of a whisper. "There."

Her words died in the air before the men, concealed in brown fronds and leaves, stood, leveling their rifles at Easy Company. They emerged from the ferns ambushing them just as Zhanna had promised. She released her tight grip on Winters and Muck's uniforms, allowing them to stand, as an officer said, "Captain, you have just been killed along with ninety-five percent of your company. Your outfit?"

"Easy Company." Came Sobel's bewildered reply. He looked shocked by the soldiers who held him at gunpoint from the shrubbery. Zhanna hoisted her rifle higher on her shoulder and muttered a curse, one that Casimir had reserved for especially troublesome people.

Muck turned to her, "How did you know they were there?"

"I looked." Zhanna said, simply.

"Are we supposed to be impressed?" Liebgott snorted. Zhanna didn't like Liebgott. He was loud, had a thick accent, and was always making fun of her height, as if he wasn't the size of a sapling himself. Agata would have said he needed to eat more and would have invited him over for dinner. Zhanna didn't want to eat dinner with Leibgott. She didn't want to be around him more than she had to.

"If I was American soldier you would be."

Something shifted in his eyes and he turned, moving to stand by Grant instead. Sobel was selecting three men to pronounce dead and Zhanna almost wished he would choose her. Some short period of respite, no matter how brief.

"You left the company," Winters said, quietly, as they started their trek back to the assembly area. "Where did you go?"

"I am a sniper," She said simply. "I don't hide in the ground."

"You didn't follow orders."

There it was. The blind faith. Zhanna had seen it in every face in Stalingrad. They had such a trust in the orders they followed, as if the lives they led didn't mean death to someone else. "The military teaches you how to follow orders but they don't teach you how to stay alive."

It was basic survival. Zhanna had followed Russian orders all her life. She followed orders until she couldn't anymore and then it was just her. Her against them. It was always her against them. It seemed she would do the same with the American army.

"And who taught you?" WInters asked, almost boldly. As if he couldn't contain the question. "Who taught you how to stay alive?"

The little star of David warmed against the skin of her throat, the chain tightening it's silver links as she swallowed. It felt heavier today. It had traveled the world with her, from home in Stalingrad to America.

"I did."