Her rifle disappeared with her leg bag. When the shells had been exploding all around her in reds and golds, she hadn't realized the weight shift. But when she slammed into the ground between some trees, heart pounding in her chest like a drum, she found herself weaponless.

To her left roared a fire, the wreckage of a plane that had formed a burning clearing. To her right, Sveta heard the purr of a machine gun nest followed by the repeated thump of an anti-aircraft gun. German voices, nearly drowned out by the noise of war, sounded close.

Sveta knew fear. She'd known it for over a decade. She'd not had many friends besides Zhanna, but she had started to think of fear as one. And as she rolled her way into a thicket, she knew it again. Only this time she had to fear the shadows of Germans, not Russians.

She tried to breathe. Acrid smoke from the inferno nearby filled her lungs, and she smashed her face into her jacket. Heaving a cough, Sveta hoped, prayed to any being listening, that the surrounding cacophony would hide the noise.

Breathing became easier as she slipped through the trees, away from the burning wreckage and machine-gun nests. Soon she was picking her way through the thickets. She couldn't have gone over ten minutes when she froze at a noise on her right.

"Flash!"

Sveta's mind went blank. What was the response? All her years of English evaporated, replaced by panic. Moments later, a body crashed into hers. The American grabbed her, throwing her to the ground. Sveta cursed in Russian as her back hit a tree root.

The weight lifted off her chest. Sputtering, Sveta rolled over on her side. Everything hurt. Her head, her neck where the man had grabbed her, her back from the tree. Sveta coughed again. She choked on the air.

"Samsonova?"

Sveta used the tree to pull herself up. Clutching at her side, she glared out from under her helmet. No wonder it felt familiar, getting slammed into a tree root. She recognized the attacker immediately. "Speirs."

"You didn't give the countersign."

Sveta rolled her eyes. Gritting her teeth, she looked around. No Germans had come running at their scuffle. "I forgot the English," she admitted. Then she turned back to him. "Why'd you stop?"

"Before killing you?" He smirked. "Unless someone got really lost on the Eastern Front, the only two Russian women in Normandy are you and Casmirovna."

Flawless logic.

"Got a weapon?" Speirs asked her.

Sveta shook her head. "I lost my rifle." She'd lost her connection to Russia. For a moment, Sveta wondered why it didn't bother her more. Zhanna would've been scrambling without the gun. "You?"

He just shook his head. "Come on." Speirs went to lead. "Be careful."

"Of the two of us, Speirs, who's actually been in battle before," she reminded him.

Even so, Sveta let him take point. They tried to stay low while the voices of Germans still sounded nearby. Smoke filled the air around them and they never escaped the roar of machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons as the sky lit up with explosions. Sveta held her breath as she watched the darkness break into flames.

Speirs' hand touched her arm and she jolted back to reality. They'd reached a railroad. Two German voices came closer and Sveta understood Speirs' hand. They crouched at the edge of the trees. They could see the men coming; guns in hand, side by side. Idiots. They shouldn't have been speaking. Not only did it give away their position but also their allegiance.

Speirs put a finger to his lip. Suppressing an eye-roll, she followed his lead as he gestured to the two Germans. Sveta exhaled, silent and slow. They stood behind some trees about two feet off the tracks. Each footfall from the German boots made her heart leap into her throat. They came closer. Sveta held her breath.

As the men reached their hiding place, Sveta risked a glance at Speirs. He held her gaze. She couldn't help but be impressed by the confidence in his eyes. She wished she had that. As the men took two more steps along the railway past them, she felt nerves creeping in.

Speirs nodded. Sveta crashed out of the bushes and grabbed the closer one. She couldn't track Speirs in the chaos. The German shouted and she felt fingers clawing at her arms. But she held her hands around his neck. She squeezed. Still, he pried at her hands, drawing blood.

A kick to her shin made Sveta gasp. She dropped her grip and stumbled. A fist collided with her cheek. Sveta tasted blood. Without thinking, she dove forward and knocked into the soldier. He slammed into the ground, stilled.

Sveta tried to catch her breath where she knelt by his body. Even in the dark, she could see the trail of blood dripping from the Nazi's head from where he'd slammed into the edge of the train tracks, helmet some feet away. It took a moment to catch her breath.

She stood back up. Her two braids had started to come loose and the strands caught in the blood now dripping from the corner of her mouth. "Shit," she muttered. "Speirs?"

"Yeah." It didn't take long for him to come to stand level with her. He handed her a German rifle. "Here. Check him for ammo."

She nodded. Having a gun made her feel a lot less vulnerable. But just as it had in Smolensk, being in the thick of battle was more comforting than sneaking around the shadows of Stalin's estates. She pulled back the jacket of the man she'd killed, ignoring the glassy look in his open eyes.

A couple of papers in his breast pocket, a handful of cigarettes, and a bit of ammo became her spoils. She also found a knife in his boot. Armed at last, the shadows receded. Sveta couldn't tell if it was the approaching dawn or her settling panic.

"We've got another few hours," Speirs told her. "We need to follow the railroad, cross two bridges. Then across a field. Shouldn't be difficult."

Sveta nodded. She recognized the area from the briefing Nixon had given the officers. "We should hide the bodies," Sveta told him.

After carefully looking around, he agreed. "Throw them in the trees. Looks like there's a river down there."

They wasted no time. After pushing the corpses down the small drop to the other side of the railroad, they started off along the route. The sounds of war faded the further they went. By the time the sun rose, they found themselves at the edge of a flooded field. Her nose scrunched.

"Lovely," Sveta said. She tested the ground with her boot. "It's mostly solid." Only the buzzing of mosquitoes and flies interrupted the surrounding silence. After a few minutes, she turned to Speirs. "How are you enjoying the Mainland, Lieutenant?"

Speirs scoffed a bit. He turned right to look at her. "I've been here before. I was born in Scotland, Lieutenant."

She hadn't expected that one. So Sveta just nodded and looked around. The lack of people, friend or foe, unnerved her. Normandy didn't feel like home at all. Too hot, too muggy, too wet. Her palms sweated against the rifle.

"How's your rib?" Speirs asked. At her questioning look, he shrugged. "Didn't I break it last time, Samsonova?"

"No," she muttered through gritted teeth. "You didn't. You bruised it. I do so appreciate the concern."

She didn't miss the smirk on his face as he turned to check the left. Each step took concentration, though, as they reached more flooded pools. Sveta didn't want to swim. So with each squelch of her boots, she just silently begged for any god listening to spare her from falling in a pool.

"How's your face?" she asked him. When he looked at her as confused as she'd been, she also smirked. "As I recall, I almost broke your jaw, Speirs."

He didn't answer. She counted that as a win. They continued on mostly in silence for the next hour, the sky changing from all different shades of gold, red, and blue. When her feet hit dry, solid ground, she could've shouted for joy. But she didn't. Instead, she followed Speirs as he moved through a small grove of trees.

The road ran past the other side. It didn't take long for them to find allies. A handful of guards stood chatting with two prisoners. Beyond them, paratroopers trickled towards the town in small groups. Sveta wondered if any of Easy had shown up yet.

The first person they saw was Lieutenant Compton. Zhanna seemed to like him, but Sveta still didn't really have an opinion beyond mild distrust. He caught sight of her and walked over.

Compton smiled. "Hey, Lieutenant, glad you made it." He gave a sigh of relief as they came to stand level with each other.

Sveta just looked to Speirs on her right and nodded. He nodded back before walking away to find his own company. Only then did she turn to Compton. The oil and paint that had been smothered all over his face had worn off some, but his blue eyes stood out striking against what was still left. He looked no worse for wear, just a bit tired.

"Anyone else show up yet?" she asked.

Compton released a long breath. "Just a few. Liebgott's here. Ranney, Petty, Plesha, and Hendrix." He shook his head. "There aren't many here at all, across any of the companies. There's us, about fifteen from Dog, maybe twenty from Fox. And that group of civilians over there, members of the French Resistance."

Sveta followed where he pointed. What the hell were civilians doing in a war zone, even if they were Resistance? She found them talking to Strayer by the side of a house.

There were four, two men and two women. They held stolen German weapons, Karabiner 98ks by the look of it. One of the two women, a blonde around Harry's height, had a Nazi sniper scope attached to hers. She and the men wore darker clothing, mud and dirt caked on their faces in some cheap attempt at camouflage. Sveta looked at the men closer. The dark-haired one looked to be speaking to Strayer through the blonde girl. He and the blond man stood so close with her that she guessed some sort of relation, maybe blood.

The other woman stood out much more. She held a K-98k as well, but where the other five were at least dressed in civvies that might fit in with the forests, she wore dress clothes. Slacks, a blouse, and nice boots were caked with mud. Her dark curly hair looked a disaster, with some twigs sticking out.

Hardly any help. Sveta turned back to Compton. He seemed about as depressed as she felt at the lack of force in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.

"You didn't happen to see Lieutenant Meehan in your travels, did you?" Compton asked her.

They moved over to Easy's meager gathering of enlisted. As she told him no, Sveta surveyed the troops. Liebgott caught sight of her first. He nodded to her, but said nothing. Good enough. Sveta turned away. The resistance group had finished with Strayer. They followed him into what she assumed was a Battalion HQ.

"Hey! Easy Company!"

Sveta turned back around at the sound of Liebgott's half shout-half laugh. Even she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and flash a small smile as a group from Second Platoon came strutting up led by Dick Winters. Behind him came Toye, Guarnere, Wynn, Lipton, and a handful of other non-E Company men.

Compton let out a short breath as Winters made his way over to them at a table that had somehow survived the shelling. He nodded. "What's going on?"

Winters nodded back, but looked around. His shoulders were tense, eyes darting everywhere taking in the surrounding scene. "What's the hold-up?"

"Not sure," Compton said. As he replied, a massive explosion rocked the town, sending all the men into a momentary panic. They looked at the sky, but saw nothing. Compton sighed. "Five will get you ten it has something to do with that."

Sveta scoffed under her breath. As Dick agreed with him, they all surveyed the space. Again, Sveta found herself demoralized at the sheer lack of strength they'd gathered. There couldn't have been more than a hundred men in all of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, and a good portion of those were wounded. The town itself was in shambles.

"It's good to see you, Dick," Compton added.

Winters paused and glanced at him. Then at her. He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, same for both of you." He paused. "Lieutenant, have you seen Welsh or Casmirovna?"

"No," she said. Sveta felt fear clenching her heart. "You?"

He shook his head. Then he turned back to the area around them. "What's the situation?"

"Not good," Compton told him. "Ninety percent of the men are still unaccounted for, and we're the only officers so far."

Winters asked about Meehan. He seemed to be the most popular topic of conversation, but as he had eventually told her, Compton said Meehan was missing, along with his entire plane. "You know, if he is missing, wouldn't that put you in line to be the next commander of Easy?"

Winters paused. He turned to Compton, gaze unwavering. Sveta supposed there were worse men that could've been in charge of Easy, if Meehan really was dead. She respected Winters. But he hardly looked thrilled, eventually staring back down at the table where some maps had been strewn haphazardly.

Footsteps behind them made all three turn. Speirs wandered past. As Winters greeted him, he nodded, and then turned to Sveta. "Here, American weapon." He held out one of the standard American rifles to her. "It's better than the Kraut one."

Sveta took it, laying her German rifle on the table behind them. "Thank you."

"How many men have Dog Company got assembled?" Winters asked him.

Speirs shrugged, chewing on what looked like gum. "A handful." Then he glanced down the road. "Maybe twenty?"

"You're the only officer that made it?"

He nodded again. "So far." As Compton threw a pack of cigarettes at Liebgott not far away, he traced it with his eyes. "Still waiting for orders. Hey, you got cigarettes?"

Compton glanced at him. He sighed, then shrugged, and dug into his pocket for another pack. "Here."

Sveta almost laughed as Speirs didn't miss a beat before grabbing the whole thing and walking away. She couldn't suppress her smile. Compton just looked aghast. "Hey! Keep the pack," he muttered. Then he turned to Sveta and glanced at her. "Cigarettes aren't going to be easy to come by!"

With a small scoff, she shook her head. The three officers moved to rejoin the enlisted. Leaning against an embankment, Winters and Compton got settled in. But Sveta felt too antsy. Where was Zhanna? It didn't escape her that she felt less scared in a war zone than back in civilization where Beria might be around any corner, but not knowing where her one and only friend had ended up made her beyond tense.

"Hey, Lieutenant, good to see you made it."

Sveta turned to her left. Lipton had come up, shoulders slumped but eyes alert. He nodded at her. She offered him a tight smile back. "Thank you. Have you seen Lieutenant Casmirovna?"

"No, ma'am."

The sound of hurried footsteps made them both turn back down the road. Malarkey scrambled up to them, his skin beneath the camouflage even more pale than usual. He plopped down beside Toye just as she saw Winters leaving the area. As Speirs stalked by, Malarkey watched him, wide-eyed. Sveta narrowed her eyes. She watched Speirs move off and then made her way to the enlisted.

"See a ghost, Malarkey?" she asked.

Malarkey, Toye, and Wynn looked up at her. Was that fear? It was in Malarkey's face. She knew what fear looked like. His eyes were wide, his skin clamming, breathing strained. Toye seemed more hesitant than anything else, and Wynn confused.

"No, ma'am," he sputtered. "I'm fine."

She shrugged. A lie, but everyone lied, to themselves as much as to others. After taking a moment to look around the compound, trying to see if any more of Easy trickled in with the other men, she turned back to them. "Any of you hear news of Lieutenant Casmirovna?" They all shook their heads. She sighed again.

"You fought on the Eastern Front, right Lieutenant?" asked Lipton.

Sveta hadn't realized he'd rejoined them. But she nodded, looking at him. "In area east of Moscow."

"Did you learn anything?" Lipton asked. "Anything that might help us?"

It was interesting, having the men who had spent a year belittling her for being Russian now asking her the right questions. But there wasn't much to say. You couldn't teach survival. It came from experience. So she just sighed.

"Don't get caught," Sveta told them. "I don't know if the Germans will do to Americans what they did to us, but if they do, you'd be better off dead than a POW. They think Russian lives are worth nothing. You may be protected by your "Geneva Convention," but it would be better not to risk it."

They didn't respond. Malarkey looked even more disturbed, and next to him, Toye chewed at his lip in thought. Even Guarnere and Liebgott seemed to have been listening, as they watched her carefully. Sveta turned to them, daring them to say something stupid. For the first time in their entire lives, both stayed silent.

"Easy Company! Gather up around me!"

They turned at Winters' call. He beckoned to them, and in almost no time, the enlisted were following him into a barn nearby. They found a dozen men inside, some smoking cigarettes, others cleaning guns. Winters led them to a central table. On the far side, Sveta again saw the two men and single blonde woman from the Resistance group chatting, though with the racket she couldn't translate the French.

As she turned back to Winters, she found him explaining their objective. The resistance group had scouted out a place called Brécourt Manor. They'd stationed four German 88s there, with a few machine-gun nests. Their targets were the beach landings. Easy Company had been tasked with destroying them.

"We'll take some TNT along with us to spike the guns. Lipton, your responsibility." Winters turned to him at the right. When Lipton nodded, he continued on. "Liebgott, you'll take the first machine gun with Petty, A-gunner. Plesha, Hendrix, you take the other." He nodded to himself and then turned to her. "Samsonova, find some high ground and provide what support you can. Right. Who does that leave?"

Sveta nodded to him as the ones left raised their hands. Malarkey, Toye, Guarnere, and Compton would join Winters in the main assault. Once they had their assignments and gathered their gear, they moved to Brécourt Manor.

The closer they got to the target, the quieter the world seemed to become. Instead of a constant hum of activity, the only noise was the wind in the trees and the rhythmic fire from the 88s. A line of trees and shrubs offered them cover as they slunk towards the attack zone. Sveta stood with Lipton and Ranney. Compton and Winters moved to the line of trees to get a better look.

She surveyed the area. Several trees would offer a decent vantage point. She'd be exposed if she took too many shots though. Maybe if she set up near one of the machine guns, maybe Liebgott's as he was closest to her, they could draw attention from her sharpshooting.

Sveta looked down the barrel of her new American weapon. The lack of any scope bothered her. It would be much harder to get perfect shots. But she supposed it would have to do.

Winters came up to her. "Keep out of sight and take out who you can. But if you can't get a clean shot, just keep your head down," he hissed. "Once we take the first gun, you should have less to worry about."

She nodded. "Right."

After nodding back, he hurried down the line to speak to the next group. Sveta felt her heart racing. Her hands trembled as she stared down the gun barrel again, trying to judge the distances to the Germans. She could just see them through the trees and shrubs. Anticipation flooded her entire body.

She remembered this. This was the calm before the storm. The watching, the waiting. A false peace. Any moment, Winters would order the machine guns to open fire, and all hell would break loose.

To her right, Lipton and Ranney moved off. To her left, Liebgott and Plesha situated their machine gun. Sveta took a deep breath. She glanced a bit left of them and picked her spot, a moderately tall tree that had a decent nest of branches she could use as a platform. Zhanna had always been better in trees than she had. Perks of being small. But it would have to do.

The machine guns exploded to life. Their roaring purr filled the air, followed by the shouts of Germans. Sveta watched as Easy got to work. She wasted no time doing the same, dashing the few meters to the tree she'd chosen. Sveta scaled it, slipping at first but regaining her balance. In mere moments, she'd hidden herself among the branches and looked down the barrel of her gun.

A flash of grey and Sveta pulled the trigger. One down. She took a deep breath. She had to pick her moments carefully, or they'd hone in on her position. Shouts to her right distracted her. She almost smiled. Lipton and Ranney had also scaled trees. Had they learned that from Zhanna in their maneuvers? But they didn't understand that you had to play the part of a sniper if you wanted to be safe there. That meant stealth.

Sveta looked down her gun again. The assault team still hadn't infiltrated the trenches. Sveta saw another moment, and pulled her trigger, and a second German collapsed.

Finally, the trenches exploded with screams and scattered dirt. She turned her attention there, hoping to see what Winters had done. But it quickly became clear that even from her high vantage point, they were too obscured. So she turned to the Germans again.

There wasn't much to shoot at until they scrambled out of the trench to dash to safety. Then she saw her chance. Three more collapsed from her gun. The gunfire to her right stopped, and she saw Lipton and Ranney scramble from their trees to get the TNT to Winters.

Now it was up to her. Sveta tried to slow her breathing. The surrounding air stilled as she blocked out the meaningless voices. Sveta knew war. She knew battle. She'd survived a month of it already. And if she died in battle, at least she wouldn't die from her own Korovin pistol.

Another German collapsed from her shot. Why hadn't they moved on from the first gun? Sveta narrowed her eyes as she tried to see what was happening. They still huddled together behind their prize. Something was wrong.

Just as she considered joining them, they moved again. After that, the battle seemed to speed up. They took the second gun in no time, and Sveta continued to pick off what stragglers she could. When a Captain and a private hurried to help the paratroopers, she lowered her gun and watched.

They'd just about taken the third gun. Private Malarkey had dashed out into no-man's-land like an idiot, and Sveta had saved his hide by taking out two Germans on the other side. But other than that, things were going well.

They lingered at the third gun longer than she liked. Sveta hesitated. The Germans were out of her range at this point. Sveta made the executive decision to join them. As she scrambled down the tree, she found herself face to face with Speirs, body covered in extra ammo.

He nearly shot her, holding his gun up before he recognized who she was. "Lieutenant!"

"Are you joining Winters?" she demanded.

Behind him, three Dog Company men looked at her with poorly hidden skepticism. But he didn't hesitate. He nodded. "Come on."

Sveta fell into line right behind him. She showed them straight to the nearest trench. As they moved through the trenches, dodging dead Germans, no one spoke. The sounds of war were close, but not enough to scare her. They scrambled back out, dashed a few meters across the grass, and then slid into the gun emplacement where Winters was holding out. Speirs wasted no time in handing over his extra ammunition.

"Mind if D Company takes the next gun?" Speirs shouted.

Sveta looked at him. Winters just shrugged and gave him the OK. But Sveta looked back at the fourth gun. The Germans would massacre them if they went through the trench. It would act as a bottleneck. So as Speirs moved past her, she grabbed his arm.

"Go along the outside, draw their fire." She pointed to the space up and around. "I'll go through the middle."

Speirs only hesitated a moment, looking at her in surprise, before he nodded. As he called for Dog to follow him, Sveta let him go. She released a strained breath. The pounding of the fourth gun continued on, the purr of their machine gun nest staying ever present.

Sveta moved down the trench, crouching low. As soon as she heard the Germans shouting, she moved in. She couldn't understand their words, but fear didn't need a translation. Their high pitch and rapid speech said enough.

One of Speirs' men went down. Sveta lobbed a grenade when the Germans weren't looking, and the area quieted for a moment. She moved in, gun high. But Speirs beat her to it. They converged in the center, both of them with their rifles trained on the final German that Speirs had just killed.

"Excellent work," he commented.

She nodded, tearing her eyes away from the glassy look on the German's face. Eyes like that always reminded too much of home. She looked at Speirs. "Likewise."

Speirs wasted no time in signaling to Easy. Sveta just moved around the gun. It wasn't an 88, it was a 105. The area should've been crowded with Germans. Evidently only a small regiment had been left behind to secure it. Their mistake.

No sooner than she'd bent down to look at the uniforms of the dead Germans than a machine gun opened fire. Sveta crashed down into the ground, covering her head. Speirs joined her. He raised his voice to be heard over the guns. "We're pulling back once Sergeant Lipton blows the gun."

Sveta nodded. She glanced right, trying to block out the machine gun fire so she could think. Just as she thought they'd be pinned down forever, covering fire from Easy opened up. Lipton joined them with TNT.

"Sergeant, blow the gun and then get out of here," Speirs ordered. He tapped Sveta on the arm. "Let's go."

They both stood and opened fire to offer Lipton a chance to set off the charge. Once he'd destroyed the gun, they backed up. The enemy fire halted. They dashed out of the gun emplacement and back towards safety.

Sveta caught her breath behind the treeline. After a few moments of peace, she jogged with Lipton and Speirs and two of his men back to Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. She found Easy waiting.

"Any sign of Casmirovna?" she demanded.

They looked at her in surprise, as if they'd forgotten about the other Russian. Sveta glared. But they shook their heads, so she moved away. Exhaustion crashed over her as she settled down on the ground where they'd taken up spots earlier. She put her head in her hands. The sounds of war reverberated around her.

Where was Zhanna? Had the Germans gotten her? Would they torture her, as she'd heard them do to the women on the Eastern Front? Her breathing slowed as she tried to calm down. War was familiar. Battle, she knew how to handle. Brecourt hadn't been easy, but it'd been predictable. Losing Zhanna wasn't like that.

"Hey."

Sveta looked up. Winters had wandered over, looking about as exhausted as she felt. With a forced smile, she nodded to him.

"Good work on that fourth gun," he told her. When she didn't respond, he just settled down nearby and laid his own head back against the ground. "Still no word. But Strayer's busy. He may have heard something."

Sveta nodded. She looked at him. "Did we lose anyone?"

"Not from Easy," he told her. "But we lost Hall, from Able. And Popeye got hit."

She sighed. Not bad. But she could tell he was hurting, and she had no desire to make it worse. "I'm sure he'll be alright."

"Yeah." Winters nodded. "Yeah, he will." Silence hung between them as they just watched the busy town. Paratroopers moved back and forth like insects. After taking a moment to feel around his coat pockets, he turned back to her. "So will she."

She had to be. Zhanna had to survive. Sveta would do what it took to see that happen, even if it meant her life. Dying in battle would be better than dying from Beria's abuse back home. She'd rather die from a stranger's gun in this country than by her own gun near the Volga.