“You’d be surprised what you can do when you want to stay alive,” Katya says flatly, brushing snow off her coat. “You’d better check on Lute. See if she’s still breathing.”
The other women begin creeping out from their hiding places. They no longer look at Katya as weak prey. Not even as an ordinary person.
They look at her with something close to primitive fear. Killing a starving bear with one shot. Offhand. With someone else’s jammed rifle. That isn’t luck.
That’s skill. And out here, in hard country, skill like that is worth more than gold. Lute finally comes around. She sits up in the snow, clutching her torn shoulder.
Blood is soaking through her ripped coat. Her eyes, usually hard and mean, now hold only pain and confusion. She saw Katya shoot.
She saw the beast that was about to kill her drop dead in the snow. “You…” Lute rasps. “Why?”
Katya crouches beside her and studies the wound. “You’ll live. Bone’s fine. Torn muscle, that’s all. It’ll heal.”
“Why’d you save me?” Lute insists, staring at her. “I was fixing to kill you today. I’d be lying there dead right now, and you’d…”
“I’m not you,” Katya says, short and hard. “I don’t kill people without a reason. And a wild animal is everybody’s problem.”
At that moment the senior guard runs up. “Break it up! Form up! Inmate Melnik, over here!”
Katya stands slowly. She knows this is the moment her fate may be decided all over again. They can easily report that she attacked a guard and seized a weapon.
That would mean the punishment cell, another tribunal, maybe a firing squad. The guard studies her for a long moment, then looks at the dead bear.
The bear means fresh meat. A lot of fresh meat. And a valuable hide.
Captain Ivashin likes hides like that. He also likes not having major incidents in his camp. “All right, ladies,” the guard says, lowering his voice.
“Private Petrov shot the bear. Shot it clean and saved the whole crew. Everybody understand?”
The women in line nod silently. No one wants extra trouble. “And you, Melnik…” He hesitates, searching for words.
“You… just get back to work. And keep your mouth shut.”
Katya gives a short nod. She understands the language just fine. An unspoken deal has been made.
She gives them a good story and a pile of meat. In return, they give her the right to keep breathing. That evening, when the exhausted crew is marched back to camp, Lute doesn’t walk in front anymore.
She limps in the middle of the line, leaning heavily on one of her women. As she passes Katya, she slows down. “I owe you, sniper,” she says quietly.
“Blood debt. I won’t forget it.” Katya says nothing. She just looks at the cold setting sun.
Today she beat death twice. Once in the shape of a wild animal. Once in the shape of a cruel man.
But her real test is still ahead. In a closed camp, news travels faster than wind. By tomorrow the whole colony—including Captain Ivashin—will know about the shot.
And he is not a man who likes heroes. Especially heroes he can’t control. Late that night, something nearly unheard of happens in the barracks.
When the evening slop is brought in, Lute, her shoulder wrapped in clean rags, gets painfully to her feet. “Listen up,” she barks across the quiet room. “Nobody touches the sniper now.”
“Anybody lays a hand on her answers to me. And she gets double rations. Out of my stash.”
One of her women silently sets an extra bowl in front of Katya, with an additional piece of bread. And, more surprising still, a decent chunk of boiled meat. Probably from one of Lute’s private food packages.
Katya stares at the food. Her empty stomach tightens painfully. She hasn’t eaten properly in a week.
Pride says refuse it. Hunger and common sense say take it. This isn’t charity. It’s respect.
It’s open acknowledgment of strength. She takes the bread. “Thank you,” she says evenly, looking Lute in the eye.
Lute gives a crooked half-smile and turns back toward the wall. About an hour later, the flimsy barracks door bangs open.
A duty officer stands in the doorway. “Inmate Melnik. Outside. Bring your things.”
A nervous whisper runs through the barracks. “Bring your things” in the middle of the night usually means something bad.
Transfer. Punishment cell. Execution. “Where?” Katya asks calmly, swinging her stiff legs off the bunk. “Camp commander’s office.”
Captain Ivashin personally wants to see “the hero of the day.” Katya feels everything inside her tighten. Ivashin knows.
The guards couldn’t keep quiet. Or someone talked. She puts on her old coat, grabs her thin little pack, and steps into the freezing night.
Ivashin’s office is warm. Too warm. It also smells strongly of roasted meat. On the table sits a large plate of fresh bear meat.
The same bear meat. Ivashin lounges in a padded chair with his tunic collar open. On the desk in front of him lies the same army rifle Katya used.
“Come in, Melnik,” he says in a suspiciously soft voice. “Sit down. Help yourself. It’s your kill, after all.”
Katya stands by the closed door. “I’m not hungry, sir.” “Sit down,” Ivashin says, and the softness vanishes from his voice.
Katya sits carefully on the edge of a hard chair. Ivashin picks up the rifle and works the bolt with a loud metallic snap. “Petrov reported that he killed a large bear.”
“But I looked at the carcass myself. Shot went straight through the eye. Fifty yards.”
“Petrov couldn’t hit a barn from ten. But you—now you’re a real sniper. Forty-three enemy dead, wasn’t that the number in your file?”
He slowly points the dark barrel at Katya. “You seized a guard’s weapon. Under wartime law, that’s a firing offense.”
“But you also saved lives. And brought the camp some excellent meat. Very good meat.”
He lowers the rifle. “I don’t need more loggers, Melnik. I’ve got a thousand loggers. What I need is talent.”
“Starting tomorrow, you’re transferred to the camp service unit. You’ll be our game warden.” Katya can hardly believe what she’s hearing.
Game warden means relative freedom. Legal access to a rifle. Better food. Better clothes. But there’s always a catch. Ivashin leans forward until his face is inches from hers.
His dark eyes are flat and cold. “You won’t just hunt deer and bear. Sometimes dangerous inmates escape from nearby camps. They need to be brought back.”
“Or stopped. If you refuse, I send you to tribunal for armed assault on a guard. Your choice, sniper.”
“Choose: a full stomach and a rifle, or a quick death.” The office is dim except for the desk lamp. Its light picks out Ivashin’s hands.
Those hands toy with the rifle bolt. Across from him is Katya’s pale, tense face. The air is thick with tobacco smoke and roast meat.
The smell is almost enough to make a starving person dizzy. “Hunt or die,” Ivashin says again. It isn’t a question. It’s a sentence.
Katya says nothing for several long seconds. Options race through her mind. Refuse, and she goes before a tribunal for seizing a guard’s weapon.
That means execution. Agree, and she becomes someone working for camp administration. In any prison system, people like that are hated and, when possible, killed.
But there’s a difference. A game warden isn’t a stool pigeon. A game warden is a person with a rifle who brings back meat.
And in camp, hunger is the worst enemy of all. Worse than any barracks boss. “I’ll hunt,” Katya says at last, looking him in the eye.
“Animals only. Deer, boar, bear. Wolves if they’re after camp stock. But I don’t hunt people. I was a soldier, not an executioner.”
Ivashin smiles thinly.
He leans back in his chair, and the rifle no longer points at her chest. “Principles,” he says with open mockery. “I do enjoy principled people.”
“They always break the loudest. Fine, Melnik. For now, animals only.”
“I need meat. The guards are hungry, production is slipping. Bring me double quota in game and you’ll live like a queen.”
“Fail, and I send you right back to the logging section. Straight back to your new friend Lute. Only this time without a rifle to save you.”
The deal is made. Katya walks out of the office slowly, cold sweat running down her back. She has just sold a piece of herself to stay alive…
