Catching the Dark: An Alt History Short Story

By Monalisa Foster

Operation Barbarossa destroyed most of the Tsarina Tatiana Romanova's aircraft. 
 

Sixteen-year-old Natalya loves to fly, to soar. And now she gets to. As the youngest member of the Tsarina's Own Night Bomber regiment.
 

A story for anyone who loves WW2 alt-history, aviation, and stories about heroism.
 

Night Witches strike terror in the hearts of darkness.
 

This short story was previously published in To Slip the Surly Bonds (Phases of Mars 2) edited by Chris Kennedy and James Young

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monalisa Foster
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201571047

Monalisa Foster

Monalisa won life’s lottery when she escaped communism and became an unhyphenated American citizen. Her works tend to explore themes of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility. Despite her degree in physics, she’s worked in several fields including engineering and medicine. She and her husband are living their happily ever after in Texas. Her primary genre is science fiction--from hard sci-fi to alternate history to space opera. She has also written some contemporary fiction, as well as dystopian and military sci-fi. She describes her work as science fiction with heart, because life is too short without at least a bit of romance in it. 

Book preview

Catching the Dark

Also by Monalisa Foster

Stand-alone works in the Ravages of Honor universe:

Novels

Ravages of Honor

Novellas

Dominion

Enemy Beloved

Featherlight

Short Story

Bonds of Love and Duty

---

—Short Fiction—

Pretending to Sleep: A Communism Survivor’s Short Story

The Dark Side of the Sun

The Heretic

Catching the Dark

Bellona’s Gift

Promethea Invicta: A Novella

Cooper

Collective Responsibility

The Cerberus Project

Good of the Many (forthcoming)

Resilience (forthcoming)

—Non-fiction—

Rejection 101: A Writer’s Guide

Catching the Dark

An Alt History Short Story

Monalisa Foster

Polite Society Enterprises

Copyright © 2021 by Monalisa Foster

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover art: Copyright © 2021 by Monalisa Foster

Brilon font: Copyright 2019 by Tobias Saul and used under license.

This short story was previously published in To Slip the Surly Bonds (Phases of Mars 2) edited by Chris Kennedy and James Young

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

Contents

Prologue

1. Natalya

2. Barracks

3. First Run

4. Refuel

5. Last Run

Epilogue

Newsletter Signup

Ravages of Honor Reading Order

About the Author

Bonds of Love and Duty: A Ravages of Honor Short Story

Dominion: A Ravages of Honor Novella

Enemy Beloved: A Ravages of Honor Novella

Featherlight: A Ravages of Honor Novella

Ravages of Honor

Pretending to Sleep: A Communism Survivor’s Short Story

Promethea Invicta

Prologue

Nachthexe . Nochnaya Vedma . Night Witch.

Maria Mikhailovna Sutreva smiled at how poetic those words sounded. The Nazis were fascist bastards, but the epithet had a certain ring to it. More than a ring, it had power. A sense of satisfaction too.

It meant that Maria and her sisters-in-arms had struck fear and inspired hatred in the enemies’ hearts. She leaned back in her office chair. Well-padded and comfortable, it creaked a bit, but she settled into its embrace. Steam wafted out of the cut crystal glasses set in their metal holders. Stirring the pillow-shaped tea strainer around in the hot water sent a few tiny tea leaves