MY TONGUE IS A WEAPON

This one in our outline is literally called "Sveta the bomb." In the days leading up to Operation Varsity, Sveta's grown increasingly paranoid and angry. All of the memories of Beria's stalking in Russia are coming to a head. Sveta is convinced that Beria has a spy somewhere, but no one is there to listen and she's definitely not going to tell Zhanna. Even were someone willing to hear Sveta out, she probably wouldn't tell them, too afraid.

Unfortunately for everyone, Sveta's right. The chapter starts with the blonde war correspondent interviewing Easy's men. Sveta is tired of hearing their voices so she goes inside to her room. As she walks inside, she sees a full bouquet of roses and smells a very specifically Soviet perfume called Krasnaya Moskva. Full on panicking, she goes to check the bouquet and finds a note. All it says is "Svetochka" but that's enough for Sveta to know with little doubt that Beria is stalking her even here through a spy. She has intense flashbacks and is thoroughly in PTSD trauma mode.

That's the moment Zhanna accidentally chooses to walk in on her. Feeling totally alone, she falls into the mindset of a wounded, cornered, wild animal and lashes out at Zhanna. She lashes out at her for betraying Sveta's trust, for not caring about the Motherland, for not being a true Russian, and all the other accusations that she knows will hurt Zhanna. Sveta's panic and isolation turns her into an exploding powder keg. Completely blind-sided, Zhanna leaves Sveta's room and Sveta is left alone with Beria's threat.

...a soft place to fall...

AdamantiumDragonfly

Far from the experimental branch of the military, the Airborne had quickly sprung into fame. The men involved were now entitled to some kind of prestige that, in Dick's opinion, inflated their heads more than anything. The weight of their own pride would make it difficult for their chutes to slow their fall.

While Dick endeavored to keep his paratroopers humble, it didn't really matter. Dick wasn't in the day-to-day operations of Easy Company anymore, something that pained him greatly. They were led by Speirs, a worthy candidate, and while Dick trusted his men and his company with the captain, watching them march outside his window was a constant reminder. Easy Company, like a child who had grown up, didn't need him anymore.

He was proud of his company and they deserved the fame and prestige that the 101st Airborne was gaining. Men he had trained in Toccoa were rising in the ranks, making NCOs and then commissioned officers. Even the Airborne was making strides in the war, beating back the Germans in Bastogne and making plans to move into Germany.

Their plan, though excluding the 101st, was a paratrooper operation over the Rhine, nicknamed Operation Varsity. From what whispers Dick had managed to pick in Battalion and HQ, it was bigger than D-Day had been. They had allowed observers for the 101st so Dick had put Nixon up for the post. Nixon had been known to ruffle a few feathers but Battalion was not the place to do so. It seemed Nixon didn't quite care.

With Nix somewhere over Germany, Speirs running Dick's company, and the Russian liaisons in their own billet, Dick felt isolated again. The foxhole had been a grave in the making but the wood in his office promised to be his coffin. His cause of death would have been asphyxiation by crushing weight of paperwork. That would take some explaining.

Dick whiled away the hours, staring at the sky that Nix would be flying through, and hoping he heard the soft footsteps of American-made boots on the floor outside of his office. They never came, at least, not with the face he wanted to see. A scared-looking messenger knocked on the door, and squeaked the news: Nix was back.

It didn't take much convincing for his paperwork to slide to the floor and his boots to beat against the fl. Dick found Nix in their billet, a commandeered home that had been repurposed to be equal measures an officer's club for Nix, Welsh, and Speirs and office for himself. Welsh and Speirs had left the remnants of their breakfast on a sideboard, rolls and long cold coffee. Snatching up a golden roll, Dick followed the sounds of shuffling feet and the low crooning of the radio. Nix, decompressing from the operation, was in low spirits.

Nix didn't seem to want to gloat over his combat jump, or puff his chest so the three combat stars would gleam in the Bavarian sunlight. He was uncharacteristically quiet and humble. Though it was considered a successful operation by the brass and brains behind it, the men who fought and jumped seemed to have another story.

"Not bad for someone who's never fired his weapon in combat," Nix tossed his boots across the room, leaving skid marks of mud on the opposite wallpaper.

"Really?" Dick said. "Even with all the action we've seen?"

"Guess Zhanna never gave 'em a chance," Nix said, a cloud crossing his face as he said it.

He had come back from a successful mission with a strange new humility that was unlike the Nix that Dick knew from Toccoa or any other time in the war, for that matter. Maybe he was just as tired as the rest of Easy Company, they could all feel the effects of years of fighting now that they had soft beds and hot food. Or maybe something hadn't gone perfectly to plan on Operation Varsity as Dick was led to believe.

"So," Dick lowered the volume of the radio, dimming the brass of the band to a low murmur and leaning against the table, preparing himself for the full unofficial debrief that was custom between him and Nix. "How did it go this morning? The jump?"

"It was great. Fantastic."

The liquor in his hand didn't lend itself to honesty and Dick found it hard to believe his friend from the grim look in his eyes. One never pressed Lewis Nixon for information. He would offer the pieces when he was ready and so Dick took another bite from the bread, ready for the drop.

Turning his back from him, Nixon told Dick of the direct hit over the dropzone and the losses how any officer would: with remorse and regret. It was heavier coming from Nix's mouth, though, Dick noted. And the rest of the men. Their fate was obvious.

"Oh they blew up over Germany somewhere. Boom!"

It was so careless, how he said it but Dick could tell that Nix was mourning in his own way. Dick didn't offer anything more than a whispered condolence. He had lost men before. He had seen planes and parachutes burn.

"Oh well, wasn't me," Nix downed the rest of his whiskey, sounding as if he would have gladly traded places with any one of those men.

His voice was scornful at the loss of their CO, as if the task of writing letters home to the lost paratrooper's families that had fallen to him was pointless, not a source of comfort and solace for Dick. Nixon had regarded many things with a pointed scorn, Sink's displeasure at his performance in Battalion was no shock to anyone, and neither was the demotion that was being signed and sealed as Dick spoke. The drinking couldn't have helped, the empty bottles littering the table was a sign of gluttony and greed, if Dick ever saw one. He didn't seem to care, either, when Dick broke the news of his demotion.

"What do you think I should write to these parents, Dick?" Nixon's eyes were vacant, as if his head was still miles above them, in a German sky.

"Did you hear what I said?" Dick asked.

"Yeah, demoted. Got you." Nix said, his voice sounding hoarse. "Cause I don't know how to tell them that their kids didn't even make it out of the goddamn plane,"

"You tell them the same thing you always tell them," Dick said. His hands and his mind knew the script too well now, after two years of active duty. He clung to the words as familiar names crossed his desk and the condolences of families were left to him. "That their sons died as heroes."

"You really still believe that?"

The biggest regret of Dick's war was the men he had lost, through errors or misjudgment of his own or by the very nature of battle. He could remember every name and he could still picture every face but that didn't bring them back. He still believed they died as heroes. He had to believe that, or what was the point of their death?

"Yeah," Dick said. "I still do."

"Don't you?" Dick countered but Nixon was miles away again. Maybe he was crafting the letters in his head? Or maybe he was still watching the parachutes burn in a bright blue sky.

Nix's eyes were vacant, taking in everything and nothing at all, as he reached for the Vat69 bottle. Dick had stopped any attempt to caution or limit Lew's drinking. He couldn't stop it, but Dick liked to think his own abstinence countered it.

"When you see Casmriovna, send her up to Battalion," Dick said, moving to leave. "Nix, did you hear-"

"Yeah, Casmirovna, got it."

Caught in the whirlwind of activity after her promotion to captain, he had been swept away into supply briefings and meetings. He had almost forgotten that he had lended Nix to the 17th. But that didn't explain Zhanna's absence.

"Let me ask a harder question, Dick," Nix said. "What do you do when the real hero didn't make it back and she has no family to write a letter to? Who do I tell then?"

"What?"

"Who do you tell when the hero has no one?"

"Lew, where is Zhanna?" Dick asked. Lew didn't give an answer. His eyes were glassy and staring at a point over Dick's shoulder.

"Nixon, what did you do?" Dick channeled every ounce of authority into his tone.

"Dick, Svetlana did...I don't know what she did to Zhanna" Lew's voice sounded dry, though he took a fortifying sip of Vat69. "Zhanna, she found me and begged me to take her with me."

"You took her on Varsity," Dick said, repeating the idea in his mind. "You took Zhanna on Varsity and now she's-"

"Last I saw, somewhere over Germany," Nix said. "With the rest of the boys."

Dick had lost men. He had lost friends and leaders. He had lost soldiers, good soldiers. The weight hadn't gotten easier to carry every time but Nix's words knocked the wind out of his chest.

The floor was gone, webbing yanking him up and out of his own thoughts. He had made hundreds of jumps, training, and real, but none had jarred him quite like this. He never should have let Nixon go on that jump. He should have gone. He could have done what?

What could Dick have done?

Zhanna had gone and would have gone no matter what anyone did. She was stubborn. She was a fighter. She was fierce. She was gone.

He had never fallen from quite as high as he had then.

Casmirovna was a valuable piece in the Allied puzzle, an important member of Easy Company's ranks, and a formidable force against the Germans. She had been fighting longer than most of the Toccoa men and had earned the respect of officers and enlisted alike. Captain Casmirovna was a hero and a great loss.

He still believed that those who died on the soil or in the air of Europe were counted among the heroes. Didn't he?

"Who do I tell?" Nix asked. He sounded helpless, hopeless, desperate. "I don't tell Samsonova, do I?"

"No," Dick snapped, then softer, "No."

If he told Samsonova that Nixon had let Zhanna join him on the jump then all hell would break loose. There was enough bristling fur and bared teeth with the close to the war that everyone could sense approaching. Fighting didn't bring Zhanna back, if she was truly gone.

Dick hadn't tried to hold hope for his lost heroes before. Dick had accepted their loss as fact. Maybe Zhanna had made it? Maybe her chute had deployed and she had found a soft landing? It was easier to think like that but he had never done it before.

"She can find out with the rest of the men," Dick said.

"Unless someone tells her first," Welsh, his canteen swinging from his side had gone unnoticed. "Sink's already in a fowl mood."

"Did she know?" Welsh asked, sitting down at the table beside Nixon. "That Casmirovna was on the jump,"

"Yes,"

"Shit," Welsh muttered, grimly.

It didn't matter who knew, who had been told, or who would do the telling. Zhanna was missing, Zhanna was gone. Sveta's anger wouldn't change that and neither would the niceties. Neither would Dick's wishful thinking and yet, he wasn't ready to shelve that. Not yet.