2 January 1945

Finally, they had a mission beyond holding the line. The siege had broken. The men had survived, and with that survival came a new confidence. She saw it in the way they walked. She saw it in the way they smiled and laughed.

But as Sveta stood amidst the men of Easy who dug foxholes and chatted about nonsense, unnoticed as she lurked, she couldn't help but feel fear creeping into her chest again. Confidence could lead to mistakes. That was a lesson she had learned many times over, watching as politicians in Stalin's circle overstepped from their overconfidence and found themselves disappearing in the middle of the night, or suffering accidents that were anything but accidental. The same happened in war.

In the Bois Jacques, the rows of perfect trees had been marred by days of artillery strikes. Instead of tall and straight, dark against the white mists, these were fractured, splintered and decimated over and over and over. The men tried to ignore it. She saw the way they glanced uneasily at the remains and then smiled at their comrades. But Sveta didn't ignore it.

She inspected a tree that had splintered at about her chest height. The top had been blown away, leaving sawdust to mix with snow and dirt. She touched the bark, felt the ripped edges between her cold fingers. The fire power to do such damage was nothing to laugh at. But the men were still laughing, still joking all around her.

A coping method, she supposed. Healthier than her alcohol or cigarettes. Still, she couldn't engage. Not without playing the part she'd honed from days of acting careless in Moscow and Stalingrad and Leningrad.

She'd come up to the line for a purpose. Hoobler, Hashey, and Christenson had stopped a German officer on patrol. She wanted to hear their report first hand. Now that she had, and let Hoobler keep his prize of the Luger to boast to the others, she just watched.

The man in question crouched by the edge of a foxhole, chatting with Lipton and Shifty who struggled to deepen the hole. He flashed the gun like he'd never seen a more precious item in his life. Sveta wondered how many lives it had taken. Guns weren't toys.

Lipton was the man of the hour, though. That's why she was still up on the line, and that's why she stood near their foxhole. She wanted to talk to him. An anger had been boiling in her since they'd started their move to the Bois Jacques, an anger aimed at one man. Lieutenant Dike.

She didn't trust Peacock. She didn't trust Foley. She didn't trust Shames. She didn't particularly like Compton, though she tried to remind herself that was more because he'd seen her at her worst without her consent. Nothing he had done had earned her anger, but it was there.

But she did trust Sergeant Carwood Lipton. He had a good head on his shoulders, cared about the men, and saw Dike for the issue he was. Of course, he'd never say it outloud. But Sveta could see the way he'd deflate whenever Dike would walk over, or a man asked about his whereabouts.

When Hoobler moved off, Sveta turned to walk over. But Compton beat her to it, seemingly materializing out of thin air. Malarkey walked with him. Sveta forced down her annoyance. She could deal with another few minutes of fading into the background. It amused her to no end, though, that as Lipton hauled himself out of the half dug foxhole, he thrust his shovel into Malarkey's hands. The man made a face, but jumped in to join Shifty.

"Have you seen Dike?"

The refrain of the day. She'd not found him when she'd come up to the line. That had just fueled her anger more, and it seemed Compton found it as obnoxious as she did based on his exasperation that Lipton did not, in fact, know where he had gone.

"Where's Dike? Where the hell is he? Where does he ever go?" Compton just looked around, hands clenched around his rifle.

Malarkey piped up from behind them,"I don't know, but I wish he'd stay there."

"Be nice if he took Shames with him," Shifty added.

Sveta had to hide her amusement behind her hand as Lipton just told them to be quiet. She moved over towards them, making herself known, "I've been trying to find that idiot for an hour." Lipton, Compton, Malarkey, and Shifty all turned her way. She joined them, pulling out a cigarette. "When I find him, he's going to wish he'd hid better."

Malarkey cracked up, earning another glare from Lipton. But he didn't correct him further, and just nodded. "You been up here that long, Captain?"

She nodded. "I wanted to speak to Christenson and Hoobler myself about the German officer."

"Anything of interest?" Compton asked.

Before she could respond, a gunshot cracked through the air. The men dove into the foxhole, but Sveta just moved against a tree. She could hear them trying to figure out what it was. But Sveta knew. She knew that sound. That wasn't a sniper.

Shifty spoke her thoughts. "That was no rifle."

Sveta's hands shook. She didn't even spare a second look at them. "That was a pistol." She knew what a single shot from a pistol sounded like.

"You sure?"

Sveta didn't know who asked. "Yes."

"Jesus, it's Hoob! He's shot!"

Sveta looked left. Hashey had come running, his face pale. As the others again asked about a sniper, not trusting her, he spoke up again.

"No, he... he shot himself!"

She couldn't move. The words hit her like a punch in the gut. Pain filled her whole body, tears coming to her eyes before she could stop them. She didn't run after them. She didn't move to find Hoobler. She couldn't see glassy eyes again, couldn't see a pistol from a fallen hand, couldn't watch as blood turned white to red.

"Captain?"

Sveta clenched her fists.

"Captain, you good?"

She found herself looking at Guarnere, and beside him, Martin. Force away the fear. She tried to put on the mask, to recover. But flashes of memory, of blood staining the white sheets, filled her mind again. She drew herself up, biting her cheek so hard she tasted iron. "I'm fine."

"You look pale as a fuckin' ghost, Captain," Guarnere countered. "What was that shot?"

Before she could respond, Lipton interrupted. "Hoob's Luger went off in his pocket."

He came walking over, shoulders sagging. Sveta couldn't breathe. Hoobler was dead. He had to be.

"Fucking Christ!"

Martin just glared at Lipton. "He's dead?"

"Yeah."

Sveta forced her eyes closed again. Anything to keep tears from welling up. The ache in her chest made her sick. It made her dizzy. She gripped the tree that was next to her. Guarnere and Martin moved off, but Lipton looked at her closely.

"Captain, are you alright?"

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't get a breath of air that didn't hurt her lungs. But she had to control herself. She couldn't allow herself to think of Stalingrad. Not now. Not with work to do and people to help.

"Captain?"

"It's nothing," she told him. She hadn't meant to sound angry, and it surprised her when Lipton didn't flinch at her tone. "It's nothing," she repeated.

"Why don't you sit down," he suggested.

She didn't want to sit down. She wanted to go somewhere else, anywhere else but there in the Bois Jacques. But another wave of panic gripped her and she nearly fell. Sveta didn't know how she found herself sitting at the base of the tree.

Lipton crouched in front of her, confusion all over his face. She forced herself to breathe. The freezing snow between her hands cooled her down. But it stung. She couldn't afford this weakness. Not now.

"Sergeant, I'm fine," she insisted. "Just needed a breath of air."

He hesitated. "Should I get Doc—"

"No!" Sveta said. "No. I'm fine." She ran a hand along the braid that encircled her head, focusing on the way it wove itself together smoothly in one direction and rough the other. Helmet at her side, she breathed. "I'm fine. I just remembered something I would prefer not to discuss."

He nodded. "Yes ma'am."

It didn't take long for her to stand back up. Anger filled her again, but not at Lipton. Anger at Dike, anger at the Germans. Hatred would keep her warm. It had to keep her warm, because everywhere she looked there, dirty but no less freezing snow invaded her space. Sveta wanted to leave. But then she looked at Lipton again, looked at him and remembered why she'd come up to the line in the first place. She stuck a new cigarette in her mouth and took a drag to calm down.

"Sergeant, I want to know where Dike goes."

He sighed. "If I knew that, Captain, I would let you know. But I'm sure he's off doing what he needs to do."

"What he needs to do is get his head on straight," Sveta snapped. She had run out of patience for Lieutenant Dike. But she took another deep breath. "Easy is doing an admirable job coping with him as CO, and I attribute a lot of that success to you, Sergeant. So consider this an offer. If ever you want me to find a way to deal with Dike, let me know."

He broke into a half smirk. "You gonna give him the same treatment Guarnere talks about from the hospital?"

Sveta couldn't help but chuckle. "Something like that."

He nodded. "I'll let you know, Captain. But Lieutenant Compton has things in hand right now, and Lieutenant Dike doesn't mean to be less effective than we'd hope."

It was almost comical, the way Lipton had to dance around calling Dike what he was, which was inept. But she admired it. He knew how to respect a superior officer. So she just nodded. "Duly noted."

It didn't take long for her to leave Lipton. He had things to do, and she had things to do. No doubt he would go try to find Dike to tell him about Hoobler. Her heart hurt at the thought of his death, again. But she kept walking. She kept moving forward. She had to get out of Bastogne. If she didn't get out of Bastogne, she'd never get out of Russia. And not leaving Russia was not an option.