Bullets fly again part 3

As the song ends, one of the cadets comments on the melancholy that had descended on the club:
>"Brigadier better pull rank & play something more up-beat next, where is she by the way?"
>"AWOL!" the instructors answer in unison.
>"...But, she's the commander! How is it even possible for her to be AWOL?" Buttelmann asks, confused.
>"General Marseille denies herself evening pass & then goes out anyway, tomorrow she will order herself to be restricted to the base for a week & come evening do what ever she feels like doing, up to and including going out again", Barkhorn explains with a pained expression on her face. She and Brigadier General Hanna-Justina Marseille are something of antagonists to each other, one of them strict disciplinarian & the other an unrepentant drunk and a womanizer for whom "discipline" is a nasty word that gets shouted at her after every time she has had a little bit of fun.
>"How is she a general with stunts like that?" another cadet asks before she can stop herself.
>"Someone at Pentagon had the bright idea of giving her the stars without taking a look at her service record, now they don't dare to take the stars away for fear that she might view it as a permission to start flying again" Yeager answers with a grin.

>"Can't they just go to the President & have him force her out?"
>"Of course they tried that already, President Truman took one look at her record & laughed so hard he pissed himself & turns out he now likes Marseille." Eila continues the explanation, keeping "how do you think Hartmann and I have been able to keep our commissions?" to herself.
>"Speaking of Marseille, you girls *still* try to imitate the instructors & fight solo, the only reason we fight you solo is because we have the skills and experience required to do that, Marseille got shot down several times in her early days because she kept fighting solo, and she was already the finest aerobaticist of the Luftwaffe back then, once she was forced to work as a team with Pöttgen, she stopped getting shot down & instead of becoming another winner of the Wooden Cross she became the finest fighter ace of all time", Barkhorn lectures the cadets, she has clearly been waiting for a chance to bring up the fact that early on Marseille's striker units tended to be write-offs after every mission due to her recklessness.

>"...But aren't both your and Colonel Hartmann's scores way higher than hers?" Buttelmann asks, puzzled.
>"...Let's just say the Reichskanzler was less amused by Marseille's history of insubordination than Truman is & leave it at that" Barkhorn explains with her unease apparent in her voice, the name of the man being effectively a taboo among the former Karlsland military personnel, especially the ones serving in the armed forces of their former enemies.
>"What does that even mean?" Buttelmann asks, not understanding the implications.
>"What she's trying to say is the art school reject from Bohemia had Marseille placed under house arrest for the rest of the war after she pushed her luck too far in '42, there are even rumors of The Chicken Farmer trying to find an excuse to have her shot after the July Plot just to pick a fight with Göring, but her friends managed to protect her" Hartmann explains.

>"While we are on the topic of working as a team, why are we still assigning the least experienced witch as the Tail-end Charlie?" Illu asks for the umpteenth time, though this is the first time she has asked it in front of the cadets.
>"Where else would we put them?" Barkhorn asks.
>"How about as the wingman of the flight leader? "Hasse" insisted on doing that & her flight rarely lost anyone, and she NEVER lost a wingman" Illu says, getting visibly angrier with every word she speaks.
>"That's because you guys doctrinaly split your flights into two pairs with one flying above the other ready to pounce on anyone trying to sneak up to the pair flying lower" Barkhorn retorts, not realizing she has left an opening.
>"And why would doing that be a bad thing? More flexibility AND better coverage" Illu argues back.
>"Because this is the United States of Liberion Armed Forces, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the generals in the Army were still convinced that breech-loading rifles are a passing fad" Buttelmann jokes before she can stop herself, eliciting a laugh from everyone in the O-club, instructors included.
>"I bet the Navy still has admirals who think all a proper Fleet needs are sail ships with wooden hulls & a hundred muzzle-loading cannon!" someone exclaims in between coughs from laughing too hard.
>"Well, the USS Constitution *is* still in commission" someone else jokes, causing everyone to laugh even more.

Meanwhile in East-Berlin, Waltrud Lehweß-Litzmann is woken up by someone pounding on the door of her apartment. Covering up herself before going to the door to see who it is, she already has an idea regarding her visitors.
Opening the door, she sees men in civilian clothes, everything about them reminding her of Gestapo, and here in East-Berlin, there is only one possibility as to their identity.
>"Oberstleutnant Lehweß-Litzmann?" asks the man who seems to be in charge.
>"Yes" she answers, trying to remain calm, Stasi might take even the slightest hint of fear as proof of guilt.
>"Pack your bags, you are going to Siberia" the Stasi man says with a barely suppressed grin.
>"What do I need bags for out there?" she asks.

>"You can't do much for your country without the essentials, and I doubt you can get most of them out there, so better stock up now, don't you think?" another Stasi man responds with a grin.
>"...So, it's not the Gulag then?" she asks for confirmation.
>"Why would we send an invaluable witch to die in the ruski Hell? You are going there to train our socialist sisters to rid the World of the capitalist swine" the leader of the Stasi goons answers with a chuckle. It seems he had chosen his words deliberately to mess with her, Karlsländer humor at its best.
>"Why me? Orussians have no shortage of experienced witches" Lehweß-Litzmann asks.
>"Orussians have exactly zero witches with combat experience fighting against witches trained by the West, plus, the Liberion Air Force has started using Karlsländer traitors as instructors, and there are precious few good socialist witches remaining in Karlsland who received proper training during the war."

>After packing her bags & getting in the back seat of the Opel Admiral waiting for them, Lehweß-Litzmann asks the head Stasi goon a question:
>"You said the West has started using Karlsländer witches as instructors, whom exactly?"
>"Here's the list of the instructors assigned to Naval Air Station Glenview" the head Stasi goon says handing over an envelope, after checking the first four names on the list Lehweß-Litzmann asks with sarcasm:
>"...How about you save us some time & shoot me right now as a defeatist?"
>"Come now, it's not THAT bad"
>"Have you SEEN this list?" she asks.
>"I compiled it myself"
>"So you KNOW who these girls are, what they pulled off, and the more I read, the worse it gets, even ignoring Marseille, Hartmann and Barkhorn, Wiktoria Urbanowicz? Where one Polish witch goes, half a dozen more follow, and the surviving Poles who are NOT incarcerated are some of the most dangerous, Litvyak? She was literally trained by the ruskis, Juutilainen? What next, Major Wind and Feldwebel Katajainen joining the band by the end of the month?" she finishes with a sarcastic joke, a fact which apparently goes unnoticed.
>"Rest assured, Orussians have those two under close supervision & will take action the second they catch even a hint that either one of the two might be headed for Liberion" the Stasi boss states without even a hint of humor in his tone.
>"And when that immediately results in the veterans of number 24 and 31 squadrons fleeing across the ocean to join USAF en masse, what then?" Lehweß-Litzmann asks.
>"Surely you mean "if"?"
>"I know what I said, and I am sticking to it, mark my words; you underestimate the stubborn vindictiveness of Suomusians at your own peril."
>"...Surely all of what has been said about Suomusians is greatly exaggerated" the Stasi boss suggests in vain.
>"Ruskis thought that as well, they were wrong."