STALKER Southern Comfort

by Balazs Pataki

  Last Men Standing

  Hill 1865, 19:50:47 AFT

  The truck eventually arrives at the small fortification perched on the hill and halts, the engine still idling. Tarasov watches his soldiers as they get off. Sergeant Zlenko, Kamensky and Bondarchuk with AKMs; Lobov the medic with an AKSU; Kravchuk with his Dragunov; Ilchenko with his PKM; Vasilyev carries only a Fort pistol, all he can manage since he is loaded down with the heavy AGS-17 grenade launcher… They are quite well equipped. Even so, he can only hope it will be enough. He jumps out of the truck and looks around.

  The hilltop position looks well-fortified at first sight, but his heart sinks when he sees the two dozen rag-tag Stalkers, some of them having no better weapons than obsolete shotguns.

  This will be a tough battle, he reflects with a sigh.

  Tarasov had hoped that at least the truck would stay with them to give support from its massive anti-aircraft gun, but Captain Bone’s driver had barely given his men enough time to dismount before turning the vehicle heading back to towards the Stalker base.

  “Looks like this place has seen many battles before,” Zlenko says surveying the hilltop.

  Tarasov nods in agreement. The fire base would be easy to defend if he had more men. Surrounded to the north and south with trenches shaped in the form of two semi-circles, a bunker stands in the middle of the perimeter. Tarasov sees no windows or vents on the low concrete walls, but its top is fortified with sandbags, just like the smaller trench running between the bunker and the outer defenses.

  He climbs up to its top. Looking around he can well understand how strategic this position is. The view is breathtaking: through his binoculars, Tarasov can still make out the hazy mountains around the Salang Pass to the north and the scattered ruins of Bagram. Just like after reaching the exit of the Salang tunnel where he first saw the dreadful beauty of this wilderness, its vastness fills him with awe. In his exhilaration, Tarasov even ignores the gloomy horizon to the south where flashes of lightning appear, their thunder rolling over the flat landscape like a foreboding echo under a sky turning to violent shades of red and purple. Beyond the far hills that screen the ruins of Kabul, gloomy clouds cover the sky like frozen waves of an eternal storm. The road runs below, between the hill and a higher mountain to the south-west, before it enters the sandy plains and disappears in the haze and swirling clouds of sand.

  “All right, let’s get down to business,” he says, clapping his hands and turning to Zlenko. “Let the sniper and the grenade launcher set up here. Tell them to keep their heads low. I’ll be damned if we don’t receive sniper fire from that mountain beyond the road. We’ll need as many soldiers as possible in the trenches. I’ll get a Stalker to give Vasilyev a hand with the AGS.”

  “Yest, komandir!” Zlenko gives a sharp whistle and waves his hand to the two soldiers to join him.

  Tarasov finds Squirrel sitting on a sandbag. The Stalker guide has his face buried in his hands and looks resigned in despair.

  “Hey brother,” Tarasov tells him. “Cheer up. You can whine when you’re dead.”

  “I already am… I told you what this place is about. And I curse the fucking moment when I ran into you!”

  “So you preferred being mutant food?”

  “Whatever, man. I am a Stalker, not a soldier. I know about mutants and anomalies, but don’t have the stuff for making last stands on godforsaken hills like this!”

  “Nobody says it will be a last stand,” Tarasov says, comfortingly. “I’m sorry that you’ve been punished for helping us. Listen, bro, all I can do in exchange now is to offer you a relatively safe place. Join that soldier on the bunker and help him handle the grenade launcher. Stay low and you’ll be fine.”

  Zlenko appears. “Vasilyev and Kravchuk are in position.”

  “Good. I want Ilchenko and the riflemen help the Stalkers in holding the line. Damn it, how I wish I had enough men to deploy into the forward trenches!”

  They make their way towards the group of Stalkers who stand around what had once been a field gun, but now is almost falling apart from rust and wear. The Stalkers stop chatting and give the soldiers distrustful looks as they approach. The smell of marijuana lingers in the air around them.

  “Stalkers, have any of you been to the Zone?” Tarasov asks.

  Almost all of them nod.

  “Yes, we have,” says a Stalker wearing an oversized trench coat made of black leather, covered with a thick layer of brown dust. His face his half-hidden by a hood. To Tarasov’s surprise, as the Stalker steps forward and his trench coat opens, he recognizes a Duty suit below it. The Stalker takes his battered AK from his shoulder, but seeing Ilchenko’s machine gun he doesn’t dare to assume a threatening stance. “That’s why we prefer that you stay away from us, stinking army pigs.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Zlenko steps forward but Tarasov halts him with a movement of his hand.

  He looks at the Stalkers. Now, closer in, he can guess their origins by the half-ruined armor suits they are wearing: rookies in leather jackets reinforced by Kevlar plates; here and there the ravaged light armor with the Bundeswehr-issue Tarnfleck camouflage that is preferred by fighters of the Freedom faction. A few of them wear the more experienced Stalkers’ grey-brown protective suits. Finally, his eyes return to the Stalker wearing the dusty Duty uniform.

  “Listen up, brothers,” he starts addressing the Stalkers. “I know you are here as a punishment. So are we – for all the things the army did to Stalkers back in the Zone, even if neither I nor any of my men was part of that. But I say: fighting dushmans is not a punishment. We are here to teach them a lesson they will not forget. We can’t avenge any wrongs from Chernobyl, but we do still have unfinished business with the dushmans.”

  Tarasov sees a sparkle flashing up in the eyes of older Stalkers. The younger ones, too, perk up their ears to what he is saying.

  “I see Loners, Freedom fighters and even a Duty soldier here. You have fought each other back in the Zone, and we have fought you all. We are all new to this place but face an old enemy. They might have beaten our father’s generation, but now it is us they will be up against. And I tell you, they will be in for a surprise.” Tarasov clears his throat. Mentioning his father turned his throat strangely dry. Looking at the Stalkers who now listen to him closely, he decides to ask them a question.

  “You, rookie in that brown Kevlar jacket! Where are you from?”

  “Moscow.”

  “And you, with that AK-47?”

  “Katowice. Poland.”

  “You, in that Freedom suit?”

  “Irkutsk. I hated the cold there.”

  The Stalkers start replying one by one.

  “Uruguay. You wouldn’t guess where it is, but I’m here and ready.”

  “Glasgow. Scotland the brave!”

  “Sankt-Petersburg. No need to tell more.”

  “Sarajevo. Bosnia. I hate snipers.”

  “Yekaterinburg, and I know what you mean, officer. In all of Russia, we have the most beautiful memorial to those fallen in that war.”

  “From Krasnodar, just around the corner.”

  “Lviv, but I was born in Zhitomir.”

  “Hajmáskér. Hungary.”

  “Is that so, Mente?” The Russian Stalker from Moscow asks with surprise. “My uncle was stationed there in Soviet times, with a tank battalion!”

  “You are my friend, Moskvich, but for us it was a relief to get rid of your uncle with his tanks,” the Eastern European Stalker grumbles, staring at his sawn-off shotgun. The Stalker called Moskvich just shrugs the remark off, and gives his comrade a pat on the shoulder.

  “We seem to have all kinds of Stalkers here from around the globe,” Tarasov continues. “Our homes might be different but our blood has the same color. Don’t have any illusions: it will be shed today. Let it be the sign of our union, because today we all fight together and will be victorious together. Our chances are not good, there’s no doubt about that. But if the toughest
sons of bitches of the Zone will keep together for once – who can stand against us, brothers?”

  “We are not your damned brothers, officer,” the tough-looking Dutier replies, making the last word sound like a curse. He was one of the few Stalkers who kept their origin to themselves.

  “So you want me to call you sister, or what? Or does Duty’s triumphant march to victory end as soon as they have to face real enemies?”

  The Dutier’s face flushes with anger. A few Stalkers wearing Freedom suits start laughing. Feeling his momentum, Tarasov turns towards them.

  “You listen up too, you pathetic bunch of no-good dope-smoking miserable anarchists! We’re all together in this bardak. It’s a deep shit situation! There’s not enough of us to use the forward trenches, so we’ll make our stand right here. These riflemen and the machine gunner will be strengthening your line. Ilchenko, you’ll take position here. You, Stalker with the Sunrise suit and you with that AK-47, take up positions to cover his flanks. The rest of you follow me. We better set up our defense now before night falls.”

  “Wait a minute,” the Dutier says. “What the hell puts you in charge anyway?”

  “Three rifles and one machine gun pointing at you.”

  From the corner of his eye, Tarasov sees an ear to ear grin appear on Ilchenko’s face. The Stalker reluctantly shoulders his weapon.

  “That’s what I call an argument,” he grumbles. “All right, let’s work together… for now. My name is Skinner. I had a different name back at Yanov, during Commander Shulga’s times, but that’s of no importance anymore.”

  Tarasov doesn’t show it but feels great relief over the Dutier’s decision to cooperate. “I am Major Tarasov from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and glad to see a Duty soldier here. It’s good to have at least one Stalker around who has ever heard of discipline.”

  Skinner gives him a grin. “Sorry to disappoint you, Major, but I’m a deserter. I was fed up delivering the artifacts I earned with my blood to the damned scientists.”

  “That’s understandable, after all.”

  “This is the land of plenty here. But I can’t hunt for artifacts if I’m dead, can I? So, if you grunts will help me to survive, I don’t give a damn how many Stalkers you’ve had mowed down at Cordon. I might even listen to your orders.”

  “That machine gun is now pointed elsewhere. And neither do I give a damn if you’ll survive, Skinner. But I do care about you trying and killing as many dushmans in the process as possible.”

  “You could hardly ask for less, Major.”

  Tarasov now turns to Zlenko. “Set up defensive position with the riflemen along the perimeter. Concentrate fire towards the south and that mountain. Makes sure there’s one of us with every three or four Stalkers.”

  The sergeant nods and hurries off with the soldiers, leaving Tarasov to turn back to the cocky Stalker.

  “Bone told me the attack is imminent. Tell me more about what we’ll have to face.”

  “I didn’t tell him it was imminent,” Skinner replies. Under the hood, surprise flashes in his dark eyes. “I only told Bone that we saw a group of dushmans approaching from the plain. We fired a few shots at them and they disappeared.”

  “That’s odd. Bone seemed to be sure that you’d need reinforcements, and soon.”

  It dawns now on Tarasov that the Captain might have just wanted to get rid of them – sending them into a hopeless battle and let the Stalkers’ enemies do the dirty job. One more reason to make it through alive, he thinks.

  “That son of a bitch could be right after all,” replies Skinner pointing towards the south. “It might have been an advance party to check if they can catch us with our pants down. Maybe they will come back in full force after nightfall. To spice up the soup we’re boiling in… did you see those clouds on the horizon?”

  “It looks gloomy, yes.”

  “Smells like a dust storm gathering.”

  “That should keep the dushmans away.”

  “You think so? Major, you might have been a big shot in the Zone but you’re still a rookie here,” Skinner grimly replies.

  Tarasov frowns but can’t find any mockery in the Stalker’s words. Swallowing his pride, he even admits to himself that Skinner has a point: not even two days have passed since he arrived.

  “Back in the Zone, Monolithians were bad,” Skinner continues. “Zombies were bad too. Now add them together and you have the dushmans.”

  “Sounds like charming company. But why do they want to take this godforsaken place?”

  “It’s not the Outpost they are after. It’s Bagram. When the nukes went off, the mountains north of Kabul got the worst of the fallout. The devastation is also pretty bad there. That’s why they want to break through to the north. Anyway, when the storm will hit, we’ll lock ourselves in that bunker – because we stick to our life. The dushmans don’t. Unless we beat them before the storm arrives, they will crawl up to the bunker, blow down the door and fry us inside, no matter how many of them get martyred in the process.”

  “Oh Gospodi,” sighs Tarasov.

  “I agree. Praying never harms.” Skinner takes a necklace with a small silver cross from under his armored suit and kisses it. “You still eager to make a gallant stand?”

  “I am.”

  “I didn’t take you for such a badass. Maybe Bone was right in sending you here… we’re a bunch of thieves and murderers, but we won’t give up without a fight.”

  “And which of those things are you?”

  “Not a thief, that’s for sure,” the Stalker says, turning away and raising his binoculars to scan the dusty plains. But Tarasov has one more question for him.

  “How come Bone put you up with Freedomers and ordinary Stalkers? Duty prefers formal court-martials, as far as I know.”

  Without removing the binoculars from his eyes, Skinner spits to the ground. “Do you play cards, Major?”

  “Occasionally. Why?”

  “Because the old deck of cards has been reshuffled. Here, none of us belongs to where he used to. Bone is not with Duty anymore, neither are his henchmen. Sometimes I wonder if they ever were. The one I killed certainly was not.”

  “How do you know?” Tarasov curiously asks.

  “No self-respecting Duty fighter would try taking a free Stalker’s artifacts by aiming a rifle at him. And neither would one beg for his life, not even with a free Stalker’s combat knife at his throat.”

  Tarasov leaves him alone and looks back at Ilchenko who is positioning his machine gun among the sand bags. He notices with satisfaction that the soldier has picked a perfect position – protected, but still covering a wide angle towards the slope.

  “Good position. Mow them down when they come, Ilchenko.”

  The soldier grins back at him, flashing impeccable teeth in his round face. “I will, sir. You know how it goes… On Kazbek the clouds are meeting, like the mountain eagle-flock, Up to them, along the rock, dash the wild Uzdens retreating,/ Onward faster, faster fleeting, routed by the Russian brood,/ Foameth all their track with blood.”

  Tarasov’s jaw almost drops in surprise. Reciting a poem was the last thing he expected from the tattooed machine gunner. “That’s by Bestuzhev!”

  “That’s correct, sir.” Ilchenko almost bursts with self-satisfaction. “I have a degree in literature, but signed up with the army to see the world and all.”

  “You are a man of many talents, Ilchenko.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  “Let’s see if digging is one of them. Grab that shovel and dig in deeper, if you don’t want this shithole to be the last you see of the world!”

  “As ordered, sir, but –”

  “And make it deep enough!” Tarasov shouts. “It will save us time when we have to bury you if you got shot because you were thinking about poetry instead of mowing down those baystrukhi. They don’t give a damn about Shevchenko and Bestuzhev, but they know Kalashnikov’s name very well!”

  Still shaking his head, Tarasov
makes his way back to the bunker where Vasilyev is giving Squirrel a crash course in how to handle the grenade launcher.

  “It handles like a dream if the blowback mechanism doesn’t jam. But that’s not your concern. Get those ammunition boxes closer. There’s a belt with thirty high-explosive grenades in each of them. The box marked red contains VOG-30 grenades. They take more punch and have a longer range than regular rounds. Those are our life insurance. Do not feed them until I tell you to do so. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call me ‘sir’ again and I put a grenade up your ass! Now, let’s take two belts and load them into the metal drum magazines. We have two of them. As soon as one is empty, you remove and replace it with the reserve drum. While I keep firing, you load the next belt into the empty drum. Then you change it again if needed.”

  “Keep your eyes on what Vasilyev is showing you, Squirrel,” Tarasov remarks when he sees the Stalker sending concerned glances to the south. “Rest assured, the dushmans will come without you watching out for them.”

  Under his watch, the Outpost slowly gains the shape of a well-organized fire base. But from the top position he can also see how thinly stretched their defenses are. Defending such positions was among the basics in officer training but Tarasov has never faced such a task before. Clearing the underground labs. Patrolling the Red Forest. Saving a lost recon squad from mutants. That was my job, not pitched battles. I am a military Stalker, not infantry. Skinner was right about praying. But I don’t believe in God. Not one that would help if asked nicely, anyway.

  Vasilyev curses when Squirrel fails to properly fix the ammunition drum on his third attempt.

  “Don’t be too hard on the Stalker, Private,” Tarasov advises as he helps Zlenko off the ladder.

  “We’re set, sir,” the sergeant reports, still catching his breath. “We are stretched very thin, but we’ve got the southern and western slopes covered with the PKM and the AK’s we have. The Stalker’s shotguns might come in handy if the enemy gets too close.”

  “I also saw a couple of them with MP-5s and AKSUs. We need to tell those guys to hold their fire until the enemy gets into range.”

  “I already gave that order.”

  “Good initiative. Now all we can do is to wait.” Tarasov sits down and opens an army ration pack.

  “May I join you, sir?”

  He motions to the sergeant to sit down. “I hope we make it through.” Tarasov lets the ration’s wrapper fly off in the wind. “It would be a shame if these miserable biscuits were my last supper.”

  The sergeant smiles. “Yeah. The Stalkers told me there’s a bar in Bagram, set up in an old airplane.”

  “They have a special skill when it comes to turning every piece of junk into a bar… bunkers, shipwrecks, construction sites. You name it. Stalkers would probably find a cozy place on the North Pole too, should a Zone pop up there.”

  “I guess so… but actually, what’s on my mind is that this place seems strangely familiar to me.”

  “To me as well. It’s Soviet-built.”

  “Not only that… the whole situation.” The sergeant seems to be lost in his thoughts as he looks out to the plains where the mountains cast long shadows in the setting sun.

  “Did you lose someone during that war?” Tarasov asks.

  “What, me?” Zlenko exclaims, startled. “No, fortunately. My father was posted to Eastern Germany. He cried when they had to leave… and was quite upset when I signed up to join the army. He relaxed a little when I first sent money home from what we got with the UN in Kosovo. And what about…”

  Zlenko bites his tongue but Tarasov knows what he wanted to ask. His father’s photograph is hidden in his wallet, beneath the armored west, but he touches the place as if he could reach it. “I did.”

  “I understand… is that what motivates you? Apologies if I’m asking too many questions.”

  “We have orders and no one cares about our motivations to follow them. We will make it through tonight, trust me. Then we continue with our mission.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “No, it’s not even remotely fair.” Tarasov gives the sergeant a bitter smile. “The scientists were sent here to find out how all these mutants and anomalies were created.”

  “I thought it’s from radiation. The fall-out and all.”

  Tarasov sighs. “That only plays a minor role, if at all… the first Zone was created by an entity powerful enough to bend the laws of physics. If that happened here too – that’s bad enough, but things here are… meaner… than in the Zone. Kiev wants to know how this happened. That’s why securing the scientists’ research results is our priority. And as I know the SBU agent who briefed me about Operation Haystack, he would expect us to do the scientists’ homework if they have failed.”

  “We can worry about that once we survive this night, I guess.”

  “Agreed. And to finally answer your question: yes, for me this battle, or whenever we meet those brain-scorched half-mutant sons of bitches – it will be personal.”

  “Brain-scorched? A fitting description for the dushmans.”

  The phrase had slipped from Tarasov’s lips unconsciously. There’s too much to be explained to someone like Zlenko who has never experienced the Zone where otherworldly equipment was once used to rob Stalkers of their own willpower, turning them into miserable shadows of human beings and manipulated by a superhuman consciousness.

  “You see… I have explored every square meter of the Zone. I have been to every secret laboratory, every dark defile. I fought every faction and mutant. Being here is like a new beginning, just like for the Stalkers around here. It’s like… How can I say it? When I was home, I wanted to be back to the Zone, and when I was there, all I could think of was getting back home. Being here after the Zone – it’s like a divorce from a woman I still love but who has nothing new to say, after living together so long that I partly became her, in the way I function, think and speak. I’m here now, waiting for what will happen, like a recently divorced man waits for his first new date. Yes, Sergeant, I am happy.”

  “I wish I could see the Zone one day.”

  “You have too many wishes, even for a young man… for now it’s enough to wish to see the next morning. By the way, I just witnessed something miraculous.” Tarasov tries to enjoy the bland taste of the rations before he continues. “A tattooed machine gunner reciting poetry.”

  To his disappointment, Zlenko does not look surprised.

  “I guess Ilchenko was bragging again about his teacher’s degree,” he replies with a yawn.

  “Are there any more such smartasses in the squad?”

  “Lobov had to quit medical school because of drug problems, but he is reliable. The rest… it’s just normal boys from the neighborhood who couldn’t find a better way out of unemployment.”

  “And you?”

  The sergeant sadly smiles. “I wanted to become a famous guitar player but my band flopped.”

  “That’s not a disaster big enough to chase one into the army’s arms, son.”

  “Yes, but having purchased a six-string Fender American Standard Stratocaster on rates and not being able to repay it to a loan shark definitely is.”

  He has barely finished the sentence when a rifle fires a burst. Jumping to his feet, Tarasov peers over the sand bags. All seems quiet.

  “Just a bloody jackal,” Skinner shouts in the trenches.

  “Shit!” Tarasov swears nervously. “We better go and buck those trigger-happy Stalkers.”

  “I’ll do that, sir… I wanted to check the perimeter anyway.”

  Tarasov is eager to rest for a few minutes and close his eyes, which are already burning from exhaustion and fine dust that has dribbled through under his eye protectors. Night is about to fall and he knows neither he nor his men will be able to get any rest during the coming hours.

  “I would appreciate that,” he smiles, leaning against the stone-hard sandbags and trying to relax his over
strained nerves without falling asleep. He jerks upright again and looks around his men. “Kravchuk, keep your eyes on the ridge to the west. And switch off that headlamp. You are supposed to dish out the headshots, not get one yourself.”

  21:30:41 AFT

  A bright flash. The major opens his eyes. For a second, he thinks he has slept until morning and it is the rising sun casting light onto his face. Then he realizes the true cause: a flare is hovering over the Outpost. He can hear the Stalkers shouting as he jumps to his feet.

  “They’re coming!”

  “Major!” Zlenko shouts, excitement and fear mingling in his voice. “This is it! They’re moving up from the south!”

  Tarasov doesn’t need the sergeant’s directions to know where the attack is coming from. A long howl sounds through the chilly night, barely distinguishable from that of a blood-thirsty animal, but a hundred human – or at least human-like – voices join in. Then a hail of bullets hits the defenders. To Tarasov’s horror, it comes from all around their position.

  “Fire!” Squirrel screams. “Fire that shit!”

  “I’ll open fire when I’m ordered to!” Vasilyev shouts back, his eyes fixed upon his officer.

  “Zlenko, into the trenches, now! Don’t fire until you’re sure to hit them!”

  “On my way, sir!”

  Keeping his head low, Tarasov estimates the range of their attackers. “Vasilyev! Adjust range to four hundred! Cover the area wide, from ten to one o’clock! Steady!”

  Now Ilchenko’s machine gun opens up in the trenches, followed by the rapid fire of submachine guns. The howls get louder and closer.

  “Three-fifty… steady!”

  “Why don’t you just fire, man?”

  “Stay cool, Stalker… three-hundred.”

  “Adjusted!”

  “Fry them.”

  Vasilyev pulls the release cord of the grenade launcher, grabs the holders and fires short bursts from the AGS, unleashing fast grenade fire into the mass of dark silhouettes running up the slopes. The dushmans’ battle cry disintegrates into cries of pain amidst the detonations. Squirrel jumps back.

  “Damn! I didn’t take this shit for a machine gun!”

  “Shut up and prepare the spare drum,” Vasilyev shouts.

  “They weren’t prepared for that!” Tarasov replies. “Good job.”

  Looking down to the dushmans’ broken wave and hearing Zlenko’s and Skinner’s voice directing their comrades’ fire towards the retreating enemy, a stoic feeling of might empowers him. He watches the dushmans hastily retreat into the darkness, but what he views to the south makes him shudder. A gigantic shadow rises, darker than night itself, making the stars disappear. Lightning flashes on the horizon.

  “Vasilyev, keep the settings. As soon as the second wave gets into range, open fire. Try to save ammo.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “So far, so good,” Squirrel says. “Time to relax.”

  He rises from the ground and lights up a cigarette. At the same moment as Vasilyev drags him back into cover, a muffled noise comes from the closest mountain. A bullet hits the spot where the Stalker’s head had been less than a second before.

  “Kravchuk,” Tarasov shouts to the squad’s marksman, “sniper to the east! Try to locate him!”

  “I-I did this on purpose,” the Stalker cries, “I wanted them to reveal their position!”

  “Bloody good job,” Tarasov replies.

  The single bullet is followed by several more. A scream comes from the trenches. He hears Zlenko shouting. “Keep your damned heads down! Snipers!”

  They know what they are doing. Not giving us a moment of respite until the next wave comes.

  Kravchuk’s Dragunov fires in response.

  “Did you see them?”

  “I think so!”

  “Don’t waste your damned ammunition on shadows!” Tarasov wishes Crow was here, although looking up at the massive mountain, he can’t really blame his sniper. “Go back to your position and keep your eyes on the ridge. We only have a handful of Stalkers there!”

  Tarasov doesn’t waste his time with climbing down the ladder. He jumps down, throws himself into the trench and keeping his head low, hurries to the forward position. “Casualties?”

  “A Stalker bought it,” Lobov replies, ducking behind the sand bags as another bullet impacts close to them. “He was dead by the time I got to him.”

  “His name was Sashka the Hand,” Skinner grumbles. “At least he won’t be stealing medikits from fellow Stalkers anymore.”

  A clap of thunder rolls over the plains, echoing from the mountains. A second later an explosion rocks their perimeter.

  “Mortars!”

  “Hit the ground,” Skinner shouts. “Take cover, Stalkers!”

  Amidst more incoming mortar rounds the dushmans’ battle cry bellows. Another flare flashes above them, casting its dire red light over the hill.

  “Holy shit… I need a bigger gun,” Ilchenko yells and points to the slope where hundreds of enemy fighters are advancing towards them. He opens fire without waiting for orders. The grenade launcher belches out a salvo but abruptly falls silent. After a moment, it sounds up again but firing in a different direction. Tarasov’s face grows pale.

  “They’ve got into our rear! Skinner!”

  “Here!”

  “Hold your position until you can, then fall back into the trenches around the bunker! Zlenko, Bondarchuk, on me!”

  With the two soldiers in tow, he runs back to the bunker. Thanks to Vasilyev’s quick reactions, the line of attackers falters, giving the handful of defenders a little momentum. Zlenko and the rifleman join the Stalkers in holding their thin line beyond the scattered cover of sand bags. Above his head, Kravchuk is firing his Dragunov.

  “Last ammunition belt!” Squirrel shouts.

  “Prepare the VOG-30s, Stalker!” Vasilyev bellows back.

  The voices coming from the grenade launcher are desperate, just like Zlenko’s.

  “Kamensky is down!”

  Tarasov cocks his rifle. “Vasilyev! Give them hell! Burn the ridge!”

  Fiery explosions pierce into the enemy’s line, throwing up rocks, sand and body parts in balls of fire. But before the grenades can stop them, the launcher stops firing. The first dushman appears over the wall of sandbags, aiming his rifle at Zlenko while he is reloading his rifle. A burst from Tarasov’s rifle hits the dushman, but as soon as he falls three others appear.

  “Get this, cocksuckers! Svoboda, vperyod!”

  Squirrel shouts a battle cry from above and the grenade launcher resumes firing. Tarasov quickly climbs up to the bunker. Vasilyev’s body lies in a pool of blood. Kravchuk is still kneeling behind the sand bags, firing his Dragunov relentlessly.

  Heavy rain begins to fall. The flashes of lightning fork so close together that the thunder merges into a ceaseless din that almost drowns out the frantic rifle fire that now spews from all directions.

  Oblivious to the danger, Tarasov looks over to the perimeter to assess their remaining defenses. It looks bad. The Stalkers are already retreating towards the bunker, with Ilchenko in the rear covering their route. Beyond them, Zlenko is desperately trying to hold the line with the few remaining Stalkers.

  “No more grenades!”

  “Grab your rifle and help the sergeant, Squirrel!”

  “Incoming!” Kravchuk screams.

  A huge explosion rocks the bunker, throwing Tarasov and the Stalker to the ground.

  “RPGs! The bastards come up now with RPGs!”

  “Let’s get off the bunker! Kravchuk, on me!”

  Skinner and his Stalkers are already there when Tarasov reaches the sand bags overlooking the ridge. The wind has grown into a storm. Dust whipped up by the wind quickly mixes with the driving rain and covers the men with filth.

  “The cocksuckers know what they are doing, Major,” Skinner says, rivulets of rain running down his face as he glances in Tarasov’s direction. “They pushed us ba
ck and now come against us from the rear! But you know… there was a moment when I almost thought we could actually make it.” Skinner holds his rifle over the sand bags and fires a long burst. The dushmans’ blood curdling cries are so close and their bodies so tightly packed together that he doesn’t need to aim. “Duty calls, bastards!”

  Tarasov looks around, squinting into the storm. Ilchenko is still there, firing his PKM with a scream that distorts his whole face. Kravchuk has dropped his sniper rifle in favor of an AK taken from a fallen Stalker. Squirrel drags a fallen comrade into cover; a man Tarasov recognizes as the other Stalker they met in the forest.

  He realizes it’s just a question of minutes before they are overrun and annihilated. Hearing their triumphant cries, he knows that the enemy is aware of this too.

  “Zlenko!” Tarasov screams with all the air left in his lungs. “On me!”

  The sergeant scrambles up to him. “Major?”

  “Now is the time,” Tarasov says, panting. “You know what comes next if we stay in the trench. Give me that flare gun and wait for my command. Let’s die a good soldier’s death!”

  A wide smile appears on the sergeant’s blood-smeared face. What Tarasov sees in those shining eyes is the one thing he would have least expected: happiness.

  “Strength! Courage! Honor!” Zlenko bellows. Then he raises his hand and shouts. “Men! Fix bayonets!”

  At this moment, Tarasov wishes he was a believer, not so he could pray for deliverance but so he could give his thanks. All ways to die are bad, save for that which a man chooses of his own will. Hearing the steely click as his combat knife attaches to the AKM’s barrel, he feels that his wish has been granted. He fires the flare gun.

  “Are you ready?” he shouts.

  “Ready,” the scattered defenders reply one by one.

  Tarasov hears the attackers drawing closer through the pouring rain and darkness, appearing in the flashes of lightning like ghosts.

  “Hold!” he shouts. “Keep steady… steady!”

  In the moment when the flare bursts out into a bright cupola of blinding red light, he thrusts his fist towards the enemy. “Charge!”

  “Forward!” Zlenko shouts. “Vperyod! Rota k boyu!”

  Soldiers and Stalkers jump out of their cover and charge down the hill. No one can keep up with Tarasov, his limbs quickened by the Emerald artifact. He doesn’t need his bayonet. Wielding his AKM like a club, he smashes skulls and shatters bones adding the weight of his down-hill charge into every punch. He sees the orange tracers from Ilchenko’s machine gun form a deadly arc in front of him, the gunner’s mouth opened wide by his terrible battle cry. Skinner runs down the enemy, then falls, still firing his rifle as he hits the ground and rolls over to jump up again. The tiny group seems to break up with every man fighting for himself.

  “Keep the line,” Tarasov roars over the battle noise. “Keep the line!”

  He sees a Stalker firing his AKSU with one hand and a handgun from the other. A Stalker falls, either dead or wounded, and another grabs his shotgun. A soldier screams in agony. Another throws his body between his wounded comrade and the attacker, his rifle spitting a full burst as he screams like a desperate animal. He recognizes Lobov.

  “They are on the run! Press on, press on!” Tarasov hears a Stalker shouting.

  Where is Zlenko?

  Tarasov at last sees him appearing way down the hillside and dashes after him, hitting an enemy and kicking the dushman’s head as he falls to his knees, jumping over him, tearing the pistol from his hand and shooting another enemy in the chest just as the dushman was about to smash the sergeant’s head in with his rifle. Other enemies immediately close in.

  But otherwise the dushmans are routing as the storm closes in, firing as they cover their retreat.

  The thunder in the sky sounds as if it is right over the battle, the sand swirling above the shaking earth, turning into mud under their heavy boots.

  Someone hits his left arm. As he turns towards to his attacker, he sees no one.

  Shit, I’m hit! He empties his pistol magazine blindly into the darkness. The sergeant is gone. The full fury of the storm is now only seconds away.

  “Men!” Tarasov cries desperately. “Fall back! Fall back into position!”

  They run uphill, jumping and trampling over dead and dying enemies. Tarasov hears someone repeating his order, fall back, fall back! It’s not Zlenko’s voice.

  “Ilchenko,” he shouts, “cover our rear! Give us covering fire!”

  But the machine gun’s rattle is nowhere to be heard.

  Panting heavily, he jumps over the sandbags and looks back to see the last man getting back to the hilltop. He grabs a wounded Stalker’s shoulder and drags him into the bunker, not so much entering it as falling inside. The door slams. A Stalker makes sure it is closed tight.

  His men are lying on the ground and over each other’s limbs, totally exhausted. He sees Bondarchuk and Kravchuk. But where is Zlenko? Where is Ilchenko?

  “Where are the sergeant and the machine gunner?”

  “I didn’t see them coming back,” the medic replies. His voice is trembling.

  Tarasov closes his eyes in pain. “Corporal Lobov, you’re in charge while I’m gone,” he whispers.

  “What? You can’t…”

  The storm almost knocks Tarasov to the ground as he opens the bunker door. He can barely see, his Geiger counter doesn’t just click anymore; it bursts into a high-pitched tikitikitik. Photons dance in the radiating dust storm that is painted in an eerie green by his night vision goggles, mingling with the stars he is already seeing due to the pain behind his eyes.

  A flash of lightning illuminates a bulky figure on the ground. Bending against the wind, Tarasov kneels down and realizes there are actually two bodies, one of them still crawling up to the hilltop. He grasps both men and, with an effort requiring a level of energy that would be impossible without the Emerald’s power, drags them to the bunker. He tears the door open and pushes the bodies inside. His knees are trembling, forcing him to lean against the wall.

  “Antirads!” he snarls. “Pump them full of antirads!”

  “I only have one and that’s for myself,” he hears a voice say. It’s a Stalker in a Freedom suit. The major aims his pistol at him and pulls the trigger.

  Clack. The magazine was empty, but half a dozen hands now open the armored suits on the two soldiers and push syringes into their skin.

  “It’s all right, Major,” Skinner says, taking the pistol from Tarasov’s hand. “It’s all right now.”

  Tarasov is too weak to resist. Every molecule of adrenalin has been spent. He sinks to the ground.

  We did it, flashes into his mind before everything fades to black.

  Bagram, 23 September 2014, 18:23:32 AFT

  “Ashot! Where are you when I need you?”

  This sounds familiar. But from where?

  “Leave me be, I’m feelin’ so high right now!”

  I hear words but don’t understand them.

  “Are you having sex with a gun barrel again?”

  That sounds like the Zone.

  “I wish I could, me dear, but there’re no tubes of heavy artillery around!”

  “Then try a blowgun! That’s the only thing willing to give you a blowjob!”

  A blowjob… must have been ages. There is no blowjob in Hell. Would that put me in Heaven? There’s someone close. Maybe it’s an angel. Fuck, I need a blowjob.

  “YAR AND ASHOT - CUT IT! I REMIND BOTH OF YOU THAT UNSOLICITED USE OF THE INTERCOM WILL BE PUNISHED!”

  Damn. I am alive. And in Bagram of all places.

  Tarasov tries to sit up but as soon as he moves his head seems about to explode with pain.

  “Oh, our local celebrity has woken up!”

  He turns his head towards the figure standing next to his bed in the makeshift first-aid room.

  “Crow? What the…”

  “Rest, Condor,” the sniper replies with a reassuring g
rin. “With all the radiation you collected up there you should qualify for a new call sign. Perhaps Liquidator? Like those chaps who cleaned up Chernobyl?”

  “What about my men?”

  “Those still in one piece think you’re some kind of a demigod. Maybe I should tell them how I picked you up with a jackal at your throat.”

  Tarasov tries to laugh but breaks out in a horrible cough.

  “Just rest now. To be honest, I’m bloody happy to see you alive. First I was thinking you’d become a zombie, but when you started murmuring blowjob and Zone I thought you would actually make it.”

  “How come you are here?”

  “I was late to join your show,” Crow sighs. “God knows that I wanted to give you a helping hand. Anyway, I better tell your men that you regained consciousness. They pretty much admire you now. But don’t count on any blowjobs.”

  Tarasov grins. Now he feels he has bandages all over his face. “Hey, Sergeant,” he hears Crow’s voice calling, “Sleeping Beauty is awake!”

  After a minute, the sergeant storms into the room. He is in bad shape with anti-radiation cream smeared all over his face and a bandage covering his forehead, but this doesn’t prevent him from cracking an ear-to-ear smile.

  “Major Tarasov!” he cries out. “I am happy to…”

  “What about Ilchenko?” Tarasov interrupts him.

  “He’s fine and should be here in a minute.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Two dead, three heavily wounded, the rest… well, they can walk. The Stalkers lost six men altogether.”

  “Squirrel?”

  “The lucky bastard made it through without a scratch.”

  “At least one of us was lucky… How did we get back here?”

  “Bone’s truck came when the storm was over. But… well, Major, I think I better let you rest now.”

  Tarasov doesn’t mind the sergeant leaving with his wounds torturing him. “It’s good that you’re such a thin little kid… I would have needed a crane to lift two Ilchenkos.”

  Zlenko laughs.

  “Major, I – “

  “Thanks, Viktor,” Tarasov whispers. Closing his sore eyes, he doesn’t see Crow pulling his silenced Glock from its holster.

  Seconds later, a loud bang pierces into Tarasov’s aching head. Then he feels more pain all over his body.

  Encrypted digital VOP transmission. New Zone, 23 September 2014, 18:50:33 AFT

  #Did you get the shipment?#

  #Positive. Good job. But he is still alive.#

  #Forget him. Jerk off on those damned exos or do whatever you want. What the fuck do you expect me to do anyway? Shoot him myself? #

  #Positive. You are running out of options. He is becoming troublesome.#

  #Actually, you bastards have a point…[sharp, unidentified noise] Hey, wait… #

  #Come again?#

  #[sharp, unidentified noise continues]#

  #Someone has sounded the alarm. Breaking contact.#

  #I have difficulties in hearing you. Repeat…#

  #[unidentified human voice]We have a man down! Man down in the base!#

  #I have no copy on you. Check your transmission.#

  #[another unidentified human voice] Everyone, to the infirmary! Now!#

  #[static noise]#

  #[static noise]#