S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (19 page)

“Kravchuk! Here we go!”

Their enemy clearly hadn’t expected a flanking attack and several of them fall before they see the pair of soldiers or hear their fire. One, however, better armed than the rest, unleashes a terrible scream and dashes toward Tarasov, firing his light machine gun from his hip.

Tarasov remains calm and aims his rifle, only to hear a faint
clack
from the empty weapon when he pulls the trigger. Temporarily disarmed and cursing himself for such an oversight, the Major throws himself to the ground. His assailant is so close now that his bullets will find their target even if fired from the hip. As he rolls to the side, releasing and switching the magazine, enemy bullets throw up dirt from the ground, missing him by a
hairspan
. Still rolling in the mud, Tarasov gets the magazine home and cocks the weapon, knowing it might already be too late but only hoping that his armored suit will save him from the worst.

Abruptly, the hostile fighter’s head jerks back, his skull spurting bone and blood. Looking up, Tarasov sees the sniper kneeling over him, the Dragunov slung over his shoulder and his Fort pistol still at aim.

“Thanks, Kravchuk,” Tarasov says as he gets up to his feet.

Suddenly, a roaming
hurrah
hits his ears from the squad’s direction.

“Hold your fire,” he tells the sniper, “that… Zlenko has just ordered a bayonet charge!”

Tarasov had almost said:
that idiot
, and thinks,
How can somebody order a bayonet charge with four men?

But by now he can already see the paratroopers approaching, firing their rifles from the hip and finishing off the few remaining hostiles. Their faces are full of excitement. The swiftest one catches up with a running enemy and stabs him with a triumphant yell. He recognizes the victorious soldier as Kamensky.

“Hold your fire,” he shouts at the paratroopers. “We’re coming through!”

Still unsure if he should reprimand Zlenko in front of the troopers or have a very serious talk with him afterwards, Tarasov walks up to the sergeant.

“I can’t believe what I’ve just seen, Sergeant.”

“That makes two of us, sir. Your flanking trick was brilliant!”

“I know.” Tarasov cuts into his words and takes a deep breath before continuing but Zlenko, still running on adrenalin, keeps on talking.

“Major, when I saw those bastards on the run I let the men move in by force. There was something about them that had to be unleashed… I apologize if I did something wrong.”

Tarasov looks at the dead hostiles and the soldiers searching the bodies. They are as elated as if they had just won the biggest battle of their lives. To the sergeant’s luck, all appear unscathed. Tarasov looks deep into Zlenko’s brown eyes.

“How old are you, Viktor?”

“Twenty-five, sir.”

“How many real battles have you been in?”

“None, sir. This was my first.”

Tarasov sighs. He knows he should reprimand Zlenko for his reckless attack. After all he, Tarasov, knows only too well how disastrous hotheadedness can be. But then, it comes to his mind that enthusiasm is a rare treasure among a squad of wounded and emaciated soldiers, left to fend for themselves in a terrain far from home with dangers they have barely come to know.

“Be proud of yourself. There are many generals who never had the chance to order a bayonet charge.”

Zlenko is smart enough to understand that he made a mistake. “Do you think that I took an unnecessary risk,
komandir
?” he ask anxiously.

Tarasov gives him a grim smile. “Keep it up, Viktor… but next time you give such an order without asking me, I’ll rip your buttocks so far apart that you’ll be able to shout
fix bayonets!
through your asshole. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. I apologize.”

“Don’t. Now go and check the bodies for anything useful. I’ll catch up with those Stalkers before they disappear.”

“
Yest
, komandir!
”

Sergeant Zlenko’s salute is as perfectly presented as if they were on a parade ground. Tarasov returns it and hurries towards the riverbed. He slows down after a few steps, where the two remaining Stalkers appear in the woods, their weapons unholstered. One of them wears a light, raggedy Freedom suit, keeping his MP-5 submachine gun on his shoulders. Half of his face is covered by a brown
shemagh
but his blue eyes look shrewd and cheerful. The other looks like
rookieness
incarnate in his light, Kevlar-padded jacket – nor does his sawn-off shotgun make him look any more impressive.

“Thanks for helping us out, bro,” the rookie says by way of greeting. “We wanted to help you deal with them zombies, but… oh no, you’re fucking
boyevoychiks!
”

He raises his beat-up shotgun but the other Stalker pushes the weapon back down.

“Shut up, Danya, they’ve just saved our skins!” Turning towards Tarasov, he continues with a grateful tone in his voice. His Russian is impeccable, yet the way he speaks betrays that it’s not the Stalker’s native tongue. “You were the last ones we expected here, man… military or not, we will not forget your help anytime soon! Drop by our base and we’ll show you our gratitude!”

Tarasov grins and looks at the Stalkers.

“Why not right now?”

The smarter-looking Stalker returns his smirk.

“Well, we could offer you some MP5 ammunition or a can of meat, perhaps a half-empty medikit but…

“Keep it.”

“… but I think you might like this better.” He rummages in his side bag and holds a small artifact to Tarasov. “It’s called an Emerald. Keeps you running for a while when you’re out of breath, with no radiation emitted that your armor can’t deal with. Please, accept it as a token of our gratitude.”

“If you insist.”

Satisfied, Tarasov takes the artifact that looks like a dull pebble with a pale green core. The one who named it ‘Emerald’ must have had a vivid imagination, but as he lets it slide into the artifact container on his belt he feels as if the ugly little thing has sucked all fatigue from his limbs.

“I hope you haven’t depleted your stocks of gratitude yet. We were on our way to Bagram. Could you lead us there?” Seeing the Stalkers’ concerned faces, he tries to calm them. “We are up to no trouble. Our chopper crashed and we need a safe place where we can pull ourselves together. We’ll leave again in two or three days. That’s a promise.”

The Stalkers look at each other. “It’s not up to us, actually,” the rookie says, “it will be up to Captain Bone to decide if you can stay.”

“That might be so, but first we have to get there so that he can make up his mind.”

The Stalker who gave him the artifact looks at Tarasov and the grim-looking, battered soldiers approaching behind him. “It’s your lucky day, man. Call me Squirrel - I am a guide and a very good one too! ”

“This guy is looking like a pot-head to me,” Zlenko says under his breath. Tarasov nods in agreement.
Oh God,
he thinks,
am I really to trust a junkie from Freedom, even if he
’
s obviously a Loner now? It can
’
t get lower than that.

“Come, on, man! Don’t look at me like that. Believe me, I can lead you there straight as the crow flies, avoiding zombies and all that shit,” he says licking his lips. “Our raid is blown anyway with Misha and Vitka dead.”

He was directing his last words more to his fellow Stalker than to Tarasov. But his mate resists.

“Are you out of your mind, Squirrel? Guiding the military to Bagram? For
free
? You charged me eight hundred rubles for the trip to Hellgate!”

“See, Danya, first you didn’t save my life. Second, they have half a dozen weapons pointed at us which puts them into a pretty good bargaining position. Why not be friendly with them? Chill out, man!”

“I have a bad feeling about this. My stomach turns at the thought of getting involved with the army’s business!”

“Ask Lobov for something that helps you with your nausea,” Tarasov jerks his thumb in the medic’s direction. “And don’t worry about guiding us. You will only assist us carrying the stretchers.”

Then the Major remembers Degtyarev’s words about making friends on their way. He pats the rookie on the back. “It’s all right,” he tells him with a wide smile. “We are here to protect you from this place, not this place from you.”

The Stalker returns his friendly look with a scowl. “Damned
boyevoychik
… you have the smile of a jackal. I’d prefer you shouting at me.” But Tarasov doesn’t have to comply with his wish as the young Stalker reluctantly falls in line.

With him giving the stretcher-bearers a helping hand, they proceed much quicker through barely trodden paths and shortcuts through the forest. Either because the intensive fighting scared them away or because they are less active during daytime, no mutants harass them. But Tarasov is still worried about the enemy who ambushed them.

“Those were zombies, you said?” he asks the guide called Squirrel, who is marching beside him.

“Nah, just a manner of speaking. I call them zombies because they’ve got no brains. Imagine, you are peacefully enjoying the scenery or looking for artifacts, and then they come at you out of nowhere, shouting
allaaaaah
and stuff like that. One can shut them up with bullets only.”

“They are Taliban then?”

“Call them whatever you want… we just call them dushmans, for old times’ sake, if you follow my meaning.”

“I do,” Tarasov nods.

“For us, they are just another kind of mutant. And they look like mutants too. You’ve seen their faces?”

“I did and they weren’t pretty. They looked like they had a serious case of radiation sickness. No surprise, with the pajamas they wore for armor.”

“Well seen, man. They don’t value their own lives too much. The problem is, neither do they value
our
lives.”

“Are there many of them around here?”

“One can never know… their den seems to be somewhere to the south, down the road to
Kabul
.”

“So
Kabul
still exists?”

“In a way. See, instead of
Kabul
I should have said Kaboom, because that’s what happened there. Anyway, sometimes they make it up to Bagram but we have an Outpost to keep an eye on the road. It’s a funny place.”

“How come?”

“Well, Captain Bone is an asshole but he values discipline. If a Stalker is caught stealing or something like that, he is sent to the Outpost for a few days. If he survives, he can come back and stay with us. If not – good riddance.”

“This Captain Bone… I heard he is from Duty.”

“Dunno, maybe he was. But with all the former Freedom guys around, he won’t turn the place into a barracks. No way we will be doing morning drills man!”

“Why are there so many Freedomers here?”

The Stalker laughs. “
Bhango,
man.”

“What’s that?”

“Try to think harder. What has always been the Afghan delight?”

“Weed and opium, or so I’ve heard.”

“You’re super-duper smart for a
boyevoychik
. Now, tell me what happened to plants in the Zone after the CNPP accident?”

“Polyploidy… some plants grew to unbelievable proportions.”