S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort

by John Mason

  The conical shape of the concrete structure looks similar to the many Soviet-built pillboxes and bunkers he has seen before.

  “Must have been an observation base during the Soviet war,” he mutters to Squirrel.

  No mercenaries can be seen on the ridge.

  It could still be mined or booby-trapped. We’ll still need to exercise some caution.

  A jeep track leads up to the stronghold, passing by another bunker with a radar dish and a forest of other antennae on top. Tarasov gives a sigh, wishing he could use the radio facilities, but it is bound to be heavily defended. At least the terrain ahead looks advantageous enough to him with its many rocks and boulders. It should make their approach a little easier.

  “Mount your silencer, Squirrel.”

  “That PBS won’t help me much. The shots will echo like hell among these mountains.”

  “Just in case. At least you won’t be deafened when I tell you to cease fire.”

  “Fair enough. So what’s the plan?”

  “We stick to your plan.”

  “You must be kidding, man. I was.”

  “Take these binocs. Keep your eyes open while I’m aiming. Warn me if a hostile pops up where I can’t see him. Watch our six. Clear?

  “Like the sky.”

  “All right. Let’s get this over with.”

  Lucky for them, the sky is actually overcast, regardless of what Squirrel said. Relieved that he doesn’t have to worry about his shadow betraying his movement, Tarasov moves quickly forward and crouches behind a rock. Scanning the sandbag walls through his rifle scope, a mercenary soon appears in the reticule. Tarasov follows his movement. Seemingly bored, the guard moves in a predictable back-and-forth pattern along the wall, making no contact with anyone else. Another hostile stands on top of the wall with his back towards them.

  I can only see these two. There must be more around. If they fall, the whole place will be stirred up.

  “You asleep?” Squirrel whispers. Ignoring the guide’s impatience, Tarasov weighs his options.

  I must get closer.

  He signals the Stalker to follow him. Watching their steps in case of booby traps, they move forward until they reach more cover. The major takes another look at the bunker.

  “Squirrel, I see one on the wall and one on the top. Do you see any others?”

  “None.”

  “Take the binocs. Keep your eyes on the bunker and the road while I’m focusing.”

  “Okay, man.”

  Tarasov adjusts the scope.

  And now let’s hope that Uncle Yar did his homework on this baby.

  After the quiet, when only the wind whistles, the sharp, piercing sound of the silenced shot seems to be deafeningly loud. In the middle of the reticule’s dark circle, the first guard’s helmet flies off. His blood has not yet made contact with the wall behind when Tarasov already moves the rifle towards the guard on top. Another shot pierces through the howling wind. The second guard falls forward, as if an invisible fist had punched him in the back.

  “See any more?”

  “No.”

  “Keep watching! I’m moving in.”

  In a few seconds, Tarasov arrives at the sandbags. Sensing no movement from the other side, he signals Squirrel to follow him. Taking a deep breath, he quickly climbs over the sandbags, keeping his rifle ready to fire. The dead guard stretches out in front of him, his head in a pool of blood. Now Squirrel arrives and immediately aims his weapon into the opposite direction, covering Tarasov’s back.

  “Let’s move,” Tarasov whispers.

  The sound of footsteps comes from around the corner. The guard has no time to be surprised. Tarasov’s shot hits him while he is still opening his mouth to shout.

  The major peers around the corner before cautiously moving forward. Behind the building he finds a platform that he could not have seen from his vantage point. Three mercenaries stand there, grouped around a huge weapon even though they must have been startled by the noise: the first is already climbing up the stairs to raise the alarm..

  “Squirrel!” Tarasov shouts as he pulls the trigger. The Stalker is prepared and fires two short bursts from his AKM. The two guards on the platform fall to the ground in the same moment as the third rolls down the stairs, hit in his chest by a single round from Tarasov’s Vintorez.

  “Clear,” Squirrel says.

  In any other situation Tarasov would stay cautious, but now he stands in front of the weapon on the concrete platform, trying to believe what he is seeing, his brain bewildered and oblivious to any danger that might be still around.

  “What the fuck is this?” Squirrel sounds just as confused as he is.

  “This is… not supposed to exist.”

  The weapon looks like a giant version of the Gauss rifle he saw long ago in Degtyarev’s hands during their battle in Pripyat: a long barrel running through several small spheres, all held together by a metal frame and lots of electric wire.

  So, this is the anti-aircraft device that shot my chopper down!

  There are no ammo crates lying around, nor can Tarasov see any batteries, as there were in Degtyarev’s rifle. The gun in fact seems to be powered via a thick cable that disappears through a hole in the platform.

  Tarasov shakes his head in disbelief.

  If the smaller, hand-held version was capable of penetrating any body armor at distance, this piece of artillery should be able to take down virtually anything… But who are these guys? How did they snatch this monster? Degtyarev only had one of the smaller rifles, and even then refused to let me touch it!

  He crosses over to one of the corpses and removes the balaclava and dark eye protectors from its face. Then, still not believing what he is witnessing and rejecting the reality he is beginning to realize, he exposes the faces of the others too, as well as checking the bodies for anything that could clarify his suspicions. His search yields a plastic ID card. A low moan escapes his lips.

  “Oh, Gospodi.”

  “God is not here, man. Only mercs with a bullet in their brains.”

  “No… they are not mercenaries at all. They’re Chinese – spec-ops or whatever, but it’s the People’s Liberation Army!”

  “What? What the hell are the Chinese doing here?”

  Tarasov rubs his temples and looks around. For the moment, they seem to be alone in the compound.

  “You remember the warning the military outposts were playing back in the Zone? ‘We are here to protect you from the Zone, not the Zone from you’?”

  “Of course. Was it you saying it?”

  “No, it was a voice actor from Kiev and we looped the message, but that’s not my point. My point is – it was a lie. We tried to protect the Zone from outsiders but all the world – the Chinese, the Americans, the Western Europeans – tried to sneak in and grab their share of artifacts. We… frustrated them, so to say. It would be no surprise therefore to find Chinese expeditions lurking in the New Zone, where they can do as they please. But what amazes me is this weapon… It’s enough for you to know that… okay, anyway, I saw similar weapons before but they were classified Above Top Secret. Thinking of the Chinese laying their hands on them gives me the creeps.”

  “So, what now?”

  Tarasov peers over to the radio station that lies about two hundred meters from their position along the jeep track, thinking: I must inform Kiev about this.

  “First we need to clear this bunker and disable this weapon. Then we’ll see if we can get into that radio station.”

  “We’ve only killed five of them. That leaves us with… let me think… more or less three billion more hostiles! Will we have enough ammo?”

  “Stop kidding, Squirrel. Check the bodies for grenades.”

  Using his combat knife, Tarasov cuts the wires running along the gun barrel.

  Damn, how I wish Degtyarev could see this. At least he knows how these things work.

  By the time he is finished, Squirrel has returned with three frag grenades.

>   “It’s not much, but if we add ours too it will make for a nice firework display. I also found some food rations on them.”

  “You can keep the food. Let’s go inside and find its power source.”

  Cautiously opening the metal hatch, they enter a room with bare walls and a row of mattresses. The smell of old socks and unwashed bodies assaults Tarasov’s nostrils, and empty food cans and water bottles litter the ground. Next to the wall, in a thick, green sleeping bag, a guard seems to be asleep.

  “With this snoring, no wonder they didn’t hear us coming,” Squirrel grins.

  “Be quiet, unless you want him to wake up.”

  With silent steps, Tarasov moves over to the sleeping guard. For a moment, he considers interrogating him.

  We ain’t got much time… besides, I’m not even sure I’d understand whatever he said.

  He reaches for the spot where the guard’s head lies under the sleeping bag’s hood and pulls it backwards, pushing his knee into the guard’s back.

  This is for Praporshchik Zotkin, bastards.

  The snoring turns into a helpless rattle as his combat knife cuts through the guard’s throat. After a time that seems to be endless, the rattle becomes a gurgle as blood enters the respiratory tract, adding drowning in his own blood to the suffering of the dying enemy. It only takes a few seconds for the ghastly noise to cease. When the body doesn’t move anymore, Tarasov lets go of it and wipes the blood off of his knife onto the sleeping bag.

  “Once I had a girlfriend who hated my snoring,” Squirrel whispers, “I’m glad she didn’t take the sort of measure you just did, man!”

  Tarasov smiles, but immediately freezes. “Ssh! Listen!”

  They hear the muted sounds of conversation from the hatch leading to the level below, and the Chinese words cast away Tarasov’s last doubts about the origin of their opponents. They can’t understand what is being said, but the voices sound alarmed.

  “They must have realized something’s not right outside by now. Squirrel, duck behind that crate!”

  Tarasov hears someone climbing up the iron ladder. Quickly, he moves behind the hatch. Two hands appear, then a head with short black hair. Using his left hand, the major grasps the man by his neck in a choke-hold, lifts him up and cuts his throat with the knife held in his other hand. Slowly, he lowers the body to the ground, its hands and legs still shaking in the spasm of death. Tarasov holds the dying man down until he stops moving.

  “Let’s move,” he whispers to Squirrel as he wipes the blade clean.

  “You’re a fucking butcher, man,” the Stalker silently remarks, shaking his head in disgust.

  Peering down, the major can’t see anyone below. They quickly descend the ladder. As he arrives below, Tarasov hears a startled shout. A Chinese in civilian clothing jumps up from his computer, drawing a pistol and frantically firing in their direction. Two shots from Squirrel’s rifle send him to the ground. Tarasov quickly checks the body. His search yields a key in the technician’s pocket with a label attached.

  “You don’t speak Chinese, do you?” Tarasov asks Squirrel showing him the label.

  “It says, ‘generator room key’”.

  “Don’t tell me you do speak Chinese.”

  “Just guessing. But there’s only one door here and it has ‘generator room’ written on it in Russian and the same cramped characters as the key label.”

  “That’s smart,” Tarasov says as the key glides softly into the lock.

  A huge device stands in the room, emitting a low, humming noise. One thick cable goes up from it and disappears into a narrow shaft leading upwards.

  “Whatever that thing is, it’s certainly not running on diesel,” Squirrel says.

  “I wish I had a timed fuse,” sighs Tarasov. “Give me those grenades.” Tarasov carefully places the grenades in a spot that seems vulnerable. “Squirrel, move back to the entrance.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I’ll have about three seconds to get out of this room. Move!”

  Left alone, Tarasov looks around for something worth taking before blowing the generator up, but only sees some tools left on the ground.

  All right… here I go.

  He takes a grenade and pulls out the safety pin’s ring, puts it with the others and dashes to the exit with two long leaps, where he throws himself down behind the wall. He has barely hit the ground when the deafening thunder of several detonations shakes the structure, unleashing a rain of concrete fragments and steel splinters through the door, followed by a cloud of dust and smoke. The air becomes thick with the stench of burning electronics. With the lights gone out, Tarasov switches on his headlight and quickly climbs up the ladder. Squirrel is waiting in a firing position at the entrance hatch, aiming his rifle at the outside.

  “Whole of damned China woke up! I see the bad guys approaching!”

  Looking out, Tarasov sees them too. A dozen commandos are running towards them, with more appearing from the radio bunker below, hastily putting on their armored vests and helmets.

  Damn it, he thinks. There goes the opportunity to contact Degtyarev… Too many of them for us to take on.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he yells. “Back, same way we came!”

  Jumping over the sandbags, they run. The first bullets fizz by. The enemy must have reached the bunker with the gun by now.

  “Squirrel, run!” Tarasov turns back, firing his rifle from the hip for suppressing fire, but the commandos have him outgunned.

  “I’m hit, I’m hit!” Squirrel shouts. Tarasov runs up to him, yanks him to his feet and flings the wounded guide over his shoulders. He can barely feel the weight in the exoskeleton, but the suit also prevents him from running as fast as he would like.

  Leaping from cover to cover, he soon reaches the relative safety of the ridge and places Squirrel down behind some boulders, reloads his Vintorez and aims to pick off any hostiles that have been stupid enough to follow them into the open. None have. They seem content to remain behind their cover. Tarasov fires a few rounds into the top line of sandbags all the same. Squirrel’s AKM joins the fire.

  “You all right?” Tarasov shouts.

  “I got hit in the leg but can still shoot!”

  “Lean on me! Let’s move, move!”

  Hostile fire tapers off as the Stalkers move out of rifle range. Occasionally, just to keep the Chinese at bay, Tarasov fires a few shots. By the time he reaches the ridge, his own panting and Squirrel’s groaning is all he can hear. Casting a final glance back before descending the safe side of the mountain, he notices smoke rising over the bunker and grins triumphantly. The grin disappears from his face as he hears a loud, roaring drone. In a few seconds, a black helicopter emerges from the valley below.

  “Squirrel!” he screams. “Can you still fire that RPG? We must take that chopper down!”

  “Help me kneel up,” the Stalker shouts back. “Load this shit!”

  Tarasov quickly removes the aluminum cap from the grenade and, with the piezo-electronic release bolt now open, places the grenade into the launcher tube.

  “Ready!”

  Pain is all over Squirrel’s face as he aims the rocket launcher and fires. The projectile misses. Tarasov quickly takes the other grenade from his back. The chopper looms closer and opens fire with its on-board machine guns, showering them with stone splinters and dust as the bullets hit the ground close to them.

  “Bring it down,” Tarasov desperately shouts. “Bring it down or we’re finished!”

  Peering out of their cover, the Stalker aims for seconds that seem to be endless before he fires the launcher at last, this time scoring a hit. The grenade detonates towards the chopper’s rear, sending the helicopter spinning around for a few seconds before it crashes into the mountainside, hitting the rocks with a loud, shrieking noise. Tarasov grabs Squirrel’s shoulder and drags him over the ridge at last.

  Eye for an eye, chopper for a chopper, the major thinks, grimly, and rushes down int
o the valley, carrying the Stalker on his shoulders to safety.

  Wilderness, 16:27:00 AFT

  “You’ll be limping for a day or two, but you’ll survive,” Tarasov says reassuringly while fixing a bandage on Squirrel’s wounded leg. “No need to look so gloomy. Here you go!”

  After doing whatever he could to ease his companion’s pain, the major goes to the entrance of the shallow cave he has chosen as their shelter and looks out, watching for any signs of pursuit. There are none. Nor is there any sign of mutants or even other Stalkers.

  “All this shit for a couple of food cans,” Squirrel bemoans. “This was the worst raid of my life.”

  “Apart from you getting wounded, we’ve been successful. We have lots of intel now, and the slit-eyes will be licking their wounds instead of harassing the Stalkers around Ghorband... at least that’s what Bone had been hoping for.”

  “Yeah, man, that really gives a new meaning to my life. Making Bone happy and getting shot in my fucking leg in exchange.”

  Despite Tarasov’s best efforts, Squirrel’s wound had gone from bad to worse. Before long, he would be unable to walk. Tarasov had already taken to carrying some of the guide’s gear but quite soon, the major knows, he will be carrying Squirrel and his gear.

  Tarasov contemplates for a moment, and then opens his artifact container. “Look… I don’t know what this artifact does, but it feels good to have it active, somehow. Here, take it, it’s yours,” he says, giving the Heartstone to the Stalker. “Maybe it will speed up your healing, I don’t know.”

  Squirrel’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets when he sees the artifact. “Look at this - a blue, opaque shell with a red core, like a big chunk of glass… But… this is a Heartstone, man! That’s incredible! Where did you find it?”

  “Uhm… close to that log hut at Hellgate, while collecting firewood with Mac. I didn’t know it was a Heartstone.”