STALKER Southern Comfort

by Balazs Pataki

  Court-martial

  Factory grounds, 28 September 2014, 04:55:00 AFT

  The long years spent in the army have made Tarasov’s mind develop a strange sense of time. No matter how tired he’d been, when he wakes up and looks at his watch, it shows five minutes to five – just in time. Anxiously, he looks around but relaxes when he sees the seemingly tireless Captain standing at the door, the unnatural light of his artifact still glowing and Tarasov’s AK-M in his hands. Seeing that he is awake, the old man smiles at him.

  This man really deserves a medal, Tarasov thinks as he gets up and gives the snoring machine-gunner’s boots a soft kick. Or who knows… maybe he’d be better off staying at Bagram. There’s so much he could teach the Stalkers.

  “Moving out already?” Ilchenko grumbles, still half asleep.

  “Get your gear and check your weapon.”

  Yawning, Ilchenko gets to his feet and steps over to Mac. Ignoring the jackal pup’s growl, he kicks the still sleeping Stalker’s leg.

  “Hey, dwarf. Get up.”

  “Jesus, Ilchenko… I’ve had a nightmare about a bloodsucker chasing me, but waking up in the same space as you makes it appear like the sweetest dream I’ve ever had.”

  “Damn it, man. I hate getting up early,” Squirrel yawns, awakened by the noise.

  “Dobro utro, Captain,” Tarasov greets the old man. “Any events?”

  “Nothing to report, Major,” the Captain replies, still smiling. He removes the glowing artifact from his staff and puts it into his shoulder bag.

  “Mac, give me light over here… You want a little water, Captain Ivanov? Here you go… Why so happy?

  “Today you will do something for me,” the old man says, giving back the field flask. “I have been waiting for it for a long time.”

  Tarasov pours water from his canteen into his hands and rubs it onto his face, then puts on his helmet. He switches on his headlight, but hopes that they will see daylight soon.

  “Everyone ready?”

  “Last time I take soldiers on a trip,” Squirrel grumbles. “No breakfast, no relaxing, no guitar playing, no jokes, only get ready and let’s move and hurry up. It’s like joining Duty. It sucks, man.”

  “You’re lucky we don’t have time for a little healthy morning exercise. Now fall in line, Squirrel. Ilchenko, you…”

  “I’ll watch our six. I know, sir.”

  “… and you, Mac, take point. Captain, you stick with me.”

  Mac opens the door and cautiously looks around with his rifle ready to shoot. “Clear.”

  Stepping out of the dark and dilapidated room after many hours in almost complete darkness and confinement, Tarasov feels relief when he finds himself in a spacious hall. Through holes in the roof that looms high above them, he can see the overcast sky. Wherever he looks in the hall, rows of heavy machines stand, although most of them look like little more than heaps of rusty scrap metal. On some of the concrete columns supporting the roof, metal ladders lead to a gangway that runs around the factory hall, apparently to grant access to the pipes and wires above. Here and there, they hang loose, torn or fallen from the fittings that had held them once upon a time.

  The relatively open space might be a relief for his senses dulled by the narrow caves, but the intensifying noise of the Geiger counter is anything but relaxing.

  No wonder… everything here is metal. This place is one huge radiation trap.

  “I detect high radiation readings. Masks on, switch to breathing systems,” the major orders.

  Seeing that the Captain has only his age-old gas mask to protect himself makes Tarasov wonder how he had survived after the nukes went off, even if the radiation in this area is not as high as it must be in the areas south of the Outpost, closer to the epicenter of the detonations.

  How did he manage that?

  Although there are no signs of mutants or any other hostile elements nearby, they keep their weapons at the ready as they follow Mac to a huge gate that stands wide open to a courtyard containing several wrecked trucks and other disabled vehicles. Beyond the wrecks and a wall of concrete slabs, earthy brown hills come into view with the towering peaks of the Salang Range beyond them on the far horizon.

  Only a dozen meters separate them from the gate when Tarasov hears the noise of metal falling on metal. For a few seconds, he wonders if one more of the decaying fittings has yielded to the weight of pipes and wires above, letting a loose screw fall and hit one of the machines below.

  Then he hears a burst from an assault rifle. He ducks, barely avoiding the bullets that hit one of the machines instead. A ricochet hits the back of his body armor and falls to the ground, rendered harmless by the thick layers of Kevlar inside the Berill suit.

  “Dushmans!” Mac screams. “Dushmans at two o’clock!”

  “Take cover! There’s one firing from that ramp above us!”

  Ilchenko’s PKM sprays the ramp with bullets and a dushman fighter falls headlong from above, his cry of agony ended when his body smashes into one of the machines.

  “Where did they come from?” Squirrel shouts, peering out from under the cover of a machine. A bullet barely misses his head. The Stalker ducks and fires a burst, holding the weapon out over his cover position.

  “Everywhere!”

  Seeing that they are trapped between two rows of machines, offering an easy target to the enemy fighters shooting at them from above, Tarasov realizes that the only way is forward, into the courtyard, shooting their way through any enemies who might be waiting outside. But he knows that if he were leading the attacking party, he would have laid an ambush outside instead of attacking them in the hall where the machines and concrete columns offer more than enough cover. Presuming that the commander of the opposing fighters is no fool, he is sure that the dushmans themselves had not been prepared to find them here, and their lack of tactical preparation could mean the advantage lies with him and his men.

  “Ilchenko, take out those dushmans on the ramp!”

  “Yes, komandir!”

  “There’s one! At eleven!”

  Crouching, Ilchenko swings the machine gun in the direction instructed by the major and fires. “That’s one less!”

  “Squirrel! Move forward! Cover the Captain!”

  Squirrel does as commanded, reloading his rifle as he proceeds with the Captain in tow. He has almost reached the last machine in the row, from where the gate is only a few meters away, when a huge dushman fighter appears behind them and turns toward them to fire his AK. With Ilchenko and the Captain directly in his line of sight, Tarasov has no clear shot on him.

  “Behind you!” he screams. “Get down!”

  The dushman fires, but he has barely pulled the trigger when the Captain’s staff smashes into his head. Squirrel’s rifle completes the kill.

  “Wow, man! Never seen anyone fight like that!”

  “Ramp is clear!” Ilchenko shouts. “No more fire from above!”

  “Wrong!” comes a voice from the ramp.

  Aided by the built-in scope of his assault rifle, Mac lays down lethal and accurate fire on the attackers. Now the roles have been reversed: it is the dushmans hiding while Tarasov and his companions dash towards the gate, while Mac makes full use of the high vantage point.

  Tarasov, Squirrel and the Captain quickly find cover behind two mangled trucks covering their flanks. In a few seconds, Ilchenko joins them. Tarasov is about to call the young Stalker out of the hall when more enemies appear and Ilchenko immediately opens fire.

  “How many more dushmans are in this goddamned place?” he roars over the rattle of his machine gun.

  “Captain! Get under that truck, quickly! Mac, can you hear me?” Tarasov shouts into his intercom, hoping that the kid has switched on his own.

  “Loud and clear, big brother!”

  “More visitors from the south! From your position, that’s nine o'clock. Make it here quickly and let’s catch them in a crossfire!”

  “On my way!”
r />   Aiming and firing his weapon as he lays concealed under the truck, covering the Captain with his own body, Tarasov sees Mac climb down a ladder and move towards the truck from the corner of his eye. He has almost reached it when a dushman, whom he already believed dead, raises his weapon.

  “Mac! Hostile at your left, on the ground! Watch out!”

  His warning comes too late for Mac. The dushman lifts his weapon and fires at Mac from point-blank range. Hit in the side, the Stalker cries out in pain and collapses.

  “Ilchenko! Mac is down! Cover me!”

  The machine gunner fires a long burst into the direction of the attackers. Using the momentarily lapse of hostile fire, Tarasov fires a burst into the still moving dushman who had shot the kid, then dashes to the Stalker’s body to drag it into safety. Suddenly, the PKM’s fire cuts out.

  “Weapon’s jammed!”

  “Squirrel! Keep on firing!”

  “Just loaded my last clip!”

  Immediately, the hostiles open fire again. Tarasov drags Mac’s body away from the gate and inside, hoping that no dushman remains alive in there to give him a nasty surprise. Ilchenko’s PKM fires up again outside.

  “They are withdrawing!”

  “Keep on firing! Squirrel, watch out to the right!”

  “Come, dushmans, come! Papa Ilchenko is waiting for you!”

  Relieved that the battle’s balance is shifting in their favor, Tarasov places Mac into cover between a cabin that must once have been a guard post watching over the entrance and the machine hall’s wall, and begins to check the Stalker’s condition. Billy emerges completely unscathed, but an inch away from the carrying bag holding the yelping mutant, two bullets have penetrated the body armor’s weaker side panels.

  Thank God for making the third bullet fired in a Kalashnikov’s burst almost always miss the target.

  First, he lifts the visor of the helmet and tears the gas mask off the Stalker’s face to facilitate his breathing, leaving only the sand-colored balaclava as a cover. Then, pushing the snarling mutant away, Tarasov opens the zipper and buckles on Mac’s exoskeleton, preparing himself for the sight of blood and gore under the armor plates.

  What he sees makes him forget about Billy, who bites into his thick weapon gloves and tries to drag Tarasov’s hand from his master’s body.

  Tits. Nice ones.

  A smile comes to his face as he remembers Mac’s words about the jackal pup not biting off ‘his’ balls. She was wrong, he thinks while opening a medikit. She does have balls. Much more than some men do.

  To his relief, the bullets hadn’t penetrated the armor. He quickly applies an adhesive bandage from his medikit to the bruised body parts and closes the armor.

  Outside, among the ceasing gunfire, Squirrel gives a triumphant cry. “Yeah! This will teach them not to come to places they aren’t invited to!”

  “Everyone’s in one piece here, Major. Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine, Ilchenko. The kid will make it too.”

  “Damn. One can’t have it all… You need assistance?”

  “No! It’s not time to relax yet. Wait a little longer!”

  Tarasov takes a deep breath and pulls up the balaclava still covering Mac’s face. The young Stalker opens her eyes, which twinkle in the harsh light falling through the gate, now untamed by the helmet’s dark visor.

  Normally, Tarasov would have taken the face for that of a handsome young man. Now that he knows Mac’s secret, he is not misguided by the short hair and grimy face. He recognizes the soft features characteristic of a female face, even if Mac had obviously done everything she could to hide her beauty – because even with her face dusty and grimy, she does look beautiful. Not breathtakingly gorgeous or irresistibly desirable, but in the way of natural beauty that only young women have, in the way of natural sex appeal assigned to the trappings of youth.

  “What are you staring at?” Mac tries to get up to her feet, but immediately emits a moan of pain, reaching for her bruised side. “Shit… hurts like hell... am I hit?”

  “Just a bruise, thanks to your exo,” Tarasov replies and, to cover up his knowledge of Mac’s secret, he adds, “you’re a lucky son of a bitch, you little bastard. We had to finish the dushmans while you were groaning and moaning. Next time try not to get shot so easily, is that clear?”

  “Clear. Ouch… hey, what’s that?” She asks patting the armor above the place where Tarasov has adjusted the bandage.

  “First time you get patched up by someone else?” Tarasov turns his face away and tries to suppress an ear to ear grin. “Stupid little kid! You should have stayed home and played video games until you became man enough to enter the Zone.”

  “Andate a la mierda, forro...!”

  By the sound of the curse that Mac whispers, Tarasov can tell that she understood his message and is not very happy about what Tarasov has found out.

  “Ilchenko,” he shouts over to the machine gunner. “All clear?”

  “All clear!”

  “They ran like dogs!” the guide shouts. “Hope they’ll tell the other freaks that Squirrel was here!”

  The major supports Mac as she gets to her feet. To his relief, he sees that everyone outside is unharmed.

  “Wouldn’t be the New Zone if getting back to daylight was easy,” Tarasov tells Mac. “But hey… at least the view is not so bad.”

  Through a torn-down section of the factory wall, a view opens to the plains below. Followed by his companions, Tarasov walks to the edge of the plateau.

  Strong winds throw up dust from the ground and drive dark clouds across the sky, covering the sun. Long rays of sunlight pierce through the clouds, as if combing the hills and forest stretching out below their feet. Not far from their position, Hellgate is looming where the orange flames of the anomalies burst up into the sky and cast a purple haze over the stone arch. From up here, it looked like the claws of a giant predator reaching out from the earth, and to Tarasov, they seemed to be the claws of the new Zone itself, threatening the sky with all its menacing power. The dark clouds finally chase away the last ray of light, making the Shamali plains appear in pale shades of gray and blue.

  “Getting down should be easier,” Squirrel says. “With just a little caution, we can simply climb down.”

  “Yes. No need to go back the same way we came. You don’t need me any longer.”

  All faces turn to the Captain.

  His shoulder bag lies on the ground. Exhaustion is written throughout his fragile figure, but it’s not from the rigors of the past twenty-four hours. Leaning on his staff, his worn out duster and long beard blown by the wind, he looks just like what he is – an emaciated, weary old man with a million wrinkles on his bearded face.

  “Major Tarasov… I see that you have found what you were looking for,” he says, jerking his head at Mac. “And now, will you carry out a task for me?”

  The major frowns, knowing that it is high time for him to continue with his mission.

  “Don’t worry,” the Captain says, seeing Tarasov’s hesitation. “It will not take much of your precious time. What is your answer?”

  “First, tell me what you need.”

  “No. First, you need to hear me out.”

  The Captain takes a few steps toward the precipice and turns towards the vast plains, standing still with the wind slowly playing with his ragged coat. He stretches out his arms, as if he wanted to bless, or at least embrace, the hopeless wilderness. Then he turns back and looks into Tarasov’s eyes.

  “It’s about the column… The column that was lost.”

  And I was hoping he’d have got his wits together by now, the major thinks.

  “The column left Kunduz in early January 1988. Twenty Ural trucks, three T-62 tanks, five BMP troop carriers, three fuel tankers full of petrol and gasoline. It had to get through.”

  “Yes, I guess it had to,” Tarasov replies impatiently.

  “The column was going to Khost. It never arrived. It was betrayed.”
/>
  “I heard you couldn’t trust the Afghans about anything.”

  “The Afghans… first, they killed the armor driving up front. With RPGs like that.” The Captain points at Squirrel and gestures firing a rocket propelled grenade with his hands. “Kaboom! Kaboom! Then those in the rear. Bang! Kaboom! No vehicle could move. It was snowing heavily, and no helicopters came to help. When the trucks were burning, they stormed down on us. They slit the throats of those who were not shot. They captured our komandir and beheaded him, praising their god. Some were left to die in the snow, to freeze to death or be eaten by jackals and wolves.”

  Mac suddenly stops stroking the mutant pup. Tarasov is surprised about his own lack of emotions over this story – instead of sadness or anger, all he feels is exhaustion.

  “What was left of our load, weapons, ammunition, fuel, went into the dushmans’ hands. It never reached the desantniki fighting in the Panjir Valley. It is safe to suppose that they also died. All this happened because of a traitor.”

  “How did you get away, Captain?”

  “It was not the Afghans who betrayed us.”

  Tarasov frowns. He already suspects where the story will go, but he wants to hear out what the old man still has to say. “Carry on, Captain.”

  “I see you have already guessed it, Major. I was the traitor. I sold out the column to the dushmans in exchange for passage to Pakistan and then to America. They let me down. I deserved it.”

  Tarasov looks at his comrades. Ilchenko is staring at his boots. Squirrel is toying with his anomaly detector, watching Tarasov’s reaction from the corner of his eyes. Mac is standing with her face mask open, her hand resting on Billy’s head. A cloud of sadness hangs over all three of them. He clears his throat and turns back to the Captain.

  “You certainly deserved twenty-eight years in prison for that, and I cannot imagine a worse prison than this place.”

  “You really think so?”

  “What do you want from us now?” he asks back, shunning the Captain’s eyes.

  “I want you, Major, to court-martial me and execute me for treason.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Captain… what you did was horrendous, but you have paid the price. The country that should have court-martialed you doesn’t exist any longer. Let’s forget what you’ve just said. Come with us.”

  “I can’t. How could I look into the faces of people? I could meet the mother of one of the men who died because of me. Or a son who had grown up without a father. How would that be – the dear one dead, the traitor alive?”

  Tarasov bows his head. “That’s just an imagined situation.”

  “I don’t think so. Even if I was wrong, a Soviet… a Russian officer’s lost honor is not just imagination.”

  Mac gives him a startled look, but Tarasov ignores her.

  “For a long time, I longed for this,” the Captain continues. “I prayed day and night to survive here and to be spared being shot by dushmans or torn apart by mutants when I grew too old to defend myself. I prayed to live until the day came when I could die a proper death. A traitor’s well-deserved death, but at least delivered in an officer’s manner. This is what I ask of you in exchange for guiding you, Major Tarasov.”

  Tarasov draws his pistol. Seeing this, Squirrel and Mac start shouting at him.

  “Hey man, you can’t be serious about listening to this lunatic?”

  “Put that gun away! We must take him to safety!”

  Only Ilchenko stands silently. He buttons up his body armor and stiffens his stance. Tarasov turns towards the two Stalkers.

  “You two, step back. Now. And you, Captain, excuse me for a moment.”

  With the others out of hearing range, Tarasov turns to the machine gunner. “What do you think of this?”

  “I am just a private, not supposed to judge officers.”

  “Cut the crap. You grunts do nothing else behind our back.”

  Ilchenko gives a scornful glance towards the Captain. “Honestly, sir? To a dog – a dog’s death!”

  “But we don’t have capital punishment anymore.”

  “We? He is not one of us. I mean, he is, but he belongs to the Soviet army, and in the USSR, such treason was punished with death.”

  “But the USSR doesn’t exist anymore, neither does her law, and capital punishment is no longer applied in Russia either.”

  “Sir… permission to speak freely? It is not a legal argument that’s expected of us now.”

  “Then what, Private?”

  “I’m sure you’ll do what’s right, sir.”

  Now I know what it means to stand in front of a man whose betrayal killed my father, Tarasov thinks. But I also know what he has been through. He survived twenty-five years in Afghanistan and three years in a new Zone. As much time as I have spent in the old Zone. Fate was the only thing that kept me alive. It is not up to me to judge him. I can’t judge fate.

  “Taking him home would be of no help to him, and you are right – maybe he wouldn’t deserve it at all. All we can do is to restore his honor and dignity.”

  “Sir – deserters have no honor and dignity, and traitors even less so.”

  “Honor is not born with us. Neither is dignity – I don’t believe in all that bullshit about human rights. One has to earn honor and dignity the hard way and can lose it the easy way. At least that’s what life has taught me.”

  “Sir, if I may ask, were you brought up on the streets of Kiev?”

  “No. I had a very happy childhood, apart from the absence of my father who died when I was very young. He was as a BMP driver with the other soldiers of the very same column that the Captain has betrayed.”

  Ilchenko takes a step back in surprise. “Gospodi… I was a bit confused when you showed him that photograph, but now I understand. May he and the others rest in peace… I was just asking because I grew up on the streets and I agree with you two hundred percent!”

  “If so, then you probably also agree if I say that this man has by now regained his honor and dignity?”

  “And if he did, does this change the past?”

  “Not at all. But only those with honor and dignity can pass a fair judgment upon themselves.”

  Turning away from the puzzled soldier, Tarasov clears his throat and addresses the Captain.

  “Captain Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov – stand to attention! You have committed the most despicable crimes an officer can commit: treason, resulting in the deaths of your comrades, and cowardice in the face of the enemy. Your infamy is all the worse for your base reasons. Such crimes are punishable by death.”

  The Captain stands stiffly to attention and eagerly listens to Tarasov’s words, but now he also has to say something. He points to the shoulder bag that lies on the ground. “You forgot to add the forfeiture of all assets.”

  “And the forfeiture of all assets, yes.” Tarasov takes a deep breath before continuing. “Nonetheless – your ability to survive for so many years in the direst of environments and your readiness to assist your fellow soldiers to complete a dangerous mission in times of war, has proven that you are once more worthy to be called an officer of… any army, living up to and even surpassing the highest standards set for honor and dignity. Therefore I… this court-martial concludes that your honor and dignity as an officer is restored.”

  With a bow of his head, Tarasov hands his Fort to the Captain.

  A smile appears on the old soldier’s face. He takes the pistol and salutes. Tarasov and Ilchenko return the salute.

  “Thank you, Major, and God bless you. All of you.”

  The Captain looks up to the gray sky. Then he closes his eyes, puts the weapon to his head, and pulls the trigger.

  The shot is still echoing among the hills when Captain Ivanov’s body falls backwards from plateau and disappears below, his fingers still clutching at the weapon, the evil land itself having finally claimed his tormented soul.

  Squirrel and Mac step up. For
a minute, the four companions stand there as if turned to stone. Then Ilchenko speaks up.

  “Major… that was awesome.”

  “I need a new sidearm,” Tarasov replies with a shrug, and turns away from his companions.