S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (56 page)

“What do you think I have in mind?”

Nooria’s home, 8 October 2014, 05:48:59 AFT

Knowing that it could be the last time he sees her, Tarasov leaves no inch of Nooria’s body untouched. While kissing and caressing her scars as if tenderness could heal them, Mac’s – or better, Elisabeth’s – words come his mind:
“To find another human being who has everything about him what the Zone means – a new reason for staying alive.”

Staying alive… I wouldn’t mind if I died right now, with her as my last sight.

Her body stretches out like a landscape, undulating female curves that smell of sweat and the scent from the body oil, prepared from an artifact that seems to have the powers of an aphrodisiac – not as if he would need any such help tonight. He fondles her breasts and lets his hand glide up to her scarred neck and face, fondling her loose hair, and rests his head on her belly with her taste still on his tongue. Tarasov wants to fall asleep there, feeling the warmth emanating from Nooria’s body against his face.

He closes his ears to the commotion outside, not willing to get up even when Nooria gets to her feet and, quickly covering her nakedness with her long gown, leaves their sleeping place.

From somewhere in the distance, the noise of heavy engines being started sounds through the night.

Doors open and Tarasov hears an agitated male voice outside, but ignores it still.

     
“Wake up!” Nooria sounds anxious.

“What’s happened?” Tarasov mumbles, half asleep. “Why are you so upset?”

Through his half-open eyelids, heavy with tiredness, Tarasov sees his rifle in Nooria’s hands. Its impeccably clean gun metal shines in the candlelight.

“Take it and use it with honor,” Nooria says with a hint of sadness in her voice, “because you must leave me now. Lance Corporal Bockman is here for you.”

“But… why?” Tarasov asks. A frightening thought agitates him.
I hope it’s not the Colonel ordering me away from her after I pissed him off last night.
“What is this about?”

Nooria gives him the weapon. “Our Tribe is going into battle. Be brave and strong, warrior... and return to me with victory.”

Ghorband, 11:34:26 AFT

Hidden behind a BTR wreck, Tarasov studies the Stalkers guarding the roadblock at Ghorband through his binoculars. They seem nervous, keeping their rifles ready to shoot and barely moving out from the cover of the sand bags.

“Don’t shoot! Friendly coming through!” Concerned that he might be shot on sight, the major slowly steps out of cover and starts walking towards the Stalkers with his hands held high. “Don’t shoot, brothers!”

“Lower your weapons,” he hears the Shrink shouting, “it’s the
boyevoychik!
Hey, come quickly! I hope you’re here to help us!”

“Indeed, Borys. We’re going to Bagram to kick ass!”

The Shrink looks at him with utter disbelief. “No way. We’ll be lucky if we stay alive here. We heard vehicles approaching… We are really screwed. Bagram is under siege and soon the Tribe will be at our throats too… This will be our last stand. Here, brother! Come, have some vodka while you still can!”

“No vodka today, thanks, nor will there be a last stand. I brought men with me... a few good men.”

“This is no time for jokes. Where are they?”

“Behind me. You better holster your weapons.” The major presses the button on his intercom. “Bockman, the road is clear. Proceed. Have a truck take a few hitchhikers aboard.”

The Stalkers become startled as they hear the noise of heavy engines approaching.

“This can’t be real,” Borys murmurs. “But if it isn’t real, it does
sound
real… and then it’s me who needs a shrink because I’m hallucinating.”

“No, you aren’t, and you won’t have to walk today. Look!”

From beyond the next bend in the road, a Humvee appears. Then a dozen more follow and after them a long column of a hundred heavily armored vehicles, decorated with decomposing Taliban and mutant skulls, the Tribe’s red banner proudly blazing on the antennae.

Bagram area, 13:07:51 AFT

The Humvee, driven by the Lance Corporal and now carrying the Colonel and Tarasov, turns up a trail leading to a high hill overlooking Bagram. The main convoy halts, still covered by the forest between the road and the sandy, open plain to the east. Two trucks leave the convoy and follow the Colonel to the hilltop where they stop, covering the flanks of their leader’s vehicle.

“You won’t need your gear,” the Colonel says upon observing that Tarasov is about to take his new M4 carbine with him. “Take the scope from the Gepard only. It’s longer than your toy binocs.”

A dozen Lieutenants jump down from the trucks and assume a protective position around the Colonel. They are led by a warrior wearing an exoskeleton that is entirely different to the others, since it has been painted entirely black – even his helmet, held under his arm, on which the red SEMPER FI inscription blazes out even brighter. Out of all the warriors around, except the Colonel, he is the only one without his helmet on. Blue eyes stare out from a sun-baked, wrinkled face topped by gray hair cut to stubble, radiating the composure of a senior fighter who has already seen many battles like the one unfolding in front of them. Although taller and leaner, there is something confidence-inspiring in his presence that reminds Tarasov of
praporshchik
Zotkin.

More trucks and Humvees arrive on the hill, carrying mortars and heavy machine guns. Their crews quickly start preparing them, but obviously not quickly enough for the senior warrior.

“Don’t be scared of breaking your fingernails, ladies! You are not just a fire support team, you are
my
fire support team!
Anderson
, do you want the big man to think that
my
fire support team is made up of pussies? Do you want to let me fucking down, gunny?”

“No, Sergeant Major Hartman, sir!”

“Then speed up! That also includes you, Corporal Hendricks! You’re not in the Belgian army anymore! Haul those ammo boxes!”

“Oorah, sir!”

“That’s the spirit! Move, move, move, warriors! Maybe the gunny told you that we’re here for a lazy pussies convention. That’s damn wrong! What are we here for today?”

“For the kill!” the warriors’ chorus replies.

“And what am I here for?”

“For the thrill!”

“I want that kill! I want that thrill!” the Sergeant Major roars.
 
“Move, you lame pussies!”

Standing in front of his command vehicle and studying the besieged base through his binoculars, the Colonel orders a command into his radio.

“Assault team, proceed towards Phase Line Akron.”

“
Affirmative. Assault team is Oscar Mike
,” comes the reply.

“Keep it steady, Ramirez.”

“Fire support team is prepared, sir,” the Sergeant Major reports to the Colonel, who glances at his watch.

“It took them three seconds longer than I expect, Top.”

“Apologies, sir. I’ll talk to
Anderson
about it once the show is over.”

At that moment, a volley of RPG projectiles hit the gates of the Stalker base, blasting a machine gun post and sending half a dozen defenders to their deaths.

“Looks pretty hairy down there,” the Colonel calmly remarks.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle, sir.”

“Top, have the fire team stand by.” The Colonel raises his radio set. “Driscoll, proceed with the security team to grid Zulu Bravo Seven Niner.”

Through his binoculars, Tarasov watches a few lighter armored vehicles leaving the main column, and cannot shake off a steady flow of bad memories when he hears the cruel First Lieutenant’s voice reply through the radio.

“
Affirmative. Security team moving out
.”

The vehicles speed up, driving around the hill the Colonel has chosen for his command post so as to stay out of the sight of the enemy, and quickly move towards the road leading to the south.

 
“Driscoll is closing the kill zone,” the Sergeant Major tells Tarasov with a grin. “No rag-head will get out of here alive, not even if they’re disguised as Minnie the Mouse!”

Two small, light trucks arrive on the hill.

 
    
What are they doing here?
Tarasov asks himself.
No armor, no nothing…unless that thing under the cover is some piece of artillery.

 
    
“Looks bad for the scavengers,” the Sergeant Major tells him, pointing towards the besieged Stalker base. “They’re in deep shit. A real clusterfuck.”

Tarasov raises his binoculars. The container wall around the Antonov is shattered, while here and there tracer bullets still fizz towards the waves of enemies who swarm around the Stalker base like a sea of ants.

“Major,” he hears the Colonel calling, “you will not take part in this battle. You will only have the pleasure of watching it. But before it begins, I give you a mission.”

Tarasov turns to him with a bad feeling festering in his guts.

“You were right, Major, we have no friends here. But I don’t think that Stalkers and the Tribe will ever be friends. I ordered my men into this battle because I want you to be in my debt.”

This doesn’t sound good,
the major thinks.

“I want you to be in my debt because I will task you to do something that is almost impossible,” the Colonel says. “I give you the task of staying alive until you have done what you came here for. Afterwards, I want you to find my son and give him what you have found in that village. Tell him what you have seen here – everything. Are you willing to do this for me, in exchange for the miserable lives of a few scavengers?”

“What if I die, no matter how hard I try to stay alive?”

Another huge explosion rocks the Stalkers’ defenses.

 
    
“Would you dare to disappoint me?” A grim smile appears on the Colonel’s face. “You better make up your mind now, because your friends seem to have only minutes left to live.”

“Yes, I will do that for you.
If
I can stay alive.”

“Consider that a direct order from
me
. Take this damned pen drive and guard it with your life. I have saved everything on it that you’ll need to know to find my son. When you find him, you will understand what I said about heroin, and why we littered the poppy fields with corpses. And now… now you will see me unleashing the greatest warriors the earth has ever seen.”

“
Assault team has reached Phase Line
Akron
. Sierra Bravo
,” Tarasov hears a voice crackling in the radio.

“
Security team is in position
,” comes another report.

     
The Colonel looks up to the endless grey sky and takes a deep breath. His trembling nostrils tell of excitement barely withheld. “I love battles at dawn… let the sky crumble. Top – send the assault team in!”