S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (3 page)

Tarasov has landed more times in a helicopter than he can count but he still can’t shake off the slight sickness he feels during the sudden descent. He grabs his weapon and opens the hatch. Giving each man an encouraging pat on the shoulder while they exit, he waits until everyone is out. He signals to the pilots with his thumb up and follows his soldiers. The gunship immediately takes to the air and sets out on a circling path over the abandoned buildings to watch over the environment. Its turbine engines are still too loud for Tarasov to address the squad leader without shouting.

“Any developments, Lieutenant Nabokov?”

“We saw a pack of mutants not far from here but the helicopter’s noise scared them away.”

“Keep your eyes peeled, just in case something nasty comes out of this hole. Are the Stalkers still inside?”

“I’ve been standing by with Fortress One since zero-six-hundred. No one has left through here, sir, and Fortress Two didn’t report any earlier contacts either.”

“Good. Chumak, come over here!”

The technician – a haggard civilian who usually tends to the vehicles at the base and now looks helpless in the bulletproof vest he’s wearing for the first time – has fear written all over his face. Tarasov gives him his pistol.

“You know how to handle a Fort-15?”

“Yes,
komandir,
but…” Chumak points at Tarasov’s rifle. “Could I have a machine gun like that?”

 
“If you ever find you need a bigger weapon, pick up any of our rifles because that would mean we’re dead.”

With his squad following behind, Tarasov walks to the tunnel entrance, a round opening in the ground like a manhole.

“Chumak, on me. Kolesnik, Shumenko, move forward. Ivanchuk, you look out for our six. Our mission is simple: we go in, seal the shaft to Strelok’s hideout and get out.”

“Rules of engagement?”

“This is a high priority area, Lieutenant. Shoot at everything that moves. Watch out for ricochets – the tunnels are narrow. Keep a little distance from the walls.”

“If we find any artifacts, can we retrieve and sell them?”

“Not if I find them first, sergeant. Anything else?”

“Major, sir!”

“Spill the beans, Shumenko.”

“Permission to take a leak before we go in.”

“Do it quickly and make sure you don’t put your
yalda
into an anomaly.”

“Shumenko’s dick needs not fear any anomalies on the ground” says Kolesnik with a grin.

The lieutenant is quick to reply. “He’s only pissing to let the mutants know his territory!”
  

Tarasov sighs with impatience, but he has given up cutting such casual manners long ago. Even if this squad was improvised just an hour ago, at least he could count on these men should things go wrong. He knows this could happen. His men know it too. And Kolesnik’s joke wasn’t that bad for a man who is about to descend into a mutant-infested tunnel system where anything that can move will move in for the kill.

“Feeling much better.”

“All right… now that Sergeant Shumenko has gracefully marked his territory, let’s get moving. Switch to your breathing system. Check night vision and intercom.”

“Ivanchuk here. Always ready.”

“Kolesnik ready.”

“Shumenko here. Locked and loaded.”

“Err… I mean, do I also have to say something?”

“Can you see and breathe in that gas mask, Chumak?”

“Yes,
komandir
.”

“Keep it that way. Let’s move!”

Tunnel system - Agroprom Research Institute, 09:28:00 EEST

Before Tarasov descends into the narrow shaft leading to the tunnels, he switches the channel on his radio. “Cordon Base, this is Condor One. Condor Squad moving in. Over and out.”

The sergeants climb down through the narrow shaft. As soon as they arrive at the bottom of the ladder, they kneel and assume a firing position.

“Clear,” Shumenko reports.

Tarasov notices a disapproving look on the technician’s face. He ignores it, but Ivanchuk jumps at the opportunity to lecture him.

“What are you looking at, Chumak? Command elements take point only in war movies. If there’s an ambush down there and the major gets shot, we’re screwed.”

His comrades descend one by one. Tarasov can hear their panting. With his left hand, he signals them to proceed. The tunnel reeks of rot, dampness and corrosion. Above, a lonely red light flashes and casts its eerie light across the walls, like the reminder of a long-forgotten alarm when these catacombs were still part of a secret laboratory. All is quiet but for the shrieking noise of the rotating flashlight and moisture dripping from the ceiling.

Suddenly, something moves on the ground with a noise that sounds like a thunder.

“Sorry, Major” whispers Chumak, “I stumbled on something.”

“Shit! Why don’t you just shout ‘hey we have just arrived!’?”

“I’m sorry,
komandir
!”

“Shut up, Chumak” comes Ivanchuk’s voice.

Tarasov hears something like footsteps approaching. He raises his left fist, ordering the others to stop. He aims his weapon and a shadow moves into the red dot sight of his rifle. As the emergency light’s red beam flashes for a second in its direction, a human silhouette emerges from the darkness. Without hesitation, he fires two short, noise-suppressed bursts. Tarasov hears the man gasping and pulls the trigger again. The man emits a shout, intended as swearing but ending in a gasp of pain. His rifle fires a burst into the ground as death spasms his fingers. At last he falls. Two seconds have passed since he appeared, maybe three.
Strange,
Tarasov thinks.
That fellow was pretty heavily armored for a Stalker.

Staying in cover, Tarasov peeks around the corner. The room is dimly lit by another faint emergency light.
 
A thick concrete column blocks his view, but he senses no movement. He gives a signal to Kolesnik.

“It’s too quiet there... suspiciously quiet. See that red fuel drum? Make some noise.”

The sergeant removes a frag grenade from his belt, pulls the safety, waits for a few seconds, and then throws it in the shown direction. In the moment the grenade lands, someone inside shouts
cover!
but is silenced by the detonation. After a split second a much louder detonation follows as the fuel drum explodes into a blinding ball of fire. The major hears the noise of metal shreds whizzing through the air, mixed with desperate screams. He shouts,
Go, go, go!
and jumps down the stairs into the room. His Geiger counter starts ticking frantically. Two bodies lie on the ground but Tarasov ignores them as he scans the next room, once an elevator station, for further targets. His night vision is too weak to light up the corners and he doesn’t want to switch on his headlight – it would turn him into an illuminated target for hostiles wanting to practice headshots.

“All clear,” he says, “let’s move on.”

But Chumak, who is in the catacombs for the first time, stands in front of two huge tanks, which might contain poison or worse, staring at the glowing green substance beneath them. The substance is moving, looking like boiling green water in slow-motion. He is about to touch it when Ivanchuk pulls him back.

“That’s a Fruit Punch, rookie. An anomaly. One step closer and the acid will consume your dick in a second.”

“There’s more of that shit here in the underground than mushrooms in a forest,” Kolesnik remarks. Tarasov is about to tell them to keep quiet when the other sergeant shouts out.

“Enemies detected!”

Shumenko doesn’t wait for the major’s order and releases a long burst into the elevator chamber. Now it’s the major’s turn to throw a grenade. Another deafening explosion sounds but the enemy keeps firing. The lieutenant leaps forward, firing his AKSU assault rifle. Silence falls. Tarasov points to the round chamber in front of them, with a massive pillar in the middle.

“Ivanchuk, you and Kolesnik to the left. Shumenko, on me. Chumak, you stay behind me.”

Slowly and with weapons ready, they enter the chamber. Below their feet, rusty iron grates cover corroded pipes, disappearing into the ground. A lever stands in the middle, the turning wheel having fallen off. Above them, the metal tubes of a ventilation system follow the curve of the walls, here and there lacking a few cover pieces.

“Keep your eye on those open tubes,” Tarasov warns his squad with a whisper, “I don’t want any stray snorks jumping on our heads.”

“All clear. Coming through.”

Tarasov lowers his Val when he sees the lieutenant appearing from the other side. In front of them, a staircase leads to the level below.

“Shall we?” Ivanchuk asks. Tarasov shakes his head.

“Watch the stairs. Keep your eyes peeled, Lieutenant. I want to check out those bodies before we go below.”

Now that the area is cleared of enemies and with the only exit under watch, Tarasov switches off his night vision and turns on the headlight. He approaches the Stalker shot by the lieutenant.

“Good shot, Ivanchuk,” he says, loud enough for the sergeants to hear it as well. The corpse lying in the light circle before him is wearing a tactical helmet with an integrated gas mask, its tube attached to his dark blue body armor’s breathing system. His bulletproof vest has been penetrated by five armor-piercing rounds from Ivanchuk’s AKSU. Even in his death, he holds his outdated, but still deadly G36 assault rifle.

“Shumenko, take over the guard. Lieutenant, come over here.” Tarasov points at the corpse. “This was no Stalker but a mercenary. Our intel was bad, like usually.” The lieutenant nods and kneels down to remove the gas mask from the corpse. “Don’t. I’d rather not see his face.”

“And if it was a pretty woman, sir?”

“You’re one sick son of a bitch, Lieutenant. You better find something that the intel guys could use… maybe they’ll do a better job next time.”

“But if it’s a woman and I find a lipstick, can I keep it? My girlfriend…”

“Cut your stupid jokes, for God’s sake. You’re not even remotely funny.”

Tarasov searches the other bodies. They all wear the same gear, meaning they indeed belonged to the group of mercenaries who occasionally appear in the Zone. Unlike Stalkers, they not only hunt for artifacts but for the occasional human target as well, be it a Stalker carrying a special artifact or one who didn’t deliver what he was supposed to on time. And, being far better equipped and trained than ordinary Stalkers, they also cause headaches for the army when they appeared close to the strictly no-go areas around the secret laboratories. Tarasov’s search proves futile – one body was blown to pieces by the exploding fuel drum, and on the other he only found two first-aid kits.

“Nothing useful here, sir,” Ivanchuk reports.

“No surprise… After all, no merc would be stupid enough to carry his mission orders with him. Dammit… A band of mercenaries in our territory is the last thing we need.”

“I suggest we report this to the base,
komandir
.”

Tarasov checks his radio. “No signal. Anyway, we still have something else to do… Let’s go down.”

It gets darker with each step as they carefully descend the winding metal staircase. The ground below is dotted with bubbling green anomalies, illuminating the tunnel with green glow. Now Tarasov can even hear their noise: a sizzle echoing like a chorus of monsters in the darkness, as if communicating with each other in a deep, foreboding whisper. His Geiger counter ticks faster.