“Let’s collect our reward,” Tarasov says cheerily as he jumps down from the rock. No sooner has he landed on the ground, however, than a bullet whizzes by his head. He drops on his belly and yells “Hold your fire!” His voice is lost among the noise as his whole squad opens fire. Fearing the worst, Tarasov looks up — and notices that the Stalkers hadn’t been shooting at him and his squad isn’t firing at the Stalkers.
“Hostiles!” Zlenko screams. “Close ambush from our nine!”
The Major quickly realizes that it would be unwise to climb back and thereby offer a clear target to whoever is shooting from the shadows. With a loud thump, Kravchuk lands at his side.
“Who the hell ordered you down from your position?” Tarasov shouts at him.
“I had no visual on the enemy from there, komandir, and thought you might need some backup!”
“Listen up,” bellows Tarasov amidst the gunfight, “you see that slope over there? Let’s make a run for it!” Then he shouts up to the sergeant, “Zlenko!”
“Here!”
“Keep this position! In two minutes exactly, give suppressing fire with everything you got! Kravchuk, let’s move, now!”
They dash to the slope about fifty meters away. Reaching it, Tarasov signals the soldier to crouch. Silently moving into the trees, Tarasov proceeds for a hundred meters before turning towards the north. In this moment all hell breaks loose as the squad lays down suppressing fire.
“Cover our left,” Tarasov barks to the sniper, then, moving fast from tree to tree, he advances.
He doesn’t have to look long before he spots the enemy: about two dozen men with AK rifles, all seeking cover from the hail of bullets coming from the paratroopers. To his relief, their opponents are not the highly trained commandos of yesterday. And, judging by the light armored vests they are wearing over long linen cloaks, they must be either be suicidal or very much adapted to this environment — or maybe both.
“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.”