“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!”
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.