“It is done. Samal will be with you from now on,” she says. “You will carry him to his last battle. Now I must cause you pain. Just a little.”
Tarasov struggles for breath when he feels the sharp sting of the needle, but Nooria’s soothing touch seems to suck all pain out of his body. Her swift fingers quickly finish sewing up his wound. She bites off the yarn protruding from the wound.
“Your mind can rest now,” she whispers, letting herself glide down to his groin. “But I will keep your body awake. I must quench thirst of my flesh now, because it will parch until you return.”
“Will there be such a day?”
“I know what past has brought, but not what future will bring.” Nooria caresses his face. Tarasov feels his eyes closing. The words she whispers into his ear sound like an ancient melody.
“When your star is unseen, and all is dark, your despair itself becomes a star… Sleep now, my strong warrior. Sleep…”
Encrypted voice transmission between the New Zone and Kiev, 10 September 2014, 08:41:07 AFT
#Kilo One, this is Renegade calling. Do you copy?#
#Kilo One to Renegade. Copy you loud and clear.#
#Eagle Eye authorized me to tell you to confirm — your suspicion was correct. The squad has been located. All KIA.#
#Affirmative. Damn, that’s bad news.#
#It was a friendly element that discovered them. If he is who I suspect he is, so far your plan is working. #
# That’s classified, Renegade. Proceed with your mission and provide us the proof.#
#I think there will be an opportunity for that… Kilo One, is this man of yours doing all this to escape a court-martial or something? #
#Kilo One to Renegade. Transmission wasn’t clear, repeat. #
#Renegade to Kilo One. I asked you because he will surely make our objective show his hand, but no man deserves to be punished like that. I guess not even you know what is waiting for him. You must hate him if you send him there. #
#[static noise]#
#Kilo One to Renegade. That’s classified.#
# Renegade to Kilo One. Eagle Eye is bad enough but you are even worse. All right, team is relocating. Will contact you and Eagle Eye when proof is obtained.#
#Kilo One. Roger on the voice transfer, Renegade.#
# God damn you Kilo One, he was a fine man. Over and out.#
#[static noise]#
City of Screams
“I had hoped to find more here than a pile of rubble.”
Tarasov hands the binoculars to Zlenko, who is lying on his belly next to him as they take cover from behind a bush on a hill overlooking the wide valley below. The ancient site rises up on a barren hill, surrounded by dense forest and a spider’s web of roads leading to it that are littered with all kinds of wrecked Soviet tanks, civilian cars and trucks. Far beyond the forest, where the valley meets the steep wall of the hills, the rocks are riddled with caves, all dwarfed by a huge, high cavern. The night still keeps its hold over the western horizon, but to their left, in the east, the first touches of light are already feeling their way through the darkness, painting the hills a soft pink. Soon, the valley will be filled with shades of red and orange, casting a deceitful beauty over the ruin that crawls with enemy fighters.
“How I wish that our gunship could be here now… it turns out it would have been a good plan after all,” the sergeant replies. The electric zoom of the binoculars whizz as Zlenko adjusts the distance. “Only the logistics went wrong, right from the beginning.”
Oh boy, you have no idea how bad everything went, Tarasov thinks, but says, “A frontal attack is out of question. Do you have any ideas how to deal with this mess, Viktor?”
“It’s all screwed up, komandir… I can’t even see an entrance to the underground where we could concentrate our attack.”
“Probably on the southern side… you see that road to the south-west? The map on my PDA shows a track branching off and up to the hill, towards the ruins. The entrance must be somewhere there. Can’t see it clearly on this low-resolution image, though… I wish we could properly recon the place before moving in.”
“If the entrance is to the south, it means we’d have landed at the wrong end of our target anyway.”
“As far as the infiltration team is concerned, you’re right… so, Viktor, if there’s a well-defended enemy position between you and your objective, and you have no artillery or air support, how would you proceed?”
“The plain around the hill is covered with a dense forest and probably full of mines and anomalies… but there are trails leaving the main road right beneath our position. If there’s any logic left in this place, they’ll skirt the hill and join the other road coming from the south-west. A small unit should be able to get through there without stirring up too much trouble. That is, if the defenders have something else to do than watch their back — like bracing for an attack from the north or something.”
“What do you think? Could it work?”
Zlenko studies the area carefully. “Good luck is all we need, sir.”
“I agree. Let’s move back to the Stalkers.”
Positioned behind the hill from where they reconnoitered the site, a bunch of tough-looking Stalkers wait for Tarasov’s orders. He had gathered far fewer Stalkers than he had hoped for, but at least the men now huddling around him are the elite of their sort: veterans, well armed and disciplined. He feels reassured when looking at their faces.
But where in the hell are Bone and his guards? And where is that damned sniper and his buddies?
“Listen up,” he tells them in a low voice, “we can no longer wait for Captain Bone. We’ll lose the advantage of the low sun in half an hour. If we approach them now from the east, they will have the sun in their eyes. No state-of-the-art equipment can compensate for that. We have to move in and have to move in quickly. We expect to find an entrance to the caverns to the south. The distance is about two kilometers. I’ll move in with a small infiltration team. The rest of you will unleash hell to divert attention from us moving in. Borys, come over here… check the intercom. You, Stalker with that PKM, give me that flare gun. You don’t want to shoot dushmans with that, do you? All right… you are Stalkers, so you will stalk down to that stream between our position and the ruins. You will assume firing positions there but hold your fire. Once we get close enough to the entrance, I’ll fire a flare and you start the party. Meanwhile, we move in. Remember: all you’ll you have to do is to keep the enemy occupied and attract as much attention as possible to your diversionary attack. Should they move up, there’s a large free space between the stream and the forest. They will be sitting ducks there. Use the terrain to your advantage.”
“And once you’re out?” the Shrink asks.
“Don’t worry about that.”
Zlenko looks at Tarasov in a concerned manner. “Komandir… I’m with the Stalker on this. What about exfiltration?”
Sorry, son, Tarasov thinks. All we have to plan for is reaching the lower levels. Getting out would be like planning for a miracle to happen.
But he also knows that his two faithful soldiers, and any Stalkers brave enough to join them, deserve some sort of proper explanation.