Balázs Pataki - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Northern Passage

At this moment the wind rises and stirs up the fog. Collins sees that his estimation was right—four Bandits are squatting next to the campfire.

“Three. In position.”

“One. Two and Three, fog is lifting. You have visuals?”

Four clicks in the radio come in reply, an affirmative double-click from each team.

Collins nods to the grenadier who aims his rifle with the under-barrel launcher. At the same moment when the projectile is released with a clack, the Lieutenant yells into his microphone.

“Geronimo! Geronimo!”

His second call is suppressed by the detonating grenade that goes off right in the campfire.

“Fire mission!” he barks to the machine gunner. “Front, traversing! One hundred, sustained! Fire!”

The M249 begins to sweep the area ahead with a long, uninterrupted burst. The Bandits not incapacitated by the grenade are riddled with the machine gun’s hard-hitting M855 ball rounds. With every fifth a tracer, the arc of fire appears like a deadly fan covering the airstrip between the row of ruins. The three hostiles at the campfire further ahead are equally hit, sticking to the ground and firing blindly into Collins’ direction. Detonations and small-arms fire comes from the ruins where Teams One and Two have begun the infiltration. The door of the radio shack opens but is immediately closed again as bullets impact on the ground and in the mud bricks. A few Bandits foolish enough to follow their instincts and leave their cover to see what’s happening are mowed down. Those staying among the ruins will now be the job of Teams One and Two.

“Cease fire!” Collins yells and waves his hand in front of his face to ensure that the machine gunner understands the order. “Two and Three, proceed! One, on me! Let’s go!”

Using the ruins to their advantage, Collins’ team quickly moves forward. The distinctive barking of Kalashnikovs can be heard from where the other teams move among the ruins. The lighter muzzle noise of the Tribe fighters’ M16A4 and M27 rifles answers, but it is mostly the blast of a grenade detonating inside the roofless buildings that makes the final point.

Three swift-limbed fighters of Team Three reach the radio shack first. One smashes the rotten boards covering the window with his rifle butt, another throws in a flashbang. A deafening blast sounds inside. The third kicks the wooden door open and dashes inside with his weapon aimed, immediately followed by the other two.

“Freeze! Drop your weapons! Weapons down!”

Panting and spitting dust, Collins reaches the shack with his men. In a minute he has them arranged around the perimeter. By now, fighting goes on only in the sector to the north west from where defiant Russian and English cusswords mix with Kalashnikov fire.

“Ya tebya kak sobaku strelayu!”

“Give it up, suckers!”

“Kushay granata, pindos!”

“Grenade incoming!”

The men sparheading Team Three duck to avoid the worst of the blast. Someone shouts in pain.

“Fry those pigs! Grenades!”

“Tvoyu mat’!”

”Fire in the hole!”

Three blasts shake the Bandit’s last point of defense. A long scream ends in Russian swearing, ended with a single shot from an M16A4. Then silence falls.

Lieutenant Collins’ ears are slightly numb from the firefight, especially the SAW’s deafening bursts. He can barely hear the crackling voices through the radio, though now they are spoken out loud.

“Two. Clear. One WIA. Gunshot.”

“Three. Clear. Two WIA. Damned grenades.”

“One. Objective secured, all clear,” Collins says on the radio. He looks around and is relieved to see that everyone in his team appear unharmed. Then he notices the stinging pain in his shoulder where a lucky bullet went through the exoskeleton’s Kevlar pates. “One WIA,” he adds, thinking: shit!

The squad corpsman is already there to see to his wound. Collins waves him away. “See to the others first.”

He himself takes off his heavy rucksack, glad that the painful grimace coming to his face remains hidden under the shemagh he has wrapped around his face, like most of the others.

The man lying before his feet, wearing a black trench coat with a skull patch on the arm sleeve, has no option to hide his face. The fighters who captured him have already pulled his balaclava off. His eyes might appear intelligent in other circumstances but now reflect the fear of a captured animal.

“Objective secured,” Collins repeats, now directing his words to the two Stalkers. “Sniper, come down. Mac, keep watching the area.”

Then he turns to the captured Bandit.

“You smelling of fear,” he says without exaggerating. A dark stain on the prisoner’s groin tells that he has wetted himself. “You speak English?”

“I do, sir! Please don’t hurt me!”

“What’s your name?”

“Bruiser, sir!”

A few fighters grin. In his present state nothing justifies the Bandit’s pretentious nickname.

“Calling me ’sir’ won’t help you, Bruiser,” Collins says, he too smiling under the shemagh. “If you want us to be friends, you have to be cooperative. If you want us to be enemies—”

“No, no!”

“Attaboy. First question: is this your only base?”

“That’s correct.”

“Do you expect more Bandits to arrive, and if yes, when and how many?”

“Today. About three hundred.”

Collins frowns. “What? Three hundred?”

“Yes. With two Antonovs… see, I’m cooperative! Please don’t hurt me!”

“When exactly?”

“In about two hours.”

“Call signs, passwords, landing protocols?”

“Hitman One and Two. They will make contact before landing. I will tell them if everything is clear on the ground. Hitman One will land first with enough men to secure the area, then the rest will disembark.”

Collins turns to his two team leaders and Ahuizotl who has just arrived. “Let’s get outside for a minute.”

Away from the Bandit’s ears, the Lieutenant gives the three men a concerned look and recaps the situation for the sniper.

“Three hundred hostiles expected in two airplanes, due in two hours. How do we deal with this?”

“What kind of airplane?” the sniper asks.

“He said Antonovs. Probably Cubs, since nothing bigger can land here.”

“You mean the An-12.”

“Yup.”

Ahuizotl reflects over their options and shakes his head. “I can take down a chopper by hitting the pilots. An Antonov — no way. Not from this angle.”

“We could just scare them away if we send enough bullets in their direction,” team leader Walker suggests.

“Risky,” Ahuizotl says. “They might have tail gun turrets and blast us from above.”

“Besides, we need to annihilate them and not just scare away,” Collins observes. “The whole thing wouldn’t make much sense if they come back later. Three hundred of these sons of bitches, Jesus! We need more firepower than we have.”

“It’s a small airstrip,” Harper says. “They can land one airplane at a time. Means we’ll have to face only a hundred and fifty, I guess. If we have good cover, and use the SAW and blooper wisely… it could work.”

“Those Antonovs have rear ramps, right?” Collins asks.

Getting the Lieutenant’s idea, the sniper points to the airstrip. “They will probably land from the north. The fighter is right—if we have the machine gun positioned at the right angle, we can hit the tail gun to neutralize it and then the ramp as soon as it goes open.”

“Gonna be like bloody Omaha,” Walker remarks.

“I don’t like the idea,” Collins says after a moment of thinking. ”If I were aboard and see this happening, I’d raise the ramp immediately, turn the aircraft around and take off. One SAW won’t be able to stop a big airplane.”