A group of mercenaries were on their way home from a successful scouting mission. The four of them walked along the crumbling asphalt road. First marched Iskandér together with his dog. Iskander was a harsh, untrusting man, but his experience had made him highly respected, and he was the official leader of the squad. His dog, named Jáva, was the only other living being he truly trusted. She was a big Russian Ovcharka, who had been adopted by Iskander when she was just a newborn puppy. Having lived and learned with each other for so long, their bond was unbreakabe and their senses were fine tuned to each other's needs and ideas.
Trailing behind them were Kamchátka, a stalker that despite his age, never lost the sporadic ways of the newly arrived rookies, and Rustám, a precise and serious man, who rarely laughed at jokes. Somehow these two were the best of friends, and right now, they were engaged in a mostly one-sided discussion about an event in the newly completed mission. Apparently, while the group split up to cover more ground, Kamchatka had seen some sort of wolf-like animal off in the distance, but much bigger than wolves “should be”.
“It was up to the pine branches! I promise! I'm not lying, you know I wouldn't lie about this!” Kamchatka was waving his hands enthusiastically, to emphasize the size of the wolf. Rustam nonchalantly lifted up his binoculars to check for any remaining dust or dirt on its lenses.
“That hill was far away, Tyoma. It could have been a cloud or smoke, or an anomaly, or something like that,” he answered, “Wolves are big but not that big. I've seen one in real life, you know? Yes, I'm not lying. In the forest back home. It was huge. Scared the shit out of me.”
The last stalker in the group wasn't interested in the average size of wolves. He was called Zaika and was newly recruited. Zaika wasn't a rookie, but his shy demeanor, and the uncurable stutter he had been named after, made his collgues not take him seriously. He was strolling behind the others, absentmindedly twisting blades of grass, until the pressure made them fray and break apart.
This group was officially named “Squad Boris”, but everyone except the commanders called them the “Dog Squad”. Both because they often had to do the dirty work, and because of Java being the only dog in the entire Zone.
There they all were, relatively content, walking towards their base in the abandoned garages, unaware of the battle against death that Private Jarek “Varshava” Piotrowsky was losing only a few meters away. The thump of his limp body against the ground evaded human ears, but alerted Java of trouble brewing in the fields.
Iskander looked down at his companion. She had stopped in front of him, her head turned towards the field. He trew up his hand to signal the rest if the group to stop.
“Hey, what’s going o…on?” Zaika asked from behind Kamchatka’s back, which he had mindlessly bumped into when the group stopped.
“The dog’s doing something again,” Rustam sighed quietly.
Iskander slowly crouched down to Java’s height and scanned the field for anything unusual. Luckily he didn’t notice Rustam’s offended scoff.
“That man, who listens to his dog's advice more than ours, is our leader?”
“And Ja...va can’t even talk…” muttered Zaika.
“Neither can you,” grinned Kamchatka. Zaika squinted his eyes and clenched his mouth in response.
Iskander’s eyes fixated on a dark spot contrasting the yellow of the dry field. He could almost make out the shape of a man down in the grass. An easy looting target. He weighed the risks and the rewards. His boys were tired and impatient: higher risk of careless steps…The fields took Dmitrij recently, may he rest in p…Is that a military uniform?
“Blja, starík, what’s the bitch doing!?” Kamchatka shouted, making him snap to a decision. He quickly stood up and drew his pistol, not taking his eyes off the silhouette in the grass.
“There’s something out there,” Iskander said. Ignoring Kamchatka's whining, he started walking straight out into the field, followed by Java, who ran to catch up and walk in front of him. The rest of Squad 2 stood left behind on the road.
“And I just wanted to take it easy today”, muttered Kamchatka. Rustam put his binoculars up to his eyes.
“You want that everyday”, Zaika stated. “Pe…rsonally, I want more habár, if y…ou don’t mind.” He pushed himself past the two taller stalkers and tried his best to catch up with Iskander’s giant steps.
"Is he trying to compete with Java, or something?" Kamchatka laughed and looked over at Rustam for his reaction, but found him slowly lowering his binoculars, revealing a blank stare.
"Look." Rustam handed Kamchatka the binoculars without moving his gaze from the field. Kamchatka put them up to his face and looked out at the field. Iskander and Java, Zaika, a lot of grass...there it was.
"Spetsnaz."
[they walk]
[this part is not as good]
“I call dibs on his gun!”, Kamchatka quickly called out.
Iskander put out his hand towards the younger stalkers. “Quiet, boys. Java, check!”
Java walked the few meters to the limp body and sniffed it. After a while, she looked back at Iskander as if to signal ‘you’re good’.
“Alright guys, it's safe, go get him.”
Kamchatka grinned while he sprinted the short distance to the soldier. He was not going to give up the soldier's firearm to any of the others, he had never held any firearm bigger that a supressed Makarov pistol. He kneeled down by the body and quickly pulled off the modern automatic rifle from the limp body.
“Haha!” he shouted triumphantly and lifted the weapon up in the air to show the others.
The soldier's body suddenly catapulted itself into a sitting position with a guttural yell, making Kamchatka rattle off a series of equally loud swear words and scramble away as fast as he could from the no-longer dead soldier.
“Get down!” commanded Iskander, as Rustam and Zaika threw themselves into the dry grass. Iskander only lowered himself into a crouch and took aim at the soldier, Java stood growling by his side. Kamchatka laid on his back while trying to understand his new advanced weapon.
The soldier stayed sitting upright, his short breaths made his body wobble. He looked around at his assailants with panic and confusion.
[they calm the soldier down]
[they tie his hands]
“What do we do now?”
[they bring him back to the garages?]
“What the fuck?” Nozhik exclaimed with a shaky smile, “How did you get this guy here?”
Kamchatka's face cracked up into a proud grin. “We found him passed out in the field!”
[they put sit him down in the office]