The Shadow Of Chernobyl (IC)

[Tiger Sora]

Slavoc awoke from gunfire in the distance. He jumped out of bed and looked through the window for any sign of trouble. No evident sign of trouble could be seen. "Just see what's going on". Slavoc quickly dressed himself, grabbing his weapons and explosives before he ran out the room. Running for the door Slav slid to a stop when the watchman asked what he was doing. "There's gunfire I need to check it out, and thats Major to you".

"Sorry sir" said the watchman "It's just some wild dogs as the main road checkpoint, happens all the time".

"Radio the checkpoint, I want a status report on it" he yelled.

The watchman contacted the checkpoint. The radio crackled "Lots of dogs, need back up uhh, two people slipped by during the fire fight, we need more men here send help"!

"Send two squads to support them, then send the base to red alert when I radio you. Set your radio to channel 09, call sign is Ironhawk, yours is Home. Code word is Moscow Moscow Moscow. You got that!

"Yes Major"! the man said in a raised voice.

With that Slavoc ran outside. The crackle of gunfire could still be heard off in the distance. His concern is for the two than ran through the checkpoint, they needed to be captured or killed.

[Eian]

Eli shook the hand of the Hybrid that had just joined them, it had been a long time since he had ever met someone who was so polite in the zone "Eli, and this guy here is Flash" he pointed at Mikka
This new STALKER seemed to be slightly taller than Eli, and for first impressions, Eli tought he wasn't exactly here just for the money he probably was promised, few people who were in it just for the money would actually show up like this and say their own name, clearly he came for the info as well "Right...maybe now we'll actually have a fighting chance against the Military...those dogs will only keep them busy for so long"
he pulled out his PDA and checked the information again for the last time
"Ok...Flash, Alex, we're here to find some piece of information, something these guys may have missed when they raided the building, a file or a flashdrive or pictures...anything would work, as long as it can point us on where to go next to find this Strelok guy. check your weapons and ammo, i have a feeling this is going to go bad before it gets better for us"
As he checked his FAL's scope he noticed someone dashing off in the direction of the checkpoint, it didn't seem like a soldier, but Eli didn't want to run his chances, he tried to keep low, as well as warn the rest there was someone in the vicinity
"what the hell is a STALKER doing here...." he said out loud, he decided to let him pass, if he was connected to the military it would be a bad idea to call his attention, and if he wasn't he was probably going to head back and find them, asking for help
with that, Eli led the way through the bushes onto the side of the base, they weren't going to take them head on obviously. a breach on the wall let them see inside, two buildings stood tall along with what seemed to be a military tent, probably for their soldiers, two guards stood near the breach of the wall, but they didn't seem to be paying attention even with the red alarm over the base, clearly with all the gunfire going on they wouldn't notice the group right away
"We need to search those buildings...Flash, you take point"

A jeep came out of the complex, after hearing the gunshots and the possibility of two STALKERS entering.
Inside was a Bear, unlike most STALKERS he was in a lab coat, and was talking to a man sitting next to him
"But sir, there's a reason why we left that project die all those years ago, it's too dangerous! it's the sole reason of why i stopped working directly with the government in the first place!"
"I don't care, i'm risking enough as it is keeping your little new projects away from them, and there's only so much influence i can have on the Duty faction...i need some results Sakharov, and fast, i don't care how many men do i have to lose to that -scorcher- of yours"
Sakharov sighed and looked up to the Commander, now with a flustered look on him "allright...i'll talk to Vororin when i'm back in Yandar then..." he muttered a few words in russian before going quiet completely "may god help us...."

[Duskmon]

Snow was sleeping in his tree when he awoke to gunfire in the distance "No rest for the wicked eh?" he said as he jumped down from his branch he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder "Time to go then." He said as he bagan to run towards the gunfire. It took him a few minutes but when he arrived he laughed at the site. He looked around for a tree or something to watch from "Hmmm. Well there's a....crap. What to do what to do?" He quickly hid behind a large object and continued to watch.

[Eian]

Eli looked at Alex and Flash, he nodded and went through, shooting out the two guards, the people in the compound didn't notice them due to the shots, but when they looked their way and noticed the dead guards, hell broke loose
The soldiers took aim, shot, or took cover, aiming at the group of STALKERS, enraged after seeing their comrades dying like that. Eli just managed to yell "look out!" before diving to a side, taking cover behind the wall of the building that was close to the crack

The soldiers at the checkpoint were finishing with the wild dogs, two of them talked out loud while checking their remaining ammunition and weapons
"Man....i never get used to this. I mean it when i say this, i'd rather die than be sent deeper inside this hell hole"
"Relax, they got that KGB guy for that job now"
"What? the Major? pah, that guy will probably get easy jobs considering who his father is"
just as they were talking, a comm message arrived
"STALKERS detected inside the base perimeter! need backup inmediately!"
"Great...never a time of peace in this place is there?"
with that, they ran off towards the base, weapons ready to fight with whoever was inside the base

[ntswm2]

It'd been ten days since the others had died. They'd sneaked in through an small hole in the perimeter that one of the locals had said wasn't watched by the Ukranian army boys. It'd been the weather. The guards on this part of the cordon changed shifts at dawn and dusk. So they went in just after 8. The weather was terrible, and visibility was next to nil, rain was horrific, winds high. Great for a bit of infiltration. Of course that required that there wasn't a security camera focussed right on the bit of fence they needed to get through. The local they'd roused the information from clearly hadn't thought to count electronic monitoring. In the blinding rain, none of the team had noticed the damn eye in the sky until it was too late.

They were about 100 yards past the perimeter of the zone when they heard the sound of the voices and the crunching of the APCs and Jeeps rolling over the hard ground. Travis and his team started running, sprinting more like it, into the zone. The sounds grew close and soon they were on them. The fifty cals on the APCs and jeeps opened fire immediately, no half-hearted warnings or demands. Travis' team was pretty clearly a military outfit, and nobody got into or out of the zone if the guards could help it. The guns chopped up Hawkins and Daniels immediately, while Quentin and Travis managed to jump from a road bridge to the ground below. In the fog, rain and darkness, it was doubtful the enemy had noticed which way they had gone... that was until they heard the muffled cry from Lieutenant Quentin as his leg crumpled under him; a casualty of a bad landing. A squad of infantry followed the sound, and Travis only had time to glance forlornly at his ally before running off into the darkness. With the rain as bad as it was, he could only barely make out the gunshots.

He'd hidden in a small abandoned farm house near the tracks. For ten days, until his food started to run low. He decided that at this point whatever searchers had gone out for him from the Cordon were long gone at this point... and so was his response date with home base back in Berlin. It hadn't mattered, Quentin had had the communication codes and the SAT phone they would have used to get a hold of them. The army high muckymucks, in their great wisdom, had decided giving the codes to the freelancer was an "Unacceptable Security Risk." Some good it did them now, the fucking bureaucrats. If they followed procedure the operation would have been deemed a failure and the entire thing rolled up. It wouldn't due for Ukraine (still being courted for NATO membership) to find the US army screwing about in what was highly restricted territory.

Travis Sheller looked at his pitiful food supply, which he had rationed as much as he could, but with only a few days left, he felt he had to get what he could. The satellite pictures they had been shown in the briefing had shown a small hamlet to the South of his current location still had some activity. Army intelligence thought they were probably smugglers. Standing up and throwing his backpack onto his back he looked over the desolate landscape with a few rays of sunshine poking through the clouds and decided it was time to go into town.

[Tiger Sora]

Slavoc ran out to the soldiers firing on the building. "Hold your fire, thats an order". The soldiers stopped firing on Eli's position. 'Least these idiots listen'. "You four head around the wall. Make sure they don't escape the way they came in". The four ran off. "The rest of you stay here, make sure no one shoots. I don't want friendly fire". Slav lit up a smoke and made his way towards the enemy's position. Checking to see that his weapon was primed, it was. Slav knelt just around the corner.

He breathed in one last time. "Stalkers, am I right"? he asked.

[Eian]

Eli motioned for Alex and Mikka to hold their fire, then answered "What does it matter? you Military bastards will shoot us anyways" he kept the safe off his FAL, and aimed it downwards, ready to jump out and shoot if necesary
He huffed and tought that maybe he could reason with this one
"You're not really familiar with the Zone...are you? not many experienced Military STALKERS try to reason with us... let me ask you this.... Major? i guess?....have you even encountered one anomaly yet?"
he tried taking a calmer tone
"Maybe we can end this without the need of bullets...i need some information in here, and you need some info about the zone itself..." he glanced out of cover and looked at Slavoc "Maybe we could trade?" he knew this was a bold move, but it was clear that whoever this guy was he had no experience in the zone at all, if he had a chance at ending this without bullets, this was the best shot he would get

[Tiger Sora]

"Your Eli, I know the face of every stalker in the zone". Slavoc finished off his smoke. "Anyways it depends on what your after, I know all about the zone. So I really don't need anything but a real experience with an anomaly. So tell me". Slav stood up and waved off his troops. "Sorry, what your after and I'll tell you what I want".

[ntswm2]

The gunfire made Travis stop suddenly. He stayed still for a second and his ears twitched. He had been avoiding the worn down road and the checkpoints at the perimeter of the Zone of Exclusion. But the gunfire made him stop. He very much doubted it was an extraction team, but if there was gunfire, it meant people. Angry people who'd very much want to kill him, perhaps, but at this point, Travis Sheller knew he needed food, and this irradiated waste, he wasn't likely be able to live off the land. So people was a potential good. He decided to scout it out.

Taking a place in the bushes several hundred yards away, he looked through the site of his sniper (detached, of course) at the meeting. Whatever had happened with the guns was over and a few guys in jackets were talking with an officer under the close eye of a small detachment of Ukrainian Army. Seeing as they were all trespassing on military property, and nobody seemed to be getting arrested, something seemed to be out of place. Travis decided to keep down and move a bit closer, maybe he might be able to pick up what was going on.

[Duskmon]

(I'm guessing we're all outside now.)

"Hey now no need to point those things at me" Snow said to the military personel that had found him. Snow had a plan. It was more likely to fail though "I'm Russian army personel Snow Esthiem. If any of you know me you probably know me as Ice." The few soldiers lowered their guns a bit. One person though kept the gun pointed strait at Snow's chest "Alright take me in then."

[Eian]

Eli still had his gun ready to aim just in case, he had never trusted the military in the zone, and this wasn't an exception either
"information....about the last group of stalkers that passed here, we think they know something important that we need"
he walked closer to Slavoc "If you know everything about the zone, maybe the name Strelok rings a bell for you...that's who we are looking for"

Sidorovich was back in his bunker, overhearing everything that went on in the few radio signals there were, both STALKER's and Military, he got the news of the people shooting at one of the outposts
"that must be them...." he tought to himself "let's hope those crazy bastards manage to pull this off without dying" he didn't have high hopes, and the tought of them actually talking their way out of it hadn't even crossed his mind

[Tiger Sora]

"Strelok" Slavoc played with the word. "I've heard of him. Answer my question now. Sidorovich, I need to know about that man. If you tell me about him, I'll help you with this Strelok guy". Slav took several steps around Eli, to look at his companions. He stared at them for several seconds. "Deal, Eli"?

[Duskmon]

Snow was being led to the squad's leader, his weapons were taken and he was cuffed. "So anybody know any good jokes?" He asked and didn't get an answer "Guess not."

[Eian]

"We need him, or else this whole deal is useless....."
he looked directly at Slavoc for a second "as much as i despise the man, he's helped me too much to rat him out like this, and if we're to find this strelok guy, we need him"
he put his weapon behind his back for a moment, though the tought of what he was about to say made him nauseous, it seemed the only way to get him, Alex and Mikka out of there without getting shot into little pieces by all the surrounding military now
"what if...you come with us. you'd help us find the info, and in the end, you'd get to meet Sidorovich yourself"
while keeping a military Major close was bad enough as it was, it was even worse to die just at the start of this little quest. and finding out the truth about the zone (and more importantly, his past) was too much to waste over his own pride
"Deal?"

[Tiger Sora]

"Alex there friendlies for now, you four get back to your posts" Slavoc shouted over the wall. "Alright fine. I don't know exactly what you looking for here, but I'd bet you do. mind telling me"?