He clearly felt the pressure point at his fingertip, his breathing was calm, the target clearly at the point of the t-post crosshair. One small move of the index finger and the 7BZ3 bullet went it's way, travelling the 120 meters to its target with ease, hitted and the incindiary load exploded, ripping half of the forehead of the bandit away-dead within a millisecond. His comrades done the one and only thing that granted their survival of this day-running like they rarely had been before.
Mikoyan was satisfied, his plan had worked: Sending one thug to his maker in a spectacular way to scare the hell out of his mates.
The bandit group had occupied the old railway bridge for 3 days, effectively cutting off the southern cordon with the rookie village from the rest of the zone. Now they are either dead or on the run, and Mikoyan suspected that the survivors wouldn't quit running until they reach the bandit base at the Dark Valley. The Sniper safed his rifle, an nearly antique Tokarev SVT 40, called "Sveta" stood up, left the small ridge from were he fired and went south, towards the small village which has years before had been his entry point into the zone.
As he reached it he went through it, down through a large hatch with stairs behind it and then through a massive iron door. Behind it was Sidrovichs Bunker, the southernmost free trader. The fat trader was talking with Wolf, the rookie village leader."Hi Mates, the bridge is cleared, the occupants are on their way home, at least 2 of the 3", Mikoyan told the men while sitting down on a chest and pulling out a canteen."Why you didn't wasted them all?" The trader asked from behind his desk. "Why should I"the Stalker answered,"the objective was to get the main way upnorth clear again, not to waste everyone on sight". Wolf, leaning on a wall, nodded and commented:"You propably done the right thing, a mass shooting could have produced unwanted interest by our camouflaged neighbors at the southern CP".
"Fine, fine, you got me convinced. Here Stalker, your payment" Sid said while shoving a bundle on the table,"what are your plans now?". "Going towards the swamp, visiting Clear Sky Base" Mikoyan told the trader while storing the bundle into the Pack of his US Load-Bearing Equipment-he knew that it was what he ordered, Sid might be a greedy trader, but not a dishonest one, so the package propably contained a new suppressor for MP5,some 9x21 ammo and 2 gravi artifacts in Artifact Application Modules. "Good payment", the thought,"at least for only one shot". He then offered both men a hand, both shook it, and the Stalker went out of the Bunker, heading west toward the swamp.
On his way he heard disant gunfire, but ignored it-none of his business, at least not now. As he reached the swamp the area widened and got flat and wet. He headed south now, on small paths flanked by reeds, ponds and scrap. Then, suddenly, a move in the reeds on the right. A few seconds earlier he already thought that he heard a move there, so he already had transferred his rifle from his back into his shoulder and put the safety-catch on the firing position. Now he raised it, looking through the iron sights instead of the scope, waiting for a target to come into view. Then he saw what made the sound and the move, a Stalker wearing the distinctive blue camo pattern of the Clear Sky Faction came out of the reeds, just zipping his pants closed again-a rookie propably, because he only wore a leather jacket with the camo sprayed on instead of a higher-class suit. "Damn, boy, this could have been your last pee"Mikoyan said with a grin, while saving his rifle again. "Chill out man" the Clear Sky recruit said, "You are heading toward our Swamp Base? If so, can I come with ya, I have to get supplies". "Sure you can" was the answer, and they continued towards the huts and small houses which contained Clear Skys refugium. As they reached the fence surrounding it Mikoyan saw that sandbags forming a small machine gun nest, completed with a Petcheneg Machine Gun and a gunner, had been erected next to the gate.
"Unusual, for normal they are pretty relaxed with security down here, at least in the last time, sumething must have been happened since my last visit here". His last visit was one week ago, but the PDA network hat severe difficulties most of the time since then and only reached full capacity again half a day ago, so he wasn't up-to date. But the kid who went with him seemed not surprised, so he summarized that security measures hadn't been raised suddenly, and he decided to ask the Clear Sky Leader.
After entering the Base-passing the guard was no problem, he was a familiar face here-waving goodbye to his escort and going into the largest house he found that the CS boss was not behind his desk, but instead someone who wore a blue camo patterned suit and an field-stripped FN FAL before the freshly arrived stalker walked in and leaned his rifle to the door he stopped cleaning the weapon and looked up:"Who you are and what can we do for you?"
"My Name is Mikoyan, one of the Loners. I had an appointment with the Clear Sky Boss-and who are you?"said Mikoyan, in his green-brown-black camouflaged suit a clear opposite to the man behind the desk. "Ahh, the Sniper. I heard from you, and the Boss told me that you would come by. He is not here now, we are planning to erect a Forward-operation base a little bit further north, and he is outsite on recon to find new spots. I am Roshkov, Officer of Boss told me ask you for your help, we need to keep a path through the swamps clean for a small time window, when we move some valuable equipment and key personnel. We already have some fireteams ready for patrol, but a Sniper would be a huge force multiplier-even with this antique weapon" Roshkov said while glancing on Mikoyans SVT40 with the attatched PU scope.
"Be careful, she does her duty still 1940,and in many hands,"the owner of the insulted weapon said, and added"sure she is not new, but i trust her, and I rarely miss my target with my Sveta. I also own some more modern weapons, like a G3SG1 and a M16A2 with an M203 Grenade Launcher, and a pretty new scoped M14 or an M4. But sometimes I go back to the roots-and your FAL also isn't a laser-guided-we might shoot a competition?
The Clear Sky man raised his hands and answered"I am sorry, just a small joke. You are right, sometimes the old things are not that back to topic, would you help us? The boss offers you what you requested last time for half the price if you help us, and always a free meal and bed in our base".
"How could I reject? I have no tasks or plans at the moment, so whet the load will be transported?"Miko said while thinking to himself:"That's why they raised the security standards. Nah, fine by me, sounds like the 2nd easy task in a short time". The answer was frenetic:"Awesome. The convoy will leave on foot tomorrow 1130 in the morning, the patrols 1 hour earlier, and we would like to have you on the watchtower even earlier. At the old pump station the transport will hold and regroup together with the patrols for the last piece of way towards the agroprom, somewhere there will be the final destination".
Mikoyan thought about it and nodded"At the agroprom area sniping will be difficult because of the treelines and ridges. I will change my weapon at the regrouping point to something for shorter range and then escorting your human mules from some distance. Is the thing I ordered already finished? It would be nice for this task"."Yes it is, you can pick it up at Librarian, he is behind his bar, like always. He is informed about the half-price deal" Roshkov answered the question, still happy that the Sniper accepted. Mikoyan interpreted Roshkovs reason for being happy by having maximised security for his transport by hiring him, rumord had it that Clear Sky, since their fuckup at the Power Plant years ago a relatively small faction lost several man in the last weeks on different parts of the zone, but he didn't knew about their reasons, propably something inimportant for him, he thought.
He went outside, walked towards the shed that housed Librarians Bar, entered and greeted the barmen while showing him a thumps-up."You accepted?"Librarian growled grinning with his deep voice."Yes I did-sounds like nice, green work. You got something for me?" The Keeper of the Clear Sky Bar put a cardboard box on tje table, and placed glass that he filled with ukrainian vodka next to it-Mikoyans standard drink, everyone who sold alcohol across the zone knew that. The reciever took a huge sip, then sighed in relief. After that he changed his attention toward the box, and he opened it.
Wrapped in oilpaper it laid, a MP5 submachine gun, an old, but reliable piece of precision germen engineering, paired by 4 loaded magazines, clamped together in pairs. He pulled the Suppressor out of his Buttpack, screwed it on, then grabbed one doublemag and loaded it into the weapon, gave it the HK slap, the bolt closed smoothly and after he pulled out the stock he raised the weapon to the shoulder and aimed with the EO-Tech Holosight outside through a window, and it felt very nice. A little heavier than before the modification the Clear Sky technician had made to it, but he anticipated that. "Great, we'll see if it was worth the Money. I got some extra ammo, so everything is ready for tomorrow I guess. The extra punch of the 9x21 ammo will come in handy" He paid the vodka and the price for his gun, and left.
Damn, he had no idea how desperate he would need every piece of firepower soon.