S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Northern Passage s-2

by Balazs Pataki

  “What if the Farm is occupied by Stalkers?”

  Hearing this, both Maksimenko and the Spetsnaz sergeant give him self-confident smiles.

  “I got it.” Strelok nods. “Shrewd plan… and then what do you want to do with Tarasov?”

  “None of your business. There’s something else I wanted to talk about.” Maksimenko opens the artifact container on his SKAT armored suit. “What’s this, Marked One?”

  “Let me see.”

  Strelok glances at the artifact. It consists of two copper disks in the size of a saucer, about a few centimeters thick, with a space of a hand’s span and a half between them. There’s just empty space between. However, there is some force between the two disks, because it is impossible to press them together or pull them apart either.

  “It’s a Spring,” Strelok says, visibly unimpressed by the artifact. “Kinda hybrid between Battery and Shell. How much did you pay for this crap?”

  The truck starts rolling again. With Strelok not having an intercom, Maksimenko has to speak louder now.

  “A patrol stumbled on it in the Dark Valley, just north of the building with the entrance to Lab X18. Gave the grunts a little cash and a week’s leave for it. Is it valuable?”

  “Comes to about 3000 at Sidorovich. 3200 tops.” The truck speeds up and Strelok too has to shout to make himself heard over the engine noise. “Maybe 5000 at the egghead’s den in Yantar, but that’s still not enough to quit your day job!”

  “Not too bad either. And what does it do?”

  “Depends,” Strelok says playing with the artifact in his hands. “It does something about the gravitational field around you.”

  “What? Speak up!”

  “I said, it can prevent you from breaking your neck when you fall from a tree or something!”

  Maksimenko looks disappointed. “Doesn’t sound too exciting.”

  “Could be useful to have one during combat jumps,” Sergeant Vlasov observes with a little envy in his voice.

  Strelok gives him an wide grin. “Your Spetsnaz is right, Captain. It can be very useful in certain situations.”

  “What situations?”

  “Like this!”

  Holding the artifact tightly, Strelok jumps off the truck. Desperately, Maksimenko and his two Spetsnaz grab after him but reach only into thin air. The Stalker steps on the bridge railing and takes a straight header into the deep valley beneath.

  “Shit! That dog… that sly dog!” Maksimenko shouts and barks a quick command into the radio set. The convoy halts.

  Joined by the two Spetsnaz who look as embarrassed as their captain, Maksimenko stares down into the abyss but sees only fog.

  “Put your NVG on and scan the area!”

  After a minute, Vlasov shakes his head. “Can’t detect anything, sir. No movement, no body.”

  Maksimenko shakes his head while frantically thinking about what to do.

  “Shall we go after him, komandir?” Sergeant Vlasov asks.

  Looking towards the stretch of bridge ahead, Maksimenko stamps his boot to the ground in frustration. “Damned Stalker! Shit, shit, shit! By the time we get off the bridge and climb down to the riverbed, he’ll be at the Jupiter plant already or in Dark Valley or I don’t know!”

  “Plus an artifact worth five thousand. He pulled a clever Stalker trick on us, I give him that.”

  The captain stares at his second in command.

  “Don’t even dare remind me of that, Vlasov!” he shouts. “Goddammit! I hate Stalkers! Each and every single one of them!”

  “Tovarishu Kapitan!” From inside the truck, a regular army soldier shows him a backpack and a small device. “I found something.”

  “It better be good, soldier!”

  “He left his carbine behind!” Knowing that he has just saved the situation, the soldier triumphantly smiles. “His PDA too. Must have slipped from his pocket!”

  Maksimenko and the two Spetsnaz share a look of relief.

  “Slava Bogu!” Sergeant Vlasov sighs. “I was already preparing my butt for a kick from Kruchelnikov’s boots.”

  “That was a damned close shave, Vlasov.” Maksimenko shouts over to the driver. “Let’s get moving, davai!”

  Back in the truck, Maksimenko fiddles with Strelok’s PDA. All he will have to do is to turn on Strelok’s distress signal once they reach their destination, and Tarasov shall walk by himself into the trap. He calls on the soldier who found the device.

  “Private!”

  “Sir!”

  “You’ve just been promoted to corporal. Having his PDA is as good as having with us that bastard himself!”

  “What about Strelok?” Vlasov asks. “We just let him go?”

  “Couldn’t care less. Without a rifle, mutants will eat him. Even if he makes it, in a few days he’ll return to beg for more painkillers.” He smiles with satisfaction. “Strelok is a dog, but we have the means to keep him on a tight leash.”

  42

  The Doctor’s house, Swamps, Exclusion Zone

  The fresh morning air drives a chill over Pete when he steps out of the cabin. The Doctor is cutting wood nearby and greets him with a smile.

  “Good morning, young man!”

  “Name’s still Pete, and good morning indeed… rain seems to be over.”

  “It is. I love autumn aurora.”

  “Autumn—what?”

  “Oh, I mean we had a lovely sunrise.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Tarasov and the lady are away to do a little errand for me. The two others went to hunt down a boar for tonight’s dinner. Druzhok is playing in the bushes.”

  “Sounds almost like a scout camp.”

  “You want to be a good scout, Pete?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Then come and help me chopping wood.”

  “I could use the exercise,” Pete says and takes the axe.

  “I love the smell of autumn,” the Doctor pensively replies and takes a deep breath. “It reminds me how good it is to be alive.”

  “Come on, Doc. What’s so good about being alive anyway? Everyone just keeps repeating this like parrots on speed but no one actually knows why.”

  “One doesn’t need a new thrill every minute to sustain the pleasure of being alive,” the Doctor says with a shrug.

  “I wish I could think the way you do.”

  “Why?” the Doctor asks with a wise smile. “You are young, healthy, have friends who would go through hell for you… That’s more than most people could ask for.”

  “Honestly, Doc?” Pete halts chopping the wood for a moment and wipes sweat from his forehead. “I don’t care much about my life. Not that I wanted to die. I just don’t want to live. My life is nothing but toiling on and on, following a path that I don’t know where it leads because—I don’t know. It’s not fear from going to hell and bullshit like that… clinging to my life is a bad habit I can’t get rid of.”

  “Spend some more time here and you will see what life is about.”

  Pete looks around. “Right now, it’s about being stuck in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with a renegade army officer, an adrenaline-junkie survivalist, one of my father’s brainwashed retainers and a strange girl who’s supposed to be my stepsister. Sometimes she acts like a retard but she is also a pint sized ball of radness.” Pete makes a gesture as if describing something more awesome than words could express. “There’s nothing around here but an irradiated marsh full of anomalies and mutated boars. Not even a socket where I can charge my iPod. Frankly, Doc, I see nothing around I could be enthusiastic about.”

  “If that were be true, the Zone wouldn’t be a home and refuge for many. So much even that wherever they go, they still walk its paths.”

  “Is that so?” Pete shrugs once more before continuing to chop wood. “Sorry but I can’t see much of the Zone’s wonders, Doc.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t see the Zone from the Zone, young man.”

  “What’s that supposed
to mean?”

  “That you don’t see the real meaning of the Zone.”

  “And what’s the real meaning of the Zone?”

  “Experiencing what it means to be alive.”

  “This place is all about death and decay, Doc. Why would anyone have that experience here?”

  The Doctor smiles and hits Pete’s cardia with a quick punch. Pete almost doubles over and desperately gasps for air.

  “Because once you have to fight for your life, you value it much more. Like you’re fighting now for a breath of air that appeared the most natural thing until a second ago.” He offers his hand to help Pete back to his feet. “Everything smells better all of a sudden, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll give you that,” Pete replies still breathing heavily.

  “If you feel just for a moment that life could be over, and then comes the relief of still being alive, what would you do?”

  “Be happy about it, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… it would mean that I can still do something with it.”

  “Correct. If you start valuing your life, you won’t want to waste it anymore.”

  “So, if I get your meaning, the Zone teaches me to value my life?”

  “By making you aware of how fragile you are. Hence life in the Zone can help you discover your true self. This is the most precious treasure one can find in the Zone, but only if you don't let yourself be fooled by its riches. That would make you a scavenger, not what you are really supposed to be.”

  To prove to the Doctor that his punch wasn’t as painful as it really had been, Pete takes a particularly big piece of wood from the pile. It is from the trunk of a birch and the axe stays stuck in it when he smashes it into the wood.

  “How am I supposed to know what I’m supposed to be?”

  He swings the axe up together with the trunk, but as he smashes it, it still doesn’t split.

  “What is my dog doing over there?”

  “It’s sniffing around in the bushes.”

  “And those ravens in the sky?”

  “Circling,” Pete says and swings the axe once more. This time the trunk begins to split.

  “He’s sniffing at the bushes because he’s a dog—more or less, that is. The ravens are circling in the sky because they are ravens. And what does Pete do?”

  “I am chopping wood.”

  “See? That’s you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why, aren’t you chopping wood?”

  “Do you suggest the meaning of my life is about chopping wood?”

  “Your life is about what you are doing. Do bad, and you will be bad. Do good, and you will be good.”

  Pete at last manages to split the trunk. He stares at the axe that has just cut through the hard wood.

  “Do nothing, and you will be nothing,” he murmurs.

  “Exactly. Whatever you do, be aware of it and of the consequences as well. Just like you are aware of yourself cutting wood, knowing that it will make for a cozy fire tonight.”

  “Is this some kind of Zone wisdom?”

  “No. It’s Japanese. They call it Zen.”

  “I heard of it, but Zen doesn’t say anything about chopping wood.”

  “No. It says, if you are hungry—eat. I am hungry now and don’t mind being The Man Who Eats for the next ten minutes.” The Doctor glances at his watch. “Strange… by now, Tarasov and Nooria should have been back.”

  43

  Bagram area, New Zone

  “Alamo to Tango Foxtrot Anaconda, do you copy? Over.”

  “Driscoll here. Loud and clear, sir, over.”

  Hearing the big man heaving a sigh, First Lieutenant Driscoll furrows his brows. Silence between the Colonel’s lines means nothing good. Instinctively, he braces for bad news but what his commander has to say is worse than anything he would have expected.

  “Driscoll, I have dire news. Our southern outpost has been overrun. We lost a full squad. Lieutenant Ramirez was taken alive and sent to the Alamo with a call to surrender. Needless to say, it was rejected without consideration. Ramirez… we could recover his body. Over.”

  Driscoll’s response is short but all he can say over this. “Understood.”

  “That’s not all, unfortunately. Be advised that any raghead force you may encounter will probably be supported by smiters — using heavy automatic weapons.”

  “Come again, Alamo?”

  “You heard me right. smiters using heavy machine guns have teamed up with our enemies. Over.”

  Now it is Driscoll who needs a few seconds to collect himself. “Sir… what do you want us to do?”

  “Your orders are standing. Keep your grip on the scavenger base until I sort this situation out. Stay alert. Alamo over and out.”

  “Roger, Alamo. Out.”

  Silence falls over Task Force Anaconda’s communications tent where Driscoll, Collins, Schmidt and Gunnery Sergeant Anderson have gathered. The radioman who usually handles less important transmissions than the last one doesn’t dare look at them and buries himself in transcripts of radio messages intercepted from Bagram.

  “Sergeant, give us a moment,” the first lieutenant tells him. “Don’t you dare speak of this outside the tent. I’ll deliver the bad news to the warriors myself. Oorah?”

  “Oorah, sir,” the radioman replies. He salutes and leaves the tent.

  “So, gentlemen,” Driscoll tells the two officers and the gunny. “You heard the man.”

  Anderson still struggles to believe. “Smiters with machine guns… Jesus!”

  “What’s important now is that we keep up morale. Ragheads are one thing but mutants with guns another.”

  “We never lost a full squad before,” Lieutenant Schmidt quietly says. “Where on earth are those beasts coming from?”

  “All I need are coordinates and I’ll blast that hole away!” the black gunny says.

  “That will come after we do our job here, Anderson. As for now: Scotty, double the guards at our southern perimeter and relocate the fifties. I don’t expect the scavengers attempting a break-out and we’d better keep a close eye toward raghead lands. Gunny, I want the mortar section to fire a few eighty-one shells into the scavengers’ perimeter every now and then. Just to let them know who’s in charge here. That’s all.”

  “Can I make a suggestion sir?” Collins asks. “If you agree, I’d return to base with a fifty-sixty strong squad. It would be a waste of resources to have our main force sitting around here while the Alamo itself might be in danger.”

  “What makes you think the Alamo is in danger, Collins?”

  “With the southern outpost lost, the road from the south is open. If I were a raghead, I’d use the momentum.”

  “I would also return if I were you,” Driscoll says. “But contrary to you I know what a command means. We stay where we are.”

  “But…”

  “There’s no ‘but’ in ‘chain of command’, Lieutenant Collins. Dismissed.”

  44

  Railway embankment, northern edge of the Swamps, Exclusion Zone

  “This is the closest thing I have to a home, Nooria… even though I have found my place in the New Zone, my heart will always long to see this land.”

  “It is beautiful here.”

  “I haven’t heard anyone talk like this about the Swamps for a long time… but today I must agree.”

  Approaching the railway embankment in the northern part of the Swamps, Tarasov checks his PDA map. Now that the Doctor has placed a marker, the path to his cottage appears almost straightforward. It is marked as an empty stash, out of caution, but it will be easy to find the way back. The clear sky too makes yesterday’s tedious march appear like a faint memory.

  Strange, Tarasov thinks. All appears peaceful… Something’s not right.

  “The embankment isn’t far now,” he says to Nooria. “What exactly do you have to do there?”

  “Put Slime into Vortex, wait and tell Doctor wha
t happens. I am very curious to see.”

  “You already speak like a Stalker.” Tarasov smiles. He halts his steps and listens to the cackle of two wild ducks flying over the Swamps. “How capricious the Zone is! Yesterday it was dreadful, today it shows us its beautiful face.”

  Without the gloom they had been through yesterday, Tarasov’s eye reaches over the reed fields to the western hills where the tunnel lies and the fields and stretches of forest beyond the river. Cirrus clouds drift high in the sky and below, on the far horizon, white cumuli like cotton balls.

  No shot or howl disturbs the Swamp’s ordinary noises, only frogs croak, bugs chirp and the endless reed fields whisper as the wind moves them. It would appear like any landscape if it weren’t for the rusted, derelict train engines and wagons that stand on the embankment. Their wheels are overgrown with weeds and grass.

  “If my memory serves, the anomalies are behind the wagons,” Tarasov says. They walk up a few concrete stairs leading up the steep embankment. Tarasov uses this vantage point to scan the Swamps with his binoculars.

  “Wait! Get down and stay behind that wagon!”

  There is something sinister in a groove overshadowed by a cluster of oaks and poplars, halfway between the railroad embankment and a wide stretch of water. He takes a closer look.

  “Mutant?” Nooria whispers.

  “Worse. Men.”

  Cautiously, Tarasov sneaks around the wagon and lies down on his stomach between the tracks.

  Zooming further in he observes a small group of Stalkers. The party is a surprisingly mixed bag: a Loner is sharing his food ration with a rookie-looking Bandit sitting next to a Freedomer cleaning his MP5 submachine gun, while two more Loners are engaged in a conversation with a companion wearing ragged Monolith armor. Two tough-looking Bandits are keeping watch a little further away. They are armed with LR-300 assault rifles, a much better weapon than most of the others have. Another Bandit, apparently the leader or guide of the group, is even wearing an FN F2000 slung over his shoulder, a rare and state of the art assault rifle in the Zone.