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

by Balazs Pataki

  The chimera gives its loudest howl. It sounds painful but the mutant’s strength is not wasted yet. Shaking its wounded head it tears the knife from Che’s hand, then raises its paw to strike at him. The fighter is now too close to dodge the claws and falls with a scream.

  “Reloading!”

  Tarasov quickly switches magazines but before he can recommence firing, a shadow darts out from the hut and hurls itself at the mutant.

  “Cease fire, cease fire!”

  Tarasov’s shout comes more from his instincts than realizing it is Nooria putting herself into harm’s, and their bullets’, way. By the time he moves to jump after her, she is already facing the mutant that crawls towards them. She ducks and dodges a blow, slices the mutant’s neck below the still intact head and jumps back, then prepares to slash the mutant once more.

  Covered with blood all over, the chimera still keeps crawling closer.

  Tarasov grabs Nooria at the shoulder and pulls her behind himself. He raises his rifle, aiming at the mutant’s head that still growls and bares its teeth, but it is the sound of death the chimera now emits. The growl weakens and then stops, and with a last jerk of the muscles, the mutant collapses.

  After a few heartbeats of silence, a far away blind dog begins to howl again. Then a whole pack joins in.

  “I never ever imagined how happy that howl would make one,” Nika says. Tarasov doesn’t need to see his face to know that an ear-to-ear grin appears on the Freedomer’s face.

  All emit sighs of relief—except Nooria who is already kneeling at Che’s body. The fighter cusses as he tries to get on his feet, holding on to Nooria’s arm. Then the Top and Nika help him up.

  “For a moment I thought I was done for,” Che moans when they carry him into the log hut.

  “Are you hurt, commander?” Nika asks as they gently lay him down inside. Tarasov quickly takes off the Freedomer’s helmet with the integrated gas mask.

  “Nah, I’m fine,” Che replies battling for air. “It’s just that my armor’s busted.”

  “That red stain doesn’t look like the exo’s hydraulics leaking,” says Tarasov worriedly.

  Che looks at his chest where the chimera’s claws have ripped into the armor. His face, pale already, becomes even whiter as he watches his blood seep trough the fissures.

  “Ai blyad,” he groans.

  “Nooria, get me a bandage,” Tarasov says opening the exoskeleton. “Quickly! Nika, help me get him out of the exo. You know this Freedom shit better than me!”

  “Will do.”

  Releasing the clips fastening it to the metal body frame, the Freedomer removes the Kevlar-padded breast plate to let Nooria get to the wound.

  Tarasov immediately wishes he hadn’t done so. Che’s open chest reveals a deep wound obviously beyond healing — not in these conditions and the meager first aid kits they have. With hands bloody to the wrists, Nooria applies a large, streptocide-coated gauze pad nonetheless.

  “Use a double amount of antiseptics,” Tarasov suggests. “That monster could have poisoned his blood stream.”

  “It poisoned him?” Pete asks. “Jesus!”

  “I don’t want to imagine all the rot it could’ve collected under its claws. Nika! Davay, give me the antiseptics from your medikit!”

  “Oh, fuck that,” Nika shouts. He takes a hip flask and pours a colorless liquid into the wound.

  “What are you doing?” Nooria shouts back at him and pushes the Freedomer’s hand away.

  “Nu shto? Eto vodka!” Nika says. “Hey, tell her this will disinfect the wound!”

  “Are you nuts? Top, keep him away from the wounded!” Tarasov angrily shouts and continues in Russian. “Durak! Only pure alcohol is disinfecting! Pure, hundred percent alcohol! Vodka has forty!”

  “Not mine!”

  “Even if it had been pure, there’s now more saliva from your dirty mouth in it than alcohol!”

  “Give me one more bandage,” Nooria demands. Tarasov hands her another gauze pad and she applies it over the first bandage that it already soaking with blood.

  “Don’t waste any more bandages,” Hartman whispers, holding the worried Freedomer in his grasp. “He’s done for.”

  As if he wanted to protest, Che emits a gasp. His grey eyes scan the faces of those around him and finally rest on Nooria.

  “Dyvchina…”

  “He’s talking to you, Nooria,” Tarasov says and tries to smile at Che. “That’s it, bratan! Keep talking!”

  Che grasps Tarasov’s hands but keeps looking at Nooria.

  “Divchina… ty na kaleni moyi yaytsa.”

  A grin appears on Tarasov’s face while he translates. “Uhm… you are kneeling on his balls, Nooria.”

  “Oh… sorry,” Nooria replies embarrassed and pulls her knee from the fighter’s groin.

  “Tough SOB. He’ll make it after all,” the Top says with relief. “Don’t die on us, soldier! That’s a damned order! Tell him, Mikhailo!”

  It appears Che is slowly regaining his strength, though the fresh bandage is already becoming red from the fresh blood still gushing from the wound.

  “Kak ty… krasivaya,” Che whispers and a faint smile appears on his pale, sweaty face. “I said… you are very beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Nooria replies, wiping blood from her hands. “You are—”

  But the fighter doesn’t seem listening to her.

  “You are so beautiful,” comes another English sigh from Che’s lips, “like… like my…mama.”

  Che mutters the last word with a long sigh and the grasp of his fingers on Tarasov’s hand suddenly loosens.

  Nooria buries her face in her still bloody hands.

  For a moment, the companions stand speechless.

  “Net! This cannot be!” Nika struggles himself free and kneels at the body. “Hey Che, you can’t do this! Don’t fucking die!”

  “He died a fine death, a good warrior’s death,” Hartman says. “He will be remembered. What was his name again?”

  “Che,” Tarasov softly says. “Like in Che Guevara.”

  “Outstanding. Pete, come with me. Don’t know what other shit this place gonna throw at us but I don’t want it to catch us with our pants down!”

  “Don’t be wandering too far.”

  “We’ll be standing watch right at the door, don’t worry.”

  Cold and unfeeling as the Top’s level-headedness appears, it helps his companions to get over the Freedomer’s death. Nooria gently closes his eyelids. Nika takes a big swig from his flask while Tarasov checks on the Monolithian prisoner.

  “What should we do with this guy?” he asks.

  Nika shrugs. “I don’t care. If you ask me, we better shoot him on the spot. No way for me to take him back with me alone.” He wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Don’t even know how I will get back to Yanov. My shoulder is busted. Hurts like hell. I need to hold my rifle with my left hand. But then I was never much of a marksman, anyway.”

  Tarasov studies Nika’s round, fair-skinned face. Obviously, the Freedomer is no genius but appears to be a trustable man. The battle with the chimera proved that he is a hardened fighter, too, who can be relied upon.

  “To Yanov, you say?” Tarasov asks. “That’s bad news. There’s a Duty outpost at the old electricity substation on the way there. If they see you in Freedom kit, wandering alone—tough luck, Nika.”

  “I could also go to the Army Warehouses. That’s closer, but then I’d have to go through that damned village with all the Bloodsuckers! Looks like I’m fucked either way.”

  “You are,” Tarasov says. “Better listen to my proposal. We go together to Zaton. Where we go exactly is none of your business, but we can bring you close enough to Yanov Station — if you do something for me.”

  Nika looks at him with eager interest. “I’m all ears, buddy.”

  “You will not deliver the prisoner to your commander.“

  “What? Commander Loki would promote me for bri
nging him in!”

  “No, because you will look for a free Stalker called Strider or Crow or whatever call sign he uses now.”

  “I heard about Strider. Folks say he’s a hell of a sniper. Rumor has it he also used to be with them,” Nika nods and jerks his hand towards the incapacitated prisoner. “But didn’t he join those Duty assholes?”

  “He is working alone now. So—find him, hand the Monolithian over to him and we’re quits.”

  “What if I just shoot him once you’re out of sight?”

  “Rumors are correct. Strider was a Monolith squad leader once. He and his comrades are still looking for other Monolithians to knock some sense into them. They value any opportunity to save one of their brain-washed ‘brothers’. You don’t want to make a bunch of former Monolithians angry at you, do you?”

  “You think I’m mad?” Nika says with a shudder. “Of course I don’t!”

  “Smart choice. Now give me your PDA for a moment.”

  Reluctantly, Nika hands him over the device. Tarasov switches to text message mode. The transmission will reach almost every PDAs in the Zone, although many Stalkers have turned off this facility—no one would share anything important with the whole Zone. Tarasov hopes his former ally from the New Zone belongs to the few who didn’t.

  Crow. Where are you striding? Reply to this PDA only. He hesitates for an instant before completing his message; after all, it would be unwise to sign it as Condor, his old call sign. Then he just adds: No choppers to down this time.

  “All right,” he says, “message sent. Let’s see if he replies.”

  “You keeping my PDA is no part of the deal, buddy!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll give it back soon enough.”

  Tarasov proves lucky. He has just moved Che’s body into a more dignified position when the PDA beeps, signaling an incoming text message.

  Thought condors are extinct in the Zone. Glad to know at least one still prevails. Hope you found cigarettes for me.

  Tarasov smiles while he types the reply, this time directed only to one particular PDA. Strider has the positioning facility turned off, not giving Tarasov any clue about his whereabouts but he finds this secrecy very much suiting the renegade’s character.

  Bad habits die hard. So does the whisper of the Monolith. I’m sending your way a pair of ears needing you to make it unheard. Be at Yanov Station tomorrow. Freedomer called Nika will be looking for you.

  After half a minute, Strider’s next message arrives.

  Roger Wilco. Thanks, owe you big time. Will be looking for Nika Polar Explorer then.

  Tarasov frowns. How do you know his call sign?, he texts back.

  Strider’s reply comes soon and it makes Tarasov slap his own forehead.

  You are using his PDA! Better have a rest, my friend. You need it. Out.

  “Polar Explorer?” Tarasov asks the Freedomer. He gives back the PDA, but not before deleting the messages he has exchanged. “They really call you that?”

  “Uhm… you know, I used to have a really nice ushanka fur hat. Was very proud of it until some bastard stole it. That’s why… still better than Dima Liveshits or Petka Smartass, no? Because I knew guys by those names.”

  “Don’t want to think about how they must’ve felt,” Tarasov says and joins Nooria who is resting at the embers left from the campfire, very much in need of a little comforting.

  “You did all you could,” he says, putting his arm around her neck.

  “I know. It was not death but you and Top who made me sad.”

  “Come again?”

  “Why didn’t you let me fight?”

  “Listen—that was a chimera, you understand? The biggest, meanest, deadliest mutant in the whole Zone. There was no way for us to let you take it!”

  “You don’t trust me anymore?”

  “You silly woman, how can you even ask me that?”

  “I told you I could deal with it. I am quick. He was slow. He did not know how to use his knife. You never trust a jagged knife where you can not get it out. His got stuck in chimera’s skull. Now look at him.”

  “It was not Che but us riflemen who were supposed to kill it.”

  Unconvinced, Nooria shakes her head. “I could have killed it better. You didn’t let me and now Freedomer is dead.”

  “You better get used to the idea that your life is not only yours now.”

  “What will you do when my belly grows big? Lock me up in our house?”

  “Yes, with me inside and throw the key away.”

  “But I don’t want to be fucking locked up!”

  Tarasov still thinks about a snappy response to save his authority as Nooria’s man who, at least according to Tribe traditions which are not entirely against his liking, would have the last word in a domestic dispute. Pete’s appearance interrupts his thoughts.

  “Hey, what are you guys fighting over?” he says holding his hands over the embers.

  “Mind your own business,” Tarasov snaps at him. “How is the watch going?”

  “Pitch dark in the forest, mutants howling, weird blue clouds in the sky. Just another beautiful night in the Zone.”

  Tarasov can’t decide if Pete means what he says or if he is just being ironic.

  “Your stepsister thinks we should have let her take on the chimera,” he says. “For God’s sake, Pete, talk some sense into her. She’s not in the mood to listen to me.”

  Standing outside with his rifle held to his shoulder and finger on the trigger, Hartman appears to have overheard their argument.

  ”She is rebelling, ain’t she? Don’t let her gain the upper hand, Mikhailo, or you’ll be screwed for the rest of your life. When we in the Tribe say ’till death parts us’, we mean it.”

  “She’s right. Half-right, at least. But there was no way for me to let my pregnant woman fight the worst mutant of the Zone.”

  “Agree. That was one badass beast. Maybe not as bad as a bear, but at least a bear wouldn’t make such huge leaps.”

  “And Bears have only one head.”

  “I miss my sandbox and the warriors, Mikhailo. The sooner we get back, the better.”

  “Nooria wants the same. That’s why she’s so strange. I never heard her swear before.”

  “Me neither.”

  Tarasov sighs. “I fear this has something to do with Maksimenko or maybe Sultan. Ever since she returned from Kiev, she’s been—downbeat, hiding anger I’ve never seen from her. I don’t like this. Not at all.”

  The Top scans the forest around them. Detecting no imminent danger, he takes a more relaxed stance.

  “Those fanatics almost raped our butt today,” he says. “Imagine, if that Freedom patrol hadn’t shown up, we would’ve run directly into them. Holy hell, we’d have been completely clusterfucked.”

  “Yes.”

  “Monolithians seemed good fighters to me, except for their last move.”

  “Trying to run us down was the smart thing to do,” says Tarasov. “They only had the two of us between them and the nearest cover.”

  With still having Nooria on his mind, Tarasov doesn’t feel like discussing tactics. “Let’s forget the Monolith for now… Whatever happened to her—once I find out who did it, I’ll skin him alive.”

  “Maybe it was her time at the KGB or whatever you call it here.”

  “I don’t think so. Remember, it was Sultan she cursed. Not Maksimenko.”

  “Yup.”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Sure you don’t. It’s a woman thing. I’ll sooner become the President of the United States than understand what’s going on in their heads, especially Nooria’s.”

  “Anyway… Do you need some rest?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good for you.” Tarasov glances at his watch. ”We still have about four hours till daylight. Wake me up if you change your mind.”

  62

  Yanov Station — Jupiter Plant area, Exclusion Zone

  “This place never ceases
to surprise.”

  Pete looks over the Zaton area from a hill where they have arrived after a march of two hours, having left the log hut at first light. After the green wilderness of the areas around Rostok and the gloomy Red Forest, the arid lands to the south of Yanov Station almost appear to him like a semi-desert. Although it will be noon in one hour, everything beyond a few hundred meters is veiled in chilly mist. The bare poplars dotting the landscape cast dim shadows in the pale November sun.

  “I mean, every place is different. Before I got here, I thought it was gonna be just one huge forest.”

  “Surprising indeed,” Tarasov replies.

  His attention is attracted by something else: just half an hour’s march away from Yanov railway station, occupied by a small detachment of both Duty and Freedom who by some miracle agreed to make the station a no-fire zone, the land is teeming with Bandits. On the eastern road leading to the abandoned Jupiter factory, he sees two small groups of them, easily recognizable by their long trench coats; along the western road, between a cluster of trees and a small marsh, another patrol makes its way towards a depot where several campfires burn among piled up cargo containers. The helipads — an U-shaped spot carved into the slopes of the hill where they are standing, surrounded by a concrete support wall and barbed wire. There is a wrecked Mi-24 in front of a small command post adjoining the wall. It appears to be the only place in the area apparently not occupied by Bandits: next to the helicopter wreck, Tarasov’s binoculars detect a dozen Loners camping. The view further to the north is obscured by mist.

  “There are more Bandits in this area than maggots in an untreated wound… Indeed, it’s apparently the Container Warehouse where they all try to get.”

  “Why?” Hartman asks. “What’s there?”

  “Nothing of interest. Normally, either Duty or Freedom would put an end to this trench coat convention but they are too busy fighting each other. Damned faction war!”

  “Is this the place where I’m supposed to meet that Strider guy?”

  Tarasov turns to Nika and the Monolithian who sit in the grass behind them, sharing a cigarette.

  “You are to bring him to Yanov Station, Nika.”