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

by Balazs Pataki

  The Lieutenants look at each other. A few of the fighters behind them cover their mouths to hide embarrassment over such disrespect—or perhaps a smile.

  But the Colonel himself is smiling.

  “Why? Are you an ordinary son?” Seeing that the unexpected reply leaves Pete perplexed, the big man carries on. “The boy I last saw had been an ordinary son. Rebellious, disrespectful, judging his father over things he didn’t understand and trying to piss him off by any means. What I see now is a man—daring, strong and with a hint of wisdom in his eyes. I am happy to see you, Pete.”

  “Hell yeah!” Pete shouts happily. “It’s all because of the Zone. Tarasov’s Zone! Listen, there was Finn Sawyer who threw a swag into an anomaly and then the Doctor, he keeps a mutant for a pet and can talk to him, I mean in Russian of course, and he uses swags to dung his vegetables and then we were cutting wood and he—”

  “You can tell me all that later but first things first. We’ve to mop up the area and then, when all enemies are hunted down, give the Sergeant Major his last honors. Last but not least, we have to give back Nooria to the Beghum.” The Colonel turns to Nooria. “My child, words are not enough to express how happy I am to see you back safely.”

  It must have been the big man’s sixth sense or just exact timing, but as soon as he said this a colorful group appears from the passage leading down to the ramparts. The strong wind on the hilltop blows the women’s yellow, blue and orange garments; on the featureless hilltop and among the desert camouflage of uniforms and body armors, the blazing colors are a pleasure to look at. The Beghum though, who walks in their middle, wears black. She stretches her arms out and Nooria runs up to her and throws herself to her mother’s bosom. The women encircle them as if forming a protective circle, and Nooria disappears from Tarasov’s sight.

  “Where are they taking her?” he asks.

  “You will see your woman soon enough, Major. And you, Pete—you’ll still say sir to me, at least when we’re wearing this uniform,” the Colonel says. ”Is that clear?”

  Pete smiles. “Clear, sir.”

  The big man nods to the Lieutenants. Followed by a half dozen fighters, they enter the airplane with a stretcher, carefully place the Top’s body on it and lift it to their shoulders. Without bothering to ask, Tarasov and Pete join them. None of the former Marines has a word against it.

  “Our Sergeant Major has returned, here he comes!” the big man shouts as the men carrying Hartman’s body descend the ramp. He salutes. “Attention on deck!”

  Tarasov doesn’t know much about Marine rituals, nor has he witnessed anything like that before in the Tribe. Looking at the solemn faces of the saluting fighters, he nonetheless understands that Colonel Leighley has just given Sergeant Major Hartman the greatest honor a simple command can convey.

  82

  Bagram

  A dozen Stalkers stand around one of the makeshift tables in the Antonov bar. Their faces are somber like that of men attending a funeral, but what they have fixed their eyes on is not a coffin but a single bottle of vodka.

  “Me last bottle,” Ashot sadly says. “Brothers, we have a difficult choice. Either you let me water it, using only purified water of course, and then we have two bottles. Three, maybe.”

  “Forget it,” Shrink says.

  “Or we could give each bro a little sip and then die of dehydration.”

  “De-vodkation,” a Stalker adds.

  “Damn,” says another, “I can’t shoot straight unless I’ve had some vodka!”

  “Is it really the last bottle or are you just trying to hike the price?” a Stalker asks, drumming his fingers on his AKS-74U assault carbine.

  “I swear to God it is!” Ashot huffily replies.

  ”Bullshit, you’re lying!”

  “Let the Zone take me if I am!”

  “What about charging and breaking the siege?” another asks.

  “Go ahead, Ahmed Turk,” Ashot says. “Go and charge them tribals. We gonna share your vodka ration with great pleasure!”

  A sudden detonation shakes the dilapidated airplane. The concussion makes the bottle quiver.

  “Shit!” Shrink shouts and grabs the bottle before it could fall. “Not those damned mortars again!”

  “Still alive,” one of the Stalkers manning the defenses reports on the radio.

  “They’re just playing with us,” the Stalker nicknamed Turk grumbles. “If we still had the men who went out to search for Stalker paradise, we could just run them through! This blockade is driving me insane!”

  “Well, our last dose of remedy to that is here in front of us,” Shrink says. “I would offer it to the bravest Stalker but since we’re just sitting ducks here I don’t know what to do.”

  Another mortar shell detonates, this time much closer to the Stalker bar. Instinctively, the Stalkers duck.

  “I’m fed up with this!” Ashot yells angrily. “They gonna destroy me bar! To hell with them tribal idiots! Just because they don’t drink they want us to die of thirst! Ashot says no, fuck you!”

  “Why, what can you do about it?” Ahmed Turk asks. “Blowing your big Armenian nose at them?”

  “They had it coming!” Ashot shouts back at him. “If that’s not gonna make’m go away, I will just shoot’em all!”

  Then something happens that only the most veteran Stalkers have ever seen, and even they only a very long time ago: Ashot grabs an AKS-74U and storms out of his bar.

  “Hey!” a Stalker shouts. “That’s my rifle!”

  “Is he nuts?” Ahmed Turk asks.

  “Sure he is!” Shrink says. “Damn, my worst patient is loose!”

  He runs after Ashot but the barkeep is already up on the container wall.

  “Now listen to me you crazy tribals!” he shouts into the wilderness. “Get the fuck out of here or I will kill you all! This is me base and me bar! Why do you want ruining me business? Did me bar ever hurt you?”

  “Ashot! Get the fuck down!” Shrink shouts from below. “You want to get yourself killed, you idiot?”

  Ashot fires a burst into the air. “Go away or face me wrath, you cowards!”

  ”Shrink!” The sound of the Stalker in the lookout tower sounds anxious. “I can see dust rising. The Tribe is preparing for attack!”

  “Man the machine guns,” the Stalker leader yells. “Let’s bring this to an end at last!”

  A Stalker tries to drag the reckless barkeep into the safety of the sand bags lined up on the steel containers but Ashot pushes him away.

  “Come and get some you bitches! I fire me rifle at you! When I run outta bullets, I blow my nose at you! Then I give you worse and fart at you! Now come and be men, and dontcha dare hide from me rage!”

  “I see them moving. They are about to go around and attack us from the rear!”

  Hearing this, Shrink climbs the ladder to the nearest machine gun nest on the container wall and peers through his binoculars. The lookout was right—heavy vehicles are swirling up dust all around the besieged Stalker base. But if it is an attack, it’s a strange one. No more mortars are fired, no heavy machines guns pin down the defenders on the wall where the barkeep continues to taunt the far away attackers.

  “I will turn you to bloodsucker food! You don’t believe me you bitches?”

  Ashot fires the assault carbine in the direction of the dust clouds. Then, still at a safe distance from the base, the vehicles take a turn to the west and accelerate.

  “Wait a second… looks like they’re leaving,” the lookout reports.

  Shrink frowns. “What?”

  “They’ve gone around the base and… yes! They’re moving to the west, all of them! It’s over! They move away!”

  “That’s what I’m saying!” Ashot shouts. “Run! Just run, you cowards! Scared of me, huh? Take this!” With the magazine in the carbine empty, he draws a pistol and fires after the Humvee column. “How about that?”

  “Ashot for the win,” a bewildered Stalker says.

  “Thi
s will teach them not to come to places they aren’t invited to, haha!” another laughs.

  The crazed barkeep looks down from the wall at the Stalkers and grins triumphantly. “You all owe me twenty dollars!”

  “Oh my goodness,” the Shrink says watching the Tribe’s siege force drive through the western forest and take the road leading to their stronghold. “I’ve never seen such a thing!”

  “What? Is it true that Ashot’s ugly face scared them away?” an excited Uncle Yar asks as he comes up in a hurry.

  “I don’t know how he managed that,” the Shrink says waving his head, still not entirely believing what he has just seen, “but he more than qualifies for our last bottle of vodka!”

  Yar laughs. “Ashot the brave—I never believed I’d ever say those words in one breath!”

  “You owe me twenty dollars too!” Ashot cheerily shouts.

  83

  The Alamo

  The echo of the three rifle volleys fired by seven warriors rolls across the valley beyond. Nearly a hundred freshly dug graves line the runway on the top of the mountain, joining many older ones. The salutes, the Colonel’s short speech, the grim looks of the hardened faces appear to Tarasov like any military funeral; only the presence of grieving Hazara women, many of them lamenting over a fallen husband or lover, tells that this is not just any military unit burying its fallen but the Tribe.

  Sadness is over Mikhailo Tarasov’s face. Seeing Sergeant Major Hartman’s body being lowered into his grave was sad enough, but when he looks at Pete at his father’s side, he knows that he is about losing, or at least being separated, from another friend as well. During the time they spent together since he and the Top found Pete in the state of a wasted junkie, he came to like him; but no bond between travelling companions, no matter how many perils they had been through together, could match that between father and son. Knowing that Pete would have never gotten his proper schooling of life in the Exclusion Zone without him is no comfort; thinking about being separated from the Zone for good only adds to his sadness, because Tarasov knows that returning to his native land would be utterly foolish.

  “Quite impressive friends you found here, Misha.”

  Degtyarev’s words, who has watched the honors being given to the Tribe’s fallen in silence, reminds Tarasov that he has not much to regret about his place in the New Zone. Indeed, it is here that he found new friends and a woman who, at least Tarasov is sure of it, would sooner die than let him down.

  “Yes,” he says with a sigh. “Come, let’s see what mischief Ferret and Buryat are up to.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Two good Stalkers. I think I might have my own Lieutenants now. Two’s a good start.”

  “Don’t tell me you want to have your own Tribe.”

  “I need a drink first.”

  “Me too. I saw a few crates among the Bandit’s cargo.”

  “Then we’d better hurry before the Stalkers finish it all without us.”

  “But there’s just the two of us.”

  “Indeed, one bottle needs three men.”

  A female voice comes from behind them. “Mind if the third is a woman?”

  “Hey, Mac!” Tarasov greets her. “Not if you can drink like a man.”

  Mac gives him a confident smile. “You bet. The problem is that Billy also wants to drink and that brings us once more to even.”

  “Your jackal drinks vodka?” Degtyarev asks. “Mutants are weird here.”

  “By the way, Mac… I have a message from Strelok,” Tarasov says as they stroll to the airplane.

  “What? Strelok? Is he alive?”

  “More than ever. He lets you know that… uhm, never say never.”

  “Oh, that means he might come here after all. Until now this would have made me happy,” Mac pensively says. “Very happy, actually. But now that handsome guy with you puts me in a difficult position… I mean, he has something special about him that I can’t explain.”

  “You mean Pete?” Tarasov asks, smiling. “The big man’s son? Oh girl, you’re in for some trouble.”

  “Yeah… my kind of trouble,” Mac says returning the smile.

  The captain and his crew are busy checking the damage done to their trusty old Antonov. The lowered ramp is guarded by two Tribe fighters who keep their eyes on the Stalkers inside. They appear relaxed, and even salute Tarasov as he approaches the airplane.

  “Will this bird ever fly again?” Degtyarev asks the captain who is standing next to one of the engines, going through a long checklist of things in need of repair.

  “She’s not a bird, you non-flying lay!” the pilot snaps. “Call her a machine for Gods’ sake. And of course she will fly. Do you think we want to stay here forever?”

  “I’m afraid this was a one-way trip,” Tarasov says. “But then I guess the Tribe wouldn’t say no to a pilot of your abilities, captain.”

  “But I would say no to an employer with a competition like those beasts we saw. Now if you excuse me, I have more important things to do than gum-beating!”

  “He doesn’t know it but he’ll either fly for the Tribe or… well, we’ll see what to do about him,” Tarasov says to Mac and Degtyarev as they walk to the ramp. “Which brings us to the question—what about you, guys?”

  “Yeah, it really makes sense for them to be so secretive,” Mac says sarcastically. “After all, by now nobody knows about the Tribe’s defenses but every dushman in the New Zone!”

  “Actually, I was asking what you will do next? Because you could join me on a good old-fashioned Stalker raid.”

  “What do you mean by that, Misha?”

  “Crossing the whole New Zone for the sake of a foul-smelling, moldering, underground science facility and find all kinds of weird stuff and creatures inside who want to eat your face.”

  “Where?” Mac curiously asks.

  “Some old Soviet lab in Panjir valley.”

  She smiles. “Always wanted to go there. But, but, but — promise me that we’ll search for Ahuizotl on our way. What happened was not his fault!”

  “Sounds like a deal.”

  “As for me, I’m ready right now!”

  “Still bitten by the travel bug, I see… Ne boysa, Mac. We’ll leave soon enough but I need a little rest.”

  “I too would love to see an underground I haven’t been to yet,” Degtyarev says.

  Tarasov gives him a grin. “Alex, I still don’t know what to do about you — kick your butt for Operation Haystack or be excited about a chance to kick ass together with you!”

  “I was actually afraid that once I told you who I am, you’d just punch me for Haystack,” Degtyarev replies.

  “You have that still coming, but for now your punishment is to see how the New Zone is. You will deeply regret not having come here earlier.”

  “Matter of fact, I could use a change from the Exclusion Zone. Winter is not a good time for exploring it—and there’s not much left for me to explore there anyway.”

  “It will be for ever, Alex.”

  Degtyarev has no time to reply. When they enter the cargo bay, they expect to find gloomy prisoners but instead they see the Loners-turned-Bandits-turned-Loners celebrating.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Tarasov asks.

  “Five crates of vodka, and they ain’t going anywhere!” a red-nosed Ferret yells cheerily. “All belongs to us now, all!”

  Buryat stumbles forward and puts his arm around Ferret’s neck. “Cossacks vodka! Makes me love everyone. Even this bastard of a Freedomer!”

  “Glad to see you two didn’t kill each other in the end.”

  “You see, I decided to spare his life… for now,” the already drunk Dutyer says.

  “Nay, man. You tried to shu-shu… shoot me but missed from two meters,” Ferret says, as drunk as Buryat. “Or was it by two meters? Ah, never mind. Duty rifle skills are crap, either way…”

  “I didn’t shoot you. I just showed you the muzzle of my gun and told you, this side o
f it there ain’t no gomiks!”

  “Come on, handsome, didn’t you just say you love me?” Ferret says and gives the Dutyer a kiss on his cheek who is too intoxicated to push him away — at least that’s how it appears.

  “So that’s your team,” Degtyarev says grinning and takes a bottle of vodka from an open crate.

  “A real challenge, yes.”

  “I guess it makes no sense to count odd and even now,” Mac says. “Let’s just drink!”

  But with most of the Stalkers being Russians or Ukrainians, everyone is demanding a toast — even if they already had more than they could count.

  “Let’s drink to a steady hand!”

  “To work progressing!”

  “To a good raid!”

  “May we suffer as much sorrow in the New Zone as drops of vodka we’re about to leave in our bottles,” Tarasov says raising his vodka bottle. ”May we remember forever all friends we lost on our way here. But first of all — let’s drink to the living. God bless you, Stalkers — we have arrived!”

  84

  Northeastern areas of the New Zone, several days later

  Cold wind blows and swirls up brown sand that tastes like defeat on Skinner’s tongue.

  He has been marching for days without any apparent aim. All he knows is that Bagram is no longer a refuge to him; not even the greenest Stalker would believe him anymore.

  The dushmans are scattered; the few who made it back to the deadly areas to the south could still count themselves lucky while the Tribe, the cursed, yet once more triumphant Tribe mercilessly hunts down the rest.

  His mutant brothers are gone, too; those who had not perished in the inferno beneath the Alamo’s walls were scattered, each of them trying to survive on his own.

  During sleepless nights, when the cold forced him to seek shelter in caves or ruins and the howls of jackals were his only company, he kept asking himself the same question again and again: where did he fail? His plan was so perfect and all going so well until that damned airplane came. Who was aboard? It didn’t matter — Skinner was certain about one thing only: should he ever find out who it was, and should fate ever give him a chance to get to that man, he would deal him a thousand deaths.