Balázs Pataki - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Northern Passage

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.”

“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.”

“The road’s damn dangerous with all those trench coats out for a stroll, you know?”