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

“What the fuck happened to your sniper buddy?”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant! I’ll worry about him as soon as I’m done surviving this shit!”

“Fucking traitor,” Collins curses and barks a command into his radio. “All teams! Fall back! Get into the airplane!”

Tribe fighters appear from the ruins, some of them firing their weapons as they drag a fallen comrade with their free hand.

“No one gets left behind!”

Tarasov shouts the same command in Russian. “Nikomu ne ostavit!”

He sees Ferret helping Buryat to the lowered ramp; the former Dutyer appears to be wounded in his leg. A Stalker from the advance squad crawls behind. He grabs and pulls him to his shoulders.

“Help me, brother!” another wounded man screams. “Give me a medikit!”

“Get one yourself once we’re off here,” someone yells back at him. Tarasov looks back and sees Molotov lifting the wounded Stalker.

“Don’t know about you, patsan, but I don’t want to stay here! Move!”

With most of the men still alive back to the airplane, the attackers’ machine guns begin to target the Antonov itself. The bullets tear through the wall of the fuselage, killing men who already believed themselves in safety inside. Tarasov immediately thinks of Nooria.

“Here!” Pete yells waving his hand. “Into the cockpit!”

But first Tarasov has to help up a Stalker and a Tribe fighter up the ramp that slowly closes as the airplane, still slowly, moves on the runway.

Having pulled the last man aboard, the two officers share a look of both pain and relief as they battle for breath. Tarasov gets to his feet first.

“On me, Lieutenant!”

Collins follows him forward but when he sees the body that caring hands have put on the conveyor belt and covered with a trench coat, he cries out in despair.

“Oh dear Lord Jesus, this ain’t happening, man — this can’t be happening, man! This isn’t happening!”

“Let’s focus on those still alive!” Tarasov snaps at him. “Mac! Molotov! Keep your eyes on the Bandits! Lieutenant, I want your men do the same!”

“Watch these fuckers,” Collins barks to his fighters. Three of them lie wounded on the floor, but thanks to their better armor they are in better shape than the Stalkers and Bandits.

More bullets hit the airplane.

“Tell that damned pilot to pull her up!” Collins shouts.

“Lieutenant, do any of your men know how fire the tail gun?”

“I do,” Molotov says.

“Get to the turret and suppress those damn machine guns on the hill!”

The Lieutenant yells at his two corpsmen. “Sorensen, Gajda! When you’re finished with our own, see what you can do about the scavengers!”

“We are Stalkers! Not scavengers!” Mac angrily remarks. She has her rifle pointed at the surviving Bandits. Her jackal gives the Bandits a threatening growl.

The aircraft slowly accelerates. Bullets pierce the fuselage and Tarasov’s nose suddenly detects a pungent smell.

“Shit! They must have hit our fuel tank!”

At this moment, the hill gets into the tail cannon’s fire angle, at last enabling Molotov to return fire from the twin 23mm cannons. “That’s it, man!” a Tribe fighter shouts over the earsplitting rattle. “Blast them! Blast those motherfuckers!”

At last the aircraft lifts off. Tarasov and Collins make their way to the cockpit where an appalling sight awaits them: the co-pilot is covered with blood. For a second, Tarasov thinks he might have been hit by a bullet that pierced through the fuselage but then notices the a knife-cut wound across his throat.

“He wanted to leave without you,” a very pale Nooria says. “Old pilot was smarter and listened to me.”

“It’s good to have you back, Nooria,” Collins says and bows his head to her.

“Sure he did,” Pete says. “He had a choice between my bullet in his brain and Nooria’s blade cutting his throat.”

Collins gives Pete a curious look. “Are you — Pete? The son of Colonel Leighley?” Seeing Pete nod, the Lieutenant salutes him. “Welcome to the Tribe. It is an honor to meet you.”

“Yeah. That’s what the Top said when I first met him.”

All fall silent. Their moment of silence is broken by the pilot’s voice.

“Back to Odessa for refueling and then Minsk, I guess?”

The weary question puts Tarasov’s mind back to their current situation.

“No. Lieutenant—Collins, right? Tell him the Alamo’s coordinates.”

“But Hartman said they’re gonna shoot us down!” Pete observes.

“Maybe not if the big man hears your voice on the radio,” Tarasov responds. “We have about two dozen men in the back, half of them friendly, the others secured. No danger to his stronghold.”

Collins buries his face into his palms. “Good God, you don’t know.”

“What do you mean, Lieutenant?” Pete asks with a tone of authority.

“It’s bad news all over,” Collins says with a sigh. “Ragheads and mutants, horrible mutants have wiped out one of our squads. José… Lieutenant Ramirez is dead. The Alamo is under siege. Our main force under First Lieutenant Driscoll is blockading Bagram.”

“Why?” asks Tarasov, perplexed.

“Stalkers began attacking our patrols. The Colonel wanted to punish the Stalkers by putting a blockade around their den at Bagram but as soon as our main force was deployed, the ragheads hit us hard. The big man insists he can handle the situation, even though the ragheads managed to breach our outer defenses. He gave direct orders to Driscoll not to return, and he would never question those. It’s a matter of honor for both of them. We’d hoped for the Top to return soon and talk sense into Leighley, or at least make Driscoll listen to his own better judgment, take the reasonable decision and lead the main force to relieve the Alamo — and now he’s gone!”

“I will talk to my father,” Pete defiantly says. “Enough blood has been spilt.”

The Lieutenant gives him a look of doubt. “I’m not sure if he’d agree.”

“That wouldn’t be the first disagreement between him and me,” Pete responds with a dire smile.

“Sorry to interrupt but we can’t even make it to Odessa,” the pilot says eyeing the instrument panel. “Our underfloor tank was hit. We’re losing fuel. You better find a place to land within two hundred kilometers or we’ll have to crash land. Make up your goddamn mind and give us directions, people!”

“Is the airfield at Bamyan marked on your GPS or whatever navigation system you follow?” Tarasov asks the pilot.

“Sure, but I hope that’s not where you want to go.”

“Follow the course leading there. Keep a low altitude. Our destination is about thirty kilometers east of Bamyan. You will see a landing strip atop of a mountain.”

“Let me use that radio,” Collins says. “Major, I suggest you team up with my men and disarm the Bandits. Just in case.”

“Done already,” comes a voice from the hatch. It is Molotov.

“Good job,” Tarasov nods his approval. “I’m glad the Dutyer was right about you after all.”

“Why, what did he say?”

“That you’re with the Stalkers.”

“I work alone.” Molotov takes his helmet off, prompting Tarasov to give his sooty face a gaze as if he would be seeing a ghost. “I am Alexander Degtyarev, Security Service of Ukraine.”

In any other situation, their reunion would have been a gleeful one. However, aboard a damaged airplane filled with wounded men, on their way towards a besieged Alamo and with Sergeant Major Hartman dead, only a few simple words come to Tarasov’s mind.

“Now I understand the strange look you gave me, Alex,” he says.

“You’d make a horrible undercover agent, Misha. I recognized you from far by the way you walk.”