“Marked One! The military has attacked the Bandit base. The entrance to the Garbage is blocked but there is an old road to the south. You can use it, but you want to be careful. Good luck.”
The Stalker curses in frustration.
Damn you, Sidorovich! All this shitstorm right when I thought I was already through! Such is life in the damn Zone…
Hoping that the Spetsnaz commandos, who would surely outgun him, have not made their way down yet into the vaults and block his only exit, he hurries back to the staircase leading back to the abandoned factory. His caution displayed on the way down is paying off — all mutants appear to be eliminated and the positions of anomalies are well-known enough to him to avoid their dangers.
Once back at the entrance to the laboratory, he stops for a minute and checks his weapon. Its touch is reassuring. The sawn-off shotgun had been barely passable for fighting off the mutants. Now that he is about to be facing hostile humans, his perfectly maintained Swiss assault rifle, loaded with armor-piercing FMJ rounds capable of tearing through the Bulat and Berill armors worn by the Spetsnaz, should be a more than adequate weapon.
Timing is strange, though… probably that rascal Sidorovich or perhaps that fat trader at the Bar has sold me out to the military. No matter if I complete this mission or the military catches me on his hint: they will profit… damn traders! They always have a life insurance.
The thought of the trader double-crossing him gives him a sudden idea. Carefully, he removes the first few dozen pages from the document he had found in the lab. The thin pages are easy to take out without tearing into the text typed on them. He puts them into an empty first aid box and hides it under a pile of rubble beneath the stairs. Nobody except for one knowing exactly where it is would ever find this stash, and the waterproof box should protect the yellowed pages from further decay.
One always needs to think forward, way forward.
The Stalker hears the faint sound of several heavy boots moving down the staircase. He pats his assault rifle with an almost affectionate touch.
I’ll need a bigger stock for all the notches I’ll have to carve tonight—if I make it out of here alive.
He takes a deep breath and, holding his weapon ready, cautiously begins to sneak up the stairs.
November 2014
New Zone
The most fearsome weapon of mass destruction mankind has ever known are not nuclear arms. It was the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan.
Those to decide about employing nuclear weapons are more or less reasonable minds, and their nuclear arsenal had always been maintained rather for deterrence than actual use. The Mongols however did bring devastation on every land they had conquered and the terror preceding their hordes was just a side effect. From Bamyan to Baghdad, no stronghold withstood their rage and no inhabitants were spared. The victims of atomic bombs still haunt those in possession of such weapons; Genghis Khan’s warriors built pyramids from their victims’ skulls for pleasure.
The small kingdoms of ancient Afghanistan made a fatal mistake when they decided to resist the Mongol invaders. After the Mongols were gone, their mighty fortresses had been reduced to rubble and the once fertile, now blood-soaked realm was a land of desolation. Moreover, legend has it that it was at the fateful stronghold of Shahr-i-Gholghola where Genghis Khan turned into the monster that history considered him to be; though why exactly this happened is only told by tribal lore, hazier and darker than any legend.
Yet the fate of this land was sealed in more recent days. Another invader came, this time for a nobler cause —at least in his own understanding, but in the locals’ eyes an invader nonetheless. Those who opposed it obtained nuclear warheads from their brethren across the eastern frontier; no one knows by which means and even less so where the warheads were actually to be detonated, but after they went up in Kabul and devastated what had once been Central Afghanistan, no one really cared about ifs and whys.
Nuclear fallout was not the only consequence. Soon rumors were spreading of horrible mutations in local fauna and flora as well as mysterious physical phenomena. It was disturbing news for many, but Stalkers in the Exclusion Zone eagerly listened to another Zone apparently being created. The most dashing and desperate made their way there in search of a place free from the infighting and corruption that plagued the Exclusion Zone, no matter of the perils of irradiated badlands and mutated wildlife, even if it all proved to be meaner than what they had encountered previously. Of course, they also hoped to find the equivalents of the Exclusion Zone’s artifacts: small, mysterious formations worth a fortune in the outside world.
They were not alone. Tough like cockroaches, remnants of the Taliban—or dushmans, as the mostly Russian-speaking Stalkers called them—survived the self-inflicted nuclear holocaust. Soon, the Stalker pioneers not only had to survive massive, radioactive dust storms and mutant attacks but battle a new human enemy as well.
Hostile to both, a third force had nestled in the valleys of the western ranges. In the Antonov bar at now-ruined AFB Bagram, the nerve centre of Stalker presence in the New Zone, the craziest rumors circulated about the Tribe. Some Stalkers described them as vicious man-eaters and others as high-tech renegades, with neither description excluding the other. For the dushmans they were simply the devil’s legions.
Only a few among either faction knew what the Tribe really was: elements of a US Marine reconnaissance battalion who, already disillusioned about how the war was conducted, came under a terrible influence beneath the City of Screams. They revolted and took matters in their own hands, carrying on a war that was supposed to be long over; but as the Tribe itself thought, the fight for honor, courage and commitment never ends and if preserving these values means to cut every tie to a corrupted homeland, so be it.
Even the greenest of Stalkers knows that radio-activity alone does not create a zone. Hence in 2014, scientists—all of them knowing the Exclusion Zone inside out—had ventured to the New Zone in order to find out what had caused such phenomena.
They perished. The Ukrainian military, desperately trying to contain the Exclusion Zone ever since it was created, picked one of its best men to lead the team that was sent to rescue the scientists. They failed, and when their commander emerged from Shahr-i-Gholghola’s catacombs he found himself the only survivor. Keen to prevent a corruption worse than the Exclusion Zone from spreading, he kept what he learned in that accursed place to himself. He stayed with the Tribe which he had befriended, hiding in the New Zone where the secrets of the catacombs, known only to him and the Tribe, would remain safe.
Or so Major Mikhailo Tarasov thought.
1
East of Shahr-i-Gholghola (City of Screams), New Zone
The deer, one of the few non-carnivore mutant species, might have been a graceful creature just a few minutes ago. With a pack of jackals sinking their fangs into its still steaming intestines and tearing bloody chunks out of its flesh, it will soon become just another pile of bones littering the wastelands. The rays of the rising sun still can’t reach the bottom of the stony defile where they dragged their prey.
Suddenly, the pack’s alpha raises his head and sniffs into the wind. Detecting something hostile approaching, he lets out a snarl. Following his command, the other jackals leave the deer carcass alone, no matter how hungry they might be. The muscles of their massive bodies tremble from tension under the long fur as they wait for the alpha to point out a new victim.
On a sandy ridge not far from them, a shape appears among the rocks. The sun, still low, shines directly into his face. He raises a hand to protect his eyes against the strong light, like anyone would do after the long hours of night—or one who had spent too much time in the catacombs under the ruins of Shahr-i-Gholghola. Aptly named, the City of Screams looms on the southern horizon atop of a hill, still half-covered by the dark fog that had descended at dawn.
If they could think in terms of species, the jackals would see him as human, or humanoid if taking into account the size
of the unnaturally strong muscles on his body. But the mind of jackals only knows two priorities: killing, and avoiding being killed. The alpha follows his first instinct, and emits a sharp yelp. Howling, the pack storms towards the figure on the ridge.
Jackals are ferocious, but smart as well. When he gets closer to the prey, the alpha barks up, warning his pack over an adversary that might be stronger than them. If jackals had a sense of time, the alpha would know that this was the first occasion when he ever had to bark this warning.
It proves unnecessary. By the time the jackals hear it, they are already on the run. The alpha loudly growls and barks at the figure, just to keep his standing with the pack. Then he too flees, ignoring the deer carcass from which he could have taken the juiciest, fattest parts.
The figure steps to the carcass. The wind blows his ragged leather coat open and an old body armor appears beneath, its red and black Kevlar plates held together by thick wire. Once it might have matched his size perfectly, before it became too small to cover the bulging muscles on his chest, arms and limbs. His face still bears the features of a Caucasian man but the muscles on his face and his skull have also became disproportionately big, fitting the size of his massive body. If the alpha jackal, who now looks back at him from a safe distance, had any understanding of the matters of humans—even if this one is not entirely human anymore—he would recognize in the red and black Kevlar plates of the ruined armor the colors of Duty, a group of humans founded to get the world rid of mutants like them. He might also see the long leather jacket as the signature outfit of Bandits, meaning either that Duty has failed, or he himself decided to leave them and become a renegade. However, no one could tell how this human became what he now is.
He kneels down and, using his hands, starts tearing out meat chunks from the carcass, greedily chewing on what the jackals have left behind.
Watching him from not afar, the alpha licks its drooling snout. The pack gathers around him, staring at the half-human who is devouring the prey that they had so well deserved. Not even the alpha would approach this figure, who might have the worst, or maybe the best, of humans and mutants united in his disfigured body. Not as if there was a way for them to find out. Jackals are smart, but don’t know the difference between good and evil. This is probably the only thing they have in common with many humans.
As he leans over his feast, a small Orthodox cross falls from under the leather jacket, hanging on a golden chain. The half-mutant, or half-human, pushes it back behind the Kevlar plates as to not disturb him in devouring the next bloody chunk of meat.
Another shape, similar to his, appears on the ridge. He looks up, with a sinewy meat chunk in his mouth, and signals the other one to approach. This one is clearly a mutant, despite the rags barely covering its hulk which might have been a Zone Stalker’s armor long time ago.
A drop of saliva falls from the alpha’s snout. He swallows hungrily and yelps. Then he and his disappointed pack move towards the rising sun in search of another prey.
2
SBU Headquarters (Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukraini/Security Service of Ukraine), 33 Volodymyrska Street, Kiev
Captain Dmitry Maksimenko had once been the most handsome officer in the Ukrainian special forces. Not that it mattered much for his comrades, but all the more so for the female cadets in officers’ school, who enjoyed any lecture given by the tall and brawny soldier with striking blue eyes, be it in the classroom or an unused chamber close to their dormitory. Now, with a mutant’s claws having disfigured his torso where once a perfect six-pack was, and one of his striking blue eyes lost to a mercenary’s knife and its empty hole covered by a black patch, Captain Maksimenko’s only charm is his impeccably ironed uniform and spotless shoes with hard leather soles, which loudly echo at each step he takes in one of the SBU headquarters’ endless, white-painted corridors.
No matter of his once-great looks, Captain Maksimenko drew most of his charisma from being the commander of a famed spec-ops division of the SBU, call sign Search Two. Even a fraction of what he was allowed to disclose about his missions to the secret laboratories in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was enough to make Spetsnaz rookies shudder and female cadets get moist.
But now, as he stops at the end of the corridor in front of a white, bullet- and fire-proof door, he nervously looks into a window and looking at his reflection, checks his tie and bird-nest officer’s cap. His hand on the copper door knob, he takes a deep breath as if he were about to enter a mutant’s lair. Then he clears his throat and opens the door without knocking.
“Captain Maksimenko here to see Colonel Kruchelnikov.”
Either it’s the effect of the still steaming coffee in the elderly secretary’s cup or the faded remains of the captain’s virile beauty, she smiles at him. With her fat finger, she adjusts a strand of dyed blonde hair behind her ear. In the reflection of a glassed-in cabinet behind the secretary’s desk, Maksimenko sees that she has the orange and blue interface of Odnoklassniki open on the screen, the Russian version of Facebook.
“You are to go in at once, Captain,” she replies and jerks her head towards the door on the other side of the room. The strand of hair again starts misbehaving.
For a moment, Maksimenko wonders why a man like Colonel V.M. Kruchelnikov, the commander of all of Ukraine’s special forces from embassy guards to elite Spetsnaz units, doesn’t have a better-looking secretary. But then it comes to his mind that the SBU’s prettier female employees have more challenging, and probably more pleasant jobs to do than sitting behind a desk and chatting.
Maksimenko’s heels clack as he performs a perfect salute in the colonel’s office.
“Dobroho ranku, tovaryshu polkovnyk! Captain Maksimenko reporting as ordered.”
Colonel Kruchelnikov is standing at a window overlooking Volodymyrska Street with the heavy Friday morning traffic below.
“Shut the door, Captain,” he replies. After a minute he adds, “Sit.”
Maksimenko has an uneasy feeling as he sits down in the leather chair in front of the colonel’s oversized oaken desk. He stares at his superior’s back, broad shoulders and gray hair, cut down to stubs. The noise of the street below is muted by the bullet-proof window glass. All he can hear is a faint, scraping and screeching noise of a metal spoon squeezing a lemon in a cup of tea.
“I guess you know why I wanted to talk to you, Captain?” the colonel asks.
Maksimenko clears his throat. “My promotion is overdue.”
“Indeed. We haven’t forgotten what you did during Project Truth in 2012, before Strelok messed everything up.”
The colonel is still standing with his back to Maksimenko, stirring the tea. The screeching sneaks into the captain’s brain and he can barely suppress the feeling of ants crawling along his spine. He would sooner prefer the roar of an attacking bloodsucker.
“It was… an exciting mission,” he says.
“By any means, you should be a major by now.”
“I… based on my years of service…”
The colonel turns around and gives the captain a piercing look from his cold grey eyes.
“Sorry to say that promotions are not as easily given as some half-renegade officers think.”
Maksimenko swallows before asking his question. “Does the Service doubt my loyalty?”
Kruchelnikov’s mouth eases into something like a smile. “I was meaning Degtyarev and the promotion he gave to a certain… anyway, I didn’t approve of it but that’s none of your business.”
“If you allow me to mention it, sir, I thought maybe I was assigned to desk and training duties because of my injury… but I am still a crack shot using my right eye! First I was left out from the siege of the CNPP, then Operation Fairway too, while another captain…”
His superior abruptly interrupts him. “I get your meaning but you’d better be thankful for missing out on those operations. Rest assured, the Service still counts on you. That is, unless the time spent as a lecturer in officer’s school have softene
d you too much for a new assignment.”
Maksimenko protests. “No, absolutely not!”
“Indeed, I heard that your lectures about… hardness and deep penetration tactics were quite popular with female cadets. Now, if you’re for once willing to lubricate your way up the career path instead of female cadets’ clits, maybe your time has come.”
“I am listening,” Maksimenko replies with a blush.
Colonel Kruchelnikov takes a red folder from a folder in his desk and shows a photograph to Maksimenko.
“He is your objective.”
Taking the picture from the colonel’s hairy fingers, Maksimenko tilts back in his chair. The colonel notices his surprise with amusement. “It seems you know this man, Captain.”
“Everybody knows him, sir. He’s a hero… a legend actually!”
“Keep your enthusiasm low. Seen from our perspective he’s a loose cannon. He did perform valuable services but that’s in the past. Frankly, trusting him was one of the biggest mistakes this Service has ever made.” The colonel opens a small wooden box on his desk. “A Cohiba, Captain?”
“Thank you, sir,” Maksimenko says accepting the cigar. “With pleasure, sir.”
“Do you like cigars?”
“I actually do, sir. But—with all due respect, I think Major Degtyarev might be better qualified for this mission than I am.”
The colonel moves around his desk and lets himself half-way sit on it.
“Top brass wants to leave Degtyarev out of this,” he says fishing a box of matches from his pocket, “and I couldn’t approve more. Personal connections cloud proper judgment. It happened to him in the past but won’t happen in the future. Not during this operation.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Besides,” Kruchelnikov adds lighting his own cigar, ”Degtyarev has been assigned to an undercover operation.”
Kruchelnikov ignites another match. Maksimenko moves closer to reach the burning match but it remains an inch too far from him, as if the colonel would hold it deliberately away. Maksimenko stiffens in this awkward position. The colonel leans closer and lowers his voice.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Northern Passage s-2 Page 3
