Chapter 2: A New Development

A young, twenty-five year old woman approached the office of her superior, Colonel Septum, at the Alliance base at New Edwards. She was somewhat annoyed. Finally, after a year of active duty within the Alliance's military intelligence organization she had gotten leave to return to her home in England, and now her commander had called her all the way here to Africa. She knocked on the colonel's door.

"Come in, lieutenant."

He was greeted by Lieutenant Elizabeth Chamberlain. Her hair of fiery crimson swayed down her uniformed back, her emerald eyes flared her annoyance to Septum.

"I was supposed to be on leave." She stated in a fiery British accent.

"I don't give a damn if you were supposed to be on leave!" Septum sneered. "Something's come up in the Outer Heaven case, and as much as I hate to say this, you're my best intelligence officer, so consider your leave terminated."

Elizabeth took a seat at Colonel Septum's behest. "What's the situation?" She sighed.

"We've seen that several known associates of Big Boss have been booking shuttle rides to outer space. God knows how many others we don't know about have been going. And now, we know that Big Boss himself just departed for the colonies last night."

"And you want me to go and see what he's up to." Elizabeth finished.

"Yes, perhaps now we can finally catch him in the act and bring him to justice for all the chaos and strife he has brought to the Earth with his damn mercenary company!"

"Those are only allegations." Elizabeth remarked with her usual wit that pissed her commanding officer off.

"Allegations we all know to be true!"

"Right…you just can't prove them. Admit it; he's too good for you." She smirked. "If you ask me, you're just jealous of Big Boss, you know he's ten times the warrior you could ever hope to be." She got up and smirked at her colonel.

Colonel Septum growled in anger, only causing Elizabeth's smirk to widen and her eyes to glint in contentment.

"Just get out of here you disobedient runt!" He snarled. "Your shuttle leaves tomorrow!"

"Yes sir." She saluted in amusement and left the office. Elizabeth had been looking forward to her time off in England, but now she was called back to duty. Perhaps that was why she taunted her superior, or perhaps she just enjoyed making the easily-inflamed colonel angry. At any rate, Elizabeth Chamberlain would soon be headed for outer space, no longer herself, but replaced by her code name 'Tudor.'


"General Catalonia, this is Odin Lowe of Outer Heaven. I am reporting that myself and Big Boss have safely arrived at colony L1-3799."

"Good." Catalonia answered over the video phone. "I am glad that everything went well. Your Outer Heaven colleagues have been most helpful on the other colonies. Please, give my regards to Big Boss for all of his help. I look forward to the next time that we speak."

"I will."

"Good then. I'll talk with you later." The video link closed.

Odin walked to the door that adjoined his room with that of his Boss and knocked twice.

"Come in."

Odin opened the door and walked into his Boss' room, watching as he was spreading maps of colonies along a table and had his computer running. He looked settled in, and was ready to get to work.

"General Catalonia called."

"Did he?" Big Boss asked without looking up from his maps.

"He gives his regards and looks forward to speaking with you soon."

"I see. I will be calling him tomorrow to go over the situation."

"So Boss, what's going on?"

Big Boss looked at Odin for the first time since he had entered the room. "We have people on these colonies." He motioned to the map of all of the colony clusters. The ones with the thumbtacks were the ones with OZ and Outer Heaven operatives. "Yuy is on this colony, right now." He referred to the colony he and Odin presently resided on. "We believe he will be making trips to the highlighted colonies but we aren't sure as of yet. We're going to have to track his movements, as well as track down some of the people who would know where he's going."

"Everything is going well in the field?" Odin looked over the maps across the table from Big Boss.

"We have field reports from Machinegun Kid, Shoot Gunner, Fire Trooper, and Duck on these colonies, respectively." Big Boss referred to his inner circle as he motioned to several of the thumbtack-highlighted colonies on the big map. "Read them if you like. I've already gotten through them."

Odin walked to the table that the think field reports were laying on and thumbed through each of them. "So, Boss, what are we going to be doing on this colony specifically?"

"We'll be paying close attention to Yuy. We'll track his movements, check out his contacts, and all in all, command from here, for now at least. When and if he moves to another colony, we'll follow him at a pace that will make it hard for him to notice us."

"And the Alliance?"

"General Catalonia promised he'd keep them off our backs. His lifeline is at stake in this too, you know. He'll do it"

Odin smiled. "Very well, Boss, I'll go over these right away."

"We wake up early tomorrow for CQC drill. And Odin." He said as his protégé opened the adjoining door.

"Sir?"

"You are no longer to call me by the name Big Boss for the remainder of this operation. I've issued the special field order to our men and to the OZ troops, and General Catalonia agrees. I will go by my old code name."

Odin's smile grew wider. "Very well. I'll see you in the morning, Naked Snake."


Elizabeth Chamberlain sat in her shuttle on her way to the colony L4-288855, going over the field directive on her computer. She made sure to put a visual filter on her laptop's screen and reserved a secluded seat on the shuttle.

Agent Tudor,

You are to go to the colony L4-288855. One of Big Boss' known associates, a man by the name of Duck is residing there at the moment. You are to find out where this man is and then monitor his activities. Once you assess the situation and report back to me, we will discuss our next move.

-Septum

Elizabeth sighed. She didn't like going after small fish. She wanted to go right for the big catch- Big Boss himself. She'd much rather be on leave then living in outer space to spy on one of Big Boss' subordinates.

"I guess I'll never have relaxation. Oh well…at least I get to see the Earth from outer space." She smiled after her sigh, looking down at the blue-green orb floating in a sea of black. "The vastness of space…it just shows how insignificant we really are." She said to herself.

"We are arriving at our destination." A voice interrupted her out of her spoken-aloud thoughts. "Please be patient and leave in an orderly fashion. Have a wonderful day."

Elizabeth closed her laptop and exited the shuttle when it was parked, arranging transportation for her already booked hotel room.


Odin Lowe was loitering in the state house of the colony he and Snake were on. Two weeks of nothing much more than going over Yuy's recent movements, known contacts, and managing to hack into some of his financial records. This was complicated for a hired hit, but this was the chief representative of the colonies, and impatience in such matters of business was for amateurs.

And Odin was no amateur. He knew that the right opportunity had to present itself, and now was not the right time.

"So, Chief Representative Yuy is headed for L4-288855?"

Odin's eye immediately darted to the person who had said that- a man engaged in a private conversation someway across the room. Odin swiftly, but stealthily made way so he could hear this conversation better.

"Yes, he'll be campaigning for the colonial independence movement there, and meeting with supporters. In fact, he'll be meeting with the Peacecraft family of the Sanc Kingdom there to speak about his ideas."

"The Peacecrafts? So then support is spreading to the Earth as well? Excellent, perhaps we'll finally be able to fighting behind soon!"

Odin snuck out of the state house and used his Codec.

"Snake, I'm on my way back to the hotel, there's been an interesting new development…"