Nightlight: Metal Gear Solid
Chapter Ten: Upernavik East Guardpost
March 7th, 1975, 0827 hrs.
Just outside of Upernavik, Greenland
For a while it looked like the only way for Empty Mongoose's torment to end was for him to fall and get strangled to death by the rope. After all, according to Kumari, this DYE-2 place was twenty miles away from Upernavik, but judging by the speed that the truck was moving, and how high the sun was getting in the sky, Domina couldn't have made him run more than three more miles on top of the five or six that they had already gone. However, it was getting harder to keep up with the truck now, and then the young man's foot struck a rock that had been hidden under the snow.
There was no way to stop himself from falling forward, and then his oxygen supply was cut off; the rope around his neck now strangling him while the truck dragged his feet across the frozen terrain. Struggling for breath, but getting none, Mongoose's vision started to go black, and he found himself thinking about home. He thought about the good times on Mother Base, and all the missions he had been sent on since being recruited by Big Boss… and he wanted Tsarina to be there with him.
Suddenly the daydream was interrupted as the young man found himself able to draw in a rasping breath when the rope was cut away, and it took a few seconds for him to realize that Domina had both stopped the truck, and cut him down. This explained why he was lying in the snow, with her looking down at him, chuckling to herself while he coughed to catch his breath.
"You look a little red in the face, Solidus." She commented, using the toe of her boot to turn his head up toward her. "You should be proud though… the last person I did that to didn't walk away. Now, on your feet."
Bending down and grabbing him by the front of the shirt, the Valkyrie leader roughly pulled him to his feet, only to spin him around and march him forward toward what looked like a small guard outpost. There was a wooden watchtower, a covered area with chairs positioned around a burning fire barrel, and finally a metal shack, probably for whichever guards were off-shift at the time. As far as people, though, Mongoose counted four.
"I got a special detail for you boys." Domina said after returning the guards' salute. "Keep this prisoner detained here until I personally inform you otherwise. I can't risk his Boss finding him, or even knowing that he's missing, at least until I find him. Keep his gear, too, so that it can't accidently be discovered, and absolutely no radio traffic from this outpost. Clear?"
"Yes, Domina." One of the guards replied, pointing to the shack. "We can keep him tied up in there."
She nodded, turning Mongoose, and forcing him to walk again until he was standing in the doorway of the shack, where she suddenly stopped and made him turn to face her. It looked like she was going to say something, but instead Domina slammed her knee into his groin, before giving him an uppercut to the chin that knocked him off his feet.
"That was for Kumari." She said as he fell over one of the cots. "Boys, don't feed or talk to him, and if he gives you any trouble at all, you can shoot him. See you in a few days, Solidus."
She slammed the door shut, with the young man hearing it being barred from the other side a few seconds later. Well, with the guards having orders to basically ignore him, and Domina herself saying that he was going to be left there for a few days, this gave Mongoose plenty of time to come up with a plan. The first thing he needed to do was get out of those handcuffs, so he waited until he heard the sound of Domina's truck driving away, and then he stretched and twisted his upper body while bringing his feet up toward his back as far as he could.
He had used this trick once a number of years before, when he had been captured once as a child soldier. The idea was to bring the handcuffs around his feet to the front, so that he would have use of his arms in order to figure out the rest of the escape. So he struggled, hoping that he hadn't grown too much or put on too much weight for this to work… and it was one hell of a struggle where he thought that his arms were going to pop right out of their sockets, but it worked.
"Domina sure is sexy, huh?" He heard one of the guards ask while giving his arms a break. "I bet she's dynamite in the sack."
"Yeah, dynamite that'll blow your damn head off." Another one replied. "You see that poor bastard she brought in? Looks like she worked him over real good… heard she does that to anyone that upsets her…. hell, I don't know why Saunders keeps her around at all."
Who the hell was Saunders? Mongoose wondered as he searched around for something to either break or pick the cuffs with, and this search gave him time to try and piece together some of the Intel that he had gathered. Aside from the Valkyrie Special Forces, who seemed to be from all over the world, the guards that he had seen so far all spoke English, but with a variety of accents that could have only come from America. So what was a large, American unit doing there in Greenland? Were they Army? CIA? Probably CIA… but what was the CIA doing there? And why had they taken the MSF operatives?
The guards' idle chatter, mostly about Domina, carried on until Mongoose found a pen lying on the floor under one of the cots. It wasn't exactly the tool that he had been looking for, but after taking it apart, and extracting the ink tube, he very carefully worked it into the keyhole. The biggest danger was that the tube would bend or break, which would leave him stuck, so he was patient, moving slow until the lock of the first one opened with a click. The second one opened a short time later as well, so he put the cuffs in his back pocket, but then heard the sound of someone messing with the door.
It took a few seconds for the bar to be taken off the door, giving the young man the time he needed to stand near the cot with his hands behind his back as if he were still restrained. The good news, as the door opened and all four guards came in, was that he no longer needed to worry about how to open the door… the bad news, however, was that there were now four armed guards standing between him and that door.
"Hi, guys." Mongoose said politely. "I thought Domina said you weren't supposed to talk to me."
"Shut your commie mouth." One of them ordered, aiming his rifle as he stepped forward. "It's because of shitheads like you that we're stuck up here in this frozen hell-hole."
"Yeah, and you're gonna pay for that, comrade." Another one said, also stepping forward. "By the time we're done with you, you're gonna be eating your meals through a straw… or maybe not, since Domina said we could shoot you if you gave us any problems. How's that sound to you, huh?"
"Sounds like I'm in trouble." Mongoose answered, causing a few snickers from the guards. "But I have a better idea."
Bringing his arms around, the young man grabbed his rifle and spun it upward, striking the first guard in the chin hard enough to knock him down. Mongoose then turned and slammed the stock of the weapon right between the next guard's eyes before he could react, before stepping backwards and aiming at all of them.
"Don't even think about it!" He shouted as the other two tried raising their rifles. "Toss your weapons out the door, all of you! Slowly… rifles, pistols, and anything else you all got!"
The guards hesitated, and this was expected. After all, even though he had them at gunpoint, there was no guarantee that Mongoose could shoot all of them before they were able to fight back, but he just hoped that they didn't realize that. Even if they did, there was a strong chance that at least two of them would be killed, and it didn't look like any of them were in too big a hurry to be a hero today.
"I suggest you hurry, boys." He continued while they kept looking at each other. "Every second that passes, means that Domina gets a little further away, making it less likely that she will hear anything and come back here if I start shooting. Now toss your weapons out the door, and move over to the far side of the room."
It took a few more seconds, but eventually one of them tossed his rifle out the door, and the others followed suit, completely disarming themselves. Mongoose nodded to them, and motioned for them to all stand together in the far corner of the shack with their hands up. The guards complied, and Mongoose kept them there for a few more minutes, just to make sure that Domina couldn't hear when he started shooting. There was nothing the guards could do as the bullets tore through them, flashes of light and thunderous echoes filling the shack while they fell down one at a time, and then it was over.
"You should've just followed orders." The young man said as he walked out of the shack. "Oh, well… it's better than what Domina would do to you."
Closing and barring the door behind him, Mongoose collected the all the ammo for his pistol and new rifle, before finding his equipment on one of the chairs next to the fire barrel. Reclaiming his knife, pistol, and Int-Scope, he had just put the radio and receiver back on, when he started looking around the guard outpost to see if there was a vehicle.
"Escaped already, did you?" A soft female voice said over the radio. "Domina told us to start looking for Big Boss, but I figured someone should check on you."
"Tsarina?" He asked, taking cover and using the scope to look around. "Good to hear your voice again, Princess… where are you?"
From his covered position, Mongoose used the scope's infrared function to try and locate her body heat along the hills and tundra that surrounded the outpost, but he couldn't see anything. Staying low, and moving to cover behind the shack, he looked around again, but couldn't see anything, even with the light-limiting function that allowed for the use of the NVG during daylight hours.
"Don't call me Princess." Her voice replied sternly. "I don't like it… but as to where I am… let me give you a hint."
Suddenly a gunshot was heard, and then a large caliber bullet slammed into the side of the scope, shattering it completely as Mongoose fell backwards.