OPERATION INTRUDE N313
DAY SIX – 1713 HOURS
UNDERGROUND BOILER ROOM, PAST METAL GEAR'S HANGAR
The pistol shook in Snake's hand. His breathing was quick, shallow. Suddenly, the pistol felt so heavy in his hands, and his arms lowered to his sides as his eyes widened in recognition. He suspected a spy in Mission Control. He didn't expect this. His mind raced as it tried to make sense of the scene in front of him.
His mouth was dry, and it wasn't from the heat of the steamy boiler room. He swallowed and tried to speak. What came out was an incoherent staccato of short, terse phrases and one-word sentences.
"Big Boss…you? W-what? How? That doesn't…"
Big Boss exhaled slightly, smirking. He looked down, as if remembering a private inside joke or amusing anecdote. "That's right," he said. "I'm Big Boss."
He stepped forward down the short flight of steps towards Snake. Snake backed away several paces.
"The founder and leader of FOXHOUND," Big Boss continued. "The venomous monster Ahab of Outer Heaven." He closed his eye and nodded to himself before refocusing his gaze on Snake, gesturing toward him. "The man who fooled the world."
There was something odd about the Boss's speech. Something about it sounded rueful, almost sardonic, like he was mocking the very idea of his identity even as he proudly acknowledged it. He again raised a gesturing arm towards Snake, and Snake instantly recognized it as the same type of bionic hand that Master Miller had worn during their CQC trainings all those years ago. Was that why Big Boss always wore gloves? The fingers made a soft clacking sound as they folded into a pointing finger.
"You were sent here because of your inexperience. You weren't expected to survive. But I admit, I underestimated you. You've gotten farther than anyone could possibly have expected; I had assumed that if Gray Fox could be bested, then surely you'd never make it far past the insertion point. Congratulations are in order, I suppose."
Snake couldn't come up with a response to that. The revelation that the man to whom he'd looked up to and wanted desperately to emulate had been setting him up from the beginning floored him. Not only that, but apparently that there was so little faith in his abilities that he was considered irrelevant, barely worth consideration such that his making it to this point was in itself revelatory. Snake realized that he didn't know which bothered him more—the betrayal or the casual dismissiveness. The fact that he even had to question it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"But…but why?" Snake asked. His voice sounded so small and hollow to his ears. Like a frightened child. He hated himself for it.
The Boss raised an eyebrow as he considered his protégé's question. "Why what?" he asked, prompting Snake to continue.
"Why betray the U.S, betray FOXHOUND? Why hold the world hostage with nukes?"
Ahab's eyebrows raised in slight surprise—or was it mock surprise? "Is that my plan?" He closed his eye and nodded to himself again, as if in confirmation. "I see. So that's how it is."
There was a prickling sensation in the back of Snake's mind that felt familiar. It was similar to that little voice that called out to him during his drugged interrogation at Shotmaker's hands. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't tell what it was. Big Boss's mannerisms felt off, somehow. But Snake couldn't consciously figure out just what it was that didn't make sense, so distracted was he by the betrayal, but it was there nagging at him all the same.
So, he asked the next question at the forefront of his mind: "How long have you been planning this?"
Big Boss smiled slightly again, nodding with certainty. "Since the beginning, since long before FOXHOUND sent you here, since before we came to South Africa. A world where the warrior will always belong, always have a place: a true Valhalla. With Metal Gear, we would've been able to make our dream a reality."
Ahab stepped down from the last stair, and Snake stepped back further. Snake glanced behind him—two more steps and he would be backed straight into the boiler behind him. He looked left and right. Passage on the left and right both ended in blind turns, with the right also forking back towards the entrance from which Snake had entered from.
"But now Metal Gear has been destroyed," the older operative muttered. "Many of my men are either dead or struggling to regroup. If our dream is to have any chance of survival, I'll need to lead my men to safety."
Ahab looked at Snake with a new appraisal. "Many of my men were once former enemies, reborn as family forged in the fires of war. You've made it this far, Snake. You've proven yourself above and beyond the call of duty. I'd say you've earned a place among us if you want it. Throw down your arms now and surrender, and we can walk out of here together."
Ahab reached out an open hand, expectantly. He nodded towards the gun hanging limply at Snake's side.
Snake held up the Beretta, examining it. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Nothing seemed to make any sense. He thought vaguely of the day when Salamander had pitted him and Black Mamba against each other, the words that Salamander had impressed on him time and time again during training:
It's us vs. them and anyone that isn't us is an enemy. The only thing that you can trust with absolute certainty is the mission.
Everything crystalized. Snake needed answers—was desperate for them. But they could come later. In the here and now, only one thing mattered. He raised his eyes and met Big Boss's gaze; he'd made his decision. He reached out with his gun laying in his palm, and Big Boss moved to take it.
As Ahab put his hand on the Beretta, Snake reached over with his left hand to grip the Boss's forearm, pulling it forward as he shoulder-checked Ahab in the chest and raised a knee towards Ahab's groin. Ahab checked the blow with his flesh arm, and his bionic hand twisted 180 degrees to wrench the pistol out of Snake's hand.
Ahab's hands moved faster than Snake was prepared for, raining blows down on him that he was unable to block or dodge. Within seconds, the handle of his Beretta had clocked him on the side of his head and Snake quickly found himself pushed to the ground, the air evacuated from his lungs. Light-headed and dizzy, Snake desperately sucked in air as he scrambled to his feet just in time to see Ahab pointing his pistol at him.
"So, you've chosen death," the mercenary warlord muttered.
But Snake was already scurrying down the walkway and around the closest corner further into the boiler room as Ahab opened fire. He drew his knife, cursing himself. His gambit with the gun was meant to take the Boss by surprise knowing that Big Boss would be the superior CQC combatant in terms of experience, but he hadn't expected the older man to be so fast given his older age.
Snake drew his knife, and after spotting an opening between boilers, he vaulted over the railing of the catwalk onto the concrete below. He carefully threaded his way between the pipes that cluttered the narrow walkways and crawlspaces, ducking low as he stared at the catwalk above and watched Big Boss make his pursuit.
Snake was sweating, adrenaline running through his bloodstream as his heart pounded in his ears. Every instinct he had was demanding that he take action, but he deliberately suppressed the urge to make any sudden movements, tried to keep his breathing steady as he silently followed the older operative from underneath.
After some navigation of the narrow space, Snake found himself emerge into a more open concrete corridor underneath a stairway that fed out from the catwalk above. The corridor was mostly in shadow, lit only by the spinning red emergency lights. He heard the footsteps above as the Boss reached the top of the stairs.
Moving to the side of the stairs, he stayed low in the dark and waited for one of Big Boss's legs to enter his immediate line of sight before stabbing underneath the railing. There was a cry of surprise as the warlord fell forward down the last few steps to the bottom, the confiscated Beretta falling out of his hands as he let go of it to push himself into a roll and use his momentum to recover from the fall.
Snake rushed forward before Big Boss could pick up the handgun and kicked it aside down the hall and tried to drive the knife down into his enemy's chest.
The Boss responded by grabbing Snake's braced forearm and delivering a jab to the opened knife wound near Snake's shoulder. Snake reeled back clutching the area around his collarbone as the wound exploded in pain. Ahab raised a boot to shove Snake off of him.
Snake painfully slammed onto his back, feeling something digging into his back. Realizing what it was, he rolled to his side to grab the Beretta and point it at Big Boss at the same time as Ahab was drawing his own pistol. He squeezed the trigger twice, and Ahab dove forward and to the side to avoid the gunfire and close the distance.
Ahab's fury rained down in a flurry of strikes and Snake found himself barely able to keep up as he blocked the rain of punches to his face and midsection. Seeing a small opening, Snake feinted left, then moved right to dodge the Boss's extended arm and grabbed his bicep to flip him onto his back. As the Boss fell, he grabbed the arm that pushed him down and used it as leverage to spin around on his back and wrap his legs around Snake's shoulder to keep him still as he thrusted the barrel of his pistol into Snake's face. Snake pushed the gun aside while ducking his head to the side as the gun fired, striking Ahab in the head.
There was a yell, and the elder man involuntarily let go while Snake stumbled from the tinnitus. Every sound in the hallway was reduced to a high pitched whining and the dull roar of his blood rushing in his ears. Ahab, for his part, was clutching his forehead, bleeding from the horn, and Snake backed up quickly into the darkness of the tight narrow spaces at the bottom of the boilers while Ahab blindly fired into the concrete hallway.
Snake hid among the thick metal pipes, keeping the Boss in his sights since he could no longer rely on his hearing for as long as the tinnitus kept ringing. Snake clutched at his chest to staunch the wound and found that doing so resulted in a painful creaking in his ribs. He reflexively put the hand to his side as he winced in pain. His body was coming apart at the seams, he realized.
I can't take much more of this, he thought to himself. I need to finish this quickly.
But Big Boss was the better fighter by far, and Snake's injuries weren't doing him any favors with regards to his reaction time, either. He shook his head and thought back to the beginning of his mission, and to his training. If he was going to win this, he needed to stop going for direct confrontation and attack from an oblique indirect angle instead. He looked around in the tight space he occupied to try and figure out what he could use.
Ahead of him, he heard the bootsteps of his opponent. Snake rounded a corner and took a long way around the boiler to circle back to the main path, not bothering to quiet his footsteps. Before turning the corner back to the main walkway, he waited just out of sight behind a tangle of pipes. As he predicted, He heard Big Boss's footsteps quickening their pace from the main junction to try and cut Snake off.
Snake saw the glint of light reflecting from the polished slide of the Boss's firearm, and he reached through a gap in the pipes to grab the Boss's left wrist and yank the mechanical arm into his side, plunging his knife into the Boss's hand to pin it to the nearby wall. The fingers spasmed, releasing sparks as the knife penetrated the hand's casing, getting stuck in it.
Big Boss struggled to pull his mechanical arm back from the pipes for a second before pointing his pistol into the gap, firing into the gaps as Snake lowered himself to scramble away. Snake nearly reached the opposite corner when he heard a louder firing noise, like a cannon. He looked back just in time to see the Boss's forearm came rocketing toward him, palm facing out so that the knife's point would be facing him.
Snake ducked, narrowly missing getting brained by the makeshift projectile. "What the hell," he asked bemusedly while sprinting around the corner as he heard the hunk of plastic and metal bouncing around the hallway behind him.
When he retraced his steps back to the main passage, he looked over his shoulder and saw the Boss barreling his way toward him in a full-on sprint. Without thinking twice, Snake dove between two pipes to find himself next to the stairway again. He tucked and rolled, bringing his Beretta to bear and fire on the pipes just before the Boss reached them. Hot steam billowed out, forcing Ahab to recoil as Snake quickly picked himself back up and sprinted further down the corridor.
Snake checked the magazine for his Beretta. Nine rounds left, including the one in the chamber. He checked his pocket. One more spare magazine.
Snake turned the corner, seeing the hallway ended in a closed bulkhead door, and pressed himself against the wall as he leaned out to check for the pursuing Ahab. After several seconds of no contact, Snake quickly backed up to the bulkhead and started spinning the wheel on the bulkhead door to open it.
Swinging it slightly ajar, Snake crept through the entrance, closing the door behind him, swinging his head and pistol around in every direction as he observed his new surroundings.
It was a large chamber with six steel shipping containers arranged in the middle, uniformly placed and spaced several yards apart from each other. Above, there was a steel catwalk tracing around the exterior walls with four more bulkheads at each corner of the room next to long windows into more concrete corridors. The catwalks connected to the ground with metal ladders, and across the room with steel bridges and railings reinforced with low metal walls.
Snake looked at the containers—a few of them were open, and inside he found stacked wooden crates, many of which were opened to reveal various types of ordnance. He'd found himself in some kind of ammunition depot.
Before he could properly enter and examine the contents of one of the containers, he heard a piercing whistling sound and reflexively dove into one of the containers to narrowly dodge an explosive projectile slamming into the ground behind him.
Chunks of shrapnel flew from the air at high speeds both from the projectile's casing and from pieces torn from the sides of the container. Snake dropped to the ground and covered his head with his arms as he pressed himself against the walls to minimize the chance of getting shredded himself.
Once the explosion subsided, he lifted his head and pulled himself into a crouch to look out one of the freshly made holes in the containers walls. On one of the upper catwalks, he saw Big Boss, prosthetic hand reattached and hauling a short portable missile launcher over his shoulder.
Snake took aim towards Ahab and fired three rounds through the hole, forcing his adversary to back away from the railing. Not wasting any time, Snake continued to move down the length of the container and sprinted into the next one across.
He heard the slamming open of multiple doors, and the sound of approaching footsteps. Snake looked around the container he was in and grabbed a Heckler & Koch MP5 from one of the open crates, taking up a defensive position around one of the container's open doors in time to see more Outer Heaven troopers filing in and taking positions along the exterior railing. Some troopers were sliding down the ladders and moving among the containers in an attempt to flush him out.
He'd found himself hemmed inside of a kill box.
Snake looked up above. The room was lit by hanging fluorescent lights. Snake took aim at the bulbs with his pistol and shattered as many lights as possible that were in reach, plunging his side of the chamber into darkness.
As Snake haphazardly scurried around the exterior of the chamber to the next container over while waiting for his eyes to adjust to the new lighting condition, he heard somebody call for NODs. Snake cursed to himself, pulling out his lighter as he crept into the open container above him.
He snapped the lighter, illuminating the contents of the container for scant few seconds just long enough to identify the materials in there with him. Just as quickly, he snapped the lighter closed, hoping that the glow didn't last long enough to give away his position.
Snake grabbed a satchel from one of the crates, as well as a couple of frag grenades that he hurriedly stuffed into his pockets. He poked his head out from the open doors of the opposite side of the container and ducked back in just as a hail of bullets rained down on his position. He pulled the pins on both grenades and tossed them around the corner before running back the way he came.
Drawing his Beretta, Snake blind-fired behind him four times, then primed and tossed the satchel charge behind him. As soon as he'd heard the footsteps in the container after he'd left it, he pressed the button on the detonator, exploding the container and its contents. He dove behind the adjacent container to protect himself from the shrapnel.
Circling back around, he spotted the body of a dead trooper and pulled the helmet with the attached night vision goggles off of the head to strap it onto his own.
"Time to even the playing field," he muttered as he flipped the NODs down over his eyes.
The chamber was cast in a washed-out green glow. He stayed between the containers, careful to keep him out of sight of the troopers on the catwalk. Let them come to me, he thought to himself.
He holstered the Beretta and raised the MP5, unfolding its detachable stock to brace against his shoulder. With only the one magazine, he had just thirty rounds to work with, so he needed to make it count unless or until he could find more in the containers.
Glancing into an undamaged container, he noted what looked like small steel toolboxes. He ran up to one, quickly opening it and retrieving a flare, which he tucked into his belt. He turned around just in time to see a few more mercs with night vision turning the corner around the opposite container and put himself behind one of the doors for cover as he opened up on them.
Bullets tore through the bodies of two men and the remaining two returned fire as they took up defensive positions behind the corrugated steel walls. Snake moved to advance, only to find his forearm grabbed by another merc sneaking around the side.
The merc raised his knee to Snake's groin, and Snake was forced to use his free hand to check the blow. Thinking quickly, Snake grabbed the flare and struck his opponent in the head, loosening his grip. He then screwed his eyes shut and tore off the flare's cap before shoving the lit end into the merc's face, sending him reeling in pain as his flesh was seared. Snake yanked the NODs off of his head before opening his eyes again.
The mercenaries with NODs were forced to lift up their goggles, blinking the spots from their eyes. Taking advantage of this sudden blindness, Snake expended the rest of the ammunition in his MP5 cutting down the rest of the troopers.
Snake heard a series of beeps and looked back up toward the balconies to see Ahab launching three small micro missiles that sailed up into the air and then suddenly shifted direction to home in on Snake's location. He took a chance and scooped up the still burning flare and tossed it a short distance away before diving in the opposite direction between the exterior wall and the wrecked container.
Two of the missiles changed direction toward the flare, while the third hit the ground where Snake was standing seconds ago. The updraft from the explosion increased Snake's momentum as he dove, sending him rolling some distance.
Snake coughed, his ribs creaking as he wheezed. He shook his head as he tried to regain his senses. He hoped he didn't have (or more likely, that he wasn't worsening an already existing) concussion. He was losing ground and running out of tricks. He needed to finish this, one way or another.
Snake raised his head and saw that he'd rolled within spitting distance of a ladder that was thankfully in a darker area of the room. He picked himself up, drew his Beretta, and got to climbing.
After he got to the top, he had to quickly duck to narrowly avoid getting scalped by an incoming bullet. He blind fired over the edge, then hauled himself up onto the catwalk, spending the last two bullets in his magazine to put down two more troopers.
As quickly as he could, Snake crawled on the catwalk behind the steel barrier under the railing to give himself a moment to reload his last mag. Just as he pulled back the slide to load the chamber, he was met with the sight of Ahab sprinting at an absurdly high speed around the corner ahead of him, carrying one of the Outer Heaven custom rifles.
Ahab stopped briefly in his tracks to throw an object that Snake couldn't see and then raised his rifle to fire a round at the object at the top of its arc. Snake could only look on dumbfounded as somehow the damned thing changed its trajectory and somehow moved toward him even faster.
What the hell? Snake thought to himself.
Snake wasn't sure what it was Ahab threw, but he knew that it didn't matter: he rolled back around the corner and sprinted along the catwalk to the opposite side of the room into the waiting arms of the last three Outer Heaven troopers.
Immediately as Snake heard the explosion behind him, Snake raised his pistol to take shots at the mercs, firing six shots, five of which killed two troopers outright while the sixth bullet pierced the third merc's shoulder to prevent him from raising his rifle. The merc opted to not even try, choosing instead to drop the rifle entirely and draw his combat knife.
The enemy lunged at Snake with the blade, who dodged to the merc's other side, not seeing the feint. The trooper grabbed the wrist of Snake's gun hand and pulled, stabbing toward Snake's carotid artery. Snake kept moving with the trooper's pull, using his own momentum to swing around out of the enemy's stabbing motion, getting his bicep sliced up for his trouble.
Snake then stepped forward with his left foot, moving inward toward the enemy's body to give him less room for the knife that was outside of both their personal bubbles, and then raised his free arm to slam the side of his elbow into the troopers' forehead. This gave Snake the few milliseconds he needed to curve his arm around the merc's neck and pull it back while he swept the leg, sending the Outer Heaven soldier to the ground.
Snake wasted no time, drawing his own knife and plunging it into the enemy's neck and raising his Beretta to point ahead of him as once again Ahab was sprinting toward him. Ahab threw another object which beaned Snake in the head before he could react and within seconds the older man was striking the younger's chest and abdomen.
Before Snake knew it, he had tripped backward over the trooper's body and found himself lying on his back. He reached for his pistol, only to have Ahab kick it away. Ahab reached forward with his prosthetic, and Snake realized that Ahab must have grabbed a new hand, because this one was a different much brighter color, and had the fingertips removed in favor of some kind of small nubs on the ends of the digits.
Of course, Snake quickly realized what the nubs were for when the hand flexed open, and the fingers crackled brightly with lightning. Snake grabbed the wrist and forearm with both hands, trying to push to keep the electric current running from the fingertips from making contact with his body.
He flailed with his feet, but Big Boss was already lowered over his torso, leaving Snake with nothing to kick. Snake felt with his foot that his lower half was on top of the merc he'd just killed. The head of the body and the knife stuck in the neck just out of Snake's reach. He didn't want to let go of the arm and risk getting shocked, but his arms were getting tired. It was only a few seconds before that stun arm of the Boss's made contact with Snake's chest.
Snake tried to use his leverage to push himself downward and slide between Ahab's legs. He scooted a couple of inches before his adversary dropped his knee painfully onto Snake's gut, pinning him as Ahab used his flesh and blood forearm to put pressure on Snake's neck.
Snake coughed, twisting his neck to keep his Adam's apple form getting crushed as he tucked in his chin to try and keep the Boss's arm from cutting the circulation in his neck. He felt just a slight bit weaker as the shock hand came dangerously closer to him.
The small distance Snake slid before being pinned down was just enough for Snake to feel the knife in the dead merc's neck with his feet. Grunting, Snake used his feet to wrench the knife upward toward them both, sending it clattering next to Snake. Hoping that any shock he experiences will be non-lethal, Snake used one hand to let go of Ahab's prosthetic to grab the knife and stabbed Big Boss in the leg just as the stun hand made contact, sending electrical shocks through them both.
Ahab fell off of Snake, and the two men gasped in pain as they both tried to regain their senses. Snake pulled himself up onto his elbows and dragged himself back toward his pistol. Grabbing the Beretta, Snake swung back around to face Ahab, who was already hobbling away as he aimed at him with his own sidearm.
Snake pushed up the merc's body as a makeshift meat shield and fired from the ground over the body at the same time that Ahab did. Snake ducked his head behind his shield, feeling one of the bullets Ahab fired tear through the outer flesh of his arm. He heard a yell as he hit Ahab, sending the remaining bullets Ahab fired his way sailing over his head.
Snake heard the sound of one of the bulkheads opening and lifted himself up to see Ahab nursing a new wound in his thigh. Snake grabbed the empty magazine from the ground that Ahab had thrown at him earlier and chucked it straight at the older man's head.
The chunk of steel glanced off of Ahab's horn, making the warlord turn and slam his head in the doorway. Rather than fight back, Ahab continued on, disappearing through the aperture. Snake limped on after him.
The corridors were dark, lit only with red and yellow hazard lights. Snake looked down as he passed through the threshold and saw that his prey had left droplets of blood scattered on the floor as he retreated. Snake tore off his sleeve and tightly tied it around the bullet wound in his arm.
As Snake slowly made his way forward, breathing heavily, he heard a voice sound on the intercom, echoing through the empty concrete passageway:
"ATTENTION. ATTENTION. All personnel are to evacuate from Outer Heaven, effective immediately. Repeat: all personnel are to evacuate from Outer Heaven immediately. Enemy aerial ordnance incoming from south-by-southwest. Expected arrival in T-minus ninety minutes."
Snake stopped as he thought about these words. Did FOXHOUND order the air strike? Was it to cover up Big Boss's involvement or were there people actually loyal in FOXHOUND's camp? Snake shook his head. An hour wasn't as much time as it sounded. He needed to finish this and get out.
Snake was bathed in the dim red emergency lighting as he followed the blood trail. Big Boss was a few paces ahead of him, his forehead bleeding profusely from his horn. He constantly had to wipe blood from his head to keep it from getting into his eyes.
Snake stepped forward, and Big Boss froze, quickly spinning around to point his gun at him. Ahab fired and Snake quickly moved out of the way. But the Boss's aim was already bad to begin with, and the bullet whizzed right past him.
Snake almost ran into an empty doorway, before he noticed that Ahab was wildly pointing his pistol in different directions. It was like Ahab couldn't see him, even though he was staring right at Snake. Had he been blinded somehow? Snake walked slowly forward under the crimson light, being careful to make no sound. He aimed his Beretta and fired twice. One bullet winged Ahab in the shoulder, and he fell straight through a hall window into what Snake saw to be a med bay.
Snake rushed forward away from the light as Ahab dragged himself painfully across the floor of broken glass leaving a streak of blood behind him. As Snake reached the open window, Big Boss turned, his eye focused on Snake as he raised his gun, clearly able to see him. Snake dropped to the floor mere seconds before the bullets went flying, feeling the wind from their wake over his head.
He heard Big Boss's grunting as he crawled across the floor. All that glass couldn't have been comfortable.
"You've got nowhere to go, Ahab," Snake taunted.
He heard gasping and grunting as Big Boss pulled himself bodily from the floor. There was crashing in the med bay. Had he fallen? Or broken something he used for leverage, maybe?
Snake moved up over the bottom of the busted window. Big Boss was gone. The blood trail led out another door. Snake kicked some of the remaining glass out off of the windowsill and vaulted himself into the room.
Crunching was heard under Snake's footsteps as he slowly stalked the red trail before him. He tried to keep his breathing steady even as the adrenaline moved through his bloodstream. He peeked out the open door, and ducked back as shots were fired.
Snake blind fired once around the doorway, then advanced and let off another couple of shots towards the retreating form of his old mentor as it dashed back into the shadows down the hall. Both missed.
Snake half-limped, half-jogged down the corridor, turning the corner to see Big Boss clutching a crimson splotch on his thigh. Snake aimed his Beretta, his vision defocusing slightly in the amber lighting.
No, don't lose it now…
A bullet ripped through Big Boss's mid-section, making him stumble. A second winged him in the shoulder just under the collarbone, and the momentum caused the warlord to spin in a macabre pirouette as he sailed to the ground.
Snake stepped into the red light before him while Ahab feebly used his prosthetic arm to crawl slowly backwards to the wall at the end of the corridor where it split into a T-junction. Ahab raised his pistol to aim at Snake. Snake tensed, ready to dodge, but Ahab was aiming nowhere near where Snake was. Two piercing shots rang out, bullets whizzing right by Snake on either side.
The slide on Ahab's pistol locked, the magazine having run dry. He sighed and let his hand with the gun drop to the ground.
Snake walked forward calmly, confidently. There was no need to be cautious anymore.
"All this running," Snake said, "never would have pegged you as a coward, Boss. Then again, I never would have thought you to be a liar and a traitor, either."
Snake stopped walking just a couple of paces in front of the dying man, looming over him. He lowered himself into a squat, so he could look straight into Big Boss's eyes while they talked. Ahab, for his part, said nothing, his eye staring into Snake's soul.
It looked empty, hollow. Almost unfocused. Ahab's skin was rapidly becoming a sallow pale color. If it wasn't for Ahab's shallow breathing and light coughing up of red splatters, Snake would have almost thought he was already dead.
Snake scowled, pressing the barrel of his gun against Ahab's chest. "So, this your whole gimmick, Ahab? Bring in young, impressionable idiots, train them into monsters with delusions of grandeur, and then send them into the meat grinder when it's convenient? That the idea?"
Ahab's eye focused and bore into Snake's face with a glare full of venom.
"Who else is in on it?" Snake demanded. "Did Gray Fox know about you? What about Commander Miller? Anyone else in FOXHOUND, or in the Pentagon? Or are you just a lone opportunist, giving dumb kids like me empty promises of valor and glory?"
"Glory?" Ahab coughed. "There's no glory to be found out here on the battlefield. What there is to be found here, what I gave them, my men…was a sense of purpose—a reason. To fight, to live…and to die." Ahab sighed. "All I did was give my men that which was taken from them by their homelands…a purpose. Same as what you found with FOXHOUND."
Ahab grimaced and leaned his head back to rest it against the wall. "Ironically, I was giving them the one thing I couldn't have for myself."
Snake's biting retort was caught in his throat and what leaked out between his teeth instead was curiosity: "What do you mean?"
"I'm saying my people fought for themselves, and for their own sense of purpose. I fight because I was put here by someone else. A discarded tool for someone else's war." Ahab broke out into another coughing fit. "At the end of the day, I'm not much different from you," he sighed.
"I'm nothing like you," Snake growled, drawing himself up to his full height.
Ahab chuckled, sending more red droplets down his chin in rivulets. His grey-blue eye sparked with dark amusement, and the spark hidden behind the cascade of blood and his pitch-black iron horn completed the picture of a demon comfortable in his element.
The Demon's lips pulled back in a toothy smile, which looked unnatural on the scarred, perpetually tired visage. "No?" he said, staring Snake down. "A lone soldier, sent on a suicide mission in enemy territory, meeting with a ramshackle rebel army of a losing war. You win against unbeatable odds and inspire them to believe that their lost cause is actually winnable and make yourself into a leader of men giving them purpose and the second wind necessary to keep fighting by giving them an example, a hero to unite them."
Snake shook his head defiantly. "I'm not a hero. The Rebels already had a leader: his name is Kyle Schneider. They didn't need me."
The Demon laughed again. "They were already dying. It was only a matter of time before Outer Heaven ground them into dust. Maybe it would've taken days. Maybe weeks. But it was soon. That was before you came along. Without you to intervene inspire them, their end was a foregone conclusion.
You can tell yourself you're not a hero or an icon. But that won't make it true. The moment you started freeing their prisoners, you gave them hope and reignited their sense of purpose. But you, Snake, you're different from them. They already had a reason to fight and die, they had a cause to kill for before you came along—all you did was give them direction. But you had no such purpose. You're only here because someone else ordered you to be."
The Demon tried to shrug and wince. The humor in his empty smile failed to reach his eye as he continued, "And so you see, you are no different from me—we're both pawns who stained themselves with blood to reach the other side of the board and in so doing, we got elevated to royalty to lead other pieces into battle. The only difference between you and I is that I have seen the hands of the players who direct us. I tried to rebel, to take control of the game and seize something for myself and my army, but, well…" he gestured vaguely around him with a limp arm, as if to say, 'look where that got me.'
"But at the end of the game, you're still just a pawn, Snake," the Demon finished. "A janitor sent to clean up someone else's mess. Nothing more."
Overhead, the intercom blared into the empty halls: "ATTENTION. ATTENTION. Enemy aerial ordnance incoming from the south; Intel Team has confirmed that ordnance includes Bunker Busting bombs. Enemy engagement is not advised. All personnel are to evacuate from Outer Heaven, effective immediately. Repeat: all personnel are to evacuate from Outer Heaven immediately. Expected arrival in T-minus sixty minutes."
The Demon grunted, raising a hand to point to Snake's left to a bulkhead at the end of the hall. "There's a ladder that will take you to a stairwell leading to a parking garage. The garage opens into the northbound tunnel away from the complex. Here…"
The Demon unclipped a square metal and plastic brick from his belt and held it out for Snake to take. "The button on that device will open a holographic map that will help you navigate away from the base. The battery's life is low, but there should be enough juice left to get you to the nearest town."
Snake looked from the device to the dying man before him. "Why are you giving me this? Why are you helping me?"
"Think of it as a gesture of respect; a gift from one blood-stained monster to another." The Demon's eye flutters. His breathing becomes shallower. "Look at me. I'm not making it out of here, no matter what I do. Metal Gear is disabled, soon to be destroyed along with all the evidence of what I tried to build. If you manage to survive, then there'll be at least one person left to remember us."
Snake raised his Beretta, pointing it at Ahab's chest. The words come out dripping with hatred: "No one's going to remember you."
He squeezed the trigger once, then twice. Then he kept squeezing until his last four bullets were spent and the slide locked open. His finger kept squeezing, like some kind of reflex. It took him until Ahab's body slumped to the side and his head hit the ground before he realized no more shots were forthcoming. The pistol dropped from his hand, the thud of its impact on the linoleum floor barely reaching Snake's ears.
Ahab's fingers flexed, as if feebly attempting to reach for something that Snake couldn't see. The last breath hissed out from Ahab's lips, loosing a word that almost went unheard by Snake:
"Quiet…."
The light died in Ahab's eye. The Demon is dead.
Big Boss is dead.
Snake clipped the electronic device that he had been given to his belt and loped left down the T-junction to the open bulkhead door at the end of the hall. Just like Big Boss had told him, there was a tall steel ladder going straight up a shaft above, leading to a short metal stairwell.
Snake didn't have time to think: the bombing run would occur in a little over thirty-seven minutes. He wiped the blood on his palms off onto his pants to improve his grip and clambered up the vertical path as fast as could before limping painfully up the two flights of stairs. The emergency exit door led out into a parking garage.
There was a small handful of guards rushing about, loading up onto Jeeps, transport trucks and 4x4s. A man raced out of a guard station and spotted Snake, running up to him.
"What team are you with?" the guard demanded, looking the injured Snake up and down.
Oh, right, Snake thought. He was still wearing the camo pants and undershirt of the Outer Heaven uniform from when he'd infiltrated the R&D building. The guard must have thought Snake was part of the defending teams ordered in by Ahab to protect Metal Gear, given his injuries.
Snake tried to think up some kind of excuse, some sort of believable story to keep this guard from gunning him down where he stood, but nothing came out of his mouth except a strangled grunt followed by a hissing gasp as he grabbed at one of his many open wounds, trying to keep pressure on.
The guard shook his head. "We don't have time. We've got bombers coming in. Are you good to drive, or should I find you a spot on one of the trucks?"
"I should be okay to drive," Snake said, feeling relief wash over him as he allowed himself to just go with the flow of the conversation. "Give me one of the Jeeps or ATVs, and I'll take up the rear guard."
The guard nodded, heading back towards the guard station.
"And hey," Snake called out. The guard looked back quizzically, impatient.
"A gun, too," Snake hedged. "I ran out of ammo and had to ditch mine."
"The Rebels gave you trouble?" the guard asked.
Snake nodded. The movement hurt, and his face was pained as he answered honestly, "It was a meat grinder."
Snake frowned. That was the second time he'd used that expression today. For some reason he couldn't understand, it irritated him. He shook his head to discard the inane train of thought. He needed to focus—the blood loss must be getting to him, he thought to himself.
The guard nodded sympathetically and trotted into the guard station, coming out with an MP5 and a key ring. He tossed the key to Snake, who caught it with one hand, and handed the submachine gun to Snake, who gingerly draped the strap over his shoulders. The guard gestured to an ATV waiting nearby.
"Take that one and follow closely behind. If we get separated, rendezvous at Sakrivier Railway Station to the north."
Snake nodded. "Got it. Thanks."
Snake mounted the ATV 4x4, inserted the key, then gunned the engine. He followed the makeshift convoy of Outer Heaven evacuees to the shutters, which the guard station quickly opened up. The convoy peeled out into the wide open tunnel, the vehicles spreading out across each side and gunning their engines as fast as they could go without running into each other.
Snake never really thought of himself as a religious person, but he found himself in that moment praying that the Rebels had all managed to successfully evacuate to safety as he twisted the throttle of the ATV. But there was no way of knowing for sure until Snake got above ground to use the radio.
As promised, Snake took up a rear guard position while following the convoy, finding himself joined by two other ATVs. Outnumbered and injured, he hoped to keep blending in as long as possible until they at least exited the tunnels. By then, he needed to find an opportunity to separate from the group so that he could contact Kyle and Gray Fox and determine everyone's status.
In ten minutes, the convoy had reached the tunnel's exit, which deposited them onto a dirt highway running northward roughly parallel to the western river. Snake slowed down a little to let the other vehicles ahead of him gain a substantial lead on him, then abruptly turned off his headlights and turned right off the road down a hill in the general direction of the eastern mountains and hills. He chanced a look behind him to see that the convoy continued on without him as far as he could tell, then turned the handlebars to drive himself underneath the branches of a tree out of sight.
Snake turned on his radio. He only had at most twenty minutes left. He tuned into Kyle's frequency.
"Architect, this is Solid Snake. Come in."
He was met with the buzz of radio static.
"Architect, do you read?"
Once again there was no response. Snake changed frequencies.
"Gray Fox, this is Solid Snake. I've got intel that says they've started the bombing run. Estimated time out is twenty mikes. Did you and Architect successfully extract from the kill zone?"
Snake didn't hear if there was a response. He had just tuned the frequency to the wider Rebel band when a flash of light erupted behind him. Snake whirled around, saw a few ATVs and a Jeep with the roof detached that had broken off from the convoy idling at the crest of the hill overlooking him. The tree obscured his face even as the area was bathed in light.
"Hey," one of the drivers called out. "What are you doing down there? Bombers'll be here any minute, and we're still danger close!"
Snake couldn't say he was making a call, or they would get suspicious. Better to play dumb.
"I, uh, I had to stop and take a leak," Snake said stupidly.
"In the middle of an evacuation?" the driver replied incredulously.
"…Yes?" Snake said, waving them away. "Look, I'll meet you at the RV. Just go on without me."
"We're not going to leave you behind, you fucking idiot. Just hold it till we get there!"
Snake thought he could hear engines in the distance. He didn't have time for this. He turned on his ATV and pulled back the throttle on the handlebars. The troopers cried out and started to pursue him. Snake didn't know if he was made or not, but he had to assume he was, given that he was still injured and covered in blood.
He reached around and grabbed the MP5 hanging from his shoulder straps. When he found a bit of unobstructed path in front of him, he whirled back and extended his left arm to open fire on the ATV troopers.
They cursed as they evaded the clumsy gunfire. Snake haphazardly juggled aiming the MP5 and maintaining a steady course on his vehicle. He took out a couple of drivers, leaving one ATV and the Jeep. The passengers of the Jeep started returning fire, and Snake was forced to take evasive maneuvers between the rocks and acacia trees and bushes he passed along with the wildly varying elevation.
As he traveled, Snake continued to shout into the radio. "This is Solid Snake broadcasting to all Rebel forces in the Outer Heaven AO. I am currently being pursued by enemy forces while en route to evac. I have received intel stating that either government or NATO forces have organized a bombing run of the area. The AO is now unsafe. If you haven't evacuated, get the hell out of Dodge now!"
Snake ducked to avoid both enemy fire and ducked again to narrowly avoid getting clotheslined by a low-hanging branch. Out of nowhere, the enemy ATV swerved out from behind a nearby boulder and tried to ram him.
Snake hit the brakes to dodge, getting tailgated by the Jeep. Snake let go of the handlebars as the Jeep rear-ended him, sending himself flying into the windshield. He gripped the edge of the passenger's side of the windshield for dear life, trying desperately to pull himself to his feet.
He could see the passengers in the backseat unsteadily attempting to stand and level their weapons at him. He ducked behind the windshield as they fired a short burst, then swung himself to cling to the passenger-side, his right hand free to aim his MP5 over the doors and clumsily cut down the occupants.
One of the backseat passengers' head exploded and the momentum sent his body flying out over the spare tire in the back out into the night. The other got winged in the shoulder and dropped his gun. The driver pulled out a pistol and aimed at Snake, and Snake weaved to his left and hauled himself over the doors into the backseat.
He grabbed the passenger's gun hand and kicked him under the chin to send him bodily sailing over the opposite door, then swung the barrel of his MP5 to knock the pistol out of the hand of the driver. The ATV rider drove up along the side of the Jeep to aim at Snake, forcing him to crouch into the floorboard.
The Jeep driver swung the wheel erratically, trying to make Snake lose his balance and throw him out of the vehicle. Snake fell over into the front passenger seat, repeatedly kicking his right foot into the driver's head and torso while he fumbled at the floorboards for the pistol with one hand and trying to protect his groin from return strikes with the other.
Snake managed to get a firm grip on the fallen Beretta, and the driver yanked the wheel to the side as he leaned away from Snake's boot.
The Jeep swerved into a ditch which caught the left front wheel and caused the car to tip over, dumping both Snake and the driver out rolling into the dirt. The enemy ATV swung in a wide radius around the fallen vehicle while Snake, still maintaining his death grip on the pistol, painfully pushed himself up into a crouch and fired at the ATV, bursting one of the tires and sending ATV and rider down a steep slope into the river.
Without missing a beat, Snake limped toward the Jeep driver, who was writhing on the ground and finished him off with a bullet to the head.
Snake leaned against the wrecked Jeep, breathing hard. In the distance, he heard engines to the south. The bombers were fast approaching. He tuned the radio to the Rebel frequency.
"Solid Snake to South African Resistance. I can hear the bombers in the distance. Please confirm status. Architect, did you and your people make it out okay?"
No response. The sound of the planes was getting louder.
"Snake to Gray Fox, please confirm status of Rebel evac. Did you all make it out?"
Still nothing more than white noise. The low roar of the bombers was getting louder. Snake could see the navigation lights on the planes' wingtips appearing on the horizon.
"All Rebels, respond," Snake shouted desperately. "Architect! Fox! Luke! Imke! Somebody talk to me! Is anybody on this line!? Kyle, answer me, goddammit!"
There was a crackle on the radio. A hushed whisper was heard, garbled by some interference.
"This is Imke," said the voice.
"Imke," Snake said in relief. "The bombers are here. Please tell me you're all okay. Where's Architect and Fox?"
"They're both here," Imke said. "We're okay. We're alive. But, Snake—Kyle and Fox are—"
The static returned to muffle whatever it was she was saying.
"Say again, Imke?"
The static cleared. "—loaded on-Kyle is unconscious. Fox is—"
The planes were now directly over Outer Heaven. They dipped in altitude. The navigation lights were all that Snake could see in the darkness of the night sky, but he could feel them getting ready to drop their payloads.
"—too late. Get out of here, Snake. Save yourself," Imke finished.
Alarm bells rang in Snake's head. "Imke, are you and the rest of the Rebels still on the base?" Snake demanded.
"We'll be okay, Snake. Stop worrying about us and get out while you can."
No, no, no, no….
Snake, feeling panicked, tried in vain to try to lift up the Jeep, as if his strength alone could get it back on its wheels so he could drive himself back to Outer Heaven and go rescue the Rebels personally.
"Don't you fucking dare give up, Imke," Snake growled.
A light lit up in the distance. The ground shook, and Snake could hear rumbling as buildings collapsed. He could see Outer Heaven lit up like a birthday candle. The nav lights he saw moved away from the base.
Maybe the Rebels didn't get caught in the blast. Snake hailed Imke again. "Rebel Teams, what's your status? Please tell me you were able to get to safety. There was coughing on the other line, and the sound of something loud. An engine? Were they driving a convoy?
"Snake," Imke whispered. "I won't be able to stay on the line much longer…"
The nav lights turned around and started to move back toward Outer Heaven. They were making another pass. Snake's blood froze solid, and his teeth clenched. He found himself unable to respond, his tongue turning into a lump of coal in his mouth.
"Snake…Thank you."
Once again, the ground shook. Snake fell to his knees. The only thing he could see was the towering flame in the distance signaled the death knell of everyone Snake had promised to see make it through the battle. The radio had once more turned to static.
"Imke," Snake called out. There was no answer.
"Architect, respond! Fox, do you read me?! Luke, answer me! Loyiso, please pick up. All Rebels, this is Solid Snake! Please respond!"
Snake punched the ground. "Talk to me, damn you!"
The white noise continued to buzz. There was no reply.
Snake, in a fit of rage and grief, picked up a nearby tire iron that had fallen out of the Jeep, and began savagely swinging at the Jeep's metal carcass. The rear view mirrors snapped free, the windshield shattered and folded out of its mount. The metal doors were dented, the taillights smashed, the seats were torn.
Snake kept beating the vehicle over and over, trying to wrench some kind of satisfaction from the violence, but it all felt so impotent. When he couldn't do it anymore, Snake flung the tire iron as far as his injured arms could throw it, and the momentum sent him spinning and tumbling to the ground. He screamed, and the hoarseness of his voice rendered him quiet against the sound of the distant explosions and flames, ensuring that even the primal anguish from his vocal cords couldn't properly express itself.
Snake rolled over onto his back, and all he saw was the night sky, lit by Outer Heaven's destruction, which served to cruelly hammer home what he knew to be the truth: no one else had made it out.
Snake was completely and utterly alone.
A/N: I'm back, after a bit of a break, and here we have Outer Heaven celebrating 4th of July weekend with some fireworks! I kid, I kid.
So, in all seriousness, I had some difficulty with trying to figure out the Big Boss final boss fight and trying to find a way to keep the stakes up enough the whole time so that the momentum would keep moving throughout the whole first half of the chapter or so. I gave him Outer Heaven mobs to assist, and figured I'd have Ahab pull out all the stops-his rocket arm, the Honey Bee MANPAD, the stun arm, his CQC. I wanted to make it clear that in a straight-up fight Ahab would have Snake beat, so Snake would have to rely on his own wits and cleverness plus a little bit of luck in order to win. In keeping with Metal Gear boss fight tradition, I gave Ahab his own dying speech that was designed to mostly go over Snake's head, but would have enough details in it to make fans of MGSV pay attention. Here's hoping I was able to do Ahab justice here. Honestly, this was one of the more challenging chapters to write for, even though it's one of my shortest.
This essentially marks the end of the canon events from the original Metal Gear MSX game, which means for the rest of the fic we're back into original fiction territory much like what we had in the first six and a half chapters. From here, we're going to chronicle Snake's journey out of South Africa and back to the States to tie up some loose ends. Don't worry, there's still plenty of story left to tell. When I got to around Chapter Seventeen, I started writing notes mapping out the rest of this fic, and I put it as having about six more chapters left-either that, or five more chapters and an epilogue. Since I'm averaging out about one to two chapters a month, I hope to have this monster of a fic writing project finished and done by the end of this year, if not sooner.
Tune in in hopefully a few weeks for Chapter 20, where Snake has to figure out what to do now that he's made it out of Outer Heaven alone with no real backup left.