Abdul paused as he approached the generator.

There wasn't anything obviously wrong, it even looked like it still had fuel, it had just shut off.

"{Restarting generator,}" he called into his radio, stepping forward to press the button and restart the generator.

Only for someone to grab him from behind, an arm wrapped around his neck.

"{Tell me about the outpost,}" a rough voice asked in his ear.

He broke and told the stranger everything.

The arms tightened, cutting off his air.

And everything went black.

]

Snake let the soldier to the floor.

Not particularly gently, but certainly not roughly enough to wake him up again.

He hadn't learned a lot about the outpost, compared to what he'd already scouted, but everything could be useful.

He considered what the soldier had told him as he placed an explosive on the generator.

The commanding officer apparently never left his office unless a patrol specifically requested him, to make sure they hadn't quietly removed him, and the prison was currently empty, two points he couldn't have been sure of without checking the rooms himself.

While the officer preferred the soldiers not to disturb him while he 'working', the soldiers complying by keeping as clear of the room as possible, he was certain to notice anyone entering his room.

Snake checked his equipment, and made a plan.

]

Marmout had been very proud when he was chosen to act as an officer in the movement.

And then he was assigned to this outpost in the middle of nowhere, and all that pride faded.

He made the most of his position, taking charge of everyone he was assigned and making sure they didn't disturb his important work getting himself out of there.

Which, unfortunately, relied on the generator running.

"{How long until the generator is back online,}" he snapped into his radio.

"{Abduls on it, sir, but he's no mechanic. Might take a while.}"

"{No excuses, get the generator working!}"

"{Sir, I'm no better with machinery than Abdul. And if it was something he couldn't handle, he'd call it in. Give him a minute.}"

Marmout grumbled to himself as the radio went silent, unhappy with the incompetents he was assigned.

A feeling that crystalised as the door started to creak open.

"{If you're free to bother me, you can-}"

There was a blinding flash and deafening sound from near the door, leaving Marmout stunned for long enough that the figure outside could grab him into a sleeper hold without resistance.

]

Snake checked the officer with his scope out of vague curiosity as he set an explosive in the mans office.

"Huh, E-ranked in all fields. Remarkably terrible," he muttered to himself.

It did somewhat answer the question about why he had made the decisions he had, not to mention how his subordinates didn't exactly appreciate working for him.

It did, on the other hand, raise the question of how he'd been promoted to commanding officer.

If this had been the American army, or otherwise connected to a stable country, he'd expect it was political, the excuse for certain generals he remembered running into while in their employ. Out here, though, they didn't have the same level of background politics, and had far more opportunities to be rid of incompetents.

Or maybe he was simply good enough at taking credit for other peoples work to get the position, and something of a folk hero.

He couldn't be sure without taking the man back to Mother Base, but that wouldn't exactly be good use of the fultons he had with him.

In any case, the mystery of the incompetent officer could wait, it was time to clear the rest of the outpost.

]

It was a dark night, especially now that the generator had broken down again, and Azeem was rather unhappy to be stuck patrolling.

Before the 'recruiters' had grabbed him from the village and told them he was now part of their fight, he'd been early to wake and early to bed.

But for some reason, everyone with seniority over him seemed to delight in giving him night shifts, whenever even vaguely justifiable.

It was leaving him exhausted, and Azeem was certain he was going to make some major mistake soon enough, possibly one that would get at least one person in the outpost killed.

But it might not be him getting killed, and trying to slack off or argue would only serve to get himself punishment, so he kept walking, continuing his route towards the AA radar truck.

It took a moment for him to register a noise from the batteries, and raise his torch to try and see the area better.

"{Is someone there,}" he called, not really expecting anything, and more keen on letting the village kid who was almost certainly proving their bravery to their friends get away than catch a theoretical saboteur.

The beam ran over the battery, illuminating the machinery, the wall of the building behind them, a crouching figure aiming a pistol, a few scrubs in the dirt-

The tranquiliser left him on the floor before he even registered what he had seen.

]

Snake dragged the soldier into cover.

He had underestimated the mans hearing, thinking he had time to place an explosive on the truck and get into position to surprise him, but instead the soldier had brought his torch up and Snake had to improvise.

It had worked out, but if the soldier had better reflexes it could have gone kuch more badly, possibly alerting the remaining members of the outpost.

"We'll have to train your reflexes properly," Snake informed the soldier, already seeing him as a future member of the combat group.

After all, if he could hear Snake placing the explosive from that far away, he would be an asset for stealth missions.

But that was in the future, clearing the outpost was his current responsibility.

]

In theory communications officer was an important job, one requiring him to be alert at all times.

In theory.

When the generator was acting up, this wasn't quite the case.

Fiddling with the dashboard in front of him did nothing, the switches, dials and toggles that would affect the flow of electricity within the machinery doing nothing without the generator, beyond making some noise.

The difference in tone between the controls inspired him to a brief attempt at composing a makeshift tune, but that wasn't enough to hold his attention for long.

He sighed and leaned back, relaxing and putting himself in the perfect place to be choked into unconsciousness, leaving plenty of opportunity for a visitor to place an explosive device on his electronic charge.

]

"{The lights should be back on by now, surely?}"

"{I didn't think you agreed with the commandant on anything.}"

"{Screw you, just because he's an arsehole doesn't stop him from having a point now and then. I'm going to check on the generator.}"

"{What about your patrol?}"

"{It's basically on my route. I can help Abdul get things working and return to schedule before he notices.}"

"{If he does, I'm telling him it was all your idea. I'm not letting you drag me down with you.}"

He watched his… friend? Colleague? Split off on his patrol, and followed his own past one of the dark alleys between buildings, only to spot something out the corner of his eye.

He turned quickly, bringing his torch to bear.

On an upright cardboard box, taller than he was.

With the picture of an anime girl facing him.

He glanced around quickly, making sure he was alone, that nobody was going to get the wrong impression, before stepping forward with the intention of taking the poster from the box, to put over his bunk.

And then, just as got within arms reach, the girl split in half down the middle, arms reaching out to drag him inside.

He didn't have the time to scream before everything went black.

]

"{Abdul, do you need any help with the generator? Abdul? Did you just leave the generator broken?}"

His foot hit something as he stepped forward, and as he lowered his torch he revealed the body of Abdul.

"{Abdul?}"

A second after seeing the body, realisation set in and he scrambled for his radio to sound the alarm.

Half a second later, before he could say anything, a tranquiliser round got him in the head, and everything went black, his body falling over that of his colleague.

]

"{What stakes are we starting at this round?}"

"{The usual, must you ask every time?}"

"{All of us know that if I don't, you'll base the rates on who has the most chips at the end.}"

All three of the soldiers taking their usual break from patrols laughed at the comment.

It had become something of a tradition, once they realised their commander wasn't doing a proper job, to patrol until they all met up, then call it a night and head inside for a game of poker.

Even if normally they had more than their torches to see the cards by.

The game wasn't about the money, no matter what they said, there wasn't anything to spend it on after all, they just needed something to keep their spirits up.

It wasn't as though this was an important outpost after all.

"{Did you see that?}"

"{You're fixing the deck?}"

"{Not him, there was someone at the window!}"

The other two froze for a moment.

"{If there was someone, we'd be hearing from the boss about now,}" the thinker of the group commented, and all three relaxed.

"{Right, there's no reason to worry, it's perfectly-}"

The rest of the statement was cut off by the detonation of a flashbang, leaving them briefly deaf and blind.

He might have continued what he was saying anyway, but the grenade was followed by a rapid burst of gunfire, bullets hitting each of the soldiers.

Rubber bullets, they would discover later, explaining why they were left unconscious rather than dead.

]

"Damn unprofessional idiots," Snake grumbled to himself, hauling one of the poker players towards the nearest jeep.

When the three soldiers had grouped together and headed into one of the buildings, he had just shrugged and swept the buildings, making sure he hadn't missed anything and collecting some extra supplies for Mother Base.

The three contacts maintained their position as he worked, giving him a mixed hope that it might be a bunkroom, and the three soldiers asleep.

Mixed, because it would mean the relief for all the soldiers he had rendered unconscious would be on patrol.

Instead, checking out the room had revealed that the last soldiers in the outpost were breaking off patrols early to play poker.

If they hadn't received a 'B' ranking from his int-scope, Snake would have left them behind, in no mood to deal with such timewasters on Mother Base.

Instead, he would give them one chance to prove they could be useful.

In theory at least.

Practically speaking, it depended on him remembering them and recognising their codename if there was trouble.

Still, all that was left in the outpost were unconscious soldiers, jeeps and explosives on the important installations.

And a jeep could carry four soldiers with it when extracted, saving money and fultons.

And so it was basic common sense to extract all the soldiers (bar their commanding officer) via jeep.

Snake dropped the man into the passenger seat.

"One down," he told himself, turning to see the indicators for all the others.

"Eleven to go."

]

Now that all the soldiers were unconscious, Snake didn't hesitate to extract each jeep as soon as it was full.

Now that there was nobody to see and shoot the balloon or raise the alarm, there was no benefit to waiting.

And now, third jeep floating into the sky, it was time to finish this.

He headed back into the outpost a final time, picking up the commander to bring him to safety, and returned to the road.

There was a dip next to it, not quite a channel but more of a feature of the lical goegraphy, and the officer gave no complaints about landing in there.

Snake, for his part, gave the outpost one final look before turning to walk back to the plateau, pressing down on the detonator.

Explosions rang out throughout the buildings, reducing the local infrastructure of whichever faction controlled it to useless scrap.

Scrolling through his iDroids functions as he walked, he contacted Basilisk.

"This is Snake. Has anything of note happened?"

"This is Basilisk. I've got sight on a number of explosions near the road, but otherwise nothing."

"I suspect the explosions were me. Just breaking the communications chain of our enemies. Returning to camp, Snake out."

AN: I think you can probably spot where I got fed up with how poor the results are when you try to find common names of the time and location.