1: The Quiet in the Storm

He was roused by the shrill ringing in his ears and the intensified pain from the shrapnel in his head.

The tank shell exploded so closely that it took him a few moments to get his bearings. The mission, Lamar Khaate Palace, vocal cord parasites, panicked Soviet soldiers frightened at how much damage two people were capable of. Yes, two. He came here for someone. All the racing thoughts that greeted him upon waking exponentially added to the pain of his already throbbing head. And then, he found the quiet in the storm of his own mind.

The woman he came here for lied a few feet away from him.

With a massive effort, the horned man turned on his side, and began crawling. With an even greater effort, he blocked out the phantoms and memories that eagerly knocked on the doors of his fragile mind. Can't think about that now. He had to focus on getting her out of here. Armored reinforcements were bound to arrive, and neither the crawling snake nor his broken butterfly had plenty of a fight left in them.

Coarse sand chafing on exposed skin on his battledress all the while, he eventually found himself kneeling next to the butterfly.

"Quiet," said Venom Snake, attempting to rouse her, a hint of worry in his usually stoic voice. After years of fighting on dozens of different battlefields, the old soldier has seen his share of grievous wounds on beloved comrades and enemies alike. From torsos riddled with machinegun fire to heads nearly severed by the fearsome Kukri knives, Snake had seen it all.

Her injuries by far weren't the worst he saw, but his heart sank nonetheless. A piece of metal, no doubt a fragment of the tank shell that exploded mere moments ago, embedded itself on the side of her gut. Smaller fragments hit home on her right shoulder and left thigh.

Doing what she did whenever he radioed her name on the battlefield, she flashed him a thumbs up and instantly regretted it. The pain caused her to wince weakly.

Snake gently steadied her and as if on cue, a sandstorm started to break out. Ignoring it, the Boss accessed his iDroid and found it a tad worse for wear. With the fluctuating holographic screen and unresponsive controls, he wouldn't be able to call in Pequod. They would have to exfiltrate on foot and lie low for now.

His radio emitted weak static, and he could barely make out Kaz's voice. "Sn...ke...hear...me...signated...anding...zone...dinates...on...Droid..."

Snake had to make a decision. Despite its damaged state, the iDroid showed him the location of the landing zone. If he proceeded to the LZ now, nearby Soviet reinforcements might hear the chopper touching down. Five or six soldiers is nothing the chopper's minigun couldn't handle, but an entire armored regiment? They'd be shot down within seconds. That is if the sandstorm doesn't bring the chopper down first.

Snake radioed Kaz. "Kaz, this is Ahab. Call off Pequod. I repeat, call off Pequod. I will exfiltrate the hot zone with the target on foot. Gotta get out of this storm and shake off the reinforcements on our tail. Once I give our coordinates, tell Pequod to ready some medical supplies. I've got some wounded here. Ahab out."

The distant rumbling of engines piercing through the howling sandstorm told Snake it was time to move. Ignoring his protesting muscles and torn flesh, he gingerly hefted Quiet up, careful not to press the killing pieces of metal deeper in her. He couldn't extract them now, for he didn't have medical supplies to deal with the profuse bleeding that would follow soon after.

Night-vision goggles helped with the near-zero visibility. The last he checked his watch, it was 03:01 hours. They fought for four hours non-stop in that damned palace. Nothing however, could help with the thousands of sand particles slamming against his body at 40 miles per hour. The Afghan sandstorm, formerly advantageous in clandestine ops, was now working against Snake.

Twice he stumbled on inconspicuous rocks and nearly dropped a stirring Quiet from his shoulders. After ten more minutes of walking and jogging, the sandstorm gradually weakened, but so did Snake. His unattended injuries and fatigue finally caught up with him, and the legendary mercenary collapsed face-first on the sands.