Chapter Two

Moving quietly, the Death troopers near the entrance. BOOM! A mine goes off as a death trooper steps forward. He screams in pain as he's blown off his feet. Inside, Phantom jerks awake. Putting his boots on and grabbing his blaster, he rushes to the tunnels. R-6 powers on but stays inside. Phantom reaches the end of the tunnel, taking cover behind boulders. Sighting the troopers, he fires at them, catching them off guard. Hitting the leader dead in the chest, the others regain their senses and fire back. Bolts flying past him, Phantom continues to fire upon the death troopers with his blater pistol. Another mine goes off as another trooper makes a wrong step. Two troopers missing legs and one with a chest wound, that leaves one trooper standing. The leader refuses to give up and continues to fire back regardless of his injury. The trooper's shots are widely inaccurate. Phantom is finally able to light up the trooper that still stands and finishes off the the two with missing legs. Disarming the leader with a shot to the wrist, he grabs him and brings him inside. Knowing that he is unable to anything, he leaves him in the middle of the floor to prep for medical aid. The death trooper lays there breathing slowly and raspy.

"We can do this easy way, or the hard way. I'm sure that sounds cliché, but I don't want to get my hands dirty. I will if I have to and you won't get treatment," Phantom says in a serious tone. The death trooper takes a couple breathes and says, "i never wanted to hurt you."

Confused, Phantom asks, "what do you mean? who are you?" He walks over and takes the trooper's helmet off. Phantom steps back surprised, dropping the helmet.

"Snake," he says shakily.

"Hey buddy," Snake says weakly.

"No, you're dead, I watched you slam into the deflector shield."

Snake smiles and says proudly, "I had placed a jetpack in the cockpit and ejected as soon as I started spinning."

His face turning to anger, his voice raising, "you killed my men, and then tried to kill me!"

Saddened, Snake admits, "yeah, I did. I regret it. But those chips man." He tears up, "I never wanted to do it, we were best friends. But I didn't have a choice. It felt like my head was telling me otherwise.

"I wish I had listened to you when you found that information. I deserve to die. I crossed Dagger on Coruscant."

"Dagger? What is he doing there? He could be making a good living elsewhere with his piloting skills," Phantom says with surprise.

Snake goes on to explain, "he has been gathering intel from the Empire. He can get us into Mustafar."

"Us? You think I'm going to work with you? after you just tried to kill me? Twice!"

"I know I you don't trust me, I don't blame you. But you have to understand that it wasn't me that tried to kill you, it was the chip that was controlling me."

"I tried to convince you to take it out and you wouldn't listen to me!" Exasperated, Phantom's face shows anguish. Snake was his best friend after Shadow, one of the snipers in the unit, died. He was felt so betrayed when Snake attacked him. It only worsened when Order 66 came out of nowhere.

"You killed my entire Squadron. You lied about your training, you know how to pilot and how to do it well. I lost good men that day! We treated you like you were one of us, like you were in our Squadron the entire time! And you threw that away and betrayed us! No one ever understood why and I didn't have a believable answer for them," he says as he breaks into tears.

Snake looks down at the floor as he says softly, "I know I disappointed you. I should have listened to you, trusted you. You never steered me wrong before. I will carry this so long as I live. But I'm better now, I'm not being controlled anymore. You're going to have to trust me if you want to end this."

Phantom paces the room and thinks for a moment. Snake watches him with sad eyes. Phantom notices that Snake is still injured.

"Take off your armor."

Snake does as he's told with great struggle. Phantom gathers his medicines and starts treating Snake's wound.

Phantom treats Snake's wound and cleans up from it.

"Get some rest, we have a big day tomorrow," he says to Snake. Snake nods and lays down where he sits.

"R6, keep watch. We don't need more surprises." R6 beeps in response and rolls over to sit at the cave entrance. Phantom turns off the lamp that's been on the entire time and goes bed. "Well, this should be interesting," he thinks before he drifts off to sleep.