Solid Frodo: Hobbit Espionage Action

Chapter 20: The Stairs of Shadow Moses

Muttering to themselves about rotten luck, the four Hobbits all got up, trying to prepare themselves for the worst. They knew they would have to use that gigantic weapon soon...the Stinger...seemed almost ironic, and they all wished whatever Stingers were used against would fall to something a bit smaller like Sting or something. Sam was the one stuck carrying the Stinger, since Frodo already had his quota of taller-than-him weapons. They had seen some instructions on how to operate the behemoth in the box, and it was called an SAM, surface-to-air missile, so that just made it imperative that Sam carry the thing.

Fortunately as soon as the SAM entered Sam’s pocket, its vast bulk and weight disappeared. Sam thought it would be mighty useful if they could bring Inventory back with them to Middle-Earth, whenever they happened to go back. It certainly made it easier to carry things, and if Frodo put the Ring in it, maybe it wouldn’t be so heavy on him.

As the Hobbits walked, they were very careful and stealthy as only Hobbits can be; they didn’t want to stir up an anthill full of guards like they had in the last tower. The walked toward a very large elevator, but when Pippin pushed the call button, it made a strangled beep, one they had come to associate with machinery that didn’t work. Pippin sighed. "Stairs. Again."

"Did you have many stairs to climb in Minas Tirith?" Sam asked conversationally as the four made their way to the staircase.

"Well, yeah, but not quite as many."

"We had lots and lots of stairs to climb. I really think Hobbits were never meant to climb stairs," Sam said.

Frodo wrote, ‘At least we’re going down this time.’ It had been a long dark climb for Frodo and Sam up the stairs of Cirith Ungol.

"Down is good!" Merry declared as they reached the first flight down. The other Hobbits readily agreed, and they started down the stairs. It was much easier, though every now and again Frodo or Sam would scoot down the stairs by sitting, putting their feet on the next step, and sliding forward instead of simply walking down. The steps were still too tall for Hobbits, but Merry and Pippin had a much easier time with them.

After a while, they reached something unexpected. Fortunately it was not a guard; unfortunately, it did block any more movement down the stairs. The metal staircase was twisted and ruined here, and there was a great gap between them and the next step. They were too high up to try jumping; it was at least two stories to the ground floor, and they had left the rope attached to the other tower. It wasn’t Elf rope, after all, and wouldn’t untie itself if they called.

"Bother and confoundation!" Sam shouted. "Now what do we do?!"

"Go back up?" Merry suggested.

"But the elevator wasn’t working," Pippin said, downcast.

‘Maybe there was another path we missed,’ Frodo wrote.

"I guess so, sir. But that means we have to climb up again, huh," Sam said.

Frodo nodded sullenly. The other three Hobbits frowned and turned toward the stairs. They could do this...climb up more stairs...again....

"Let’s have a snack first," Pippin suggested suddenly. This was readily agreed to, so Merry extracted a Ration and shared it, topping each slice with a little ketchup. But all too soon their diversion was eaten up, so they went back to the stairs and started climbing. Sam muttered the whole way up about how little he enjoyed stairs, but he took some comfort in knowing there wasn’t a giant Hobbit-eating spider waiting for him at the top.

When they finally reached the top, they all were about to sit and rest when they noticed the elevator door was now open. It shuddered slightly, and their sharp Hobbit ears caught the sound of footsteps. They all quickly hid, Frodo drawing Sting, Sam and Merry unsheathing their Westernesse daggers, and Pippin unholstering his SOCOM and pointing it toward the elevator door.

They heard the invisible person wandering around, and Pippin, in perhaps a less than wise move, came out of hiding, still aiming the SOCOM, to get a better shot if he could.

"Wait! Don’t shoot!" the air cried out, and they recognized the voice as belonging to Otacon. Swiftly, Otacon materialized, apparently flipping off his stealth camouflage.

The Hobbits all came out of hiding, sheathing their swords. "Otacon?" Pippin asked, "how’d you get here?"

Otacon shoved his glasses higher on his nose. "It wasn’t as dramatic as your entrance, believe me. I’m afraid of heights."

The Hobbits blinked. Sam asked, "You saw?"

"Yeah. I was riding in the back of one of their trucks. They didn’t see me, thanks to my camouflage."

"Oh. Well...how’d you get up here?"

Otacon pointed back toward the elevator. "I took that, of course."

"But it wasn’t working!" Pippin said.

"It wasn’t?" Otacon asked. "It worked fine for me."

"That’s odd," Pippin said.

Suddenly Otacon turned somewhat fawning. "You guys were amazing! Like movie heroes or something!"

"Movie? Is that like animé?" Sam asked.

"Oh...er...yeah. I forgot. You guys don’t have movies where you come from, huh."

"No, no movies. We have some plays though. There’s this one all about Bandobras Took—the Bullroarer. He could ride a horse and he fought Orcs!" Pippin exclaimed.

"We plan on being taller than him," Merry said. "He was the tallest Hobbit ever."

"Oh! Then you’re like heroes in a play!" Otacon said excitedly.

Sam stammered a little. "I don’t know about that, Mr. Otacon. We just do what we has to. We hope we’re in a story with a good ending though...or at least our part in the story ends good." Frodo seemed to become a little more withdrawn at that. Sam nudged him. "It’ll be OK, Mr. Frodo." Frodo didn’t smile, but instead put his hand over the Ring. Sam slumped.

Otacon shifted a little uncomfortably. "Sorry. I just came to ask you guys something. That’s why I followed you." The tall Man shifted again and said, "Have you ever...loved someone?"

Sam turned a very dark shade of red very quickly, and the sight caused the other Hobbits to giggle a little. Even Frodo smiled, and tried to say something, but only one word came out intelligible: "Rose." If possible, Sam blushed even harder.

"Frodo means that Sam has...he’s pretty taken with Rosie Cotton," Merry said. "The rest of us...well, I haven’t been, Pippin’s too young for anything but crushes...apparently he’s got it bad for Diamond—," at that Pippin also blushed but soundly smacked Merry.

Merry rubbed his head. "As I was saying, I don’t think any of the rest of us have."

Recovering from his slight blush, Pippin asked, "And you came all the way to ask us that?"

Otacon looked down and swung his arms. "Well...I was wondering if even soldiers fall in love...."

"You should go ask a soldier," Pippin said. "What would we know about that sort of thing?"

"Um...well...you guys seem like soldiers. What I really mean is...well...do you think love can bloom even on a battlefield?"

"Er," Pippin said, "I suppose, as long as there aren’t armies hacking each other to bits on it."

"Yeah," Merry agreed, "it would be kind of difficult to fall in love with someone in the middle of a battle. Especially since there are very rarely any Women in battles. Definitely aren’t Hobbit-ladies in battles often. There are hardly ever any Hobbits in battles at all!"

"We like to stay at home and not get into any trouble like having adventures and things," Sam added. "Most Hobbits anyway...even when we get landed in them."

"Or do you mean like a different kind of love?" Merry asked. "Like the way Sam loves Frodo?"

"...Yes...," Frodo creaked out, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. "Didn’t...find...." He tried, but he couldn’t say anything else, and rubbed his throat. Then he wrote on his pad and showed it to Sam.

Sam read it to Otacon. "He says he didn’t realize how much he loved me until we were in Mordor." Sam looked about ready to cry, and he was sniffling. Frodo gave him a hug, and Sam returned it quite fiercely.

Otacon scratched his hair. "No...no...I don’t think that’s what I meant."

"Well, what did you mean then?" Pippin said, hoping nothing ended up having him sniffling and hugging Hobbits. Not that he didn’t love his friends dearly, or was ashamed of it in any way, he just didn’t really like showing it so blatantly.

"I meant like Sam and Rosie I guess."

Sam started blushing again.

Pippin was still wondering about it all. "That seems a strange question to come all the way here to ask."

Otacon lowered his head and swung a foot in a little circle.

"Oooohhhhh...." Merry said, finally understanding. "You’re in love with someone!"

Otacon dipped his head lower and shuffled a little more.

Sam asked, "Did you mean to ask ‘cause maybe then you could find out if she likes you too? Is she a soldier or something?"

"Um...well...yeah." Suddenly quite uncomfortable, Otacon swiftly changed the subject. "So, the elevator wasn’t working up here?"

"Nope," Pippin said, actually more than a bit relieved to be talking about something else...who knew how much Merry or Sam might say about Diamond....

Otacon went and poked the buttons, and got the same non-operational sound the Hobbits did. "Huh. It worked downstairs. Lemme try to fix it for you."

"OK," Merry said.

Frodo wrote, ‘In the mean time, we can try going up the stairs and see if the elevator works there.’

"Not more stairs! Cousin Frodo, can’t we just stay here?" Pippin cried out.

‘No, I really think we should get going. I don’t like stairs any better than you, but we still should try to get to a working elevator door.’

Pippin slumped heavily, but when Frodo turned to go up the stairs, he followed. Frodo wrote something and handed it to Sam. "Mr. Frodo says thanks for the help. We’re going up to see if there’s a working door higher up."

Otacon looked up from the elevator control panel. "OK." Then he pressed a button on a little box on his coat and disappeared.

"Amazing trick, that...and without a Ring too," Merry commented quietly, then followed the rest of the Hobbits on their way up the stairs.

It was quite a hike up. Every now and again the Hobbits would spot an eye or two or three that shot bullets, so they used some Chaff grenades to knock them out. And not once on the whole way up did they find another door to the elevator, not even when they reached the top of the stairs, sore in the knees, and almost footsore too.

Merry went on his usual scavenger hunt, turning up some Stinger missiles that he gave to Sam, SOCOM bullets for Pippin, a Ration, which he of course kept for himself, and some Grenades. Then, after a moment, Pippin said, "Maybe the elevator goes all the way to the top? There might be doors on the roof."

The other Hobbits looked doubtful, but decided that there shouldn’t be any harm in taking a peek. So they found the ladder that had roof access and Pippin went up first. Frodo, Sam, then Merry followed after. Once they got up to a little access room, they thought that maybe Pippin was right, and all filed out the door.

And then they heard a loud shout and a strange thup-thup-thup, which they’d only heard twice in their entire lives. It was the helicopter, the steel dragon, and it was Liquid Snake shouting.

"So the Hobbits have finally come out of their hole!" Liquid laughed, and shot a few rounds at them, causing the Hobbits to run away from the door and get behind the cover of some boxes.

"PIPPIN!" Merry yelled, "YOU FORGOT ABOUT HIM!"

"So did YOU!" Pippin retaliated. "We all forgot!"

Frodo wrote, ‘Pippin’s right, we all forgot.’

Pippin snubbed his nose at Merry. "See, I was right." Merry aimed a kick at Pippin, but he dodged before it connected.

"Ahh! Me Gaffer always said he never held with no ironmongery...and if that hecilopter ain’t ironmongery gone bad, I don’t know what is," Sam said loudly, to be heard over the steel beast’s wings.

‘We’ll have to shoot it down, I’m afraid.’

"MR. FRODO?! Are you crazy?" Sam asked incredulously. "What do we got that would hurt a steel dragon like that?" Then it dawned on him. Sam fell silent and slowly dragged the Stinger out of his Inventory. He set it down in front of him, because it was too heavy to hold alone. "But what do we do with it?" he asked in a small, defeated voice.

The Hobbits all looked down at the Stinger. It was a very big piece of artillery...they realized it would take all four of them to hold it up. "Well," Merry said, "that’s all there is for it, I suppose. Let’s get it up."

So all four Hobbits hefted up the Stinger; Pippin and Frodo held it at the sides, Sam at the back, since he had silently been elected the one to actually aim and fire it, and Merry held up the long barrel so that he could help point it in the right direction.

"OK, Sam," Pippin said, "you have to tell us where to move."

Sam looked through the sights on the Stinger and noticed that just as the instructions had claimed, there was a box that seemed to follow the hecilopter around. It was red at the moment, but Sam could see that if he fired, he’d probably just blow themselves up, since the targeting box was actually pointing toward the ground. "We have to get more in the open I think...and wait for the hecilopter to come up again...it looks like it dipped below the roof."

"All right," Merry said, and all four Hobbits carried the Stinger out of hiding and toward the open areas of the roof.

Sam looked again. "Merry, a little higher?"

Merry nodded and pushed the barrel a bit higher over his head.

Liquid shouted again. "Are you ready now, my...erm...brothers? I suppose that’s what you are."

The Hobbits looked at each other. Frodo nearly rolled his eyes.

"Oh yeah, that’s what you said...that Liquid thought you were his brother," Pippin said.

"Hey! Liquid Snake! Why are you calling us your brothers? Can’t you tell a Hobbit when you see one?" Merry shouted back to Liquid.

Liquid called back, "Well, I had this nice speech all planned out for when I met Solid Snake...but you four midgets are apparently all the brothers I’m going to meet today. So I’ll just dispense with all the dramatics for now." Then he started firing on the Hobbits, making them want very badly to scatter, but they didn’t, thinking it was more important to keep hold on the Stinger. They did move out of the way and Sam had Merry point the Stinger in the right direction again.

When the Stinger target locked onto Liquid’s helicopter, Sam said, "Well, here goes...." And he fired.

The missle went off, and Merry might have complained about the heat in the barrel if he could have held onto it long enough. The Stinger had an altogether nasty kickback and Pippin, Frodo, and Sam were currently being shoved dangerously close to the edge of the tower roof.

Go on to Chapter 21