6

Lily sighs in relief when they are finally leaving the crazy chaos and going home.

"Dude, I bet your parents prayed their lungs out for you to come home in one piece." Ranger says

Lily nods laughing.

"Major is going to propose a camp for the next 40 days, are we going?" Angel asks.

Lily being the girlfriend can't say no, "We all know what he's like, we're all going." She states yawning enjoying the silence until they get home, separating after some time talking on the street because they were recognised by a few people.

Ranger and Angel arrive at Angel's house barricading themselves inside like the apocalypse is at their door step.

Ranger expects Angel to finally jump up excited and be happy, but she's already going to the garage to review the performance of her gadgets and deciding on different designs, "Aren't you even going to jump with excitement?"

Angel smiles holding up the screw driver, "This is how I express my excitement, if I wasn't excited, I would've gone to sleep."

Ranger gives her a frown in response.

Angel stands up and jumps up once, "There, now rest up. I need to prepare for hell ahead of me."

Ranger takes a seat next to Angel, "Can you teach me something?"

Angel nods, "Sure, I don't mind."

~

Lily sighs watching her parents brag in front of the church members gathered in her house.

"She spent all week training for this, she would come home sick from the shuttle simulator every day, at first I wanted to go there and stop the whole thing, but she started getting better after the third day so we let it go."

"Wow, Lily, we didn't know you were into space teams, we were wondering why you were not looking for a job after you graduated."

Lily nods along waiting for the people to leave, she and Ghost agreed to meet on chat and start making a file on all the plants and creatures out in space that they know off so that they are not clueless when they go out there.

~

Wind rider is in his room trying to think of ways his hacking can be more useful to the team. He gets a text from Angel, it's a picture of a drawing, a suit of armour.

*Text

*Angel: Don't you think this looks cool?

*Rider: Yup, what you up too?

*Angel: Tech upgrades, and you?

*Rider: Not much, was thinking of getting into a cyber course and upgrade my computer skills.

*Angel: No offence, but you should upgrade your non computer skills, you're so weak a noodle could beat you up and down the room, what a waste of height.

*Rider: Ouch, and stop harassing me about my height.

*Angel: I won't, your height is equivalent to the strength you have, you're a string bean. You need to get physically stronger Rider, you have too much potential, yet you sit on it behind a computer. During the training camp I am going to whip you into shape.

*Rider: LOL, okay, but until then I'll still improve on what I am good at, it's no different from what you do with your gadgets you know. Your tech is perfect but I have never heard you say that. It's always about getting better with you.

*Angel: Oh yeah, never thought of it that way, in that case I apologise, but get some muscles on you bean pole, I might mistake you for a stripper pole one day.

*Rider: Lol, you're too lazy to even swing on one, that mistake would be worth it if you were enthusiastic about pole dancing.

*Angel: Hey, I'm enthusiastic with a screw driver, don't make fun of me, or I'll cry.

*Rider: Please don't LOL.

Rider laughs so hard his door swings open. He looks surprised to see his parents' home.

"Oh, son, I am so proud of you." His mother gives him a tight hug.

"You were amazing out there, how long have you been with your team?" His father asks sitting down to get some information out of him.

"It's been a long-time dad." Online only, they met in person a few times because they wanted to get to know each in person, they worked well as a time gaming, but his parents don't know that, "That's them." He points at the framed picture of the team the first day they met, Angel and Ranger are on the far left, on the far right is Ghost and six, in the middle is the rest of the group and on the ground is him with a peace sign.

They were his first real friends, this picture was taken in the 6th grade, they were all 10th graders at the time. There are other framed photos in his room, every time they met in person they took a group photo, he had each one framed.

"Wow, so, what do you do?" His father asks.

"Oh, I work the computers mostly, but they suggested I start building some muscle, this girl Angel," he points at her picture, "She was mad at me because she says I'm wasting my height, I'll be doing some strength training so I can be out on the field more, but I'm more skilled at the behind-the-scenes rescue."

"Ohh, what can you tell me about your teammates?" He asks getting more excited by the second.

"Okay, well, you already know her, if you don't, you will soon enough. Next to her is her cousin, Mandy, same last name of course. She was on the Martian program as a child, came back when it got cancelled, same as the team leader, this guy right here, he's even built like a leader, his name is Ryan Forbes.

"Next to him is his childhood best friend Xavier Jones, he's the team pilot, and a great chef, and this female next to him is his girlfriend, they've been together since I've known them, her name is Lily, she's the team doctor. Like me our roles are not as flashy as the pilot," he points at Xavier, "Fighters," He points at Ranger and Ryan, "And obviously the engineer." He points at Angel.

He smiles brighter pointing at Ghost and Six, "These guys are outsiders like me, everybody else I mentioned were all childhood friends, Six, is our second pilot, but he's actually really skilled at hunting, he grew up in a farm and has great instincts when out on the field, and then there's Ghost, our team informant.

"His brother was recruited by BSA years ago, so he's on the team because he can use his connection to get some valuable information about what's out there, he already knows a lot. He archived it in a book from the stories his brother told him about his adventures. We definitely need him." He smiles at his parents listening intently eating up every word he's saying.

"Oh, so how important is a hacker such as yourself on a space team?" His father asks genuinely curious.

"Well, I don't exactly hack when I'm out of space, but I am the guy that keeps us connected to the earth when we are out there, I am in charge of constant communication, but not just the messenger, it is my duty to make sure that in an emergency I can get an S.O.S delivered or my teammates will die."

He shocks himself finally realising what he can do. Sometimes they travel so far away that communication back home is impossible, it is up to him to make sure that his friends come back home safe, not just the pilot. There's more to making it home safe then the pilot.

"I'm mainly there for in case of an emergency, and as you very well know, being out in space, every day is a day where my skills could be needed." He smiles finally having a role. He was worried that he would be useless to the team, but he's not, this is the perfect career for him.

"You're not worried you'll die?" His mother asks.

"Neh, not with Angel as our engineer, she's always telling us worst case scenarios, she over thinks a lot. I wouldn't worry having someone like that on my team." He stands up getting ready to figure out how he can be there for his friends when there's an emergency. He will always be on the ship for most missions, but that means they trust him to save them when things go wrong, like he always does when gaming.

He laughs at how reckless his friends are, they chose him because of who he is behind a screen disregarding who he is in person is a totally different individual all together, but maybe not.

His parents are reporters. They let him get on with what ever he gets up to while they start working on articles, they are free lance writers, a story this big could rake in millions, especially after Xavier boldly told everyone they will not be taking any interviews.

~

Six arrives at his father's farm and smiles when his family welcome him home with a feast and practically the whole neighbourhood is congregating at their house.

"Wow, so what did you do out there?" His neighbour asks.

"Oh, Me and my friend Angel were the bait on the planet, we used grenades and fireworks to distract these giant spider birds while my two friends went to rescue team Joey. They weren't that smart so it wasn't that hard, but It was exhausting because their fast and were pretty quick to realise they were being tricked."

"Wow, did you almost die?" His eldest brother asks passing along sweets to the kids sitting around Six.

"Actually yeah, I fought one of them and when I stabbed it with a blade, I found out the hard way that their blood is acidic until it's exposed to air. Melted my suit off, but luckily this thing on my chest is actually a back up suit. I didn't even know the suit had been damaged until this one automatically covered my body."

He taps the emblem and his suit covers him up, he shows it off and shows them where the blood of the spider bird melted this suit too, but luckily, he was indoors the second time around.

"Oh wow, weren't you scared?" His mother asks looking at his leg, she was wondering why it's bandaged.

"I was, but no one else wanted to go with Angel and I couldn't let her do it alone, I also knew that we'd be fine, the plan was full proof, we also had solid intel thanks to Ghost, so we knew what we were doing, I was scared the whole time.

"There was a time when we almost lost one of Team Joey's members, you should've seen Lily jump into action, it was incredible, his heart had stopped and we didn't have proper equipment, so Ghost and her took the Android on the ship and took her apart electrocuting the guy until he came back, it was scary, and amazing."

"Who's Lily?" Everybody asks him getting funny ideas.

Six laughs, "She's the team medical doctor. She's always studying about sickness's and how to cure illnesses, she fixed up my leg on time before the acid almost spread, it kills really fast. These suits also have a warning system attached to her watch, she knew I was in trouble before I even did. When I stepped on board the ship, I had a cure waiting already. It's really amazing being out there."

He takes out a rock, "We each stole souvenirs, here, you guys can make a lot of money with this. I brought it back for you." He passes the rock on to his father who was sitting there with the crowd hearing about the mission and what happened after the camera went static.

"Won't you get in trouble?" His father asks.

"Only if you hold on to it for too long, sell it tomorrow, besides, I plan on bringing more souvenirs so they better get used to it. The others did the same, so I figured why not, my family needs the money, I can't go out to space and you not benefit, come on." He nudges his father who exhales.

"Alright, the farm does need the money anyway."

A young girl asks if he has any other souvenirs."

He checks under his boots, if maybe a small rock didn't get stuck to his feet, and there's a black looking diamond that he didn't notice, "Woah, I have to take this to the team, I'll give it to you after Angel analyses it, once we know what exactly it is and I know it's nothing dangerous I'll let you have it, okay?"

She smiles nodding and he makes a call to Ryan making him aware of the discovery.

"Alright, keep it contained and we'll see if it's something useful, we can always go back for more."

"Alright, see you tomorrow then."

"Don't be late this time or I'll kick your ass." Everyone stares at Six when Ryan speaks to him that way.

"Yeah, yeah, I promise." He hangs up going to his room, he feels exhausted. Little does he know that the compound that Lily concocted as a last second serum against the acid may have neutralised it but now the acid has become a completely different compound that is attaching itself to the DNA strands in his body.

Arachne Acid is known to directly attack DNA strands, making it the fastest acting poison in existence so far. He falls asleep with a cold sweat on his body.

~

Xavier is in his room on the phone with his uncle organising a camp for the team, he wants them to stay somewhere where they won't have access to electricity and cell phone signal to get hyped by the news and tv.

He wants to make sure Angel is sober by the time they get hit with a surprise Phase 2 test, the others will also have to learn different skills to improve with the team, a second medic is needed …

"Ranger is good with her hands, maybe she can get a crash course on how to be a surgeon." He jokes to himself

His bedroom door opens and he smiles at his mother.

"Xavier, someone is here to see you."

He follows his mother to the kitchen and Night is sitting down waiting for him.

"Hi, I am Night. I hear you guys are planning to spend your next 40 days at camp, we received a sponsorship from Egypt, their Beta's also took part in a camp after passing the first trial. They offered to help train you, since you seem to be the one who deals with such matters with your team. If the answer is yes, we will meet next week at the airport."

Xavier nods, "We'll talk it over. Thanks." He keeps the conversation short, he does not want her to sway his decision with words.

~

Ryan wakes up when Xavier calls him about the camp.

"Are you going?"

Ryan agrees turning his phone off he is exhausted and sleep is all he wants. If one more person calls, they will regret it.