8

Lily hovers up slowly following her drone to the start mark, once it's there and the gun goes off, she starts off fine, until she hears a loud gong, there is a bright red flash of light from the inside of the ship. Her target drone just suddenly rocket boosted straight up.

She follows it keeping up well behind it, but a boulder suddenly hits her left wing and she starts going down, losing control.

She closes her eyes unable to get her focus and attention in order, between the nausea she has been feeling, the fact that she does not want to be here, and having no idea what to do next it's more than the ship that's spiralling at the moment.

"Lil, Relax." Angel's voice slowly brings her back and she straightens her jet before she ejects.

Ranger shoots down a boulder that was coming straight down towards Lily and quickly flies in to rescue her.

~

"He told them this is to simulate dealing with meteor showers but they still didn't see it coming." Volks complains with his hands raised he expected everyone to know what's coming.

He expected total perfection from all the teams.

Night pats him on the back, "Majority of them are doing alright, Team Spirit Sharks members are all perfect at it. The other teams are doing better than expected. If this was how we did in the first test at camp we would've made it into the second round with good odds. Team jones has 4 top fliers and that's exactly what we need."

Volks looks back at Team Spirit Sharks and all their team members are perfect at dodging meteor rocks, but Night is still favouring Team Jones with only a handful of top fliers. He is deciding to put all his money on the Sharks, they show more potential than Team Jones.

The test ends and Mr Volks and Night join Ox already running his mouth none stop, it's like he never keeps quiet.

Night rolls her eyes and shuts him up cutting straight to the point, "Now you know how your performance out there would've been like, and you should know that you are required to fix your own shuttle if it is damaged after a test. You only get one for the entire duration of the Trial and you are expected to head out at a moment's notice on exploration excursions exactly like the first trial test of going out to space and bringing back samples for the country.

"Whatever you find is your countries find and you get to now start your own countries, Out of World Journal, other countries have these journals as well but keep what they know to themselves. We also want to have our own Alpha Team to travel and Explore the outside world and also fill our books with knowledge of the outside for Africa as well, which is why Egypt is helping you and us.

"They will help us win the Beta Trials in exchange of sharing what we find during the duration of the trials, once we become a Beta team we are closed for alliances. Which means that other countries who failed the trials will be sponsoring us with money and tech in exchange for the information we find, meaning we are opening doors to potential investors in our country.

"This is where information gatherers are required because it is your duty to be the team sponsors, so you must not only be gathering information, but also sharing your team's performance to attract people who will freely gift you tools you might need out there.

"Which is why we developed the Team Alpha Corp, an organisation that will benefit the country, but also give you the opportunity to make some money. Information gatherers will be given links to the Team Alpha platform, they will have a page where they can post pictures, stories, video's or whatever. We propose you make it a digital magazine type of thing with occasional news and product sales.

"The reason why Engineers always get scouted is because those with good tinkering skills like Devil Mask can advertise any of their inventions and put them on sale to make money for new equipment that they need for repairs, however we will be including extra features on the platform to generate money and the money from those features will go to the rest of the country.

"Unfortunately for teams Joey, Spirit Sharks, and Aces you will have to continue the trials with a few members short as Spirit Sharks's, Wonder, accepted the BSA offer, as well as Aces, Lihle, accepted the offer as well. It is only team Jones, Devil Mask, who declined. Let's move on." She walks away to take a relaxing soak in the tub.

~

The teams follow Ox into the Egyptian Air base that came as a reward for progressing past phase two of the trials.

The trials are a 12 months course, along the way for the small victories the country is rewarded well. Egypt made it past all 8 phases of the trials but failed in the final mission.

The requirement to pass the final mission is to have at least 4 survivors make it back from a single Alpha level Excursion, unfortunately for Egypt only two made it back, but they still get to keep their rewards they received for passing the 8 phases.

They are allowed to continue exploring space, but can only go to the marked Trial planets for Trial level countries, as that is what a team that makes it to the final mission regardless of whether they pass or fail is called.

The penalty for not making it to the final mission and fail somewhere along the year during a phase test is that the little rewards the country received will be taken back, just making it to the finals is all everyone wants.

Once in the air base they are transported to the First Egyptian mother ship.

"We received this as a reward for making it to the finals. The reward for winning the finals was going to be a small shuttle country, a space ship as big as a country in space. It would've come in handy because winning the Beta trials means we get to start a Beta program and advance we can start joining more camps, win more rewards to qualify for the Alpha trials."

Ox turns to everyone with a smile, "Do you know what Alpha trial rewards are like?"

Everyone shakes their heads and he turns around.

"We saw a glimpse of the future and settling for Trial level is shameful, there is what is called the Level one reward package that will be based on the top achiever of each countries team, in Alpha level you get rewards for silly things. There's even a reward for capturing things like Arachne-birds, 5000 dollars for that, tell me something? With the level of improvement this training would've offered you, don't you think catching one of those things would be something for sport 2 years from now?"

~

Angel offers Lily and Rider the new masks she made, "Run around and tell me what you think."

Rider puts his on and he feels a little lighter, "It feels comfortable."

Lily nods in agreeance.

Angel takes them back, "Cool, you'll have the perfected version in 40 days." She walks away and Lily groans.

~

Rider holds his bucket closer while Xavier reviews everyone's performance in flying, they did better than he expected, but the schedule only has one flight class a week, they must train more than once a week to be better at flying.

~

"Hey Ghost, come help me out with something, you too Nerd." Angel snaps her fingers and points at Rider before standing up and leading them to Rangers room.

"What are we doing here?" Ghosts asks already shoving things in his pockets.

"I have a week to fix your ships and we don't have replacement parts, I think that online magazine is something similar to the RTF documentary page, they are teaching us how to market sponsors, and going into the camp with the financial back up could come in handy.

"You remember how Team Joey's ship was wracked, we need quality material to avoid potential calamities like that, I also need to keep Joey in account, and I was thinking we announce a Team Joey and a Team Jones alliance, that way Team Joey sympathisers will donate funds that we can use as extra income for better tech that Rider suggested.

"Rider and I are were put in charge of designing the team suits and Logo, I was thinking our logo should be the South African flag, but in dark mode, Xavier turned it down so the final decision will be up to Ryan." She smiles turning her attention to Ranger's stash of neatly packed weapons since Ghost is practically drooling over them.

"I designed these and I want you guys to take photos and start a page on Ranger's performance, have a photoshoot, and a little bio on Ranger, a special highlights page for any fan favourites, and post a donations page to make extra cash from fans, that will come in handy for me.

"You do the same for each individual member of the team. Please add a little disclaimer that these are not for sale. Set up a page for items I might put up for sale, make our selling style in the form of bidding, that pays a lot more. Have a gossip column that you unlock by paying to read, reveal that Spirit and Madafakah Jones are a couple. We'll attract more people that way. I'm off to bed, I'll work when I wake up."

~

Ryan shares the idea Angel proposed with Team Joey and they agree to the alliance. He helps set up their Team Alpha individual pages, "Rider and Ghost were wondering if any of you are good at photography." He asks before leaving, the pictures Rider and Ghost took are just awful, all they had to do was point and shoot, and they managed to mess that up.

Joey points a finger at her brother Joe, "He's good at photography and graphic design, his work is what got us a shuttle simulator coach."

Ryan smiles, "Great, we could use your help for a little idea we've got in mind."

~

Xavier stands next to Lily, "How much do you think we'll make after passing the second test? I noticed the money came in, and I heard the cheque gets bigger after every mission, no wonder people always hype up camps. I never got the hype."

Lily laughs, "Maybe it's because all you think about is flying."

He smiles at her, "And you." He leans in kissing her on the lips.

~

Angel hi-fives the sky stopping the recording and slowly flying her drone away.

She runs into Ghosts room while he is taking a photo of Ranger in her suit, she passes along the drones' memory card, "I got the footage we need, now I can go to bed. We need all the money we can get."