9

Everyone spends the first day sleeping in and recovering except for Rider and Lily who are the only ones training in the gravity free zone to get used to being in space.

Ghost and Angel are putting up an item for sale while team Joey handles the photo shooting, and videographics to upload in the highlights section of the Team Alpha website.

Ranger is repairing her ship, while Ryan is giving Xavier a crash course on what to do if he's stranded. The other teams are in their own sections repairing their ships while others heal their injuries.

~

Owen clicks on the Team Jones preview page viewing the team photo and sliding ads about a gossip column. He scrolls down and clicks on Angel's profile to find hover boots for sale with open bids.

He leaves her page impressed with the visuals and effects of the photos, Angel is wearing a mask in all her photos and people have to pay to see the one where she's not wearing a mask.

He clicks on the team collage page full of random pictures and videos from childhood to recent of the team members.

There is one of Six and Jones gaming at Lily's house 3 years ago, Xavier and Angel holding a trophy for the science fair in 7th grade, and Ghost arguing with Xavier also from childhood. He scrolls through the collage again and goes back to Angel's page clicking on the ad for the hover boots there's a video of him testing them out for Angel and a link to the gossip channel.

'Guess what?'

He follows the link and narrows his eyes when he has to pay to see what they posted about him. He pays and there's a whole page with childhood photos of him with the team, 'One of us.' Is the title of the page the last video leads to a link with the caption, 'There's more!' he clicks the link and he has to pay again.

There is a collage of Photos of Ryan and Angel when they dated in high school, they were the golden couple no one expected to break up. There's a link to a video chat link with the team on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but again he has to pay, fans are promised an interview with Angel revealing more.

"How many fans do they have so far?" Shark, the Sharks Scout asks.

Owen checks the front page, "200, Team Joey has 500 with the top donations award to their page. Staying in top donations for a week will reward the team with a single day off."

Shark turns his head, "What badge do they have?" He asks referring to Team Jones.

"They have the RFT camera logo meaning they are also getting their page broadcasted worldwide to attract international sponsors, and they have the top sponsors crown. As much as we have to be a team to win this, we're being reminded that only 8 can be chosen for Beta. Not many can be enlisted for it too."

Shark cocks a brow, "Enlisted for what?"

"For the South African Beta force, that is if we make it to the finals, win or lose a team that makes it to the final can continue the Trial Level quests, just like Egypt can do all this with their own Egyptian Beta Force. This also means they keep the special rewards they received, but they are keeping some of the information about what else they got to themselves.

"Making it to the finals of this Beta trial will mean we become a Beta force, and that team will need recruits, but the Beta force cannot be any more than three teams, and being enlisted means that if a team member dies you are next in line to take their place. Aliens are not fond of visitors."

Shark nods his head, "I see why Informants are so necessary, what badge do we have?"

"Most favoured to win, fans vote daily and the team with the most votes gets an exclusive interview for the weekly show, Team Alpha, the interviews will be featured in the 3040 documentary. Guess what?"

"What?"

"We have an interview tomorrow, and an interview comes with a cheque. We need new breaks Silver doesn't trust the ones in his shuttle."

"He's just paranoid, what about Team Aces? They could be more threatening."

"You can say that again." Owen comments going through their page, "Team Aces already had sponsors before coming here."

"They are an all-Martian team, woah!" Shark exclaims reading up on the Aces Bio page.

"Talk about cheating right? The only reason Team Jones has so many sponsors, is because all eyes are on Dee. No one has said no to BSA before and that has the entire world's eyes on that team. They are lucky she stayed. I know without a doubt it was her strategizing that got them this far. I wasn't even surprised hearing she declined." He smirks to himself stalking the other teams.

"That's your ex right? Why'd you break up?"

"Who said we broke up?" He closes his computer and walks over to the team Aces side, his team needs a jet wing and they posted a trade, a Jet wing for an engine, the trade is not fair and no one is desperate enough, he'll negotiate a sale instead.

~

Angel and Ryan turn again completely lost, they were looking for their rooms.

"Hey guys." Owen raises a hand and Ryan smiles.

Ranger smiles at Owen when she catches up to her teammates, "You guys took a left instead of a right, I thought you studied the map." She explains which way to go, how they kept walking until they were 10 minutes away is something she cannot comprehend.

Ranger and Angel turn the other way like they didn't see Owen.

Ryan sighs standing in front of Owen still smiling at Angel who gave him a middle finger, "How have you been?" He asks Owen who has his eyes glued on Angel walking away while she listens intently to Ranger giving a layout of the ship and how to get around with her eyes closed.

"Tell her I'll be visiting Venus tonight she should meet me at my room after this." Owen keeps walking meeting with the leader of Team Aces, "We don't have an engine to trade, can we buy the wings?"

"Sure, we can negotiate prices."

~

Lily and Rider go straight to bed after leaving the no gravity simulator.

~

Ox observes the team and makes a report.

Night and Volks enter the monitoring room to observe the teams progress.

"How are they doing so far?" Volks asks.

Ox shakes his head, "I am not seeing any progress in the team work between different teams. The Aces are keeping to themselves, and the Sharks are on their own. I expected a little more cooperation."

"It's only the start, they'll realise it sooner rather than later that they need each other. When will they go on the second test?"

"Every weekend there will be a test, so next week. They will be tested. This week we'll be drilling an extra set of skills we learned from other teams out there. They will also occasionally join our Beta force on Excursions for Pro tips only fellow space travellers can offer."

"Why are you helping us? You seem eager to get us to the finals." Night asks Ox.

"Because the final mission is an Alpha level mission, and there are things we saw in the Alpha level planets that we want to know more about." He stares off into space momentarily, "We need to go back there and get more samples and footage. There are things out there you won't believe until you've seen them with your own two eyes, things the USA and UK keep only to themselves"

He leans in and looks around before he continues, "They are the only two countries with Alpha level status, and there are certain events and information they share exclusively among themselves. We have reason to believe that the Human Mutation company PUMP in Mars has partnered up with the US and the UK, and rumours of Experimenting on willing Team members to give them, a 'special' advantage against what is out there may be true."

Night nods in understanding, "Maybe that's why Team Aces is a Martian only team we put together. It's no secret all the children from Mars can survive for a certain time without air, they are physically stronger and faster than ordinary humans, and they are heat resistant. The results of PUMP experimentation. Do you think they expanded further than that?" She asks taking a seat.

"We saw it, they combine human DNA with samples of something they won't talk about outside their two countries. They have hi-tech ships we can only dream about, things like this ship are nothing but leftover scraps they don't mind donating. This is nothing compared to what we saw out there.

"At the camp the Beta's would occasionally chaperone Pro Teams on Alpha ranked missions. Each time they went out, the number of members dwindled down. We need to have 8 members for the final, and four need to make it back alive. Other teams never made it past the third round. There are different tests per country, but Camps are all the same. With what we're dealing with, odds of making it are slim. We need to drill a lot of things into them in a short amount of time. Sticking together is the most important rule."

Ox projects the draft for the second test, "Test two is to chaperone a Beta force team on an Excursion next weekend that's what they will do. We will test their flight skills this week. A good pilot is what every team needs, anything can happen out there."

Volks turns to the screen. "Now I really want to know what is out there."