EXOSPHERIC STRESS

"Recognise this?" asked Phineas, showing Sir Campbell the picture of the test tubes. "You helped secure a deal in the Dragon Palace Bazaar." 

Sir Campbell nodded. 

"What kind of experiment and R&D is Archangel conducting that would require human and Sellardraxian tissue beyond the authorised yearly quota by WHO?" asked Phineas. 

Seeing that Sir Campbell is not saying anything, Nanami walked up with a retinal scanner. 

"Ok," said Sir Campbell nervously. 

"Operation Lone Star," he said softly. 

"What's that?" asked Phineas. 

"I can't tell you," he said. "But I can tell you were to look." 

Phineas turned to Nanami, who gave a nod.

"Tell us," said Phineas sternly. 

"Go to Alaska, you will find what you want there," said Sir Campbell. 

"Alaska, huh," thought Sean, recounting the mission that changed his life there in 2131. 

With that, the 3 left the room, leaving Sir Campbell tied up there. 

As they left, Sir Campbell looked up to the ceiling. 

"Leader," he whispered softly. "This is the best I can do," he muttered. 

Looking at a spider catching a fly in its web on the ceiling, he sighed. 

"Will mankind survive the disaster yet to come?" he asked himself. 

He looked down, closing his eyes. 

(Spades International Operations base, Paris) 

Major Herbert Nksoi, second in command of Team Raptor, rushed into a VIP lounge, where Director Kovac and Colonel Franz Schulz are waiting. Aya is providing a mission brief to them as well. 

"Sir," he saluted. 

"What did you get?" asked Franz. 

"The attackers we apprehended claim to be hired by ex-UNSSD operators, and their contact was Lieutenant Colonel Zhou Xiao Tian."

"Rubbish!" retorted Aya angrily, standing up and storming over to Herbert. "There is no way he would do anything of—"

"Captain," warned Herbert. "Stand down." 

Franz put a hand on Aya's shoulder, gently advising her to follow orders. Aya angrily shook his hand off. 

Director Kovac chuckled. 

"If Xiao Tian wants me dead, he has 100 better ways to do it, and even if he get a hit on me, he won't be stupid enough to get his name exposed." 

"Clearly, someone is trying to muddle the waters here," he said. 

"But who else, sir?" asked Herbert. 

"That's for you to find out," smiled Director Kovac. 

Just then, a secretary entered, whispering something into Director Kovac's ears. 

"Let him in," said Director Kovac with a frown. 

A while later a British gentlemen appeared, in a fancy suit and a cane. 

"Director," he greeted courteously. "Are you alright? I was scared stiff when I got the word of the attempt on your life!"

"Sir Howard," replied Director Kovac. "Thank you for your concern, I am alright." 

Sir Howard greeted the UNSSD officers in the room. 

"Would you all please kindly leave us alone for a chat?" asked Sir Howard. 

Director Kovac eyed Aya. Aya walked forward, understanding her superior's intentions. 

"Anything you want to talk about, please just say it," smiled Aya. "As operators, we ensure you that whatever is spoken here, remains here." 

Sir Howard smiled awkwardly and reluctantly at Aya. "I don't think I can accept that, Captain." 

"Why not?" asked Franz. "If you insist, then we unfortunately will have to ask you to leave, you can arrange a private meeting with the Director in the future when the investigations on this attempt on his life end, or reach out privately through virtual means." 

"At the discretion and over watch of the administrative office, of course," added Franz. 

Sir Howard turned to Director Kovac, clearly wanting him to say something. 

"Is this really necessary?" asked Director Kovac. "Surely, someone of Sir Howard's prestige as the head of Archangel and the Duke of Norfolk will not stoop so low to barbaric practices of harming someone else?" 

Sir Howard maintained his smile, though his gaze started to turn cold. 

"Sir, its for your good," said Franz. "Rules are rules, without which we live among the beasts, isn't this how you educated us?" 

Director Kovac chuckled. "You are right, well, forgive me, dear sir." 

He poured a cup of tea from the teapot. "A cup of Earl Grey as an apology?" 

Sir Howard shook his head, "I will arrange another meeting," he said. 

Herbert offered to show Sir Howard the way, which he politely declined, giving a courteous bow and leaving. 

Director Kovac poured himself another cup, taking a sip. 

"Tea still tastes best unfermented," he mused, frowning. 

He took another tea bag of Long Jing green tea, adding it into another teapot beside. 

After a while, he handed some filled cups to the operators around him. 

"Have a drink," he smiled. 

(Somewhere at Normandy) 

"So you are saying, it wasn't your men?" asked a woman. 

"I assure you my dear lady, we are just in the dark as you," replied "Spectre". 

"Rest assured, damage control is done, Team Zero has been labelled the perpetrator for the attack on the UNSSD motorcade," added "Spectre". "With Sir Campbell's disappearance, which is no doubt the masterpiece of Team Zero, this story would be a good sell," he added. 

"What if UNSSD doesn't buy it?" asked the woman. 

"Spectre" smiled warmly. "There is no other evidence to proof that they aren't involved. No matter how many questions UNSSD have, that's all they can settle for now. By the time Team Zero's innocence is proven, we would have long achieved our goals." 

The woman nodded. 

"Spectre" smiled, putting on a beret. "Now, if there isn't anything else, I will be making my leave. Send my regards to your father." 

The woman threw a grin at him. "I thought you said you dislike Paris?" 

"It's still France, that makes it my home," replied "Spectre", leaving. 

The woman left, not noticing that "Spectre" has his phone on this entire time. 

On the other side of the line is Secretary Li, resting his chin on his hands in his office in Sulawesi. He is staring at the files on the holographic projector in front of him, with audio from his phone being transmitted to his wireless earpiece. 

He closed the last file, which is the graduation picture of Director Kovac from Oxford, with Sir Howard and many other prominent figures in the UK also in the frame. 

"Sir," reported the AI receptionist. "The Director's plane has landed at Sulawesi." 

Secretary Li acknowledged it, turning off his phone. 

He then reached for his tablet, sending a message. 

(3 days later) 

"FREEZE!" yelled a French GIGN operator as the team busted down the door of the safe house in Paris, dismayed to find it empty, except for a drugged Sir Campbell tied to a couch. 

"Report to command, hostage is secured, but has been drugged, no signs of them," he radioed. 

(In the mission command room) 

"I told you this is a mislead," chuckled Aya. "Xiao Tian LET us catch him on camera, by the time we saw that footage he would have already transferred the rest of Team Zero out to a new safe location, with he himself leaving later to stall us." 

"He is thinking on the stratosphere, while you are on thinking on the surface," she shrugged.

Richard is fuming at the development. 

He and Aya do not get along well, as he thinks that she is biased against UNSSD due to her affection for Xiao Tian and her "siblings", questioning her loyalties on multiple occasions, even going as far as to dismiss all of her pointers. 

"Alright, that settles it," said Franz at the other end of the room. "Captain, what are your new suggestions now?" he asked. 

Aya stood up, analysing the situation. 

"First, they did not kill off Sir Campbell, that means that it was not an assassination or terrorism attack, but rather, intel." 

"Clearly, Team Zero is after some intel, something that only Sir Campbell could provide," she said. 

She searched through the UNSSD systems, projecting a column of faces. 

"Sir Campbell is the head of Pegasus, the PMC of Archangel and one of its board members," she said. 

"The board of Archangel is jokingly called the House of Lords, because they are all mostly members of the British aristocracy, out of them, the Scottish lords like Sir Campbell are relatively sidelined by the main group that forms itself around Sir Howard. There are rumours of tensions among them." 

"Whatever the case, Sir Campbell is not privy to the most important secrets of Archangel, so we can leave that out of the motivations of Team Zero," she continued. 

"That leaves behind 2 things that they want, either the security related information of Pegasus, or the operations that Sir Campbell oversaw," she said. "The former can be figured out with relative ease that does not involve kidnapping him in broad daylight, so it's most likely the latter."

"During the time of their...mutiny," choked Aya as emotions flooded her, "the only facility that is under his oversight that he had visited was the research base in Alaska." 

"And I suspect, that's their target..." 

(Alaska, up in the sky in a Bethorian space shuttle)

"...calm down, this isn't the most crazy sh*t you have attempted. No, wait, it is, but you got this..." muttered Sean as he readied his gear for the subsequent operation, checking his space use Exo-suit for the 10th time. 

"Charlotte almost killed you when you did your pitch," said Louis at Xiao Tian, getting ready as well. 

Nanami is going around checking everyone's suits for the final time.

Archangel's Alaska research facility is really only called such because Alaska the closest location on Earth from it.

As if the USA's extremely lax economic and scientific research regulations are still too draconian for Archangel, they placed their research faculty high up in the air in the exosphere, the portion of the atmosphere that borders space, out of the sovereignty and control of any nation.

The floating platform is completely self-sustaining, with personnel and equipment being ferried on and off using space shuttles.

Knowing that Pegasus and Archangel most likely have reinforced their security measures given the disappearance of Sir Campbell, Xiao Tian decided not to simply sneak on board an Archangel shuttle before it takes off, which is their usual way.

To catch them by surprise, his plan is to hijack a shuttle when it's at its most vulnerable point, mid flight.

When he announced the plan, everyone in Team Zero voted it down for how crazy it was, though later they agreed to go along after realising that his plan has the highest chances of succeeding.

After the plan was confirmed, Xiao Tian brought Louis with him to negotiate with Charlotte for the equipment they need, resulting in Charlotte angrily shooting him down.

Nonetheless, she agreed to it at the last minute.

"Target appeared, ETA 10 minutes," radioed Charlotte to the operator in the cabin, steering the shuttle towards an Archangel shuttle.

"Hmm?"muttered the puzzled pilot of the Archangel shuttle, seeing a radar blip.

His copilot looked out of the window, seeing the Bethorian shuttle in the distance, so small that it might as well as be a beetle.

"It has markings of the Bethorian embassy, probably the aliens leaving for a holiday," he said.

The shuttle continued on its pre-planned flight path. Soon both shuttles are in the exosphere.

"What the—"exclaimed the pilot, seeing the Bethorian shuttle getting closer and closer to them.

In a split moment, the Bethorian shuttle pulled up next to them, flying in parallel.

"Hey! What are you all doing? Get out of our flight path!"yelled the pilot on the public frequency.

Charlotte answered him by slightly slowing down, letting them overtake. She then fired 2 missiles.

The 2 projectiles did not explode upon impact, instead magnetically locking itself onto the exterior of the shuttle, releasing an EMP burst.

"Sh*t!!"exclaimed the pilot, seeing that the shuttle's systems are all offline as its circuits are fried. The safety mechanism kicked in, keeping the shuttle in the air, but it can now only hover, rendered immobile.

"We are being hijacked!"he exclaimed in realisation, quickly calling for help. To his shock, all of his communication channels are disrupted.

"They are conducting electronic warfare on us!"exclaimed the pilot. "We are cut off!"

The 2 readied their machine pistols, preparing to defend themselves.

"Good to go,"said Charlotte, pulling back up, flying parallel again and opening the side para door.

The cabin depressurised, exposing the Team Zero operators to the sub-zero temperatures and near non-existent atmosphere, which is why they are wearing in space Exo-suits.

Sean stepped out, with James next to him, readying his SCAR-SC compact rifle. James aimed his MP7A2 submachine gun at the door of the Archangel shuttle. Ariel is behind them, readying her rshield and CZ P07 pistol. Being the 2 Draco subspecies among them, Sean and Ariel are taking the lead.

The 2 aimed their acension hooks and fired, attaching them onto the sides of the shuttle next to the doors.

They activated the repulsors in their Exo-suits, jumping off and using their species affinity to hover in the air briefly to propel them as fast as possible to the door.

Once the 2 reached, their gauntlets magnetically locked them onto the surface of the shuttle.

While boarding and raiding enemy space ships are expected of Tier 1 operators like Team Zero, as well as their Tier 2 peers in the Marine Shocktroopers, doing so without the protection of a breaching vessel has never been attempted by them before, not to mention doing it within the Earth's atmosphere, where gravity still acts on them, albeit weaker.

Sean held on to Ariel as she got to work forcing the door open. Due to the internal pressure of the cabin, the doors cannot be opened from the inside.

Soon she got it open, and the contents of the cabin are sucked out from the pressure difference.

Bracing themselves from the elements, Ariel and Sean got inside, Sean setting up the cables to allow the rest of Team Zero to zip line over, while Ariel kept guard. Fortunately for them, the pilots did not exit the cockpit for fear of being sucked out, otherwise having a shootout would have made things difficult.

With that set up, the rest of Team Zero zip-lined over. Once James, the last person did, Sean closed the door, restoring the pressure.

Charlotte flew off, preparing the rendezvous with them again at Xiao Tian's signal.

"What is the Bethorian government thinking?"she thought. "Why did they ask me to give Team Zero a blank cheque for them?"

Back in the plane, the operators readied themselves to breach into the cockpit to take control of the shuttle.

The co pilot opened the door to the cockpit, firing his machine pistol erratically.

Ariel quickly raised her shield, and the operators took cover.

Having been trained to take on the most vicious terrorists in plane hostage rescues, the 2 inexperienced pilots are of little threat, and soon the 2 are subdued by the taser bullets fired from the operators.

Clearing the cockpit, Xiao Tian and Jay pulled out the 2 pilots and locked them into the restrooms, while Xu Qing got to work restoring power to the shuttle using a piece of Bethorian tech provided by Charlotte.

"Shuttle T15 what's your issue? You were stationary and have not been responding to our calls," radioed the space traffic tower of the research base.

Xu Qing reported that there was a malfunction which they just managed to resolve.

"Understood. You have been granted priority landing," replied the tower personnel.

Sean pried open one of the containers that marked "lab coats", revealing several new lab coats that are still in their degradable plastic wrapping.

"Didn't need to bring the disguises!"he smiled.

"I am just glad to be alive," said Louis, his legs still shivering from that experience.