THE LONE STAR

(Archangel Alaska research base) 

Shuttle T15 docked just as instructed. 

The doors opened, and Sean saw several technicians rushing up to him and Xu Qing, together with several Pegasus contractors.

"Are you all alright?" asked a technician. 

"Yeah," replied Xu Qing. Both he and Sean are now disguised as pilots. 

"Yeah, had a little malfunction along the way," replied Xu Qing. 

Seeing that the technicians are still feeling suspicious about what happened, Sean gestured them to the crates at the back. 

"Can you all help us to move the crates in first before you all do anything else?" 

The technicians and the contractors then called some other ground personnel over, and they started to unload the crates. 

Phineas held his breath as he felt the crate he, Jay and Louis are hiding in is moved, careful not to alert the staff to their presence. 

"Gosh...why...is...it...so heavy!!" groaned a ground personnel as he and several others struggled to lift one of the crates, even when wearing exoskeletons to help them lift heavier weights. 

"It feels much more heavier than it looks, weird," complained another ground personnel. 

That made Sean and Xu Qing nervous. Sean looked into his holster, where his FN 5-7 pistol sat, now loaded with live ammunition. 

In the crate, Nanami is fuming, Ariel is trying to hold back her laugh, while Frederica remained poker faced and cool. 

Seeing that the personnel just carried the crates away as if nothing is amiss, Sean and Xu Qing are relieved. 

With that, the technicians went to check the shuttle, allowing Sean and Xu Qing to sneak away undetected in the movement of people. 

"Will they realise that something is amiss?" asked Sean. 

"By the time they do we would have long left," replied Xu Qing. "Bethorian tech works wonders." 

 "Alright then, lets head to the level 2 washroom as planned," said Sean. 

(Lower levels) 

The crates are being transported into the warehouse for storage. 

A staff opened the lid of one, stunned to see 3 women lying inside. 

Before he can do anything, he is tased and knocked out by Nanami, while Frederica and Ariel quickly finished off the others with rubber bullets fired from their suppressed rifles. 

The 3 jumped out, quickly tying and gagging the 5 staff members, then hiding them in a giant shelf in the corner of the warehouse. The robots of the automated warehouse continued to do their tasks, oblivious to the fact that several intruders have just showed up. 

Nanami, Frederica and Ariel then opened up the remaining 3 crates, and the rest of their comrades climbed out. All of them are dressed in the uniforms of Pegasus or the auxiliary personnel of the research base, with the exception of Phineas, who is wearing a lab coat and disguised as a scientist. 

"Status check," said Louis into his headset. 

"All clear," replied Sean. 

Xiao Tian opened up his smartwatch, looking at the 3D hologram of layout of the facility which they have gotten from Sir Campbell. The target rooms of Project Lone Star are circled out in red, while important infrastructures of the base circled out in yellow. 

"Everyone, go as planned," said Xiao Tian, and they split up into groups, going in the paths they have pre-planned in this infiltration and intelligence grabbing operation." 

Nanami, Ariel and Frederica sneaked into the pipe systems, hiding out of sight of the security systems. 

With Ariel's help, Nanami pried open one of the sewage pipes, stuffing an improvised pipe bomb inside. She pressed the timer, setting it to 3 minutes. She then stuffed it upwards.

"EW!" exclaimed Ariel, holding her breath from the smell as Nanami sealed off the pipe again. 

"Ok..." coughed Ariel. "This is definitely the right one, we don't want to blow up the waste water pipes from the labs." 

"Isn't this too much explosives?" asked Frederica. 

"Relax, my good sister," said Nanami as they sneaked out. "I have done the math. Its enough to blow up the sewage back into the washrooms to cause chaos, but not enough to destroy the sewage pipes." 

(3 minutes later) 

"Nanami used too much explosives...again..." coughed Sean from the horrid smell as he and Xu Qing entered the washroom. The 2 are now disguised as cleaners, placing a sign at the front door that says "Caution wet floor". 

The entire washroom looks like it was thrown into a wastewater storage tank. It looks horrible, and smells horrible. 

Xu Qing coughed. "Again?" he asked. 

"Nothing," said Sean. "Let's get to work, we do not have much time." 

"Ok," said Xu Qing. 

The washroom they are in is located next to the main security server room, where all the video feed from the security cameras go to, as well as controlling all of the automated doors. Entering the room requires a real-time generated 7 digit password into the password lock, something that is beyond the capabilities of Team Zero within the short time allocated to them for the mission. The firewalls protecting the server is also too complicated for their technical expertise to crack quickly, and they ruled out using Sir Campbell's access key, which is likely already compromised given his disappearance. 

Thus, after studying the layout plans, the plan Nanami came up with is to hard wire the servers by cutting a hole open in the adjacent washroom to access it. The wall that separated the 2 rooms is not a weight-bearing wall, meaning that its damage will not affect the structural integrity of the 

To provide Xu Qing and Sean the time to do their "renovation" in private, and to stir up chaos to distract the staff at the research base and give them the chances to go to the labs circled in red, Santos suggested to blow up the sewage to cause chaos, which Nanami agreed to after some deliberation. The explosion will also have the side effect of causing the fire extinguishing system in the washrooms to be tripped, which will cut off power to the security cameras in order to prevent more sources of fires. 

Xu Qing and Sean attached a laser wall cutter onto the wall, silently cutting up the wall, placing down the chopped up concrete on the floor, exposing the server in front of them. 

Sean shone some light, while Xu Qing hardwired a device into the server. He then checked the connection on his smart watch, then clicked on it to see if its working. This allows him to remotely control the security systems and see the contents from the security cameras. 

The 2 then quickly repaired the wall back to its original state as well as they can, leaving the washroom, changing out of their cleaner clothes, revealing their Pegasus contractor disguises. 

They sneaked into a column of Pegasus contractors on patrol, then sneaking off towards the 20th floor where the target laboratories are at. 

"We got eyes, moving," radioed Sean. 

"Group A moving," radioed Xiao Tian.

"Group B moving," radioed Phineas. 

"Group C moving", radioed Nanami. 

Xiao Tian and Phineas' groups went to the areas circled in yellow, setting up the devices that will allow them to create distractions to buy them time to escape in the event of troubles. 

The groups all rendezvoused at the 20th floor, heading over as planned. 

They arrived first into a room filled with monitors. 

"Why are you all here? You all do not have access?" asked a scientist. 

"Oh, the permit is...here!" said Phineas, quickly knocking her out while the rest subdued the surrounding staff. 

They started gathering intelligence from the monitors, downloading them into the modems in their Exo-suits or their personal devices. 

Just then, Sean noticed a video which stunned him. He quickly pulled Nanami and Frederica over, both of them are stunned too by what they see. 

"It's the Tokyo base..." said Xiao Tian when the rest of them converged on the monitor, seeing the UNSSD Tokyo base in the video footage. 

"But its footage from 2122, more than 10 years ago," muttered Frederica. 

Several children of 11 years old appeared in the video. 

Artemis 1 "Aya" and Artemis 6 "Liu Zhong" appeared in the frame, walking side by side in the snow. The camera panned to them, then focusing on their backs, as if it is a person following them. 

"That's us at 11 years old," exclaimed Nanami, recounting that day from their childhood. 

"Liu Zhong," Aya's voice can be heard. Her voice is that of a teen instead of her current adult voice, yet it still commands the same level of authority she shares now among the 14 members of Squad Artemis as their "Big Sis". 

"Mind if you tell me about the training regime you heard—MAIA!" shouted Aya loudly suddenly, clearly crossed. "I SAW YOU STUFFING WASABI INTO ELECTRA'S FOOD!" 

The camera panned to a young Maia and Electra having a disagreement at a table. The 2 froze hearing Aya's shout. 

Liu Zhong sighed, taking a sip from his thermos while staring disappointingly at them. His gaze prompted them to both look down in guilt.

There's a Chinese saying that goes "the eldest brother is like a father, the eldest sister is like a mother". It is applicable to Squad Artemis.

Aya being the oldest female member resembles the strict, naggy and caring mother figure. 

Liu Zhong, being the oldest male member among them resembles the stereotypical Asian father that toils away for the sake of his children while remaining silent and seemingly distant.

Sean can concur with this. After all, he did not join the other Squad Artemis members in beating him up after the incident with Freyja, and also stopped them from inflicting further harm on him. It was also him who later helped secure Sean a decent paying job at the Mecha factory during his first retirement. Yet he still held Sean accountable for the death of Freyja until the events of the mission to Spain. Their relationship is neither good, nor bad. 

"Ahem, sorry," apologised Aya in the video. "As I was saying—ELECTRA! IT IS NOT NICE OF YOU TO TRY TO PULL MAIA'S CHAIR!" 

Liu Zhong then started talking, only for a third shout to cut him off mid sentence. 

"STILL FIGHTING?!" yelled Aya angrily as she walked up to them. "YOU TWO, GET OVER HERE!" she yelled. 

As Aya disciplined the 2, a wailing sound is heard. 

Liu Zhong turned to see a young Atsumi running behind a crying young Frederica, with a young Sean chasing after them. 

"What's wrong?" asked Liu Zhong, comforting the crying Frederica. 

"Atsumi burnt her nightgown!" yelled a young Sean in a kid like voice, while hugging Frederica gently. She then cried into his arms. 

Everyone looking at the video turned to Frederica, who has her face now buried in her hands in embarrassment. 

Liu Zhong turned to Atsumi, who bowed her head. 

"It was an accident," she sniffed. "I did not do it on purpose..." 

Just then, an identical copy of Frederica gently patted her on the shoulder. 

"You can wear mine first since we are twins, though, I am not sure if it will be too big for you in some aspects..." teased a young Nanami, poking at her chest. 

"You have always been like this..." chuckled Ariel. 

Nanami shrugged. "My point still stands now, ain't that right, Freddie?" 

Sean snickered. Nanami always took pride in the fact that she is the "hotter" one among the 2. 

The 11 year old selves of Vasily, Ethan and Walter entered the shot, playing and dancing in the snow, while a young Cameron and Meari walked by them, clearly disapproving of their childish acts. 

Just then, Aya returned from reprimanding the 2. She then extended her arms, lifting up the camera.

"Freyja is so well behaved and don't cause trouble for me at all," she smiled. 

This jolted the Team Zero audience back to why this video stunned them in the first place. 

This is not any video of Squad Artemis' childhood, as if that is not scary enough that Archangel has access to such footage, it is in fact the memory of the long deceased Artemis 14 "Freyja". 

"Why does Archangel has this?" asked Nanami. 

Jay pointed to another video on the monitor. "Let's play another one to get more clues?" 

Sean played it. 

What they saw next horrified and angered them, especially Frederica, Nanami and Sean, the 3 are trembling from horror and fury.