Bab 100: HOMO DEUS part 3
(New Benghazi, Libya, October 2134)
"You gotta be sh*tting me..." cursed Maia, seeing the chaos on the other side of the world in Taiwan in her HUD's video, relaying the combat footage from their comrades in Taiwan.
"They will be fine, right?" Electra asked worriedly.
"Let's hope for the best then," said Maia.
"Artemis 11 in position, over," she radioed.
"Solid copy," replied her fellow Team Ion teammate.
Team Ion had infiltrated into outskirts of the Archangel research facility located in the special economic zone of New Benghazi, set up by the Libyan government to boost foreign trade and investments.
New Benghazi has been developed by the Libyan government following their successful re-unification of the war-torn and fragmented country into one of the most important port cities along the Mediterranean sea.
Together with Libya's strategic cooperations with its neighbours in the Maghreb region, New Benghazi has became a beacon of prosperity in North Africa.
While a prosperous and bustling place, this section of the city that Archangel have made their "home" in Libya is virtually deserted, obviously due to their desires to keep a low profile and not overly notify the native population of what's going on.
This is a good thing for Team Ion, as it means that they can worry less about collateral damage, having more freedom in their tactical options.
The Archangel complex in Tripoli is even grander than the Mega facility in London or the floating laboratory in Alaska.It is a 202 meter tall mixed use skyscraper, and spans over a huge area. Not only is it a R&D facility, it is also Pegasus' staging area and training site in Africa, equipped with enough weapons and personnel to take over the whole of New Benghazi and the surrounding cities.
Even prior to the big PR crisis that Team Zero had given Archangel, the Libyan government have made multiple protests against Archangel's clearly excessive military presence in the region, yet not daring to take any serious countermeasures for fear of instability which would ruin the country's economic prospects.
Maia tapped Ethan's shoulder, signalling him to advance. Their objective is to secure the entrance zone, disable the security systems, opening the way for the rest of Team Ion to enter.
Once that's done, Spades International contractors, who are all on standby postions in stealth VTOLs, will insert in by air and provide close air support. Charlotte had managed to gather enough evidence to make a case for suspecting her colleague Chris Adler of wrongdoing, and used her significant shares in the company to make the point.
As soon as the contractors and the UN forces find their wanted fugitives, they will detain them and evacuate through air.
The entire operation is in principle a black ops operation, as they did not notify the Libyan authorities when entering the country, instead opting to HALO jump in to avoid detection by radars.
Yet this is not 100% the case. The Libyan government did close one eye to the UN forces and Spades International contractors running around. After all, its a perfect excuse and way to get rid of Pegasus without bringing trouble to them.
Hence, the Libyan army discreetly readied a QRF force, ready to quarantine the area at any time and reinforce the operators and contractors.
The 3 Squad Artemis members sneaked across the courtyard, arriving at the front guard post.
"2 ahead," said Maia.
"On it," replied Electra, raising her CZ BREN 3 rifle.
A few quick suppressive shots later the 2 Pegasus contractors are down, and Ethan took out the other 3 with his HK-416.
"Clear, moving," said Maia, taking the lead, firing a signal jamming grenade from her Exo-suit, disabling Pegasus' electronic surveillance means.
She looked into her HUD, seeing the thermal image footage from the Spades International drone flying over their heads that took off from the neighbouring Egypt, not seeing anyone on the other side of the door.
Maia raised her FN 5.7 pistol and deployed her shield, while Ethan pushed the door open, and the 3 entered, with Maia taking lead, Electra and Ethan stacking up behind her.
The 3 advanced forward, arriving at the door connected to the main security servers. If they
Electra activated the ground penetrating module in her Exo-suit, scanning the other side of the door, and soon several red dots popped up on their HUDs.
"Enemies on the other side," signalled Electra.
Ethan dropped a mini robot, which attached itself to the door lock, emitting a concentrated beam of plasma that quickly cut the door lock open, and generated a force in the direction of the door's hinges, silently and quickly swinging the door open.
The 3 UNSSD operators stormed in, rapidly gunning down the hostile Pegasus contractors and clearing through the fatal funnel at the entrance, rapidly controlling the server room before the guards inside could even raise their weapons.
Ethan then quickly got to work, hardwiring the servers to his devices, allowing him to deactivate all of the outer security systems.
"Ok, I have full control," he reported.
"Great!" exclaimed Maia.
"This is Artemis 11, we have disabled the outer security systems," reported Maia.
"Copy boss, we are moving in," radioed her fellow Team Ion members. They began moving.
"Impressive," commented Shirley, who is waiting with the rest of Spades International contractors in the air. "As expected of Squad Artemis, they objective so fast."
Just then, Ethan noticed something strange on his device.
"Why is it going haywire..." he muttered, troubleshooting to see what is wrong.
"AHH!" he screamed, so did Maia and Electra as a strong burst of sound is suddenly emitted from their headsets, temporarily deafening them.
The same happened to their teammates outside, all of them stopping their advance due to being deafened.
Before they can recover however, the ground underneath them suddenly shuddered.
A giant, banshee like abomination emerged from the ground, instantly crushing and killing them.
"NO!" exclaimed Electra in horror, seeing the images on her HUD. While unknown to them, it is the same Mecha model that had teleported "Spectre" and Apollo Cosmos away during the battle in space.
Maia realised to her horror that Archangel had allowed them to reach the server in order to place a virus into their software systems when they try to hack it, this caused their comrades' positions to be exposed, and led to them being wiped out, leaving the 3 of them stranded.
"Richard's style of battle..." she muttered angrily. "We got careless."
Quickly recovering from this tragedy, she immediately contacted the Spades International contractors with the backup frequency, telling them to initiate the emergency plan.
Before setting off, Franz and Xiao Tian gave them an important instruction:
"If things turn bad, make a huge mess out of it. The louder it gets, the better it is. This will prompt the Libyan government to lock down its airspace, roads and ports, trapping the enemy in New Benghazi. This will buy us time to reinforce."
"Understood," replied Shirley. She signalled her fellow contractors to get ready for heavy fighting.
On a Bethorian gunship flying beside, Charlotte had the coordinates and data inputted ready.
"FIRE!" she ordered.
The Bethorian gunship opened fire with its plasma cannons, quickly destroying the banshee Mecha below, and started to bombard the building itself.
Inside an upper floor of the building, Aurelia saw the destruction outside, and she immediately asked Duchess Livia if they need to evacuate.
She turned to Sir Howard next to her, who grinned, telling her to relax.
"This facility is designed to withstand a nuclear war, those are nuisance at best to our grand plan, my dear lady."
A few Spades International drones dropped EMPs, disabling electronics in the facility.
"Hmph," sneered Ori Yashar, quickly instructing the technicians to restore power to the area.
Little did they know it was a distraction, the window the Spades Contractors needed to insert in by air.
Charlotte, Shirley, Khai and Sayyid landed on the helipad located on the 23rd floor, followed by the remaining contractors. Charlotte is in her full Bethorian armour, while the rest of the contractors are using fusions of Exo-suits and the jetpack components of the Bethorian armour gear.
"All Spades personnel inserted in successfully," said Charlotte.
The Bethorian gunship and drones outside continued to open fire, attacking all Pegasus personnel that dared to show themselves, swiftly destroying all of the anti-aircraft batteries in the area.
Shirley took the lead, clearing through the 23rd floor and arriving at the elevators.
Just then, an elevator arrived. She alertly raised her rifle at the door.
It opened, revealing Maia, Electra and Ethan, having arrived to rendevous with them.
"What happened?" asked Shirley worriedly.
"We got hacked, we managed to purge out the viruses in our systems," replied Maia.
"And the security systems?" asked Charlotte.
"They self-destructed," replied Ethan dejectedly.
This confused Charlotte. She does not know why Archangel would do such a thing.
Just then, the internal PA of the building cracked.
Concurrently, Sir Howard's face appeared on public devices all over the world.
"Good evening," he smiled, sinister.
(Taiwan)
Seeing Sir Howard's face, Aya sprang up from her stretcher in the ambulance, ignoring the pain of her missing left hand.
Franz too turned to the screen in the PLA ambulance evacuating them off the bridge.
After the gruelling 10 minutes, the PLA and Taiwan SWAT reinforcements finally arrived after neutralising the other concurrent Vanguard attacks, finishing off the remaining threats using a giant electromagnet as Liu Zhong instructed, evacuating out the civilians and the UN operators that have taken heavy losses.
All of them watched in horror as Sir Howard played a video of the upgraded Asclepius phage, or more accurately, virus in action, showing how it killed only specific persons in the test group.
"As you can see, this virus can target specific genes. If Archangel's demands are not met, we will release this to the entire world."
He made a long list of demands, starting with UN operators and Spades contractors in the area to withdraw and for the Libyan government to not close its airspace and borders.
(New Benghazi)
The Libyan army soon surrounded the compound, all in biohazard gear, while the police got to work evacuating the city.
Through holograms, the Libyan government tried to negotiate with Archangel, though to no avail.
Charlotte clenched her fist angrily. To a former Bethorian soldier like her, threatening to commit war crimes as a form of leverage is once of the most unbearable things.
"Are we going to let them continue terrorising the world?" she asked.
"HELL NO!" replied the operators and contractors in unison.
"Excellent!" she exclaimed. "Then let's take down this son of a b*tch!"
2 Bethorian robots that she had brought down with her activated, hovering above the ground. They are equipped with heavy armour and plasma blasters, yet having the flexibility of a motorcycle. These will be their point-men in clearing rooms later.
She looked at the her helmet's HUD, which scanned lifeforms in the building, finding that the majority of them are at the 50th floor, where according to schematic plans they received from an anonymous tip, is the location of the condo sections of the building.
Underneath them are the labs, which also see lifeforms approaching.
"Guard our rear and get ready to charge, this will get messy," she instructed.
True enough, a few Vanguard terrorists charged up, only to be promptly blasted off by rifle grenades fired by the task force.
"HERE THEY COME!" yelled Ethan.
Status Power Mingguan
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Power 
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