The Fifth Column Is Real

"Today's weather will be cloudy with a heavy chance of flash freezes if you exist in the lower ring of society or out of the safeties of a city." an AI voice said over the speaker as the sliders slid open and the fresh beam of morning sunlight hit my face.

"Come on, Nova; wake up. I must meet with my team today for our newest assignment.

"Okay, I will get up in a few minutes." she said to me as she turned over and ignored me as I got out of bed.

I wondered what I would be fighting this time. I hope that I get to fight members of the UDC at some point soon. I am also hoping that we do not end up in another desert world because the last one was kind of weird.

After I got dressed in my healer clothing, I quickly left the house and started heading over to the Special Forces building in the middle ring of society.

While I was on my walk down the main road, I noticed that there were not very many people moving around this early in the morning. Even if it was early in the morning, I expected there to be at least some kind of movement and social activity in the city; but I bet it was because of the active flash freeze warning.

I made my way to the Special Forces building and bumped into a nobleman who was chatting at the front door with someone who looked like a bodyguard or a mercenary. He had on a robe that was made of silver and gold thread. He told that he might possibly be more than just a noble.

"Wait, you are Danny, right?" the nobleman asked me after he stopped speaking to the man beside him.

"Yes, sir, that is my name." I said as I kneeled at him out of respect.

"I have heard a lot about you from Trent. he speaks very highly of you and of the potential that you bring to his team. " he said to me after he used his right hand in an upward motion to tell me to rise to my feet.

"Thank you for the praise, sir. could I ask the name of the nobleman who is apparently personal friends with Trent?" I asked him as I did a quick light bow and then stood back up at military attention.

"I am Ethan Lupus; as the third son of the House of Lupus, I am charged with running the Special Forces building as well as assigning missions to all of those who are members." he said to me.

"It is an honor to finally meet the leader of the Special Forces division for this world." I said to him as I stood completely still.

"Well, since I have you here, please take this paperwork to your meeting room. it contains all the information that you will need for the next mission that I am assigning your team. " Ethan said to me as he handed me a stack of papers and then left me alone.

I chose not to look at the papers that I was given since it was not my job to do that. I waited in the meeting room for all my teammates to show up so that we could discuss the details of our new mission.

"So, it seems that you are not the last one here this time." William said as he opened the door and entered the room. "Where is that sexy wife of yours?"

"William, I will say this one time; and only one time. leave your twisted and perverted thoughts about my wife out of your mouth" I said as I stood up and looked him in the eyes so that he knew that every word that was coming out of my mouth was backed by conviction.

I set back down and waited for the other three numbers of our team to show up before I handed the paperwork to anyone.

"William, it looks like you owe me 500 credits since you have lost the bet that we made last night." I heard Raven say she entered the room and set down beside me.

"Wait, what did you two bet on if you don't mind me asking?" I asked Raven as I looked at her.

"I bet her 500 credits that you would be the last one to show up again; and as you can tell, I lost the bet." William said as I saw him hand a small silver cube to Raven.

"I actually find that quite funny that you two would bet on our newest member who has not had much time to prove himself yet." Trent said from behind me, which caused me to jump inside since I did not even hear him enter the room.

"Really Trent, I look at it as an investment in my future because unlike William, I have faith in him." Raven said as she took the cube and put it inside of her chest area under her uniform.

"Oh, here I have something for you Trent". I said to him as I held the papers that Eric had given me in front of him.

"These must be the papers that Eric said he had given you that contain all of the known mission details.

"It looks like I am the last one here," Sid said as he took the seat across from me where no one was sitting.

"Now that everyone has arrived, I will read the information on these papers to you all." Trent said.

"I hope that we get to kill more Demetra on this mission. while they are quite challenging to defeat; I find them a lot more fun because of the large variety of different kinds of Demetra that we could be running into. " William said with a giant grin on his face.

"I have some bad news for you then William; we are not even leaving this world for the mission. our main objective is to terminate a known active cell of The Fifth Column that exists in this world. " Trent said as he placed down the paper.

"Wait, are you telling me that The Fifth Column is more than just a rumor?" I asked out of curiosity as well as concern.

"Yes, they do actually exist. they do not agree with any specific government type and are not aligned with any specific race when it involves this current war. " Trent said in response to my question.

"Also, not all of the people of the fifth column exist for the sake of neutrality. we have been selected to take care of a terrorist cell of this specific group that happened to be located on this world. " Sid told me after Trent spoke.

"Are there any other specific details that we need to know about this mission?" William asked Trent.

"Yes, we are not allowed to use any kind of elemental enhancements on our weapons. that is because we have been requested to capture the leader of the cell and their captains alive for public execution.

"So, the head of the House of Lupus wants to make an example of them. if that is what he is after public execution, it definitely would slow down or maybe even halt the Fifth Column's influence on this world." Sid said as I saw him lean in on the table.

"All right that covers all major details of our new mission objective. since we will not be leaving this planet, our supplies have been sent to a secret meeting location that is reserved for on world missions." Trent said to us. "I have updated your scouters so that they contain the coordinates of the meeting location where we will be getting our supplies. you have one hour to get there. that is all for now. "

Then Trent rose to his feet and left everyone alone in the room.

When he left, I quickly made my way out of the room because I needed to discuss something with him.

"Trent, can you wait for a minute?" I asked him while he was rushing down the stairs and out of the building.

I was not able to catch his attention completely because as soon as he rushed out and I was trying to follow him all the usual members of the different strike force teams entered the building blocking me from Trent.

After I finally was able to squeeze past everyone, I could not find Trent anywhere within sight, so I knew that I would have to meet him later to discuss what I wanted to talk to him about.

I activated the scouter and swapped to the map setting and saw a blinking white light that had an x on it, marking it as the location where I was to get my supplies for the next mission.

The location on the map showed that it was in the poor part of town where we were supposed to deal with an ice storm today. I started moving towards where we were supposed to go despite the active weather warnings for that part of town.

After I made it into the lower district of the city, I noticed that there were more guards than usual walking around the streets which I thought it was a bit odd, but I chose to ignore it since it was not my business.

The target building was in a side alley, which was guarded by a total of six different guards that stopped me whenever I tried to enter the alley.

"Wait, I recognize you your mug from the photos we were given." the first guard said to me after looking at me. "Let him in he is a member of one of the strike forces that have clearance to be back here." The leader of the guard stated.

As soon as he spoke, the other guards loosened up and let go of my arms before moving out of the way, allowing me to enter the back alleyway.

While I walked down the alleyway, I noticed only one door that was in the left wall, which I used to enter a room that looked like a cheap knockoff armory from the inside.

"Well, Danny, it seems that you are the first one here again." Trent said to me from behind the desk.

"Why exactly did we have to get our supplies at this location?" I asked, hoping that I would get a straight answer from him.

"Is it not obvious, Danny? I expected you to have figured that out on your own; but since you cannot, I will inform you about why that is. the reason why we have our supplies to send here rather than into our spaceship like normal is because of possible spies for The Fifth Column that might have infiltrated our ranks."

"Oh, that makes sense. then, since we are gathering our supplies here, do you have my dual scythes?" I asked him.

"Yes, I have your weapons for you right there." he said to me as he pointed at the desk that was positioned against the left wall.

I grabbed my weapons and sheets them on both sides of my waist, and as they were placed on my waist, I felt safe again with a weapon that I could rely on to use in combat.

"Well, now that I have given you your weapons, we need to wait on all of the other members of our team before we can move out."

"I am here to grab my sniper rifle." Raven said as she entered the building and saw me put on my melee weapons.

After that, everyone came in one after the other requesting the same type of weapon that they had used on our last two missions.

"Now that everyone has their weapons, we are going to take public transportation to the city of Xentreen that is located on the outskirts of the world. remember that this town mostly consists of low-class people and scum; so be careful we do not know who we can trust out of the citizens there.

After Trent spoke, everyone hid their weapons so that they would not be noticed unless people were intentionally looking for them while we were in line to board the train that led to our destination.

I just knew that fighting these fifth column members would be quite interesting because they consist of all the five dominant races as well as a few sub races. that is why I felt a rush of stress as well as excitement when I boarded the train and sat down in the back row.

When the train began to move, I could sense that someone that boarded the ship at the same time as we did was watching us intentionally and that this mission was not going to be as easy as I had originally thought.