The Fifth Column

Chapter 4- A Bigger Problem

A/n: Back by demand of the only person to respond to my message, I give you the next chapter.

~~^-^~~

I burst into the command center. "Jacob, tell the pilot to make for the nearest Omega prison as fast as possible. Get the prisoners off the ship and then get us in the air. Our destination is going to be South Africa, a village, called Stellenbosch outside of Cape Town. As soon as we are in the air again, get everyone in the briefing room." I turned to walk out of the room.

"What happened to going to Moscow?" Jacob asked.

"We don't have time the archangel that these two dealt with, his boss, and a bunch of other archangels are going to be there within the next few hours. We need to get there before we miss them. We may never have a chance like this again." I stormed out, my mind racing for the first time in my life.

"Where are you going? Why can't you tell everyone?" Jacob asked, following me.

"I have to do research, it's going to take time and I need some privacy." I made it to the briefing room, closing the door in my brother's face.

I waited next to the door, listening for my brother to leave. He stood there a moment before going off. I sighed with relief, it took everything that I had not to show how scared I was. I closed the blinds, leaving me in complete darkness. Superiors? Liaisons? This was nothing like the mission parameters. This was supposed to be a small organization, not an organized syndicate.

I brought up the communicator on the screen of the briefing room. Agent Hendrickson was the first to pick up. He looked a little panicked.

"Oh, Mike. What is it? Now is not the best time, make it quick."

"I have a report, sir. It's not good."

"What happened?"

"We captured the man in the video and his companion. Turns out that this organization is much more vast than we first anticipated. This mission may be a bit too big for one team. I am requesting that headquarters sends reinforcements, if not a second or third team."

"Unfortunately, we can't do that. There are no teams on base right now, and reinforcements are a bit short-handed right now." An alarm went off in the background of Agent Hendrickson's transmission.

"What's going on there?" I asked, it was a full amber alert, meaning either the base was under attack, about to explode, or was compromised.

"No time to explain, complete the mission. I've gotta go, good luck." The feed was cut.

"Agent Hendrickson? Agent Hendrickson!" There was no response. Madam Red didn't pick up, I couldn't even get a hold of the operator who monitored all transmissions in sector 42. Whatever we did, we were on our own. This feeling of bile rose in my stomach. This was no training exercise, we had to take down an organization of unknown size containing multiple Omegas. I leaned against a wall and slowly slid down to the floor. We weren't ready for this, but we had no choice. I was so close to crying when I felt the Jeep start to descend. I had about ten to twenty minutes before the others got in, expecting answers. I blinked the start of tears out of my eyes, shook my head, slapped my face a little bit, and stood up. I had some research to do.

~~^-^~~

The others poured in, each with their own mixture of determination and confusion on their faces. Kelly was the first to speak.

"So, why are we going to South Africa?"

"That is a long story, here's the summary. U.P. is much larger than we first anticipated. The organization is based on the hierarchy of angels in the Christian belief."

"And the hierarchy of angels would be..." Xander asked.

"There are apparently nine different types of angels, separated into three groups of three. The first and lowest group are the angels that deal with matters of the earth. The lowest level are Angels, next up are the Archangels, the messengers of heaven, and the Principalities, the ones who give orders to the lower angels. The second level deals with the matters of heaven. It consists of the Authorities, the history keepers of the angels, the Strongholds, which are basically angel cops, and the Lordships, who govern all of heaven. The top level is solely focused on matters of God himself. The Ophanim are supposed to be the angelic representation of God's throne. The Cherubim guard the Garden of Eden and God's throne. The Seraphim are the highest classification of angels, they are the caretakers of God's throne."

"Jacob told us that the big guy lost his marbles, are you basing all of this off the word of a loon." Connor asked.

"I have reason to believe that the large man was brainwashed, not by a psychic, but by someone with experience. He's conditioned to go into that kind of trance so that anyone questioning him would believe that he has lost his marbles and ignore what would be the complete truth."

I countered.

"You said that the top classifications dealt almost exclusively with God, does that mean that the leader of U.P. is codenamed God?" Stephanie asked.

"I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past them."

"That still doesn't answer the question." Kelly said, folding her arms. "Why South Africa?"

"According to the small one, there is going to be a meeting between the Principality and his given archangels. If we can capture them, not only will we practically shut down part of the organization for a period of time, but we should be able to gain access to the next tier of angels."

"It will be more difficult to capture them if there are more of them, why not wait until the Principality is left more defenseless and capture them." Alice said.

"It would also save some time, getting to the top as possible so that we can shut down the entire organization at once." Kelly added.

"If I'm right, this organization is built around compartmentalization, if we don't take down as much of the organization as we can, they will just reorganize."

"Or we could just let agents from sector 42 handle the nitty-gritty stuff while we-" Richard tried.

"We are on our own." I interrupted. There was a silence.

"What do you mean?" Connor asked.

"I sent my report to Agent Hendrickson and to request back-up. He said that sector 42 couldn't send any kind of help, Omega or otherwise." Silence. "I won't sugar-coat it. Just before his transmission ended, an amber alert went up in sector 42. Now, we have three options. Wait for the next communication. It's the safest option, not obeying or disobeying orders, and we'd get to relax for a while. Two problems, we lose the opportunity to get the Principality, and for all we know, there never will be another communication. Option two, we go back to base and try to help in whatever way we can. We would be purposefully disobeying orders and there may be nothing that we can do, but it will ease our consciences. Option three, the option I'm going with, with or without any of you, is to do our damn jobs. So, what's it gonna be?" Silence.

"What's the plan?" Kelly asked.