It made sense. Dylan never thought that the commander of the spaceship would reveal everything to the public. While he was the leader that had been chosen by the previous one, and that was how things had been since two hundred years ago, he still always tried to look good in the eye of the public. It was an efficient way to make them work hard and benefit him even more.

  “Come to think of it, no one has seen him aside from the second in command, or so the rumors say,” Dylan thought. “That is very suspicious. It won’t surprise me if Felix is messing with everyone.”

  “Attention, all teams,” Felix suddenly said while showing himself in the monitor of everyone’s helmets. “It seems that the monsters that were facing the assault and sabotage team have retreated. However, this behavior feels unnatural. Until I deem it necessary, the mission continues, but the sabotage and assault teams will take turns draining some ether from the area of the extraction team. Keep your guard up.”

  Dylan looked at Amanda. They had found around fifteen extraction points, it would be fine if the other teams got the ether from the weaker ones, but it would be a problem if they were connected somehow… It will be the same as taking a lot of water from a single bucket.

  “... If the worst comes to the worst, we still can get six times more ether than we already got,” Amanda said, as if she was trying to convince herself. “We will also be able to bring a lot of those creatures, so in one way or the other, we will obtain a lot.”

  Dylan decided not to question her in that regard, and neither did Sabrina. Still, the other members of the extraction team sure looked disappointed. The idea of returning home was way more appealing to them than waiting for another attack.

  After a couple of minutes, the group saw a few members of the assault team approaching, and their leader was with them. While Francis looked fine, it looked like his other allies suffered some damage. They looked exhausted, even though the ether that they have must have repaired their battle, and the damage that they received was a lot lower thanks to their battle suits.

  “Good work, Amanda,” Francis said once he approached and noticed that their work was progressing fairly well. “With this, we should have more than enough to gain the approval of the other inhabitants of the dreadnought for the next missions.”

  “I suppose… but maybe they won’t like it much if they have access to the footage of the mission,” Amanda said after she crossed her arms.

  Francis and the other two began to drain the ether from the ground without saying anything, since they knew that it was unlikely for such a thing to happen. The right footage might bring the favor of the population on their side, but they won’t be convinced with an edited version.

  Regardless, after half an hour of gathering ether, Francis and the others left the area. They could have gathered more than enough ether than they started the mission with, but they couldn’t stay there any longer. At such a moment, Dylan noticed that the guy looked at him for a while and then ignored him.

  Dylan ignored that, since he also had more important things on his mind. In that half an hour, they confirmed that the sources of ether came from different spots since their speed of gathering didn’t slow down that much after more people came there to gather it. That was a new piece of information that might come in handy for them in the future.

  That being said, the real vital information that he got was that if the missions were always going to be between six and eight hours long unless they find better conditions than in the current mission, it would be hard to think that they would be that profitable… They need to be profitable since they are dangerous.

  Shon and two of his team members came next, and while they looked a bit better than the previous team, they weren’t up for chit-chat, so they quickly went to gather ether. They probably were really low on fuel, and they couldn’t afford to waste time.

  Once the second group finished their recharge, the storage team also approached and then began to carry the corpses of the creatures that the extraction team had dealt with. They probably could find more of them in the direction the assault and sabotage team was coming from, but they couldn’t risk it. It was dangerous since they didn’t know when the enemies would return, and that might enrage them even more.

  “Attention, all teams,” Felix’s voice echoed inside their helmets again, but this time, he didn’t show up. “I am issuing new orders. The members of the Assault Team, Shon, Amanda, Sabrina, and Dylan are to head to the East side of the area and investigate. I have already investigated the other areas and confirmed that they are completely free of all lifeforms in a range of thirty kilometers.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Everyone looked at each other in silence. Since that was their first official mission in a long time, it would be best to follow their schedule, and now Felix wanted to change it for whatever reason. It was only natural that they would be baffled.

  “The other members will head to the location of the extraction team and focus on draining the ether from that area. The leader of the temporary and new assault team will still be Francis,” Felix added. “That is all.”

  Dylan was starting to think that it was pretty annoying to follow the chain of command without questioning. Once the members of the sabotage and storage team reached that area, Amanda and the others headed toward the location of the assault team.

  “Hm.” Amanda grumbled in annoyance.

  While she didn’t say anything, it was clear, considering her expression alone, that Amanda had a lot to say to Felix. This was weird since, despite her usually friendly attitude, Dylan assumed that Amanda was a fine example of a soldier, but now she looked way too rebellious.

  “... We have four hours before the time limit of the end of the mission,” Francis said once the last members of the temporary team arrived. “My plan is to be back here half an hour before the time limit. So, we will run toward our destination and then investigate the area for up to two hours and then return. Keep me informed of your fuel at all times.”

  Everyone nodded, and then he told them to change their battle suits to Sprint mode before dashing toward the direction the enemies ran away from.

  During that brief exchange, Dylan realized that Francis didn’t look even a bit bored by the new orders. He didn’t look particularly excited for combat either, so that made him hard to read. Regardless, the squad managed to cover a lot of ground in a matter of minutes, since they could follow a clear path that the enemies also used. During that whole time, they didn’t find signs of them either.

  “If he manages to scan an area of thirty kilometers, he must know that we won’t face enemies until we find the spot that he wants us to investigate…” Dylan furrowed his eyebrows. “Come to think of it, and he issued the orders because the probs couldn’t send him any information… why?”

  There is something in that area that Felix found necessary to check, even if it might put the lives of ten of the soldiers at risk. Still, he chose the best combatants for a reason.

  “I guess the answer lies in this world and on the energy source that we are gathering: ether,” Dylan thought. “We still don’t know much about it, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it can affect most of our equipment in a negative way. That would explain why Felix didn’t warn us about the first few monsters we faced.”

  In any case, Dylan decided to put those thoughts aside when he began to feel a bit tense, and the air started to feel cold. The battle suit was supposed to keep him in his best condition, so it made him think that his senses were warning him. At the same time, Francis slowed down their movement speed. The number of craters and piles of rubble was decreasing, so it was safe to assume that they had left the main area of the city… the path ahead was starting to look uneven as well.

  “Shon, take two of my team and watch the left side and look for vantage points while we advance,” Felix ordered. “Amanda, you do the same on the right side with your team.”

  Those two nodded, and then they split up. Still, they stayed only at one hundred meters range, and then they stopped.

  “Are yo- all… receiving me?” Felix asked.

  “There is some interference… some large source of energy must be nearby,” Amanda replied after she looked around.

  “All right… let’s stay in this range… keep communications to a minimum and use… messages,” Felix said.

  In the end, Dylan’s guess was right. There was another source of energy nearby, probably ether. Still, that raised more questions… Why didn’t the probes find that before? If they found that power plant of ether, they should have found that other one only a few kilometers away.

  “Attention, temporary Assault team,” Felix said. “Unidentified source of energy is heading in your direction at thirty kilometers per hour. Hundreds of life signatures are around it as well. Move north for a few minutes in order to give me some time to analyze the data further.”

  “You heard your orders. Move north while keeping formation,” Francis declared.

  A source of energy that could move… that would explain why the probes didn’t find such a thing before. Most likely, it was also an alien lifeform. Dylan could see the faces of Sabrina and Amanda turning pale. The reason for it was obvious, and the Omega alien was an alien lifeform that was a source of energy that only had two goals before: exterminate all humans and turn almost everything into energy. That being said, the chances of that creature being in that world were none… it would be too easy to spot it, and it could move a lot faster.

  “Attention, temporary assault team,” Felix said without showing himself on the monitor again. “I confirmed that the source of energy is heading to where the other members of the mission are. Most likely, the source of energy wants to take back the ether that we have obtained. Your mission is to slow down the source of energy while getting rid of all the life forms moving alongside it.”

  “This can’t be a good thing… Do other creatures like the Omega alien actually exist?” Dylan furrowed his eyebrows while looking around and seeing that the whole team was paralyzed for a moment. Even Francis wasn’t ready to face a creature like that, even if it was a lot weaker. “We got some data from the Omega alien thanks to my parents, but it seems that Felix wants more, even if he has to put at risk the lives of some of us.”