An oldie again? Sort of. This one I began pretty much the moment I finished the original "It's War" fic. It began sort of okay, and then somehow flew into a lot of crap that I really … really ….. re-he-he-he-ally didn't like.

So I let it sit and stew and let my mind reconsider things (about 12 months or so). Recently I got back at it. I fixed up pretty much all of it and reworked many parts of it to return it to what I consider a fairly readable fic.

This baby follows from "It's War", which is an essential read before you head in to this one.

Anyhoo. I do hope you enjoy this one. To those of you who painfully read the first effort, I do apologise and really hope I have appeased you with the newer offering.

Disclaimer: G-Force, Zoltar, Cronus, Mala, Anderson and Zark do not belong to me… The rest do.

~~O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O-O-O-O-O~~

When the War is Over ….

Eighteen months hardly seemed to be a long period of time. By breaking it down in simplest terms, and without pulling out the Western calendar to spend an hour working it all out, eighteen months was little more than 72 weeks, 504 days, 12126 hours or 727560 minutes; hardly enough time for a full life change and adaptation into something foreign and unusual.

At least that's what Princess, now known only as Cassandra or Cassie, had initially believed. Today was her official 18 month anniversary of life after G-Force. 18 months to the day that she had offered Mark her last farewell.

And gosh, hadn't things changed for her…

Six weeks after leaving the Federation grounds to begin life anew, she'd discovered she was pregnant. It had hardly been welcome news to her. Struggling to support herself and having to find means to add another mouth to the plan was a daunting task she believed not even the tactical offices at Centre Neptune could manipulate. But, she carefully planned and saved what little money she could to prepare, and six months later, she birthed the most beautiful little girl she'd ever seen in her life.

She thrived in the role of mother, finding that it filled the void in her life left after losing Keyop. There were obviously moments of tears and frustration as she struggled to appease the constant needs of a baby, but she rarely complained. She cried a lot at the loneliness of being a young single mother, but fought against every instinct to reach out to Mark and the team. They had enough on their plate right at the moment, and she didn't want to bother them with her own troubles.

G-Force had struggled, as she read in the papers, with her departure. She watched the first press conference Anderson had forced Mark to hold only two days after she left. He had tried so valiantly not to look human as he gave the world the news of the Swan leaving the team. She knew him better, though. It was obvious that he wasn't handling the break-up as well as she hoped he would.

"In time, Mark," she'd whispered to the television at the time. "It'll get better, I promise."

In retrospect, she saw how much she had overreacted to the situation. Her intent had been to hurt Mark, not the team. Her departure had affected them all, and she knew it would to some degree. Seeing them all at the conference, however, she saw exactly how deeply each team member was affected.

She wanted to run into the conference, throw her arms around each of them and beg their forgiveness. Fortunately she'd held on to her own pride and not done so, for she'd have to have forced another announcement only a handful of weeks later.

It wouldn't be fair of her to burden the mighty Eagle with an unwanted child. He needed his own freedom and the chance to fully evaluate who he was and what he needed before he could think to settle down with the one woman. Melissa had proved that beyond a doubt. He sleeping with her was more than Mark being drugged and drunk; it was about him needing to be a young man and experience life away from the team. Experience a real woman.

If Melissa could so be described.

Speaking of Melissa:

That had been a revelation all in its own. According to the news reports, Internet and tabloids (which actually did seem to get it right more often than not), Melissa had been charged alongside Anson for destruction of the G-1 mecha less than a week after the incident.

Court documents she'd obtained from one of her current workmates within the police department told a wicked story.

It was charged that Melissa and Anson had been in cahoots with the shamed and late Carrington, former Prince of Riga, to cripple the G-Force project. Intelligence received by Colonel Cronus had suggested a plot to destroy G-Force from within, to allow the Spectran forces to move into the Milky Way Galaxy to slowly take over and destroy what precious resources remained after the human populous had milked her dry.

While the charge could not be proven, the pair was still charged with mischief and vandalism of government property and received 24 months of incarceration at the new prison facility on the moon. With good behaviour it was expected they could leave inside of 12 months, but that was considered unlikely if the Eagle showed up to any parole hearings to dispute early release.

The existence of an Eagle sibling had been answered at trial. She was, indeed, Mark's half-sister. She'd used that information in her own defense plan. She plead temporary insanity to hearing the news that she had been lied to, cheated, and denied access to her identity. The knowledge that she had a brother, that brother being the Eagle no less, had destroyed her fragile sensibility and she'd been easy prey to a manipulative man like Anson.

Anson's defense was much more simple. He hated the Eagle. Cronus had unfairly dismissed him from flight duty, and his attack on the jet was payback to the Federation for allowing him to do so. He didn't admit too much else, although it seemed fairly obvious there was much more to it. Unfortunately, due to lack of evidence to prove it, he was only found guilty of the lesser charges.

He did vow, when the Judge handed down the verdict and sentence, that it wouldn't be the last they'd hear from he or Melissa …

Princess certainly didn't doubt it, which was yet another reason she was glad to have chosen to leave G-Force. Having her precious daughter in constant danger because of who her daddy was wasn't worth the risk. It was safer for her to continue to blend in with the civilians and lead as quiet an existence as was possible.

To achieve this, she'd needed to find herself a job. It took her a good few weeks to create a new working profile that would allow her to continue within her knowledge base and experience. Careful manipulation of work histories by hacking into various company databases, including those within the Federation, had given her a new lease on her working life.

Five weeks after leaving G-Force she began a new career with the Bomb Squad and explosive forensics departments in the city's largest policing center. It was a thrilling move than exhilarated her almost to the extent of her duties within the G-Force project.

She had new friends and a life she never thought she'd be capable of having.

It was wonderful.

It was incredible.

It was missing only one thing…

…Mark.

~O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-O-O~

Mark grunted as he rammed his back up against the wall to take cover from gunfire. He held his hand in a fist and straightened his arm beside him across the chest of G-Force's newest agent, Lisa the Falcon, to stop her from advancing further.

Too eager to wait beside her Commander, Lisa struggled against his arm. "Commander, I can do it, just let me get in there."

He flexed the muscles in his arm to lock her in place as his eyes flashed an ice-blue glare at her. "I said no, Lisa."

She groaned and toyed with the side seam of her black wings. "Don't baby me. I know what I'm doing."

"Strangely enough," he grunted in response, "so do I. So you will wait for my order and not question it."

She pouted and slumped against the wall as a bullet whizzed past her red visor. "Gee, testy today aren't we?"

His lip curled and he roughly grabbed her wrist to run them both out of the corridor. He raised his wrist to his mouth to call his team. "G-1 to G-2, Jason, what's happening over there?"

"Keyop and I are heading out to the rendezvous point now, Skipper. The kid left them a couple of presents, so if I were you I'd haul your asses out of there."

He tugged hard on Lisa's wrist as they ran. "ETE?"

"About thirty seconds or so. Did you and G-6 get the intel?"

"Something like that." He stopped as he unhitched his birdrang to down a Spectran soldier at the end of the hallway. The move forced him to free Lisa from his hold and she shot ahead of him to attempt to bring down another.

She pulled a large gun from her holster and crouched to slide forward on the sides of the soles of her shoes toward him. She pumped off three shots into the chest of the goon and was back on her feet before he hit the ground.

"Lisa," he growled in and order. "Get behind me, your job is to protect the package, not get yourself killed."

"I don't need a babysitter," she snarked in reply.

"No but you need to obey orders."

She groaned as the two of them rounded the corner to collide with Keyop and Jason. She landed against Jason's chest and chuckled when his arms circled her shoulders to attempt to prevent the two of them from falling on their asses. "Why, hello. Fancy meeting you …"

"Later, babe," he smirked as he finally took her hand to continue running from the base.

"Do the two of you want to save it until we're out of here?" Mark spat as they approached the waiting Phoenix.

Behind them, the base jolted with the first of three explosions Keyop had set.

"Got to … leave …" Keyop brooped as he tapped code into his bracelet to let Tiny know to open the upper dome for them. "Big ... bang next."

"Hear that loud and clear, Keyop," Mark huffed as he opened his wings to leap into the warship. To his left and right, his three field team mates leapt high.

It was only three seconds before the dome closed over their heads and the elevator was dropping to lead them into the command deck.

"At your stations," Mark ordered, pointing to each vacant chair. "Jason, you get ready to fire one of your toys into that thing. Keyop should have had it weakened enough for them to work now." He looked to the team female. "Lisa, check your intel. That module is supposed to have a full listing of Earth bound Spectran allies. Don't lose it, for the love of God."

"On it, Mark." She flipped open the door to the storage drawer at her console and threw the cassette inside.

"Tiny," Mark said softly with a smile on his voice. "Get us the Hell out of here."

"Big Ten, Commander."

Mark let out a long breath once he knew the team was safe after yet another mission. Another job well done.

His eyes shifted to his team. They were not yet fully recovered form Princess' departure, but were coming close. Eighteen months was a long time to forget about the missing member … Well, not so much forget, but adapt.

Lisa was a strong addition. She was still green and had some definite problems with authority. Although she didn't hold the same skill as the Swan, she was adequate enough for the task.

She was also pretty enough to pull off the new public relations role that the Federation had decided to introduce. Nowhere near the beauty of his Swan, to him anyway, but more than enough to satisfy the marauding photographers and paparazzi that had begun to stalk each of the team members.

Jason had immediately set his sights on the young woman, and pursued her after their first meeting.

They'd begun a relationship within, Mark assumed, hours of their first encounter. It hadn't mellowed the Condor, any, but Jason's sudden and frequent absences to rendezvous with his new girlfriend finally gave Mark some alone time to take stock of his life and needs.

He only really had one need, however….

And she wasn't coming home, no matter how many times he looked pleadingly at the door.