Chapter 2

Tiny getting married, Keyop stood alone in the hallway of Centre Neptune trying to let it sink in. The past few days beset such incredible changes it had left him in shock. Spectra had fallen; Keyop witnessed the death of Zoltar and had his own hand in his passing. Tiny had suddenly revealed a lover he had kept secret, and announced he intended to leave the team and marry her. The ceremony was held as the fires of the ruined Spectra bases still burned. Keyop didn't know what was going to become of G-Force, and then out of the blue Chief Anderson announced there would be replacements. It was so much to take in, in so little time it left Keyop's head spinning.

Told to come in uniform, Keyop the Swallow turned away from the viewing port and made his way to the conference room where the other members of G-force already awaited. Under their G-Force helmets, Keyop could not see any face that shared his own in mourning for the loss of Tiny. Mark looked worried, Jason was his usual stoic self, and Princess looked downright strange, almost cheerful.

"Look who's late, again," said Jason.

"I was waving good bye to Tiny's shuttle," said Keyop.

"Aw isn't that sweet?" Jason said in a mocking voice, "Keyop misses the big guy already."

"Hey, lay off," said Princess as she had often acted as Keyop's big protective sister, "It's not like you don't miss Tiny either."

Mark interrupted with his serious tone, "We all miss him, Princess. It was Tiny's decision; he thought it was time to go. For the rest of us, the mission goes on. "

"How much of a mission can there be?" asked Jason, "All that's left scattered across the world are a few lackeys. International law enforcement can handle of them."

Mark took out his sonic boomerang and started twirling it in his fingers, a tell he was starting to feel a little uneasy.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Jason. There's still plenty of operatives from Spectra out there. Some of them were pretty seriously trained assassins and terrorists."

"You don't think we could be going out on another mission, so soon?" asked Keyop, sounding disappointed.

"I wouldn't rule it out," said Mark.

Anderson entered the room and interrupted their conversation, "Mark is right."

G-force was caught off guard. Princess looked around discretely checking out how the other reacted.

"I understand your concerns," said Anderson, "With one of your crew gone; G-Force is off-footed. Jumping into a mission with new personnel is not the way you would usually go about doing things. I overheard what you were saying earlier, and you are correct in your assumption it is a different game now. This won't be your usual battle against giant marauding robots. You'll be facing the most deadly agents of Spectra, some of whom we don't even know what they look like. They are bound to keep up their practise by selling out their skills to the mob, form new crime syndicates of their own, or may even attempt to rebuild Spectra."

"What's this new personnel you mentioned?" asked Mark.

"Yes, Chief, you're not saddling us with babysitting rookies?" asked Jason.

"I wouldn't bring anyone into this exclusive unit unless they were properly trained," said Anderson, "I assure you, you will find them qualified for the job."

"I notice you keep saying them," said Jason, "Are you adding more than one member?"

"Yes, there will be two new members in G-force."

Mark was a little shocked by this and he protested, "Making us six? Chief, we've always worked as a team of five."

"Yeah, we'll have to install another seat in the Phoenix," Jason joked.

"This is serious Jason," said Mark, "Everything about G-Force, what made it work was the perfect balance of having five team members. When we got knocked down to four, temporarily, it caused significant problems. Now we're talking about altering the team permanently."

"That's not the only change you will have to adjust to," said Anderson, "Up until now, every member of the team of G-Force are orphans, as you well know. We arranged it this way deliberately because we wanted operatives to combat Spectra who did not carry the collateral of having families who could be kidnapped, threatened, or used against you by Spectra. However, these two new members are going to be different. They're not orphans like you. They still have families that need to be protected, and for that reason their real names, for now, must be kept secret, even from you."

"What?" Mark blurted out.

"Seriously, you're not going to trust us?" asked Jason.

"That's pretty heavy," said Keyop.

Anderson calmed them down and said, "This is a temporary measure. Soon there will be full disclosure and you will know your new team mates as you know each other. It will just take time. Now let me introduce them."

A girl wearing a G-Force uniform with yellow, white, and black trim entered the room. She was less than an inch different in height than Keyop. Trying to see past the tinted visor on her helmet, Keyop was absolutely certain he recognized the girl for a moment, then he looked closer at her attractive figure and realized this young woman had to be much more mature than the person he was thinking of.

"This is G-Force Agent E," said Anderson, "The Sparrow. Her specialty is explosives, like Princess. She was trained to compliment Keyop, the Swallow, and will be partnered with Keyop, permanently."

The very pretty girl quickly approached Keyop and raised her hand to shake his.

"I'm looking forward to working with you," she said with a more mature voice than Keyop expected to hear.

Hopelessly shy, Keyop blushed a great deal and tried to fight off having a fit of the giggles as he found the courage to shake the beautiful girl's hand.

"So you're pairing us off?" asked Jason, "Where's my date?"

"As a matter of fact, we have a partner for you, Jason," said Anderson as he stood aside.

Less of a partner, more of an Amazon, stepped through the door. Jason was easily the tallest member of G-Force, but this woman could only be a hair behind him. Her G-Force uniform had a very aggressive colour scheme of black trim with orange and red.

"This is L, the Falcon," said Anderson, "She has been specifically trained to be a partner for Jason, the Condor. Her speciality is similar to Jason's. She's a superb marksman."

She stepped up to Jason to shake his hand, "And I consider myself to be a pretty good driver, too."

"Another driver?" asked Jason as he shook the woman's steely firm hand, "We need a pilot."

"I wouldn't have been named after the fastest bird in the world if I couldn't fly," said L as she adjusted her gloves, "I'll be taking Tiny's seat in the Phoenix."

Mark didn't agree with changing the dynamics of the team like this. He did not object being paired with Princess, he had partnered with her many times before, and they definitely complimented each other well, but Mark was worried this pairing would lead to emotional attachments. Not to mention the whole style of it seemed so unlike Anderson. Mark couldn't help but feel there was somebody behind the scenes pulling the strings to make this happen, and Mark thought it must have been this grown woman, the Falcon, no doubt the first fully adult member of G-Force by the look of her.

Princess ignored Mark's grumblings and said, "Well I for one am glad to see some women on the team. It's about time, if you ask me. Hanging out with you boys all the time makes me feel like I snuck into a men's dormitory."

Princess warmly greeted the new members and they spoke with a familiarity as though they had already known each other for a while.

Chief Anderson was rolling a screen that came down from the ceiling at the head of the conference room and asked for everyone's attention. Holding a remote, Anderson clicked at the screen which showed an aerial view of a base and he asked if any of the team recognized it.

Mark was the first to speak up and said, "That's one of the old command bases for the Global Space Agency in the western province of North Aletia."

"Correct," said Anderson as he clicked at the screen showing more photos, "This base was abandoned after the Phoenix lost its first battle with the Space Terrapin. For some time we have been receiving intelligence that Spectra had taken the base over for themselves. However, we had never been able to confirm this, as the base had suffered from high levels of radiation due to the original attack from the Space Terrapin."

"What makes you think Spectra has a base there now?" asked Jason.

Anderson clicked to another picture that showed atmospheric telemetry, "Recent readings have shown there is no trace of radiation whatsoever, and due to the lack of adverse effects on local wildlife, has been radiation free for some time."

"How is that possible?" asked Jason.

L the Falcon jumped in to explain, "We know that Spectra has developed a secret means of defeating radiation, using a technology we have never been able to duplicate, which makes it a dead giveaway Spectra has been here."

Anderson shook his head in agreement and said, "We have recent intelligence that Spectra has been using nanotechnology to scrub radiation from the air. This information comes from an operative who for a while was a prisoner of Spectra. We learned from this operative that Spectra was developing nanotechnology solely for the purpose of defeating cybernetic technology. I think you may figure out why this is such a threat to G-Force, and why this technology should never fall into the wrong hands"

Mark slammed his fist into his palm and said, "Spectra was developing technology solely for the purpose of defeating G-Force!"

"Precisely" said Anderson, "So we have come up with a delicate mission plan to infiltrate the base, neutralize the threat, and retrieve any data and samples of the nanobots that we can. That way we can see how the technology works and develop a means to counter it.

G-Force has been divided into three teams. The first team, Keyop and E, will infiltrate and neutralize any threat of nanobots. The second team, made of Jason and L, will eliminate any threat of possible Spectra agents. The third team, Mark and Princess, will act as back up back up and perform data retrieval and salvage of any nanobot development."

"Wait a second Chief," said Mark, "You sending in Keyop with a new team member first? Isn't that a bit risky?"

"Keyop has proven himself time and again to be remarkable adept to sneaking into Spectra bases unseen," Anderson rebuffed, "Keyop will be assisting E in placing a special device."

Anderson pointed the remote at the screen and clicked it to display a schematic of small piece of equipment about half the size of a lunch box.

"This is an EM pulse chemical implosion bomb developed by 7 Zark 7," said Anderson, "It generates an extremely high-frequency EM pulse that causes any small silicate matter to completely polarize. This means any memory storage device used to program a nanobot would be rendered inoperable, and since it works at such a high frequency, it has no effect on memory storage devices on regular computers."

Jason whistled and went, "That's pretty slick. Is Zark certain this will work?"

L the Falcon interrupted and said, "Nanotechnology theoretically can only store memory in one of two ways. Polarized atoms arranged like memory chips or atoms arranged to form chemical bonds like RNA sequences. RNA sequences cannot carry programs to attack something like cybernetic technology. So it has to be something of the former, and any memory storage device that can hold an elaborate program is bound to be vulnerable to EM pulses."

Jason raised an eyebrow and said, "You seem to know a lot about nanotechnology, miss."

"I might school you sometime," said L the Falcon, looking coy, "And the name is L."