Princess was back in her room, seated at the computers, and ready to search out her email folder before she realized that she'd forgotten to bring her coffee with her. There was a momentary level of panic before she spied a stray can of Pepsi on her dresser. She was still listening to the results from the Federation DNA Analysis expert at Centre Neptune as she slid across the floor in her chair to retrieve the Pepsi.

"So tell me again," she said loudly to be heard over the pop and fizz of an opening can of warm Pepsi. "You're telling me that this profile has been linked to how many sexual assault cases?"

"Three different investigations across the country, Princess; one of them confirmed by M.O. as serial. The NYPD estimated the serial case to have thirty different assault victims."

She almost spat out the warm drink. "So that's thirty three known assaults to this guy?"

"Twenty-five, actually. The other eight linked to the serial are victim accounts. No biologicals were present."

She hitched her breath and awkwardly rolled her chair back to her desk using a seated walk. "Any of his victims murdered?"

"All except the eight without evidence. He didn't seem to be able to hang on to those little wildcats enough to do the deed."

"Crude, Craig." She coughed as she pressed F5 on her keyboard to download the profile to her computer. "So, were you able to find a possible suspect match in CODIS?"

"Nah, Prin. It seems this guy is still on the run. Hey, why are you so interested in this one? I thought you and your team didn't do the whole investigation thing."

She ignored the question. "Do you have access to the FBI database?"

"Aww, nah. That's one of those Top Secret things I can't get in to – which sucks because I might be able to get my work done a hell of a lot easier and in less time if I had access to all databases and didn't have to start from scratch every time."

"Since when has the FBI been one of those Top Secret Departments, Craig?"

"Since your Swallow used it to … Hell, what did he do again?"

"Which time?" she chuckled softly as she let her fingers tap at her keyboard to attempt to finalize her own hacking attempt. "Last I heard it was his fifth time."

"Yeah, well that kind of made it tough on all of us. Now we have red tape beaurocratic bullshit to wade through just to ask to borrow a stinking pen."

"Pen?" She asked with a flick of her brow. "I don't get it …"

"Oh yeah. You were on vacation with Keyop. The Feds barrelled in here about seven months ago. They had Anderson and Mark in closed door meetings for almost a week. We had to work alongside – sorry – out of their way for two months after that."

"Do you know what it was about?"

"Look Prin, this is speculation, okay. And I will deny ever telling you this. Apparently they wanted Mark and Anderson to sign on to some secretive undercover ops thing. I remember Mark being a livid-ass mess throughout the meetings. He quit twice and had to be coaxed back into G-Force by Anderson and Kane."

"I see," she breathed softly as she finally heard the welcoming chirp of an All Access Authority pass on her centre monitor. "So it was something Mark wasn't happy with."

"Obviously."

She nodded with pursed lips and let her eyes scan the myriad of search options immediately available to her. "Craig, If I can possibly hack my way in to the Feds DB, you want me to put you in the program?"

"What I want and what I can agree to are two different things, Princess. Tell you what. You have a sneaky peek for me and fill me in on what I might need to know."

She gave a short giggle and considered a fast search parameter option she could use to find what she needed before she was discovered sneaking through the Federal network. "Will do, Craig. And thanks, I really appreciate you processing those samples so quickly."

"Any time, Princess. I know you've had a hell of a week so I wanted to try and do something nice to cheer you up."

"I wish I could say you cheered me up, Craig," she breathed softly. "But all you've done so far is worry me that little bit more."

"I'm sure you'll work it out soon enough. Just go easy on Mark; you know he had no choice in this."

She hummed an absent-sounding affirmative response and closed the phone to disconnect the call. No choice indeed. If Mark had been given even half of the information she knew now, then he should have immediately assumed the worst and made that asshole pay.

She felt that full-body shudder of anger rise again.

If he knew … Of course he knew.

She opened the Federal employee fingerprint database and loaded the print she had, and was still waiting on the AFIS results for. The match was made almost immediately.

"Philip Mason," she breathed softly as his image and file downloaded onto her screen. "Accused serial sexual predator and murderer. Born in Liverpool, raised in New York…"

Most of the following information was little more than the bio of an adult who had a rough childhood. She skimmed through the information on the main page and found hyperlinks within the text to take her to different parts of his electronic file. She chewed on her thumb as the information – and the man – became much clearer.

Mason's ability to remain unidentified throughout his four years as New York's most vicious serial rapist and murderer makes him the perfect candidate for the Agency's most ambitious project.

The Federation's G-Force squadron have been unable to infiltrate, nor eliminate, the Earth's greatest threat. Spectra have obviously infiltrated Earth's many underground resources. Their resilience in the face of continual and expensive defeats leaves no doubt that their source of income is from the elite underground groups. It is this that the FBI believes is the key to the final undoing of the Spectran Armies and their leader Zoltar.

Mason already has known ties with several different mafia groups, as well as affiliation with the drug cartel and assassin-for-hire groups from the Middle East. His background would be considered essential to the Spectran forces and therefore will be given immunity for any crimes committed up to the date of our proposal in return for service with the FBI.

Security Chief Anderson and his G-Force Commander, Mark (last name unknown), will be made aware of this proposal and their complete cooperation expected.

Princess sniffed hard. She didn't think that she completely understood, or agreed, that this proposal was worth thirty families not receiving justice for the crimes inflicted upon them. The FBI were admitting that they were setting a brutal killer up with not only complete freedom to continue to pursue his dastardly deeds, but was going to be put on the Federal payroll in order to do so.

She didn't know what to think as she skipped through some legal jargon in search of any information that might apply to her team. She found it rather quickly under the heading "Meeting with the Federation of Friendly Planets".

At approximately 9:07 am on the morning of August 12, Agents Castleton, Rice and Lee met with the Federation Chief Anderson, President Kane and G-Force Commander Mark (name will need to be supplied at a later date for our records – as do the names of all G-Force personnel).

This meeting did not meet with the FBI expectations of complete cooperation between agencies. The biggest hurdle was the G-Force Commander. He was not welcoming to the idea of a serial killer being cleared of all charges in return for service within the bureau.

We have to assume much of this argument stems from the fact he does have a female on his staff (the Swan) and what may occur should she or any of the team be forced into any form of captivity with this individual. When pressured and reminded of the fact he is the Swan's Commanding Officer and not lover or paid protector, he responded by resigning from his position of G-Force Commander. He stated that he would not and could not sign on to any such deal and would kill Mr. Mason himself if he were forced to work with him, especially where any of him team – specifically Princess (last name not known) – was concerned.

After a lengthy discussion and the promise that Mr. Mason would be undergoing heavy Depo-Provera treatments aimed at curbing any sexual deviances or urges, the G-Force Commander agreed to read through the entire mission plan.

It must be said that the G-Force Commander is a worthy adversary to the FBI Covert Operations Unit. He expects detailed and complete information on any and all expected scenarios as well as bios on all involved staff. He has the tenacity of a Defence Lawyer and the brilliance of most of the Federal Head staff combined. Not much can be put past him, so our approach had to be adjusted in order to convince him to come on board.

Demands of the Commander included:

Complete disclosure of all movements, and well as 24/7 Federation surveillance upon Mr. Mason;

Immediate disclosure on when we have confirmation of Mr. Mason's contact with the Spectran groups;

Authorization to detain and, if necessary, neutralize Mr. Mason should he be deemed to not only be acting outside of FBI interests, but should any of his team be in any way harmed or threatened beyond typical Spectran protocols;

Guaranteed safety of his third in Command, should she have to endure captivity in the line of duty with Mr. Mason as Spectran Commander of the week; and,

An immediate end to the agreement should Mr. Mason commit a single judiciary infraction after execution of the agreement.

Obviously we could not offer guarantees on all demands, so a tentative agreement was made omitting demands iii and iv. The denial of demand iv led to another tantrum and resignation of the G-Force Commander, to which he was sated with the agreement that any forces against Mr. Mason would be at his discretion and only within the letter of the law – termination not being permitted unless there was a threat of imminent loss of life to either he or one of his team members without retaliatory action.

Princess actually found herself gagging at what she was reading. Did Mark know? Was he aware that this Philip Mason was the Commander of the week for this specific assignment? Was that how Anderson knew that his protective membrane would actually work?

She squirmed uncomfortably on her chair, not quite sure how she should be feeling. She knew her belly hurt, as did every single bruise she had, and for a moment she leaned over the bin fearing she was going to vomit.

He had to know. He had to.

Why didn't he warn her? He and Anderson knew she was being sent in alone.

She began to rock backward and forward on her chair as she shakily raised her hand to move the mouse for more information.

Update to file. January 20.

Contact has been made with Spectra using Federation resources and intel. Mason is now firmly entrenched within the Earth-bound Spectran army. At present there is no need to notify the Federation (we feel their part of the operation is now complete), but Mason will be closely monitored with a small handful of Federal Agents who will be acting as Mason's under hands. With Federal Agents on board, the G-Force Commander's demands of complete disclosure will not be met. Unless we feel that G-Force intervention is required, they will not be notified.

There is suggestion that Spectra is preparing for an attack that not even G-Force will be able to ward off – it will be this mission that we hope Mason is assigned to.

She sat bolt upright in her chair. The FBI had deliberately gone against their own agreement?

Mark didn't know …

She continued to read.

Update to file. February 16.

The final intelligence from our Special Operatives and Mr. Mason has been received. Within a week of the Agency purchasing a Strip Club (Named: September's) and investing into the pornographic industry under Mason's name, contact was made through Spectran Assistants to Zoltar.

We are pleased to report that after communications spanning two months Mason has been granted leadership for what appears to be Spectra's most ambitious attack on Earth. There is no possible way to intercept the threat as it heads toward our planet, and the collateral damage appears that it will be at a level that should be deemed unacceptable by this agency. However, after several meetings amongst Agency tactical staff, we feel that the loss of life will ultimately be worth the forward movement in this assignment. At this point we feel that G-Force's intervention will not be required – therefore Mark (G-Force Commander) will not have the notification he requested.

Security Chief Anderson has been provided with information and intelligence that may be helpful in allowing the female member of his G-Force unit to infiltrate, should this become something out of our control.

Update to file. February 18.

This department received a rather aggressive communication from the G-Force Commander at approximately 7:15am. It would appear that our silence in the months leading to this project resulted in him utilizing this forth-in-command (Keyop – last name unknown) and his computer hacking skills to break into the FBI networks for some covert operations efforts of his own.

The complete mission parameters of the coming Spectran invasion and the details behind our silence were revealed through this illegal search.

It was only the threat of Federal prosecution under the criminal computer crimes act that we were able to subdue what were a myriad of creative and promised threats to any and all FBI operatives employed at this branch of the agency.

It goes without saying that the Commander is upset to be so unprepared for what will land on Earth in a little more than 48 hours. More than that, the suggestion that it will be his third that is to be sent in for investigation and infiltration through the very threat itself had the Commander in more of an aggressive state than one would expect from the Condor himself.

He was immediately served with a gag order and a warrant to ensure his silence, as well as the protection of our Agent, until the closure of the full assignment. This assignment is believed to be able to extend beyond this single Spectran attack.

The warrant specifically states that should any harm come to Mr. Mason, for any reason, that the G-Force Operative Unit and the entire Project would be immediately disbanded – or put under the control of the Federal Investigation Bureau.

We received no further communication from any Federation personnel once the warrant was issued.

Princess couldn't help it. For the very first time since she had been captured, she began to cry. It wasn't a weeping or silent sobbing kind of cry. It was a full-blown, loud, choking sob, enough so that between each inhale she couldn't remember how to breathe. Each breath that finally did come drew into her with a loud gulp, then exploded out of her with a wail.

He knew.

Mark knew exactly what she was heading into … He didn't even try to talk her out of it.

She stood from her desk and shoved the middle monitor off the desk. As it crashed heavily to the ground she collapsed into herself, contracting her entire body into her stomach with a pain that made her cry out.

And then he was there.

At her side

Begging her to tell him she was okay.

Bent over and clutching onto her stomach, she couldn't respond to him. She could barely find her own breath, let alone find the means to tell him she was okay.

Until he touched her. His arm shifted across her back as he tried to draw her to a stand to guide her to her bed.

"Princess. It's okay. I'm here. You're safe."

At the sound of his voice and his promise of safety her crying immediately ceased. "I'm safe," her throat creaked out.

"Yes Princess," he assured softly as he continued to try to coax her to a stand.

"Safe?" she asked again with a voice an octave higher than last time.

"Yes, Princess. I promise you." He tried to pull her into his hold. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

Oh. That was it.

Her eyes flashed wide and her breath hitched in sharply. With a bellow of the word "safe" she took her hands from her stomach and shoved them into his chest. She stepped forward to flex her elbows and yelled again as she shoved him off her.

"You knew!" She accused hotly as she watched him stumble backward. "You knew and you still let me go in there alone."

Realization dawned and Mark staggered then straightened and held his hands out in front of himself in defence. "Princess, please. You have to know I…"

"I know everything," she screamed as she threw herself at him. She grabbed the collar of his shirt, brought him toward her then tossed him backward again. "You sent me in there knowing I'd get hurt!"

Mark didn't fight back; he didn't defend himself. He didn't even brace himself when she came at him to give him another shove into the wall. His shoulder struck the wall and he staggered against it.

"Princess. It wasn't supposed to go down like that."

Her eyes flared as she backed up. "No? Then how was it supposed to go down, Mark?" She patted at her chest with her palm. "Just what was I supposed to expect in there? Flowers and candy?"

"He wasn't supposed to touch you."

She coughed in disbelief. "Oh no?" she questioned as she backed up to her dresser and began to swat at the items to look for something heavy to throw. "And, what? You believe the word of a convicted serial rapist that he won't touch a woman?"

"He wasn't convicted," he countered, only realizing the error of his rebuttal as a crystal jewellery box was launched at his head. He ducked in time so that it hit the wall behind his head and shattered. "Princess. Jesus!"

"How could you?!" She demanded hotly, her eyes scanning for something else. "How could you send me in without warning?"

"I had no choice." His voice was panicked. He could see her looking for more weapons and knew he might not be so quick to avoid another one. "Please, Princess. Let's just talk about this like adults."

She closed her hand on another weapon, this one perfectly moulded to her hand and well known across the galaxy as being her most lethal weapon … her yo-yo. "It's too late for talking, Commander."

His eyes widened at the sight of her palming her weapon, but he had no idea where to begin to try and calm her enough not to use it on him. "Princess. Just. Please. Come on. Listen to me for a second."

"No!" She screamed as she brought her hand around and fired her G-Force weapon at his head.

Mark had to thank the Lord for his reflexes. As soon as the yo-yo left her hand, his hand shot out to catch the disk in his left hand. He tightened his grip on it to not allow her to recoil it for another shot. Thinking he had the upper hand, he curled a lip and nodded toward her bed. "Now sit down, calm down, and give me a chance to explain," he ordered firmly. When he saw her eyes flare, he curled his lip. "That's an order!"

Her entire expression softened at his command. "An Order, Mark?" She breathed softly. "That is your defence in an argument? To order me to back down?"

Her cool and calm delivery of words immediately worried him. "Uh..?"

It happened too late. His realization that she still had the other deadly half of her weapon still ringed on her finger didn't dawn until she had slowly blinked her eyes and given him an icy-green stare.

Then she touched the trigger to the electrical charge. He didn't even get to acknowledge a single beat of his heart before the charge hit him with enough of a charge to drop him to his knees. His brain begged his hand to release the head of the weapon, but his arms and hands would not obey.

All he could do was stare at Princess and plead with only his eyes for her to stop. After a long three seconds her own horror few into her as a gasp and she dropped the wire cording of the yoyo off her finger. The charge ceased, but the pain and paralysis did not.

Her hands flew to her mouth and she immediately dropped to his side. "Mark? Oh God, Mark." Her fingers immediately and expertly sought out his Carotid Artery to check for a pulse. She wished she could say that she was relieved to find a strong thumping against her fingers, but panic was still the reigning emotion. "Mark I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

His muscles still wouldn't obey his mind's command. He fell limp. He teetered slowly, back to front and then side-to-side, before he fell against her.

She pulled him against her and wondered if she had to strength to pull him up onto her bed. "Don't worry, Mark," she cooed in a frightened manner. "The charge was still set at the training strength. You'll be okay. I promise you."

He still didn't respond, nor could he enjoy the possessive hold she had on him. He could feel every emotion ripping through her and knew only one thing for certain: His third was not his third right now. Princess was lost inside a kaleidoscope of emotions she never knew she had … and it was all his fault. He absolutely did not blame her for this. He wanted to reassure her he understood, that he empathized, but his voice simply wouldn't work.

She clutched him tightly to her. Her fingers dug beyond just the fabric of his shirt and clawed painfully at his skin. She rocked them both together and let her breath draw haggardly in and out of her and she chanted a single word over and over: "Sorry."