It was Keyop who actually made it to Chief Anderson's office first. He still ran with only his socks on, but held his shoes off his fingers. Less than a heartbeat away from him where his other three team mates, Mark in the lead.

They burst through Anderson's office door full of grunts and complaints about what the Hell he was thinking sending in Princess alone. Anderson silenced them all with a single raise of his hand. He didn't speak, nor did he even look at them.

His focus was on two screens in front of him.

Mark narrowed his eyes as he looked at the first, which displayed an undistorted and clear image that was watching the Swan and her coy playfulness closely.

Odd.

Who was she fighting beside?

Zark had ordered the Rangers be on standby, was she with one of their pilots?

He heard her ask the stranger if they were going to go start with a bang, and jolted when he heard a familiar voice respond they both go out with a bang.

A white gloved hand came into view as she announced Mark would want it that way, and she shook his hand in a morbid kind of alliance.

"God," he breathed painfully. "How bad is it?"

"Don't worry about them," Anderson half-whispered. "She and Cronus will definitely give them a run for their money."

There were three gasps and one, confused: "Who?"

Mark quickly looked at the image he knew was Princess' and nearly collapsed when he saw the familiar thin moustache of the Pilot he most admired.

"Father?"

Anderson's eyes flicked to his Commander and he gave a short nod. "Yes, Mark. Her mission was to rescue Cronus from Spectra."

He could barely stand, but he managed to say, inside a squeak. "We have to go to them."

Anderson shook his head. "There's no time, Commander. They're on their own for now."

"Give us a chance," Jason demanded quietly, but with heavy anger. "You can't ask Mark to watch his father die again."

"Princess won't let that happen, Jason." Anderson answered shortly. "She's had a week to prepare this rescue. She's been inside for all that time and knows each area intimately enough to get him out safe." He let out a breath. "She has orders, Cronus will walk out of there."

"And her?" Tiny questioned.

Anderson didn't answer. Instead, he turned up the volume on Princess and Cronus' audio feed.

Their camera's showed a shudder as a room to the rear of them, and probably a good distance away, exploded. They immediately started to jog together through a corridor.

Mark repeated the question in his own manner to Anderson. "What are the orders, Chief? Has she been ordered to give her life for his?"

Anderson's fingers drummed on the table in front of him. He couldn't bring himself to look at either of the men. "They aren't my orders, Commander."

"What are the orders?" Jason finally bellowed, ready to tear a strip off Anderson.

Anderson closed his eyes and tilted his head as if mortified by the assignment. "He lives, no matter what."

"That's bullshit!"

"She'll get them both out of there, Jason."

He pounded the butts of his fists on the table. "I'm not just going to sit here and watch her get killed, Chief. You're sending us to get her."

Anderson finally spun to face the G-Force second. "You don't have time, Jason. She is in battle now, not in 90 minutes, which is how long it will take for you to get flight clearance and get out there." He slowly looked at each G-Forcer. "We just have to pray she will fight with the brilliance all of us know she has."

"We have to do something," Mark whispered as he saw a fight begin with a small group of Spectran soldiers. "We can't just leave her alone like this."

"She has a plan, Commander," Anderson assured softly. "She has a plan."

"And all we can do is sit here and watch?"

Anderson nodded and swept his hand toward four seats behind him. "Just be patient and sit this one out. She'll come home … I promise you."

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Princess wasn't sure what was worse: That she was without her team for her escape; or that she was with Cronus, who would most certainly be scrutinizing her every move and judging her performance.

That was a lot of stress on her small set of shoulders.

It was hard enough to face the fact she might not get out alive, but to know that she'd go down being watched by Mr. Chauvenistic himself was downright mortifying.

Time to put on her best show and to look as relaxed about it as she possibly could.

It began with the meeting of four green goons in the first corridor. Cronus, of course, immediately tried to shield her as he raised one of his weapons to fire haphazardly into the group. She expelled a disgruntled grunt as she shoved past his extended arm to enjoy some ass whooping of her own.

Her grunt came out feminine, but with a strong demand for no argument. She appeared to leap off the floor to dive in between bullets and propel herself into a hand-spring flip to land feet-first into a goon who'd stepped away from the rest of his team. As he hit the ground she gave a quick twist of her ankles to break his neck. Immediately she unholstered her yo-yo and flicked the point of it into the throat of another. She retracted it as Cronus jogged to her side and looked over her shoulder.

"Nice," he purred low into her ear. "Nice and clean."

She gave an arrogant upward roll of her eyes and ticked her shoulder to speak almost disrespectfully to him. "I don't want to get my pretty dress dirty."

"Or break a nail, right?"

She stepped in front of him as they walked and turned to face him, walking backwards with a girlish hilt. "Gotto stay all feminine for the press conferences, now," she giggled as she blew him a kiss and let her shoulder tilt to pull her back to facing the direction she was walking.

"Anderson's got to stop putting you kids through that." Remembering Anderson was ears on, he added: "You're soldiers, not a damn circus act."

In difference to his response Princess suddenly launched into a cartwheel to land knee-first into another goon's chest. She hummed a circus theme as she used the goon's own weapon to fire a shot into his chest. She stood and admired the weapon a moment, and then aimed it over Cronus' shoulder.

"You were saying?" she purred as she squeezed the trigger to drop two goons behind him.

Cronus gasped a hiss as the bullets flew close enough to his head to tear holes in the famous helmet flair of the Rangers. "Jesus, Princess. I'm wearing Red, not green."

"Oops, that was close." She shrugged with an innocent grin and let the weapon fall off her fingers. "This is why I carry a yo-yo, and not a gun."

"No more guns for you, okay, Princess? You'll end up killing me instead of rescuing me."

"I thought it was the other way around," she retorted flatly as she pressed her back up against the wall to peer around a corner. "You're rescuing me."

He smirked as her palm flattened against his chest to stop him behind her. "Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to," he answered as he tried to peer around her head.

She rewarded his closeness with a dark look as she slid her back down the wall to allow his easy access to scout around the corner. She took the lower view.

The view ahead of them made not only them, but five men back at Centre Neptune, gasp in horror.

There had to be at least forty men; all of them checking firearms and gathering for a full-scale assault.

The room was on one-side of a T-junction that led to the hangars. The other arm of the junction led to what could only be assumed was the main staging area for assembly and briefing. A three-storey high cylindrical room that housed only a few good cover points. It was a place for capture or execution … Basically, a no-exit point.

Of course, noone watching from the side of good besides Princess knew this logistical fact. It had been part of her base investigation over the week. She needed to find the best exit point.

The hangars were it.

But the hurdle faced now was the room directly across from the hangar.

"Looks like our path is chosen for us, Swan," Cronus said with hushed tones.

She signed with a sing-song hum and shook her head. "It's not that easy, Sir."

He looked down at the top of her helmet. The fact she appeared to be chewing on the fingertip of her glove, was not a good sign. "Care to brief me on why?"

She answered almost distractedly as she lowered her gaze to her hand to count the amount of small explosives in her hand. "That way is out."

He hummed and kept his eyes on her. "And to our right?"

"You really don't want to know."

"Ahh. Shit."

She chewed on her cheek in thought for a moment. "I do have that room set for explosion. I was going to use the distraction for when you take the Harrier out of here."

"A Harrier," he moaned as if ignoring anything preceding that comment. "That's the best you could do?"

"I don't have a catalogue for you to choose from, Sir. That will have to suffice."

He grunted. "And you?"

She pocketed just over half of the charges in her hand. "I'll provide ground support for your escape. Don't worry about me."

"The Hell I won't."

She actually raised her head to look at him. "Chivalry and all that," she droned in an unimpressed manner.

"No," he said quietly as he let his eyes rise up to the men. "We're a team. We watch each other's backs."

She rolled her eyes and slowly drew herself to a stand. "We have three choices, Sir. We can blow the room and end up in the room over there." She flicked her eyes to the right, a direction she had already stated was not a good option for them.

"Next choice?"

"We can aim for distraction by throwing a few of my flash charges down the right hallway and hope they'll ignore us standing here in the corridor."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Which is possible considering their ignorance…"

"But is it a risk we want to take?"

"Good point."

She took a breath. "Or we go in there Hell for Leather and fight our way out."

He actually smirked. "Tempting, Princess. Tempting."

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Mark couldn't believe his eyes – he didn't want to believe his eyes.

On the two monitors in from of him were his father, whom he thought was dead, and his girlfriend. Both were marching headlong into danger, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop them, to lead them, or to help them.

He wanted to yell at her for being so relaxed and indifferent to what she was walking in to. He wanted to yell and tell her to focus, to make sure she got out of there safe and without injury.

She wasn't allowed to flirt and play coy. Not with Cronus - or any man for that matter - but especially not with Cronus! She was to focus, stay on her path and not take even a nano-second to tease and giggle and take her attention from the fight.

This was so unlike her.

He let his eyes flick to each of the other men in the room, just to make sure they were all in absolute agreement with his own thoughts. Surely they could read his mind. Surely they all possessed the exact same thought.

Seeking confirmation, he grunted. "She needs to concentrate on the task."

Jason snorted and toyed with a toothpick in his mouth. "She seems to be doing alright, Skipper."

Anderson agreed. "She's more relaxed than normal; it'll serve her well in this fight."

Mark frowned. "Flirting with the old man is going to serve her better in exactly what way?"

Jason clicked out of the side of his mouth. "Who are you to play jealous boyfriend?"

"Shut-up, Jason."

Anderson coughed, "I hope you're not alluding to anything that I wouldn't condone, gentlemen," he said shortly, then flicked the backs of his fingers against the monitor. "Now, if you're done squabbling, can we get back to this?"

Mark lowered his voice an octave. "Are you sure we can't deploy and try to help out?"

"Mach 10 wouldn't get you there in time, and the Phoenix can't even pull mach 5, so no."

He groaned and slumped against the glass wall behind the monitors. "I don't want to watch any more."

It was when he heard Keyop breathe the one word that Princess would slap him for, that he pulled himself sharply from his non-vantage point behind Anderson.

"Fuck."

Jason's palms met with the table ledge as he cursed in much the same manner at the youngest G-Forcer. "Fuck, no." His hands shook as the images on the monitor showed an army of men larger than anything any of them have ever dealt with alone. "She'll never make it, Chief."

Mark looked at the monitor and almost yelled.

There had to be forty men …

He didn't know if he could watch.

But he couldn't take his eyes off the monitors.

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Decisions, decisions.

What to do, and how to play?

Princess gently chewed on her cheek as she considered a viable game plan for this escape. Cronus had been darkly excited about the possibility of an all-out strike against these men, but with the obvious outnumbering and the fact that Cronus hadn't seen any real action in near on three years, that was probably not a good idea.

But they really didn't have a much better option to play with.

Cronus huffed a little in impatience at her indecision. His breath fogged at her visor.

"Well?"

She rolled her eyes and gave a hard single swipe of her visor to un-fog it. "Looks like we go straight in to the fray, Sir."

He smirked. "There's fire in you after-all, Princess."

She shook her head. "No, there really isn't. However, we have little choice. There isn't going to be an explosive entrance of the boys, so we're really on our own."

He let a long and slow grin stretch across his jaw as he stroked at the weapon in his hand. "On three, then?"

She let out a displeased breath and nodded. Before he could count off, though, she widened her eyes and slapped his arm with the back of her hand.

"I have an idea."

"Oh?"

She removed a single flash charge from her pocket and a small amount of C-4 from the other side. As she fashioned a ring around the marble-sized charge, she breathed a couple of questions and instructions.

"How strong are you feeling?"

"Exhilarated and full of adrenaline, why?"

"How many g's can you handle?"

He raised a brow and began to look around them wondering just how much more time they could possibly waste in discussion. "14 in the centrifuge, why?"

"If I need you to, can you hang on to me really … really tight?"

"Yeah, and why?"

She gave him the newly minted "Princess Special" explosive and gave him a wink. "Just throw that to the boys when you think the time is right, and play along, okay?"

He frowned as she made a move to step in to the corridor, and roughly grabbed hold of her wing. "Do you want to tell me what on Earth you're planning, Swan?"

"Hmm. I'm not sure you really want to know."

"Yes. Yes I do."

"No time."

"We've wasted this much," he hissed, pulling her face to his. "What's another minute?"

She pulled herself away from him. "Just remember, Sir, that you have four set of eyes watching you manhandle me. Not one of the owners of those eyes will be very receptive to that behaviour, so hands off." She stepped in to the hallway and leaned her back up against the wall across from him. She smiled in a coy manner, slid one foot up to stand in a more alluring position and winked. "Just play along."

He snorted, but offered her a nod – it looked like she wanted to pull out a few stops for this final battle.

Her arm rose above her head in a truly seductive manner as her head rolled on the wall to look to the men down the hall. "Oh boys…" she called in a sing-song manner as she crooked her finger in invitation. "Down here."

One of the goons pointed at her. "It's G-Force!"

Another cocked his weapon. "Let's go get them!"

Princess giggled and looked back at Cronus, who had begun to smirk. "Whenever you're ready."

Surprisingly, not all of the men charged her at once, and those that did skidded to an unsure stop as Cronus stepped into the corridor and slipped an arm around Princess' waist. He tossed the charge up and down in his hand, twice, and then called out a challenging: "Here, catch", as he under-arm tossed the ball to the men.

Princess pulled Cronus' free arm around her and whispered for him to hang on as the goons began a comical routine of tossing the charge amongst each other in an attempt to get rid of it.

Then Cronus' world went into a spin.

Hang on tight? Oh Hell yeah, he did that and then some as Princess spun them both inside a tornado.

They both sensed the bright white flash of the initial charge, and then the heavy boom and orange flash of the detonating C-4 explosive.

Then there was relative silence.

Princess ended the spin as abruptly as she began it. She immediately pulled away from Cronus to survey the damage and to pick off any remaining goons who survived the explosion and consequent cyclonic forces. When satisfied they were safe for the next moment, she turned to check on her partner, and immediately began to giggle at him.

Cronus stumbled against the walls and finally tripped on his own feet to fall flat onto his backside. He attempted to draw himself into a crawl, but fell into an undignified heap on top of a destroyed table.

He pointed into the air, seemingly towards Princess, and grunted as he attempted to regain his balance.

"Don't you ever do something like that to me again, Swan."

She pursed her lips and stopped to help him to his feet. Her lips were close to his ear when she spoke.

"A little dizzy, Sir?"

"A little dizzy?" he repeated flatly in his own special manner. "Understatement." He finally got his focus on Princess and frowned. "How come you're doing so well?"

She shrugged and looked around at the damage to the corridor. There were no moving limbs or goons, so she estimated they had at least a few moments to get free and clear of the base. "Uh," she answered distractedly as she poked her head into the room that, only seconds earlier, had housed a large handful of armed goons. "I guess the implant protects our equilibrium or something." She kicked a gun out of the hand of a dead goon at her feet. "I'm not entirely sure. It could be conditioning, too."

He pulled himself from the wall and gingerly stepped after Princess. "Are we gone?"

She turned to give him a beaming smile of affirmative. "Yes we are…" As she turned back to the exit her smile fell and eyes widened in horror. There were almost a hundred goons approaching the blast area fast.

She roughly grabbed Cronus' hand to back down the corridor they had just escaped from. To their horror, that route had begun to fill with goons.

"Oh Good Lord," she muttered softly as she walked backward up against Cronus.

He snarled low in disappointment and frustration. "Now what do we do?"

"Remember that direction I said wasn't a good option?"

"Yeah?"

She walked them backwards. "It looks like that's our only choice now."