And oh, for the thrilling climax to this long-winded tale … :scoff:

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

It was a darker evening than Mark had expected. Even though the night sky was crystal clear and surprisingly more starlit that a city night sky should be, the absence of a moon bathed the deserted industrial area in a soup of darkness that was dense and thick. He had to wonder if the timing was actually a brilliant ploy on the part of his enemy or just a stroke of luck. His team's visibility was obviously hampered without the sky's natural kind of fluorescent lighting to warn of shadows moving around them, so he was forced position them all inside the building rather than set up strategic scouting points outside.

Chief Anderson and the tactical heads at the Federation had insisted that G-Force stage the building as though it was still "Business as usual" so as not to alarm Spectra that the warning had been granted. The decision made sense to the G-Force Commander, although he would have preferred a cloak of darkness inside the building with which to play a more dramatic style of ambush against his foe. He wasn't too thrilled at losing the standard "spooky" stride out of the darkness that seemed to mildly intimidate Zoltar on a usual defensive and so made do with just leaning his back against the rear wall in a lazy slouch with his eyes on the doorway.

The twelve hour time frame had come and gone an hour and a half earlier. All excitement and energy of an imminent battle was waning amongst the four soldiers inside the building. Jason was becoming prone to checking the wall clock and grunting in complete boredom from his position on the sidewall. Lisa had long ago slid down her wall to a sloppy and almost masculine seat on the floor with her legs splayed enough to offer a gaping view of the black panties normally hidden underneath her skirt. Keyop was close to sleeping in a stand beside Lisa. Quite honestly, his team had fallen into a level of complacency that Mark considered somewhat dangerous, had Zoltar suddenly burst in the place with guns blazing.

He couldn't blame them, though. His own nerves had eased to the point of being fairly non-existent. There was only really one thread of nervousness that seemed to remain inside his gut – one that warned they'd been had and that this whole warning had been nothing but a deliberate ruse to remove them from the actual target. The worry drew a long whistle through his mouth; one that was his usual creepy call sign when in the midst of battle and he was hidden high in the rafters.

It drew a displeased grunt from his left side.

"That whistle is actually pretty annoying," Jason snarked around the tip of a feather. "Do ya want to knock it off?"

Mark folded his arms and drew the centre of his wings closed across his chest. He complied with the request and lowered his head. "He's late."

"Something tells me he's into that whole fashionably late thing."

Mark lowered his head and pursed his lips to blow out a thin line of breath against his chest. "I get the feeling that there won't be an arrival of his royal highness tonight."

Jason agreed darkly. "Where do you think he's really set to strike tonight?"

Mark shook his head. "I don't know, but it doesn't look like it's here."

He peeled himself from the wall and moved slowly toward his commander. "Then give the order and let us get back to the Phoenix to do a real sweep."

"We stay," Mark muttered back quietly. "The Chief ordered that we don't move until we get instructions from Neptune."

"And meanwhile Zoltar's cronies are gearing up to strike across town."

Mark's eyes flashed up at his second in obvious annoyance. "Do you think I don't know that?" He let his eyes flick to the door. "Orders are orders, Jason."

"You've been known to go against them from time to time."

Mark inhaled a deep breath. "We'll wait another twenty minutes. If he's a no-show by eleven, we're out of here."

Jason cracked his neck to one side and kept his eyes at the door. "What if he's got a tail on Princess and is after her personally?"

Mark's glare shot quickly to his second. "What?"

Jason heard the panic in his Commander's tone that told him he'd not considered that option. "Makes sense. She's going to get the warning, call her hero for help, get swept off to a safe haven while he waits in the shadows with an ambush." He watched Mark's eyes grow wide. "It's what I'd do if I was him. She's easy prey if the guards are elsewhere."

Mark moved quickly. "Dammit, we need to find her." He pushed himself off the wall and waved his hand in an order for his team to move. "Team, to the Phoenix. I've had enough of waiting around for this idiot." He strode quickly to the door and raised his wrist to communicate new orders to the man piloting the team's warship.

The voice of the idiot in question silkily purred from ahead of him. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, Commander."

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

A long dinner and a bottle of wine with her two closest friends hadn't cheered the Ex-Swan up any. Five solid hours of analysis and testing had left them no closer to finding an immediate answer to their problem. If anything, it had only reinforced the sense of urgency and danger they were in. The Spectran explosive cocktail was virtually indestructible once mixed and set with a capped detonating device. The only positive seemed to be that, much like Earth's C-4 plastic explosive, the compound required a detonator in order to explode. By itself, the product was fairly useless – but was completely indestructible without detonation. Even once the threat was over, and the compound properly secured deep inside the bowels of some storage facility, there would be the danger of spontaneous ignition at some point in the future. This product was new, they had no way to determine whether or not the stabilizing agent would deteriorate over time to make it as volatile as a vat of Nitroglycerin.

All that their hours of analysis had given was the knowledge that once primed, there was no way to contain the blast – and it bothered her.

Her two immediate teammates, Damien and Sergeant Barron, chatted in an animated manner in the front seats of the Bomb Squad Emergency Response vehicle. The choice for transportation by the trio seemed to be odd, considering the move was supposed to be covert and discrete, but when the Federation had sent their escort team and transport limousine to pick them up, the three of them had vehemently denied interest in climbing aboard. It took a heated thirty-minute debate in the precinct car park between the Federation Officials and the Sergeant, for an agreement had been made for them to take the mammoth blast resistant and bullet proof truck.

Following the debate in the car park came a debate about whether or not the officers were allowed to stop for a meal. The threat of Damien tossing a bomb technician's version of a Molotov cocktail at the lead vehicle, forced the escorts to comply. The trio then spent 90 minutes inside a local tavern enjoying a heavy meal and a couple of drinks.

And damn they'd needed it.

They'd finally wiped their mouths, paid up the tab, and moved back into transit after the fifth demand from Centre Neptune to get their insubordinate assed to the center.

So now they traveled inside a convoy of seven black vehicles toward a venue underneath the ocean. It was a home long ago abandoned by Princess, and aside from the joy of being able to pick up and snuggle her baby daughter, she had no real desire to go back.

She stared out of the tinted rear window of the modified Cadillac and let out a long breath of despondency at not having solved any of the day's problems.

Barron looked up into the rear view mirror at her reflection and let out a small sigh of empathy. "Don't worry, Cassie. He's going to be okay out there."

Her mouth twitched into a smile, but she didn't take her attention from the window. "I know. I'm not worried about Mark …" She dropped her eyes. "Well I am … very … But I am more worried that there is something so much bigger to worry about with this whole invade the precinct plan of Zoltar's"

Damien slouched in his chair to be able to turn to look back at her. "You think Mark and the team are being played, then?"

She shrugged. "I don't know." She looked at her knee and flicked a piece of dust off her jeans. "I doubt it. If Zoltar thought for a second he had them cornered he'd drop any other plans and go after them."

Damien hooked his arm around the seat's headrest to permanently position himself into the conversation. "So what are you thinking?"

She raised her eyes to him and looked juvenile as she shrugged. "I honestly don't know where to begin. It's obviously not going to end tonight, even if G-Force do manage to destroy Zoltar. There's something, a target, that we're missing. We have the breadcrumbs, but seem to have lost the trail."

Barron agreed from the driver's seat. "Maybe if you get a chance to sit down with the guys at Neptune, you might be able to put your heads together and work it out."

Damien grinned. "I'm just dying to see their explosives wing. I hear that section is huge."

Princess smiled. "It is pretty impressive, Damien."

Princess leaned her forearm on the window edge and peered into the street. Years of traveling this road growing up, she'd pretty much memorized the route enough to know she could look up out of the window at any time along the trip and know what she'd see.

Tonight, the road looked different.

"Um, Sarge. Are you taking a shortcut?"

Barron shook his head. "No. There's no shortcut to this place, Cass. The Fed guys made it so there's only one way in and one way out."

She shook her head. "No. This is not familiar at all." She sat bolt upright in her seat. "I've traveled this road since I was a child, and I don't recognize anything along here."

Damien angled his head curiously at her. "When was the last time you were up here?"

Her eyes flicked to him. "Eighteen months ago."

Barron gave a laugh. "Ahh yeah. Surprised you didn't know." He flicked on his indicator and changed lanes. "They put this road in about seven months ago to link with the rail line."

Damien contorted his lips in shocked surprise that the former swan didn't know the latest developments surrounding her old workplace. "Yeah, Cass. There was a huge to do over it. Mark and the team were at the opening, and the Swallow got to press the big red button to blow the old road." He shifted his eyes to Barron. "I was so jealous over that. They gave him the good stuff, too."

"Oh," Princess asked softly. "What was it?"

"Whatever that missile of theirs has in it …" He inhaled excitedly. "Hey, care to share with me what's in that missile?"

She shook her head with a smile. "Classified."

"Oh come on."

Her gaze shifted up to the rearview mirror, where she could see Barron's eyes. "So this new tunnel runs with the subway line?"

He shook his head. "The city transit line ends at a station under the beach. From there a series of elevators and movator systems shuttle the passengers to the surface. The Train to the Neptune continues on, but obviously through a different track line."

"Same tunnel?"

Barron nodded. "Yeah."

Her eyes were wide and focused tightly on the big man's eyes. "How far under is this station, Sir?"

"Below sea level? Shit, I don't know, girl. I'd say at least three or four storeys." He noted her unblinking attention and eased his foot off the accelerator to focus more attention on her thoughts. "What's going through your mind, Cass?"

She pressed her fingers to her lips and angled her head to one side in thought. "This tunnel. Is it the only way in and out of Neptune?"

Barron slowed the car more, a move which elicited honks of confusion from the other vehicles in the convoy. "It's what holds Neptune in Place. It's been a floating facility since inception."

"Oh no," she breathed out worriedly as everything began to fall into place. Her eyes rose to her Squad Leader and flashed a moment of panic. "That means the target…"

"Is the Subway junction between Neptune and the city." Barron grit his teeth and gripped tight on the steering wheel as he locked the brakes and sharply turned the wheel. "Hang on you two."

The large vehicle skidded to the side as the brakes seized. The action startled all other vehicles in the procession and it was a miracle that none collided with the other as Barron fishtailed the truck to speed into the opposite lane. He flicked on the sirens and floored the pedal to get them back to the junction as soon as possible.

The big pan thumbed over his shoulder. "Knight, get in the back and suit up. Cassandra, you do the same. Full gear. I'll get on the horn and get some black and whites to clear the area."

Knight barely registered anything the Sergeant had to say as he unclipped his belt and threaded in between the front seats to the back. "You might want to give the Feds a heads up, Sarge."

"On it," he grunted as he noted several vehicles pulling up to pace their truck. "I hope these assholes will stay out of my way," he boomed in threat as the passenger of one of the vehicles signaled to him to stop.

"Just drive over the top of them, man."

Princess couldn't even find it in her to find humour in Damien's remark. She slid through the rear seats into the mammoth cube bed in the back and joined Damien in the fast and tossed around dance of dressing in the back of a moving vehicle. "Damien," she whined softly. "My daughter is in that facility."

"I know, Cass," he answered sympathetically. "Don't worry. We'll get her out okay."