Military intelligence officer Lieutenant Barb Carolus is ordered to investigate Colonel Locke, a rogue officer suspected of selling military weapons on the black market. Colonel Locke is from Barb’s home planet and she knows exposing his crimes will tarnish the reputation of those rare people like her who’ve escaped the poverty and gangs of their home world to become officers. But orders are orders and she always does her duty.
For the mission she’s teamed with the unconventional -- and in Barb’s opinion, entirely unprofessional -- undercover agent Taya Borovsky. Working with Taya will test Barb’s by the book approach to the limits, especially when attraction overcomes her irritation with Taya. Bitter about upholding standards nobody else does, Barb gives in to her desires.
When the mission goes bad, Barb and Taya are on the run and outgunned. To survive, Barb must learn from Taya’s unconventional methods and improvise a solution to complete her mission and save their lives.
Barb emerged from the ship’s tiny bunk room in her civilian clothes. Taya raised an eyebrow.
“This is your idea of being out of uniform?” Taya asked.
“What do you mean? Of course I’m out of uniform.”
“And wearing a suit of clothes that looks almost exactly like your uniform except it doesn’t have insignia.”
Barb looked down at herself. She supposed the pants and jacket were similar in color and general appearance to her uniform. Probably why she’d liked them.
“What do you suggest?” she asked. “Because most of what I’ve brought is like this.”
“Hang on.” Taya went into the bunk room and came back out with her arms full. “Lose the jacket,” she said.
Barb shrugged, but did. Taya was the one with experience undercover. Perhaps Barb should yield to that experience. She took off her jacket. Under it she wore a black, tight fitting ribbed shirt, with a placket of buttons at the neck. Taya reached up and twitched a couple of the buttons open. Barb froze and resisted the urge to slap her hand away.
“Put this on.” Taya handed her a well-worn brown leather belt with bronze studs and a bronze buckle in the shape of a dragon. “Accessories are key.” Barb took it, removed her silver-buckled plain black belt and threaded the borrowed one through the belt loops of her pants. She fastened the buckle.
“Next?” she asked.
Taya gave her a variety of irritating bangles and wristbands which she put on her left hand, refusing to put them on her right and risk catching one of them on something when drawing her sidearm. Next came a jacket. Dark red leather -- at least where the color hadn’t been faded or battered away. The thing looked like an ore carrier had run it down and reversed over it several times. It had such a gratuitous number of studs, zippers and buckles it was one more metal fastener away from fetish wear.
“Is this going to fit? You’re a lot shorter than me.” Barb tried it anyway. “It’s a bit short in the waist.”
“All the better to see your ass with. I meant, more clearance for your sidearm,” she added when Barb scowled at her. “Here.”
Taya handed her one last thing. “Sunglasses?” Barb said, looking at the black-lensed glasses dubiously. “We’re going to be indoors. You want me to be blind?”
“Try them,” Taya said.
Barb did and was astonished to find from her side she appeared to be looking through crystal clear lenses. In fact the surroundings appeared brighter than when she had the glasses off.
“I heard about these,” she said, enthusiasm coming into her voice for the first time. “Look like ordinary sunglasses, but they’re night vision. They’re not standard issue yet.”
“They aren’t full night vision,” Taya said. “But in lower light situations like a bar, they’ll give you almost the same vision you’d have in the day. From this side they’re so dark I can barely see your eyes. Which means you can watch without being seen. Perfect for a bodyguard.”
“Bodyguard?”
“Yeah, since you look like such a stiff and so obviously military you can pretend to be my big strong ex-soldier watch dog.”
“All right. Are you done making me look ridiculous?”
“You look fabulous, darling,” Taya drawled. “Your hair is a bit too regulation though. How about a hat?”
“I hate wearing hats.”
“Okay, muss it a bit.”
Muss it? Her hair? Aside from the few minutes after she got out of bed in the morning her hair hadn’t been mussed in years. Tentatively she ran a hand through it to loosen it up a bit. “Better?”
“No. Oh, for ... I swear in the name of Old Mother Russia you are going to get us shot on sight. Come here, will you?” Before Barb could protest Taya had homed in on, pulled out and tossed away a couple of hair pins. She threaded her fingers through the hair on each side of Barb’s head and ruffled it.
“I don’t want to look like I just fell out of bed.” Barb protested.
“Why not? I bet you look great right after you fall out of bed.”
Was she flirting? Hardly appropriate on a mission.
“There,” Taya said, grabbing Barb’s arm and turning her to look at a mirror on the wall. Taya was certainly pretty grabby. If a man put his hands on Barb so much she’d drop him with a knee to the balls. She examined the result of Taya’s impromptu makeover critically. It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. At least she wasn’t flashing a view of her cleavage and the colors were all still quite muted. The hair made her itch to comb it down again, but it was only fluffed out, not actual bedhead like Taya’s. Not so different than she’d style it for a date. Though it had been so long since she’d gone on one of those she could barely recall how she’d worn her hair.
The glasses she liked, giving her a blank shark-eyed stare which kept people away and intimidated suspects.
All in all she looked like a highly suspicious character -- as Taya did. A cop would arrest them on general principles.
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