Timothy heard the hatch to the cargo hold hiss open and almost fumbled the atomic printer he was still holding in his hand. He paled and gingerly set it down, then turned around and saw his wife coming into the hold behind him.

Holy fuck, you startled me! he exclaimed.

Catherine was taken aback for a moment, thinking, Arent reapers supposed to be hardcore badasses? Psh, a little door scared such a big man. Then, a mischievous grin crossed her face and she got a truly wicked idea.

Honey, I have a headache, she said, slumping down to sit on the floor next to him. She leaned over and rested her head in his lap and practically purred at him. Rub me? she asked, blinking innocently and conveniently ignoring the fact that she was still wearing nothing but a sports bra and compression booty shorts.

Timothy awkwardly fidgeted in place and didnt know where to put his hands. There were so very, very many options, and not many of them were good. He poked her forehead and growled, Focus, Siobhan. Youre supposed to be a good girl, remember?

Siobhan stood up with a sigh, murmuring something about blockheads and no fun, then headed to the locker on the other side of the cargo bay and began inventorying her own goodie bags for the mission ahead of them.

And just like Timothy, she let out a low whistle when she saw that the goodies in the goodie bags were very good indeed.

She picked up what looked like a catsuit, if a catsuit were made for a doll, or perhaps an infant. Advances in materials science werent only for alloys in Lab City; they had also made staggering leaps in other materials as well. And this catsuit was one of them.

The newly developed suit was made of a polymer that had incredible tensile strength and elasticity, while maintaining all the benefits of the thicker, more uncomfortable nyxian outfit of a bodysuit layered with a web vest and accessorized with gloves and combat boots. The new catsuit model was all in one. Powered by a fusion generator the size of a hearing aid battery, it would stretch to fit anyone that cared to wear it. It was completely bulletproof and could be completely sealed or worn under clothing as a covert layer of armor. It also had optical camouflage capability, wicked away moisture, and had a host of infiltration tools like sensor scramblers and EM signal jammers. It contained a distributed quantum computer weaved into it as nanofibers and integrated hologram projectors could mimic any number of other styles of clothing.

But most importantly, any nyxian wearing one would be drop dead fucking hot in one. Every woman loved beauty, after all, and nyxians were no exception to that rule.

Siobhan immediately stepped into hers and set the optical camouflage to what she called Office Lady Mode. OLM was a dark gray side-slit skirt that flared out just above her knees matched with a light blue silk blouse, white satin camisole, and a matching dark gray fitted blazer over the top, cut to display her blouse and camisole to her advantage. Peeking through the slit in the side of her skirt were black silk thigh-high stockings with a red lace top band and hints of a red garter belt keeping the stockings up and in place. On her feet was a pair of shiny black patent leather four inch stiletto heels.

Timothy couldnt help but cast a few extra glances her way. Hot was hot, after all, partner or not.

Siobhan tossed him his own infiltrator suit and he donned his as well, setting it to low key athletic wear that still showed off his chiseled form. It also included the iconic coaches whistle, as well.

You look pretty good in that, honey, Siobhan practically purred at him. They were still supposed to be in their honeymoon period, after all, and if they were to act too distant with each other, people might notice.

At least it was a convenient excuse, anyway. Siobhan was one of the most accomplished honeypots in all of the NIA, and Timothy suspected he would truly enjoy the downtime on his current mission, unlike most of the missions reaper teams were sent on. There was definitely a distinct difference between being cooped up in small rooms with nine other sweaty, unshowered men and being paired with a nyxian honeypot, an unforeseen perk he was only just now coming to realize.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject in an attempt to remain professional before they made landfall. I wonder how many other teams they sent out on this mission. Have you heard anything through your grapevine?

Nothing specific. The response is just a lot whenever I ask. Those cultist bastards are likely to be embedded in plain sight where they can lose themselves in the crowd. I hate it, but its a damn smart movewhoever their strategists are are bloody good at their jobs, she coquettishly complained.

Well, so are we, he confidently claimed, puffing out his chest.

[Beginning landing sequence in three minutes,] AI 228 announced over the main channel and through the implants of the nyxian and reaper.

Siobhan cleaned up the kit she had just inspected, much like Timothy had done with his, then the pair strapped themselves in for groundfall and made small talk as the stealth shuttle fell screaming to earth like a shooting star, hidden against the backdrop of the sun in the sky.

Not that anyone on the ground would have seen it anyway, given the general cloud cover over the part of Washington that was west of the Cascade Mountain Range. Because, while Eastern Washington was a cold desert and, like most deserts, was mostly sunny and arid, Western Washington was either a marine coastal environment or a temperate rainforest. People from around the Puget Sound, in particular, would experience more than three hundred days of cloud cover per year, on average, and more than two hundred days of measurable rainfall.

They even had a term for the typical weather there: liquid sunshine, they called it.