Spring Tide. Zodiac Forces, #2

Cancer is the watercraft-branch of the privatized Zodiac Forces. If you can float a boat, you'll find Cancer operatives on the water investigating. Whiplash and Cardinal are two soldiers off the coast of Italy, hot on the trail of an ivory smuggling gang.  Instead of ivory, they find a message in a bottle calling for help. It's ten years old and the case is probably cold, but Whiplash knows a proper adventure when she sees one and Cardinal is along for the ride.
It gets personal when the trail leads back to the very smugglers they were tracking. Both Whip and Cards are kidnapped and the woman who threw that message in a bottle: she locked Cardinal in the forward berth of the ship herself.  Was it a trap for the Zodiac women or does the lady pirate want out? Separated from her partner and supplies, it's up to Cards to keep it together and get herself free.
If it means pretending to cooperate, even pretending to fall in love, Cardinal won't pull any punches.