Chapter Five
Vujcec stumbled into the dining room in desperate need of food and some type of stimulant. He wasn’t a cyborg. He couldn’t go hour after hour without a break, especially not after everything that happened today. Reaching up, his hand paused before touching his still throbbing cheek.
Branded.
He was branded a traitor.
Gods, what was he going to do?
Where was he going to go?
Who could he trust?
Not those cyborgs. They’d been ready to leave him on the transport ship.
“There should be some burn cream in medical.”
The softly spoken words had him spinning around, his gaze searching. “What?”
“There should be some burn cream in medical,” Talyani repeated from where she sat across the room.
She had entered the dining room some time ago after her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since the day before. The Troubadour was fully stocked with a variety of foods. Most of it was in replicators. It was the easiest and safest way to prepare food in space. There were also fresh items, as Talyani always traveled with a private chef.
At least that’s what her fans believed, but the truth wassheliked to cook. It calmed her, which was why she’d been finishing a veggie omelet when Vujcec had walked in.
“Tal…Talyani?” he stuttered, his gaze traveling over the changes in her appearance.
She raised a hand to the short curls now framing her face. “Taly,” she corrected.
“I didn’t recognize you.”
“That was the point.” She gestured to a wall behind him. “The replicators are over there if you’re looking for something to eat.”
She watched Vujcec hurry to the first replicator and push buttons. He quickly returned with a full tray and sat down across from her.
At her raised eyebrow, he shrugged, a bright flush filling his cheeks. “They barely fed us after we were captured.”
“Didn’t want to waste the resources,” she muttered. Shui planned to go to war. To do that, he needed resources. Resources that condemned people didn’t need. It was one of the reasons she’d been so shocked Shui had been willing to sacrifice transport ships. Forgetting about that, she asked a more pertinent question. “Why were we flying so erratically earlier?”
Vujcec swallowed before answering. “We distracted the ships following the escaping pods since they can’t track us.”
“What do you mean they can’t track us?” Taly was the first to admit she didn’t know everything there was to know about her ship. But even she knew every ship could be tracked.
“I disabled the communications array, at least the outgoing portion.” He shoveled in another mouthful and swallowed before continuing. “The transponder is a part of it. Now they can’t track us.”
“So the major did go back to help,” she murmured absently.
“Don’t think he did it out of the goodness of his heart,” Vujcec sneered, continuing to eat. “If any of them even still have one. He did it to see if they could contact any of the members of their pods and set up a future rendezvous point.”
“You claim to be a communications specialist working for the rebellion,” she sneered at him, “but don’t seem to know anything about them.”
“I know enough,” he fired back.
“Really? Yet you don’t know how they can send transmissions when the communications array is down.”
“And you do?” he challenged.
“Yes,” she told him.