“Yes, the female who, if you’d met before becoming a cyborg, you’d have fallen in love with.”
“You’re saying I can’t now?” Ranvir refused to believe that.
“I honestly don’t know.” Ranvir could tell the other cyborg was struggling to reveal what he knew. “I know of only one cyborg who had a mate and family before his transformation. He confided in me that it was difficult for him to feel the same depth of emotion as before.”
“He was part of your pod.” Now he understood Ganesha’s conflict. He was revealing a confidence from a pod member.
“Yes. I saw her and their son in the assembly, but not him. I was able to keep them in my sights until boarding.”
“They were on our transport?” Ranvir was surprised Ganesha was only mentioning this now.
“No.” Ganesha’s eyes flashed with an emotion Ranvir didn’t understand. “They were loaded on the first ship. If they’d been on ours, I wouldn’t have left that ship until I found them.”
“I’m sorry, Ganesha.” Ranvir found he indeed was.
“I can only hope Chas was on their ship.” He stared at his hands fisted on his thighs.
“You never felt him reach out through your closed network at the trial?” Ranvir’s brows drew together.
“No.” Ganesha’s head shot up. “Did you? With any of your pod members?”
“I did, but one by one, I lost them.” Ranvir found that strange. “Is it possible there was a dampening system in place and on the ships making it so we couldn’t use our closed network?”
He saw Ganesha seriously consider his question. “It’s possible. We know Shui has been trying to hack our closed network. He could have discovered a way to impede the signal. It would force us to use the mainframe, giving him the chance to track us. Or the distance played a part.”
“We need to find another way to reach out to those we trust.”
“Agreed, but first, we need to reprogram our transponder and get our outgoing communications back up. We can’t land on Yelmurn without them.”
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Taly rolled onto her side and snuggled deeper into the warmth of her bed. The hard, firm warmth of her bed.
Wait.
Hard?
Firm?
Her bed wasn’t either of those things.
Opening her eyes, the low light she’d left on revealed she was snuggled against a muscular chest, a naked muscular chest. Tipping her head up, her gaze met Ranvir’s.
“You invited me to join you,” he reminded her quietly.
“I did.” Reaching up, she caressed his jaw. “Did I sleep twelve hours?”
“No. Pike and Tane only took eight and relieved us.”
“That was nice of them.” Her thumb brushed the CR branded into his flesh. “Does this hurt? Why haven’t your nanobots healed it?”
“Not anymore.” Capturing her hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed her palm. “The guards branding us let us know Shui specifically designed the ink so our nanobots couldn’t heal it.”
“Bastard.”
“He wanted us marked as fugitives for the rest of our lives.” Shui also knew it would make it easier for bounty hunters and assassins to identify cyborgs, but he wouldn’t tell Taly that.
“Well, it doesn’t. It shows you stood up against what you knew was wrong. That makes you a hero.”