She nodded.
He held out his arm and tapped his gauntlet.
Scan weapon.
A beamof light came out of Wrathin’s wrist and ran over the blade. It only took the scanners a moment to reveal the answers.
Transmitter present.Dormant.
Recorder present. Live.
Wrathin projectedthe answers into the air, angled away so the blade would not see them.
Instigate signal blocker.
Veta threw down the weapon.
“That monster,” she muttered. “I’m going to rip him apart! What in the world was he thinking? How dare he? I have given my life to him, to the Empire! How dare he!”
“Shh,” Wrathin said.
“I don’t want to—”
“Listen.”
Veta did not want to listen. “No! I’m going to—”
Wrathin did the only thing he could think of. He kissed her.
She remained hard against him, for a second, then she softened.
He broke the kiss.
“What did you do that for?”
“Listen,” he said, leaning into her ear. “The jammer only has a moment. You cannot get rid of it.”
“Why not?”
“Think. You are angry. Logic, please.”
“I don’t want to. I feel—”
“This is not about feelings. This is about what is logical. He gave you this. With a recording device. He wants to know everything that happens on this mission, correct?”
She nodded.
“He wants something. Do you know what he’s looking for?”
She shook her head.
“Then we must continue until we can figure out what it is he wants to know. And act like we do not know.”
Veta sighed and nodded her head. “Because if he knows that we know, then he could instigate whatever it is he’s up to. And Caoimhe knew he was up to something. I know she did. She wouldn’t have done this.” Veta pushed up her sleeve, showing a jeweled bracelet.
He had seen the sparkle on her arm earlier but had not considered it important. Terrans were known to have keepsakes with them, he assumed it was something similar. “I thought it was a special, familial, or luck token of some kind.”
She shook her head. “She gave them to us, each of them with a different one, before the attack.”
