Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(19)

He checked the radar to see if that solar schooner was still pinging them, but the communications were silent.

It worked.

Finally, he pried his shaking hands from the controls. Waited for a moment, making sure he was still breathing and functional, and then thrust his fists into the air. “And who is the best pilot in the kingdom?” He turned his thumbs toward himself. “This sexy pilot right here!”

The captain patted the back of his chair, as close to a congratulations as he’d get. “Nice flying, Jax.”

“Go on, tell me more.” He grinned. “So, where to? Iliad? Patoor Mav Station?”

For a moment, the captain didn’t respond, and the fiber-optic wires in her hair flickered, dimming to a burnt orange. “Set a course for Palavar,” she said at last, and in the doorway he heard Ana’s breath catch.

He turned to look the captain in the face to make sure she wasn’t joking. But then he remembered the captain never joked. “That’s . . . Captain—Palavar?”

Cerces’s dark moon. It orbited around the third planet from the sun in such a way that it always fell into the planet’s shadow. No light reached it—and that meant no energy. Ships couldn’t function for long, tech would power down.

Not to mention Cerces had at least three separate bounties out for the Dossier. If a patrol caught them in Cercian space . . .

“Captain,” Jax said, “Palavar’s suicide—” And then it dawned on him. “It’s where those coordinates point, isn’t it? The ship’s on the dark moon.”

“Aye,” she said, and leaned over Jax to the intercom. “Congratulations, crew. I hope we’re all in one piece. As most of you have probably already guessed, Ana took it upon herself to steal a few things—an Ironblood included.”

Jax wanted to point out that none of them would steal an Ironblood willingly—not even the gorgeous one currently in the infirmary.

“She also stole coordinates to Rasovant’s missing fleetship, the Tsarina. She thinks there might be something on it that can fix Di’s memory core, but there’s a good chance someone’ll follow us. I don’t like the odds”—she paused, pursing her lips—“so speak your grievances now, or you’re coming with us. To Palavar.”

The captain leaned back and waited. The speed from the maneuver propelled the Dossier along so quickly, the ship vibrated, and if Jax’s anxiety wasn’t already peaking, it might have felt nice—like a massage.

Finally, the intercom crackled and Talle’s sweet voice came in from the galley. “Sounds like trouble—I’m in, Sunshine.”

“Aye,” came the voice of Riggs. Then Lenda, Barger, and Wick. Finally, Jax nodded, too. Even though it was a given he’d come along.

Who else would fly the ship?

“Then we’re on our way to Palavar,” said Siege, and ended the transmission. Jax heard her sigh. “Remember our deal, Ana.”

“Thank you!” Ana cried, and tore away from the doorway, her footsteps pounding against the floor as she fled down to the infirmary to talk to Di.

Jax cued up the autopilot. “Looks like we’ll be there in seven hours and some change. Are you sure about this? It’s Palavar.”

“That it is.”

“So you think Ana might be onto something, then.”

The captain clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “I think love is a powerful thing, Jaxander, and it sometimes makes us blind. We’ll need someone monitoring the frequencies all night, at least until we reach those coordinates. You should take a break. I’ll look over the cockpit for a while.”

He pushed the controls down under the console. “Goddess, thank you. I think I’m going to take a nice cold shower because Goddess forbid the heater’s working—”

But the captain caught him by the jacket as he went to leave. “—I have a favor, first.”

He tried not to wilt. He’d expected as much.





D09


As D09 finished the last suture, the Ironblood awoke with a gasp. D09 anchored a hand on the boy’s shoulder and shoved him back down onto the gurney.

“Let me go!” the Ironblood wheezed. “Let me—”

Reaching into the medical kit, D09 drew out a sedative and pressed it into the boy’s neck.

“Let me . . .” The Ironblood’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he went limp.

E0S, tending to diagnostics on the medical computer, gave a beep of disapproval.

“He struggled,” D09 told it as he disinfected the boy’s wound again before wrapping it over with gauze. People were easier to treat when unconscious, he reasoned. He had not sedated the boy because he was more than a little annoyed at their current predicament. He did not become annoyed.

He was Metal.

The sedative would wear off in approximately twenty minutes and thirty-two seconds. Di would be gone from the infirmary by then.

As he pulled off his bloodstained gloves, the door to the infirmary opened, and he turned just as Ana flung herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck in a hug.

“We’re going!” she cried with a laugh. “We’re going to the ship!”

“So I have heard.”

“We survived and we’re going to the ship. We’re going to fix you! We’re going.” Smiling, she pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes. “We’re going.”