Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(29)

“ETA to Palavar?”

“An hour and forty-seven minutes.”

She spun the communications chair around and sat, draping one leg over the other, propping her chin up in her hand. “I don’t like it, metalhead. It’s too quiet.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It is.”

Sighing, the captain shook her head. “You’re usually so much better at keeping her out of trouble.”

“Forgive me,” he replied, bowing his head. “Accompanying Ana to Nevaeh was a mistake. But I . . .”

The weight of the memory in the garden, the kiss, the promise . . . made him hesitate. He looked at his hands, at the wires glowing between the plates.

“I could not let her go alone,” he finally said. It was the best answer he could find.

“Ah.”

“I do not understand why. I am endangering the crew even now. I am a liability. After the Tsarina, I will leave. I do not want to put Ana at risk—”

“That won’t be necessary,” replied the captain, her curls turning red. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

“But what if these glitches are impairing my judgment?”

“I don’t think it’s the glitches doing that.” She stood and kissed him on his metallic forehead, leaving a bloodred lipstick print, and retired back to her quarters.

He turned back around to face the starshield, and caught his reflection, a red lipstick print on his forehead. He rubbed it off. He wanted to tell her that she was mistaken. That it must be the glitches. A virus—malware corrupting his judgment. Something deep inside murmured to him. It was an echo he could not place—even though he had run numerous virus scans over the years—a piece of code from before the Dossier.

From before the captain found him and Ana in an escape pod.

But those memories had been damaged; the data was gone. Gone as though it—and whatever he was before—had never existed, and only this echo remained. Calling. Beckoning. Like a voice through a long and narrow tunnel. He knew he had been something before, but he was not programmed to be curious, to care.

Or to be afraid of what he used to be.

Yet the echo remained, beating like the cadence of a heart.

On the starshield, a blip pinged the Dossier. A second long. He turned back to the starshield, but the radar did not receive the signal again. An anomaly? He slid out the control panel to investigate—

Someone knocked on the doorway to the cockpit.

He glanced over his shoulder as Jax ducked in. “Evening, metalhead,” the young man greeted. “How’s the night been?”

D09 turned his moonlit eyes back to the starshield. “Something just pinged us.”

“That’s not good.”

“It only happened once.”

Jax frowned and leaned on the back of the pilot chair, squinting up at the starshield’s readings. “Are you sure?”

D09 gave him a blank look.

“Right, of course you’re sure. Well, let’s not worry about it. It was probably a glitch. I’ll take it from here,” he added, motioning for Di to get up.

He did, and the Solani fell over the armrest into the seat with a sigh.

“Ah, home. You know what would be better? If you could keep the seat warm for me, too. Literally warm.”

“I am sorry I do not have heaters installed in my rear,” he replied, and left the cockpit as Jax cackled gleefully.

The rest of the crew were still asleep in the quarters. Riggs muttered in his sleep, but it was almost inaudible under Lenda’s snoring. He made his way down to the engine room to run diagnostics on the solar core before they arrived. It kept him busy, so he did not concentrate on the recalculations in the back of his head.

Seven minutes and fifty-three seconds—

Recalculating.

Two minutes—

Three hours and—

As he made his way down the stairs, a shadow moved in the open skysailer. It looked like legs sticking up out of the backseat. He recognized them, went over to the sailer instead, and peered inside.

Ana lounged across the backseat, legs sticking up over the headrest, as she read through the newsfeed on a holo-pad. The blue glow paled her face and hardened the lines on her puckered cheek. She glanced up when she saw him.

“Oh, hi, Di.”

“Why are you awake?”

She shrugged and righted herself in the backseat. “Couldn’t sleep. I guess we’re almost there.”

“Almost.” He climbed into the backseat with her—and felt something akin to a jolt. A jerk in the back of his code.

A glitch.

Two hours and thirty-seven minutes . . . , the counter read.

Another jolt. Numbers skewing.

Twenty seconds . . .

Ana turned off her holo-pad. “I have a question.”

“I may have an answer.”

She pulled her braid over her shoulder, beginning to unravel it with her fingers. “Do you think if—when—we repair your memory core, you’ll remember who we were? Before the Dossier?”

He shook his head. “I do not know.”

“Do you think . . .” She hestiated. Her fingers snagged on a knot, and she gave up. “Do you think you’ll remember who I was? Who I am?”

In reply, he took her hair out of her hands and began to braid it for her, meticulous and patient. “I know who you are,” he said. “You are Ana of the Dossier. You are everything you need to be.”