Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(30)

She smiled at that and closed her eyes. “Stop brownnosing.”

“I do not have a nose, so that would be impossible,” he replied, knowing it would make her laugh—and it did. She laughed, light and melodic, her entire body shaking with it.

He knew her better than he knew his own circuits and wires. They had been a team for as long as he could recall. He had never been without her, and she never without him—and even when they were apart he thought of her, as though a piece of her had been written into his code.

But did a piece of him run through her as well? Organic things were different. They operated on thoughts and feelings. They made rash decisions. They evolved—they changed. He never would. When he expired, would Ana change too, slowly, until he no longer lived in her thoughts?

At the edge of his consciousness, he could feel the glitch spiking, like when the starshield lost reception. He tried to sequester the code. Trap it.

Two minutes and—

Thirty-one seconds—

His fingers slowed. “Ana?”

She turned her golden eyes to his, curious. “What is it?”

Another spike of code seared through his programming. White noise.

He thought of what Jax had said about good-byes. Perhaps he could say it now. Find the right words. He opened his mouth to try when Jax’s voice rang out over the intercom. “We have committed a heinous deed and are now in one of the kingdom’s no-fly zones. Add it to your résumés, children. Destination ahead, fifteen minutes and steady. Everyone, report to the cockpit. Let’s board this lost ship.”

Ana sat up and turned off her holo-pad. “Let’s go, Di—you ready?”

Two minutes and thirty-eight—

Nine hours and three—

He nodded. He still had time. “Yes.”





Jax


So it was there after all, the Tsarina.

Jax tugged at his gloves. The entire ride had been too quiet. Too easy.

Through the starshield, the kingdom’s largest planet, Cerces, loomed like a dying sun. It was a planet of deserts, and underground cities built of topaz and emeralds, and the infamous prison mines that supplied rare jewels to the rest of the kingdom.

On the other side of the planet, in its shadow, rotated Palavar, Cerces’s largest moon. What a dreary place to park a starship. Aside from the ruins, nothing had existed on the dismal dark moon for the last thousand years.

As the crew filed into the cockpit, a small silver ship materialized ahead in the darkness. The uneasiness that had settled into the crew turned electric. He could taste the anticipation like a sharp drop of lemon on his tongue.

This was Rasovant’s fleetship, and even if the Iron Adviser didn’t know where his own ship was, Jax hardly thought the old man would sit around twiddling his thumbs. For all he knew, a Messier fleet was right behind them, and Jax wasn’t sure he could get get away this time.

You’re just worrying too much, he told himself, sliding out the controls from under the console to take the ship off autopilot, slowing the Dossier out of its sailing speed with a sigh.

“How’s it looking?” asked Lenda, fitting on her shoulder armor. The crew wore a hodgepodge of raiding gear, mismatched and worn. It wasn’t the look that mattered, but whether it saved your hide. LED lights hummed against their chests—their comm-links, live and ready.

The captain came into the cockpit last, helmet under her arm. “All right, crew. Hope you had a little catnap after last night’s . . . ordeal.”

Robb winced, embarrassment tingeing his cheeks, although Jax had to admit the color looked rather good on him. It matched his lips.

Jax turned back to the console and brought up a diagram of the Tsarina. “I’ve scanned the ship already, and it seems to be abandoned. Can’t say how long it’s been without solar power, but on the dark side of Cerces, it’d take a miracle to get that thing running again.”

“Nothing living?” asked Wick.

“There is only a two-point-seven percent chance of anyone surviving for seven years on residual power,” said Di.

Jax glanced over at him, hoping Di had heeded his warning to say good-bye to Ana.

“But there is a chance someone could be alive,” Robb pressed. “There has to be a chance.”

“It is unlikely.”

The look Robb gave Di could have melted steel.

The captain massaged the bridge of her nose. “All right, noted. We won’t have much time either way. Without solar light, we’ll only get about thirty minutes before the Dossier powers down, so we’ll have to tackle this like we did the one near Eros a few years back. Jax’ll swing around, and we’ll board from the stern and make our way up to the bridge. Di, what are we looking for?”

“A memory core,” the Metal replied.

“Oh, is that all?” Talle scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “They’re so small—how on earth is anyone going to find one?”

“They will probably be in the ship’s mechanical bay,” said D09, “or a lab.”

“Are the ones in active Metals still off-limits?” Riggs asked. “I hate to be the one to say it, but if worse comes to worst, you could just upload yourself into one of those.”

“That’ll overwrite and kill the Metal already in that memory core,” Ana argued. “I mean, as a last resort—”