Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(34)

“Yes,” Di replied, and tried to access the next door down.

The keypad blinked red.

“Like a program. A sentient program like the HIVE?”

“I am unsure, Ana,” he said shortly, and tried another combination of numbers to hack it. The keypad blinked red again.

“Or did Rasovant create something to protect this ship? Or what if this is why the ship was never fou—”

Di whirled around to her. “I am unsure, Ana,” he repeated. His eyes burned brightly, wedging her words in her throat. She’d never seen him look so frightening before.

Gunshots echoed down the hallway.

She gasped. “Di—Di, the crew!” She turned around to hurry back down the corridor, but he caught her by the arm.

“We must find the bridge and disable the program.”

“But what if it’s more Metals? What if they’re attacking the crew—”

“Then they will keep attacking unless we find the bridge and disable the program that is controlling them.”

Another round of gunfire pierced the quiet, a staccato, sharp tune. Her heart tore, but Di was right. “Okay. Lead the way.”

As if on cue, the door Di had been trying to enter slid open.

They glanced at each other, and with a silent agreement they went through. It led down another hallway, and up a lift to the next level, and down another long and white corridor. Each one seemed longer than the last, but that was only because of the anxiety that began to creep into her shoulders, bunching the muscles around her neck.

The Tsarina could easily fit five Dossiers. At full capacity, the ship could house two, maybe three hundred people. She’d never been on a ship this big.

“I don’t like this—we have to go back to the crew,” Ana said. “We have to—”

“Keep moving,” he interrupted, shooting the keypad to the door at the end of the way. The door popped open.

She stopped him by the arm before they moved on. “Why’re you being so short, Di? What’s wrong?”

Before he could answer, a door behind them slid open and a Metal stepped out, eyes blazing red. It cocked its Metroid. Aimed. She reached reached for her holster, but Di lurched forward, hand outstretched, and slammed it clean through the Metal’s skull.

She winced.

He unraveled the wires from his fingers as the Metal sank, slowly, to the floor. Then Di shifted his gaze back to her, and the way he looked—moonlit eyes bright, unyielding, curled a sliver of fear up her spine. Because his gaze was cold. And calculated.

“I do not mean to offend,” he finally said. “I simply want to survive this.”

She swallowed the knot in her throat, along with her fear. “Me too.” They made their way to the lift to the top deck, where the bridge was located, and closed themselves inside. “Are you getting the feeling we’re being herded?”

“Yes.”

The lift clanged to a stop, and the doors opened wide to another red-eyed Metal.

“Hello, brother,” it greeted them.

Ana brought her boot up and connected with the android’s center, knocking it off balance. Then she took her Metroid and shot three rounds into its head.

Di gave her a slow look.

“We’re in a hurry, right?” she asked, holstering her gun again, and they continued down another corridor lined with tarnished silver doors. And at the end of the hall was the entrance to the bridge, painted with the peeling crest of a nine-tentacled octopus.

The red keypads to the doors clicked green as they passed.

Di put a hand on Ana’s back. “Do not look back,” he said.

“Lemme guess, there are Metals coming out of those doors?”

He looked back. “I suggest we run.”

They did. The hum of Metroids filled the hallway. A bullet pinged off Rasovant’s crest, leaving a smoldering black hole. Another bit at her heel. Ten feet—five—

The door to the bridge slid open and they hurried inside. She spun around and slammed her hand on the keypad again.

The door clamped shut with a vicious snap.

She let out a breath. “Goddess’s spark, that was close. Let’s find the off switch to this killer ship and—”

Di spun her around.

There were no charts or navigational systems. There wasn’t a pilot chair or consoles, as there were in older models like the Dossier. This ship ran on holographic maps and input coordinates. The outer wall was a glass shield that looked out onto the darkened surface of Palavar. There was a tone—a long beep—and the bridge awoke. A sharp whiteness rose across the shield like a sunrise. Ana winced, shielding her eyes with a hand, as the light illuminated the bridge, casting their shadows long against the floor.

Then a voice came from everywhere and nowhere—from the air itself.

“Hello, Ana.”





Robb


This was how the captain would kill him. Not by her own hand, but by dragging an injured Ironblood onto a murder ship to be shot full of bullets. It was an ingenious plan. So much so he doubted she’d thought that far ahead, or maybe to the captain he was a replaceable fill-in for Ana, who’d luckily stayed back on the ship.

When they had traveled across the starbridge—a thick cord with a zip line machine—tethered from the Dossier to the cargo bay air lock on the Tsarina, Riggs had deactivated all the alarms. They hadn’t tripped anything. Everything was going according to plan, the crew boarded, and then—