Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(39)

A thin cylinder rose in the center of the room, a mass of mainframe and wires, and a hard drive at its center. Festering with the virus.

“Di?” Ana asked as he drew himself away from her. Her voice was thick with worry. “Di—what’s happening? Did you do that?”

“Stop struggling, brother. You are ruined. We will remake you.”

“You are mistaken,” D09 said, willing himself to move, overriding protocols, breaking his own systems beyond repair. He staggered toward the console, not looking back at Ana, because if he did, he would recalculate his decision. “I am more than the sum of my parts.”

“Di.” He registered her voice but could not look back. “What are you doing? Don’t—stop—come back!”

He hesitated for a moment—long enough to realize there were no good good-byes.

Then he shoved his hand into the console, wrapped his fingers around the hard drive, and pulled. The program retaliated, digging into his mainframe, clawing him apart. There was no pain.

But the moment before he crushed the starship’s hard drive, not long enough by any quantifiable standards, he knew he would miss Ana.

He would miss her more than iron and stars.





Ana


As Di’s moonlit eyes darkened, the shattered hard drive of the ship fell out of his ruined hand and plinked onto the floor like drops of hail.

“You . . . will burrrr . . .” The voice grew distorted until it faded with a hiss of white noise as it died. And then nothing.

For a moment, Ana didn’t realize what had happened, until the silence sank in.

“Di . . . ,” she croaked, getting to her feet, and shuffled over to him. “I think it’s dead. I—I don’t hear gunshots anymore. Di?” She shook him, but he didn’t move.

His eyes were dark. Dead like the bridge, hollow like the ship as it lost power, the lights above her flickering, flickering, then out, until only the light came from the emergency halogens, painting their shadows across the floor.

“Di?” she asked again, shaking him harder. He moved then—or so she thought he did—but it was just gravity as his body fell over onto its side with a terrible thunk. “Wake up, you stupid metalhead!” Her eyes stung, searing with tears. “No—I didn’t mean to call you stupid. You’re not stupid. You’re my best friend. Please answer me, please . . . Di? Di?”

She repeated his name, louder and louder, shaking him, but he was stiff, and dark, and cold. She screamed his name for so long, the word tore at her throat like daggers. He was just glitching.

He would wake up. He had to. She would wait until he did.

She hadn’t said good-bye.

A figure appeared in the doorway. The captain. Hair as bright as sunshine.

Ana turned her watery eyes up to her captain, rocking back and forth. It hurt to stay still. She was afraid that if she did, her sobs would shake her apart.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ana repeated, her words choking on each breath. “I’m sorry, please, let’s—please let’s do it again. I won’t—I won’t—won’t leave this time. I won’t—I won’t c-c-come here. . . .”

The captain’s bloodred lips curved down as she knelt next to Ana. “C’mon, darling.”

“We should wait—he’s just glitching. He’ll wake up. He’ll—he’ll come back—he always comes back. He . . . he . . .” Her voice wavered as the reality finally sank in. Her sobs grew louder until she could barely breathe. She pressed her face into her captain’s hair, which smelled like gunpowder and smoky cigars, and wailed.

“Shhh,” the captain murmured, kissing her forehead. “We need to leave. The Metals are dead.”

As Siege helped her to her feet, a great steel groan rumbled through the ship. The shards of the broken hard drive slid across the floor as the Tsarina tilted.

“Captain—Captain! Can you read me?” Jax’s voice crackled through the comm-link.

Siege responded. “Aye. I have Ana. What’s happening?”

“Thank the Goddess. You need to get out of there. Now that the ship’s without power, it’s being pulled into Palavar’s orbit. We’ll be dragged down with it if we don’t disconnect. Is Robb with you?”

“No, I haven’t seen him. We’re leaving.” The captain began to pull Ana with her, but she refused to move. “Darling, we have to go. Ana!”

Ana snapped her eyes up to meet Siege’s green gaze.

“I can’t carry you if I’m going to carry him, okay?”

Him.

Di.

The captain wasn’t going to leave Di. Because he was going to wake up. They wouldn’t leave him to wake up alone.

The captain grunted as she heaved D09’s frame over her shoulder. Di’s pistol lay abandoned in the corner of the room. The ship tilted farther, red emergency lights flaring on in the corners of the room, as she followed her captain out of the room—and paused.

Turned back.

She grabbed Di’s pistol, the barrel still warm, and took it with her, the sound of her heart beating in her ears when it should have broken on that bridge with the rest of her.





Jax


Grabbing an extra helmet from the rack in the cargo bay, he swirled his ponytail up into a bun and shoved it on. The air lock sighed and opened, bringing with it Riggs and Wick, carrying—