Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(61)

She nodded. “And I was to dump you at one of those waystations for a Messier to find and HIVE.”

“But you did not.”

“I don’t kill innocent people.”

“But I am not a person.”

She massaged the bridge of her nose. “Di, how many times do I have to tell you— Are you okay? Metalhead?”

“I cannot feel my legs—” he said a moment before his knees went numb. Siege caught him and slowly eased him to the floor. “I—I am malfunctioning. I cannot think straight. You . . . agreed to take her in? But for what? What did I make a deal with you for?”

She squatted beside him. “It doesn’t matter—I never collected. I shouldn’t have kept this from either of you, I know, but . . . I was selfish. She was happy, I thought . . .” Her brow furrowed. “She was mine. For a moment she was mine.”

He pressed his palms against his temples. He did not know how to process the information. The whirls and whorls inside his head ground louder and louder, beating in repetition like a drum.

I am, I am, I am, never quite completing the statement. “I—I stole her away. I never returned her,” he said, dread coiling in his middle. “What if I am the villain? What if I had set that fire—”

“Metalhead,” Siege said gently, “you saved her. She’s alive now because of you.”

But who—or what else—could have caused the fire? Reports said it was a Metal—

He pulled his hands through his hair. “The malware on the ship said it wanted her to burn.”

“It . . . did?”

Realizing it at the same time, Di and Siege exchanged the same look—a growing horror.

“Oh, Goddess,” he said. “It knew her—the Tsarina knew her and it told her to burn. There is a ninety-seven-point-three-eight percent likelihood that it was a part of or knew about the Rebellion. I would have returned her if she had been safe. Oh, Goddess,” he repeated, and crawled up the wall to his feet again, legs wobbly. “We must rescue her. We must—”

She caught him by the arm as he tried to leave for the cockpit. He whipped back, the taste of a fight on his tongue—

“The door, metalhead” was all she said.

Oh.

There was a click in his head, a shift, a command, and the keypad turned green. The door slid open. The crew, having heard the entire conversation from the other side, leaned out hesitantly, afraid it’d shut again.

Talle cleared her throat. “So, let me get this straight . . . you are . . .”

“D09?” Lenda ventured.

“But he’s smashed,” Riggs argued. They headed toward the cockpit after the captain. “And this is the Metal from Rasovant’s ship. How do we know he isn’t a trick?”

Di began to explain how he could not possibly be anyone else, ready to divulge all their darkest secrets, when a whirring came up and knocked him gently on the back of the head. He glared at E0S.

Lenda blinked. “Yeah, that’s him all right.”

“E0S’d know.”

“Can’t fake that kinda thing.”

Di gave them an incredulous look. “You believe that thing?”

Talle clapped him on the shoulder as they ducked into the cockpit. “Don’t take it personally, D09—”

“Di—please,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. “D09 feels . . . it does not . . . I am not . . .”

Talle grinned, and kissed Di on the forehead. “Di, then.”

“No one’s gonna talk about the door-slamming-shut thing back there?” Lenda asked. “Anyone?”

“It is a glitch,” Di replied absently.

Siege sat in the navigation chair—Jax’s chair—and whirled around to face the crew, crammed elbow to elbow into the tight space. “All right. We’re going after Ana. I’m not asking any of the other ships, so we’re going to be on our own. Anyone who doesn’t want to risk their lives can get off at the waystation and transfer to the Illumine or Scorpius with my highest regards.”

The crew looked at one another, but no one objected.

Talle took Siege’s hand and squeezed it tightly. Di had never noticed before how they looked at each other, as though the stars orbited around no one else.

“Sunshine, my Sunshine,” Talle told Siege, “Ana’s our family. We don’t leave family.”

“At least not without a fight,” Riggs added with a grin. “Wick would’ve wanted that.”

“Barger, too.” Lenda agreed.

The captain looked relieved. “All right. Di? Your new upgrade kept you fluent in communications?”

“I believe so.”

She jutted her chin toward Wick’s empty console. “Then would you mind?”

Di opened and closed his mouth, not knowing what to say. “It . . . would be an honor,” he finally managed, and took his position at the console.

Siege ordered the crew to go to their places, spinning back around in her chair. They needed to drop off the Valerio guards, restock their supplies, mend the sails, and somehow infiltrate the Iron Palace. But Siege said it with a grin, all teeth and daring courage, and it made Di want to ignore the 87.34 percent chance of failure.

And that was a strange feeling, not to care about facts.