Heart of Iron

by Ashley Poston

  “Do you want a thank-you or something?”

  “An apology will do.”

  “Ha—is that all?”

  His fingers were wet, but he didn’t want to draw his hand away. His side hurt so badly it brought tears to his eyes, but he would be damned if he cried in front of Jax. “You knew that if I stayed, the captain would give me another chance.”

  “I wasn’t lying. I can’t lie.”

  Robb pushed off the wall. “Is that the spiel you give every . . .” His head swam, words floating away. The ship tilted—or was it him? Weakly, he grappled for the side of the wall to steady himself, but his hand slipped against it, slick with blood.

  Jax lurched forward and caught him by the arm before his face met the floor, and steadied him.

  Everything was spinning. And smelled like lavender and blood.

  He hated lavender. He wanted to hate it.

  “You did pull a stitch—or twelve,” said the Solani, and it was strange because all cocky pretense was gone, leaving his voice soft and lilting—like a song. “Can you make it to the infirmary?”

  Robb nodded, and the Solani helped him—slowly, with more patience than he would have thought—to the infirmary downstairs. The lights flickered on, so bright he had to squint. He hated infirmaries. Especially this one. He would be happy never to see it again. Jax helped him up onto the gurney and retrieved a medical kit, pulling Robb’s shirt up on one side.

  Everything made him dizzy, so he trained his eyes on Jax’s gloved fingers as they pressed a piece of gauze against the wound, soaking up the blood seeping through the stitches. The Solani’s face was blank, his hair falling across his shoulder, reminding Robb of starlight.

  He used to love looking at the stars, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had. Not since Aran Umbal.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked dimly.

  “Scared that a star-kisser’ll screw you up?”

  He felt the tips of his ears reddening. “I’m sorry I called you that. And I meant because you’re a pilot, not a medic.”

  “Don’t put me in a box, little lord—I might just surprise you. Hold still—”

  “Aah!” He cried out in pain, trying to pull away as Jax took out the broken stitch. He blinked and tears stuck to his lashes.

  Perfect, he was crying in front of a Solani. Valerios didn’t cry. Not from pain. Not at funerals. Not even for Aran Umbal. Goddess strike me.

  He gritted his teeth, willing himself to stop. “Numbing it first would be—be grand.”

  “Oh, must’ve slipped my mind,” the Solani replied offhandedly, taking a numbing agent from the medical kit and administering it around the wound. “Do you know where the word comes from? ‘Star-kisser’?”

  The pain ebbed with the medicine. Robb took his first full breath. “The stars?”

  “My, you’re a genius.” Jax began to restitch the wound with the suture pen. “Long before we came to the Iron Kingdom, my people learned how to see the future in the stars. What may be, what will be, and what will never be. With this knowledge, we created a great empire and prospered for thousands of years.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what the stories say. Until one day, the stars began to blink out, and the D’thverek—what your lovely people call the Great Dark—came for our sun. We had relied on the stars for so long that we didn’t know how to defend ourselves, so we took what remained of our people and fled to where the stars pointed—here.”

  “So . . . you can read the stars? Like the rumors say?”

  Jax snorted. “Please. We can barely read our own mother tongue anymore. Over the generations, we fell in love with humans and Cercians, and we forgot.”

  “But, theoretically, if there were any Solani who never married Erosians or Cercians . . . they still could?”

  Jax raised his eyes to Robb’s. They were more red than violet—like a dying star—and Robb felt as if the Solani was telling him a secret in that stare, one that his mouth could not form words to. The smell of lavender was making him light-headed for a completely different reason.

  “Theoretically, anything could be possible,” the Solani finally said, cutting his eyes away. He took another strip of gauze from the medical kit and wrapped Robb’s wound again. Jax’s long, gloved fingers felt whisper-soft, making goose bumps shiver across Robb’s skin. “And . . . we’re all done. Better than the Metal, if I do say so myself.”

  Robb tugged down his shirt and sat straight again. If a Solani couldn’t lie, he found himself asking, “If you—if you could read my fate in the stars, do you think I’ll find my father?”

  The silver-haired boy blinked. “Truthfully?”

  “Truthfully.”

  Jax reached up. Robb winced, thinking he’d slug him again, but Jax brushed his thumb across Robb’s busted bottom lip, so gently it sent a shiver down his spine. “Please don’t ask,” he whispered, and left Robb alone in the infirmary with a plea that sounded more like an answer.

  D09

  Two hours and four minutes and seven seconds.

  Recalculating.

  Fifty-eight seconds.

  Recalculating.

  Two days and four hours and thirty-two seconds—

  D09 sat drumming his fingers on the pilot chair’s armrest, space passing by in a blur of stars and nebulae. He kept a counter running in the back of his computing, constantly recalculating the time until he would no longer function. He had first begun the calculations when they had visited the mechanic on Iliad, who told him about his damaged memory core, but the countdown was not logical. It sped up. It slowed.

  But it never gave him enough time to figure out how to say good-bye.

  Perhaps it would be best if he were smashed instead—the slang for destroying a Metal’s memory core. Not murdered, or killed, but smashed like a child’s plaything. Metals had been useful during the Plague in keeping those infected quarantined from the rest of the kingdom, but now that the threat was no longer an issue, they were not needed.

  Perhaps that was all Metals were supposed to be—impermanent tools. Means to an end.

  On a star map pulled up on the cockpit monitor, a white dot moved toward the third and farthest planet in the kingdom, Cerces. It was his duty to watch the cockpit while Jax slept.

  Nights were quiet. They gave him time to mend temperamental fuses in the ship or find ways to lock E0S in service closets.

  Where was the troublesome robot, anyway?

  He keyed up the video feeds to look when footsteps echoed down the corridor, activating his motion sensors. He shifted in his chair. No one should be awake.

  The captain stepped into the cockpit. “Any news since the video feed from the Grand Duchess?”

  “No, sir. There has been no sign of the Royal Captain or the Messiers on the radars or comm-links,” he relayed. “There are only two freighters and a passenger ship in our immediate vicinity, but they are not a threat.”

  “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.”

  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—”

  “No,” D09 interrupted.

  Ana pursed her lips. Jax could see the disagreement in the creases of her brow. It had always been an option—kill an innocent Metal to use its memory core. He wished they could use a Messier, but the HIVE took control of the memory core—and no one knew how to un-HIVE a metal yet.

  Goddess, Di really was a beacon of morality. If uploading Di into some other Metal’s memory core could save him, then Jax didn’t see why it couldn’t be an option—especially since Metals couldn’t feel. It wasn’t like Di could feel guilty over rewriting some stranger’s code.