Page 68 of Lost in Barbarian Space

Colm agreed. The ancient travelers who’d died on this ship hadn’t made it to Markaria, but they were inextricably linked to the First Warriors. He felt he owed it to them, and their memory.

“Ideas?” he asked.

“They’re down to five.” She scowled at the droid. It was hovering silently off to the side. “The syndroid is the wildcard. There’s no telling what kind of weapons it has.”

“I can destroy it,” he said darkly.

She grabbed him. “You’re not impervious to heavy lasers or explosives. Don’t underestimate it.”

He lifted a hand and touched her cheek. “It is my duty to protect you.”

“Well, you’ll have to settle for us protecting each other.”

“Hey?” Alara’s voice interrupted them. “You two get in here and look around this ship. If more ice falls, it can fall on you.”

The pirate leader was a bitch. Colm was going to enjoy making her pay for this.

Alara used a knife to slice through Honor’s ropes and free her hands. Then the pirate slapped a large, well-used flashlight into Honor’s palm.

Together, Colm and Honor climbed in through the hole in the wall where the ship was nestled. The dull metal of its hull was covered in a slick layer of ice. Something had torn a hole in the back end of the ship, and the front was badly damaged from the crash.

“We can go in through the tear,” she suggested.

There was jagged metal along the edge of the hole. Colm gripped the edges and bent them back, making it safer for her. Then he followed her inside.

She clicked on the light, shining it around.

“My God,” she breathed.

It was like the inside had been frozen in time. As though the occupants had just left. Colm saw benches topped with various tools, devices similar to Syncs, and even mugs and plates from someone’s half-finished snack. Things were jumbled around, clearly the result of the crash, but many things were still in place.

They moved out of the room and into a corridor. Through a glass window, Colm spotted chairs attached to the floor and pushed up against built-in desks. Cupboard doors hung open, revealing the jumbled items inside.

They moved deeper into the ship, eventually passing through a doorway into the cockpit.

Honor straightened. Ahead, sitting in the captain’s chair, was a body that had been preserved by the cold.

“By the warrior,” Colm breathed. He scanned the cockpit and saw there were more bodies, still strapped into their chairs.

“They never made it out,” she said. “They died right here.”

No, it wasn’t like on Markaria, where the survivors of the Excalibur had made it out and gone on to make some sort of life for themselves.

“It was too cold,” she said. “They had nowhere to go.” She looked around, her hands sliding over objects. She touched the comp system briefly, then she shook her head. “It’s frozen solid. Come on, let’s go look at the cargo bay.”

He followed her back through the ship. There was so much history here. How different things could have been if this ship hadn’t crashed, or if its sister ship hadn’t crash-landed on his world.

For a second, a part of him wondered what it would have been like if he hadn’t been cursed with the nanami sickness. But without the Nanami his ancestors had granted his people, Markarians would never have existed. He wouldn’t have existed, and for this brief time, Honor wouldn’t have been his.

“Here it is,” she said. The double doors were closed. She pushed at them, trying to slide the heavy panels open. They didn’t budge.

Colm pulled her back. He wedged his fingers into the groove between the two doors and shoved outward with all his strength.

The doors opened with a screech.

The cargo bay loomed beyond. Their steps echoed on the floor as they entered.

“By the Warrior’s sword.” He had never seen anything like it before.