Lost in Barbarian Space(46)
“It’s a cockpit chair.” She looked up at him. “It’s a chair from a starship, and it looks old. It has to be from the Valhalla.”
“We must be close.” Colm stared at the artifact. “I want to find this ship, Honor. For Kavon, for my people.”
She nodded. “Then let’s find it.”
Colm watched Honor pull on her clothes and then search around in the backpack. She held up a small tool.
“It’s a laser cutter.” She pressed a button on it and a beam of orange light shot out. She turned, and pressed it towards the ice.
Colm watched in awe as she cut a huge chunk of ice from the wall. She reached in, melting the ice around the artifact. Then she set the laser cutter away.
He stepped forward and gently eased the chair from the ice. He set it down on the floor, and she set about examining it.
“Well, it looks like it was wrenched out of the cockpit, and it definitely looks Terran.” She scraped away some ice, then gasped. “Look.”
There was an image on the fabric of the chair. A circle with crossed swords…and the word Valhalla beneath it.
She smiled. “It’s from the ship. The rest of the wreck has to be really close.”
“Then we’ll keep searching.”
She stood, dusting off her hands. “Colm…the reason you don’t want to mate…it’s because of the nanami sickness?”
He touched her, gently pushing her hair back behind her ear. He wished things could be different. “If I could have a bondmate, it would be you.”
She looked up at him wordlessly, and the look in her eyes filled his chest with heat.
“Honor.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her face to his chest. “God, Colm. You’ve twisted me up inside. I never wanted a man, and certainly not a stubborn barbarian warrior.”
He pulled her close. Yes, neither of them had been looking for the other.
An echo of noise reached him. He tilted his head, cautiously letting his nanami expand his senses. He didn’t hear anything else, and thought he must’ve imagined it. But then he heard it again.
Honor lifted her head. “I think that—”
“Shh, Honor.”
She went quiet, and Colm strained to hear more. It was a strange noise. Harsh. Unlike anything he’d heard in the ice caves.
And it was getting closer.
“We have to move.”
“The beasts again?”
He shook his head. She didn’t waste time with more questions. Colm pulled his knife from its sheath and cut the logo off the seat.
“Colm,” she whispered. “The astro-archeologists will have a fit.”
He set the artifact in the backpack and she swung it onto her back. “Move.” He nudged her into the tunnel. “Don’t run. We need to move quietly.”
They moved down the tunnel, turned into another, then another. He barely saw the beautiful blue-ice walls anymore. Colm was tired of the ice caves and the cold.
He paused again to listen and his jaw tightened. “Whatever it is, it’s getting closer.”
Honor nodded. “I can hear it, too.”
There was a rattle. The scrape of metal on ice.
They both turned, and Colm pulled his sword from its scabbard. He heard Honor’s soft curse.
The…creature had rounded the corner.
Colm gripped his sword. It was made of a gray, metallic substance and shaped like a man.
But it floated just off the ground, had no legs, and had four arms. Its face was flat, with no features.
It looked a lot like Honor’s spar-droids.
“It’s a syndroid of some kind.” Honor was studying it intently. “It’s tracking us by heat.”
“I will destroy it.” He lunged forward, even as he heard Honor’s protest.
He swung his sword, but the droid was fast. It dodged to the side and out of the way of his blade.
He kept attacking, and the droid continued to dodge his every move. Colm could feel his anger growing.
“Colm! Pirates!”
The panic in Honor’s voice made him turn. He saw a band of people running down the tunnel. Honor had pulled out her stun-staff, and she darted past Colm and the droid to attack the incoming group.
The man in the lead was lean and fast, and carrying a sword of his own. Honor took him down with a hard swing to the back of his neck. He hit the ice, groaning. But before he was even down, two more rushed at her.
The droid slammed into Colm. He spun, trying to focus on the droid, but he couldn’t, not when he knew Honor was in danger.
She fought hard, her staff whirling. Then a huge man came in from the side, and hit her with something. She staggered.
A woman came in low and jammed some sort of device against Honor’s side. She shuddered under the impact of it. Colm recognized it as some sort of stunner.