Page 36 of Lost in Barbarian Space

“Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

They moved in organized search circles, Derek’s scanner making a steady beeping noise. Colm and Honor kicked at the snow in places. Dr. Behati scribbled notations on his Sync.

“It’s like looking for space pirates in an asteroid field,” Derek muttered.

“Or danari beasts in the Forest of Kern,” Colm added.

Derek blinked. “Ah, I’ll take your word for it.”

After some time, disappointment began to settle in. Thus far, they’d only found rocks and lumps of deep-blue ice below the snow.

Soon, Honor realized she couldn’t see as well as she had before. A dense white fog had drifted in.

“Colm—”

“I see it.”

The scanner made a loud squeal that made Honor wince. They converged on Derek, who was crouched by a mound of snow.

“It’s a good, solid reading⁠—”

They all scraped around the snow…and discovered another rock.

The young agent’s shoulders slumped. “Damn.”

“Keep looking.” Honor looked around. “But don’t wander too far off in this soup. I don’t want to lose anybody.”

As Derek and the doctor moved off to continue the search, Colm knelt by the rock.

She frowned. The rock did look…odd. More regular than the other ones they’d found.

Colm touched it. Then gave it a solid hit with his fist.

It crumpled.

She sucked in a breath.

“My God,” she breathed, kneeling beside him.

It was no rock. It was a metal lockbox.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Honor stared at the lockbox. It was made of a shiny silver metal and completely covered in a cracked web of ice.

She knelt and scraped the ice off with her gloved hand.

“There’s something written here.” She scraped more ice away, revealing faint letters that were engraved into the metal.

Property of the Valhalla.

“It’s from the ship.” Excitement zinged through her bloodstream. She looked up, and Colm pressed a hand to her shoulder. Damn, it felt pretty darn good to have him with her, sharing this moment. “Colm, it’s from your ancestors, and we just proved the wreck of their ship is here on Ansar.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I wasn’t sure treasure hunting would be this interesting.” He smiled from under his fur hood. “I was wrong.”

“Let’s get it back to the marlin. We’ll have to find a way to open it back on the Drake.” She tried to move the box, but it was heavy and the base of it was stuck into the ice. She sat back with a huff. “Looks like I’m going to need a dynolifter, and probably a laser cutter⁠—”

Colm reached down, gripped the box on either side, then heaved. Ice cracked with a loud snap, and the box was free.