Page 10 of Adrift! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #2)

What seemed possible when the stars opened up in front of you?

Ikaryo had asked her that, and Remy had avoided answering directly. Because she’d been terrified, both when Earth had dwindled behind her and when he’d challenged her to think of what might come next.

Her pulse was still pounding now, but for a different reason. As his hands settled at her waist with devastating gentleness, urging her toward him, she’d discovered that the distinction between almost and always could disappear in a heartbeat.

His mouth, hot on hers, tasted faintly of the metallic spice liqueur he’d given her earlier.

When the kiss deepened, his deep groan vibrated through her like a tuning fork struck against her lips, oscillating down her spine.

Touching him—from his black hair, silkier than she expected, to the edges of his tech, hot as his skin—intensified the thrill, every nerve ending glimmering like a string of twinkle lights.

A stutter in his breath warned her they were going too hard, and she soothed him with tender strokes down his back.

It was his first Earther kiss, after all.

The wicked pleasure of it was as exhilarating as her first step onto a stage. Oh, how had she forgotten that? The moment when anything was possible, when the obscured murk beyond the stage lights might become an ocean of starry eyes ignited by her music.

While his trembling eased under the caress, his augments seemed to convert the nervous energy to subtle harmonics. The throbbing undertone sank into her body like…like the beginning of an orgasm.

From one kiss? Was she that desperately needy?

For him, apparently yes.

It was her turn to pull back, just a little, wanting to check in with him, to see if…

But when she searched his wide eyes, the icy half-moons were awash with scintillating auroras that pulsed in rhythm with their rough breathing.

And the lights were bleeding out across the Starlit Salon.

Her heart jolted hard, and she froze. “Ikaryo? What…?”

His voice was a broken whisper. “You see it too?”

The translucent rainbows spun into diminishing fractals, but somehow she knew they never quite vanished, continuing onward into some realm she couldn’t perceive. “Is it…you?”

“No. No? My augments don’t generate or project like this.” He didn’t sound entirely certain.

But the effect was clearly centered around them.

And it was already fading. Right before the votive glow reclaimed the room, she felt a wave of something wash over her—not quite sound or emotion, but the echo of it. Like standing in an empty concert hall and yearning for the phantom applause of a thousand shows that never actually happened.

“The energy anomaly,” he murmured. “It’s supposed to be contained.”

“Does the monster know that?”

Although it was hard to think of the lovely lights as a monster, even if it had hijacked their ship and left them adrift.

Ikaryo shoved to his feet, rocking her on the couch. Even as he reached out a hand to steady her, he was toggling the datpad on his wrist. “Captain? We may have a problem…”

Remy sat quietly while he volleyed a confusing conversation—sounded like something out of a pulp science fiction novel—with the captain and someone named Suvan who was apparently the engineer.

Before the exchange was over, the big Kufzasin captain was striding through the salon doors, Felicity close behind.

The cruise director bustled toward them, brow furrowed and strands of her blonde updo frazzling. She slid onto the couch next to Remy, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right? And you, Ikaryo?”

The captain curled his lip impatiently, revealing a lion-like incisor, but waited for them both to answer in the affirmative. “If it was the anomaly, there was once again nothing on sensors.”

Remy clamped her hands between her knees. “Something happened. We both…saw it.”

Felicity glanced up at the captain then back at Remy. “Saw it? Or felt it?”

Almost as bad as getting caught onstage with no pants. “I definitely felt freaked out.” By the monster and by a kiss. But she wasn’t going to get Ikaryo in trouble by telling his bosses what they’d been—

“I was kissing Remy when the anomaly manifested. And singing.”

She blinked. Well, it wasn’t like they could fire him while they were lost in space. But to her surprise, she wasn’t so embarrassed by the confession. Maybe it was lingering shock.

Or maybe kissing Ikaryo had been just that good.

“Kissing.” The captain’s whiskers bristled. “And singing. What happened?”

Despite her nonchalance, Remy felt heat flood her cheeks. How much detail was needed to explain that making out had apparently triggered some sort of cosmic light show?

“I’m certain it was the anomaly,” Ikaryo said, mercifully taking the lead. “Or some sort of echo of it. We already suspected it responds to…” He gestured vaguely between himself and Remy. “To emotional resonance, yes?”

Was that what they’d been doing? Emotionally resonating?

She wanted to scoff, but the tiny eternity of the kiss kept looping through her, the touch of their lips and the breath between them like the crescendoing bridge of the song they’d shared.

And that had summoned a monster?

Nehivar tapped at the device on his wrist. “Suvan? Sensors have been unable to decipher the anomaly’s presence, but you’ve been physically monitoring its wavelengths in the capacitorus. Did power levels change at all to indicate any activity with the anomaly?”

Felicity’s larger datpad, which she’d set on the couch beside her, suddenly projected a ghastly protruding eyeball overhung by the glaring miniature lightbulb of a deep-sea predator fish.

Remy leaned back from the abrupt and repulsive appearance.

No wonder the chief engineer hadn’t shown itself at any of the cruise gatherings.

“Move over, Lub.” With a sharp chitter and a flash of fangs in an even more protruding underbite, the projection just as abruptly disappeared, replaced by poorly rendered image of half a scowling, angular face.

“Containment did not fail,” the engineer snapped.

“My capacitorus has been continuously powered, the anomaly controlled within established parameters. I have the readings to show it.”

“But isn’t energy always changing?” Remy mused. “What if—?”

“Did not fail,” Suvan repeated obstinately.

Felicity leaned into Remy’s shoulder. “Don’t mind Chief,” she semi-whispered. “He’s been stuck down in the ship’s guts for too long and loves his engines more than anyone.” When the engineer sputtered, she added in a slightly louder voice, “I’m working on him.”

“Stop torturing my chief,” Nehivar growled. “Suvan, could you compare those readings to any variances in Ikaryo’s implants to confirm something like…resonance?” He glanced at Ikaryo. “If you agree.”

Ikaryo straightened. “Of course. If it will explain any of this.”

While he tapped at his own datpad, Remy’s gaze followed those deft gestures. The cybernetic components didn’t light up as when they’d kissed…

“Give me a moment while I calculate,” Suvan grumbled.

“What if—” Ikaryo glanced at Remy. “What if it’s not a separate energy phenomenon? Or not exactly, but something we are generating or enhancing or…” He hesitated when they all stared at him, then rallied. “Mariah might explain it better.”

Remy doubted that. “Like we sang the monster into being?”

“It’s not a monster,” Felicity objected, rising to face them all. “When we captured it, I felt like it just wants to make a connection. As if it’s lonely.”

Even as Remy exchanged dubious glances with Ikaryo, the captain reached out one big paw to gather the cruise director under his arm.

“I know you take the mission of the IDA seriously.” His deep rumble was affectionate. “But might you be projecting a bit, azeeli?”

She rested her hand on his chest where the ruff of his mane overflowed his uniform in late-80s hair band glory.

“Maybe. But I think I’m not wrong.” She left her possessive hold in place when she looked at Remy and Ikaryo.

“When Ellix and I kissed”—the captain coughed out a slightly startled sound—“right here in this salon actually, the anomaly responded powerfully but not just to the…er, bioelechemical stimulation. It felt…beyond that.”

“Like everything coming together,” Ikaryo murmured. When Remy looked at him, this time he didn’t meet her gaze. “Like all of me had found a place where…”

She desperately wanted to hear whatever he was going to say next, but Felicity’s datpad lit up with scrolling symbols.

“Containment held.” The arch confidence in Suvan’s voice sustained the barest crack.

“But something did change. Ikaryo’s implants are simple, operating within limited constraints, nothing like my capacitorus.

However, during the time in question, when combined with Ms. McCoy’s vocalizations, the waveforms aligned.

Like an echo, or a bridge between them.”

Remy stiffened. She’d just been comparing the kiss to the bridge of a song. In music, the bridge might shift the chord progression or the rhythm, both connecting and crucially pivoting the arc of the song.

They’d bridged to a monster?

“That synchrony may have allowed a sort of quantum tunneling,” Suvan continued, “which manifests as a ghost of the anomaly outside the capacitorus. But not a true escape,” he emphasized.

“The distinction eludes me,” Nehivar rumbled, and Remy had to agree with him.

“I compared the waveforms to other sensor data from earlier in the cruise,” Suvan said. “Monitors weren’t set to capture the exact same readings, but there seem to be similarities. Other moments when the pattern of the anomaly in the capacitorus now and previous baseline energy signatures aligned.”