Page 11 of Hijack! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #1)

He should have left Felicity in relative safety with the other passengers, but Ellix didn’t have time to route past the lifepods. Instead, hauling her with him, he clumped heavily straight for the command module.

Which he’d left at high-speed when monitors had shown the disturbance in the corridor. He’d only caught a glimpse as he arrived, but that was enough to infuriate him. She could’ve been hurt or killed, along with the other passengers.

Haunted? Impossible.

But he had seen…something.

The command crew was already in the module when he arrived, all busy at their consoles. Except of course for engineering, although he could see data scrolling rapidly from Suvan’s remote access.

“Reports,” he barked. He fastened Felicity into the restraint harness of the captain’s chair—just in case—and spun the controls toward himself as he stood beside her.

In his head, he imagined her startled laughter at the abrupt promotion, but in reality, she was murmuring into her comm with Ikaryo, checking the status of the passengers.

Ellix focused on his crew who were responding in order with updates.

“All environmental systems operational,” Suvan said. “Power, including propulsion, are active.”

“Good for you, down in the bowels, but nav and the subspace relay are still non-responsive,” Delphine countered. “Which means we have power but can’t go anywhere. And we can’t call for assistance.”

Felicity piped up, “At least we can breathe.” She slanted a look at Ellix, her cheeks pink.

The memory of her lips under his burned hotter than the sparks across his shoulders, and he had to tear his gaze away.

“Our itinerary was properly filed, and we’re due back in port after the last sunset.

We might be stranded and out of contact, but we’re not hard to find.

Still, I want to pinpoint the cause of the power instabilities. ”

“It’s not a power issue,” Suvan insisted. “I’m telling you, everything is fine down here. It’s something else.”

“A ghost,” Felicity said.

Ellix restrained a wince. They’d been having such a nice moment…

“All…anomalies have an explanation,” he said. She was a closed-worlder, after all. Also, he might’ve been reminding himself. “A weak coupling. Mismatched voltages. Something. This is an old ship.”

“And old edifices have ghosts.” Abruptly she bit her lip, silencing herself. “I’m sorry. Ghosts aren’t a thing. I’m just…”

Freaking out. His attention wavered to the red bloom across her mouth.

He pivoted to face his crew. “Whatever the source of the power glitch, I want to secure life support.” His wounds ached. Not the ones he’d just taken, but the older ones. Those memories also burned, cold as deepest space.

“Not a power glitch,” Suvan grumbled. “And I’m maintaining all backups and redundancies at full capacity. If I find any ghosts down here, at least we still have internal comms so you’ll hear me screaming.”

Delphine pushed out of her seat. “Since steering is useless at the moment, I’ll assist Griiek and then check the subspace array. If worse comes to wormhole, we can get a signal out by starting another fire.”

Ellix dismissed his impertinent crew to their tasks.

Felicity grabbed his elbow. “Since I know you’re not going to waste time in the med bay, let me cover those burns.”

“It’s—”

“Nothing. So you told me. But it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You protected me.”

Since he couldn’t deny that without lying, she seemed to think she’d won. As if she’d forgotten that she’d just recently almost floated away, she released herself from the harness and fetched the emergency kit from the supply station.

Even as he remotely supervised the crew’s efforts, all his Kufzasin senses were focused on Felicity circling behind him: the sweetness of her scent, her soft gulp as he eased the scorched tunic over his head, the gentleness of her fingers as she parted his fur to the skin beneath.

“Blistered but not bad,” she reported.

“So I told you.”

“This will help.” The cooling relief of ointment numbed his skin enough. In moments, it hardened to a healing patch.

And yet he didn’t pull away from her touch.

“Hopefully the hair will grow back.” She combed her fingers over his fur, straightening the strands she’d rearranged.

It should’ve only taken one pass, and yet she kept petting him.

The sensation was strange, and though his every muscle wanted to relax under that caress, he tensed with a nebulous need, to turn toward her and take her in his arms again, not so protective this time.

He was supposed to be captain of this ship. And yet he was lounging here like he had no other concerns.

He snatched the discarded tunic off the chair and tugged it over his head, ignoring the twinge deeper than the burns or the way he mussed the fur she’d so carefully combed. “We need to get back to work.”

She dipped her head. “Of course. I’ll check on guests.”

“Stay with them in the pod. It will be safer there.”

She stared up at him, her jaw tightening. “I will make sure things are under control with Ikaryo. But I’m part of the crew, and I want to help, not hide.”

He stiffened at the note of challenge in her voice. “Felicity—”

She let out a derisive snort, not quite a growl. “It’s not like anyone will be falling in love under these conditions.”

He stilled, considering. “Aye, it’s ridiculous to think about dating and mating during a power outage.”

They were both silent for another moment, and he wondered if she was now thinking what he was thinking about that kiss in the warm shadows, but this was not the time.

“Never mind,” he muttered. “Come with me then.”

First they stopped by the equipment locker, and he found a pair of magnetic crampons small enough to attach to her uniform boots.

He had her stand, her hand braced on his shoulder, while he knelt before her to carefully fit the devices to her feet.

Even with her boots on, his fingers overlapped around her delicate ankles.

How had such an insubstantial species managed to dominate their planet?

With such clueless willfulness, perhaps they should remain a closed world forever.

When he was satisfied she wouldn’t accidentally float away if they lost gravity again, he let her up.

While she took a few tottering steps, adjusting to the extra inches and weight, he checked in with the rest of the crew, scattered to their tasks. At least the separate internal comm system seemed intact.

“No further evidence of power distortions,” reported Griiek. “The fire in the hatch corridor did no meaningful damage, and I’ve already cleared the cosmetic issues.”

Ellix rolled his eye to Felicity, and she drew her shoulders up around her ears, her nose wrinkling in a way that made him want to pet her as she’d petted him.

“Thank you, Griiek,” they said in unison. She flashed a wry grin at him, and for some reason that made him want to purr as if she had pet him again.

“I might be able to trigger the distortion if I shut down and restart the ship,” Suvan mused. “One good power surge could expose any flaws outside engineering.”

“Nay,” Ellix said in a blunt tone he knew Suvan needed to hear. “Maybe, if we were still on a low-crew freighter on an isolated route, we’d risk it. But there’s no need this close to port with passengers aboard.”

The disgruntled grumble cut out.

“He won’t shut down the ship, will he?” Felicity whispered.

“If he was going to do it, we’d already be holding our breath.”

Or sharing it. He needed to stop musing on that moment. The ship was in danger while he was dreaming. As she’d said, this was no time for romance.

“I’m sorry I set your ship a little bit on fire,” she said.

“It’s not my ship.”

“Well, you are the captain. At least for this one cruise.” She half-jogged alongside him as he headed for the salon. “Did you always want to be a spaceship captain?”

“Doesn’t every youngling?” He glanced down at her. “Or maybe that’s not true on a closed world.”

“Even on Earth there are kids who want to be astronauts or astronomers or science fiction cosplayers in green latex. Although obviously they have no idea just how far that might take them.”

As she spoke, she sounded calmer. Keeping her talking was the least he could do as her captain.

“Like you?” he prodded. “How did you join the Intergalactic Dating Agency from a closed world?”

“One of the IDA outposts on Earth is near my hometown. And really, everyone who lived there sort of knew there was something strange about our town. We even had an extraterrestrial festival. When I was in charge of our senior prom—that’s like a big last celebration for Earther younglings ready to head out on their own—I chose the theme ‘The Stars are Ours’, and that was before I found out about all this.

” She shrugged. “But then I left for college, got my degree in hospitality management, and started working in nicer hotels, doing bigger events. Until, out of the blue, Mr. Evens contacted me. I used to shop at his thrift store all the time, but I had no clue about the IDA. He danced around that rather vaguely for quite a while.”

“It must’ve been a shock.”

“It was…but it wasn’t. Earth has a long history of wondering about what’s out there.

To many people, it was always a matter of not if , but when we’d have contact with intelligent life in the universe.

” She shook her head. “And I’m amazed at how many other beings were also looking to the stars, wondering about the possible connections. ”

Something constricted in his chest. What were the chances that she’d be one of the closed-worlders who’d come this far? To the ship that he’d chosen to captain on little more than a whim?

In space, even the tiniest angle of change led to literally astronomical differences in paths and destinations.

Yet here they were, together.

In the Starlit Salon, the last sunset lingered at a partial eclipse as the ship hung unresponsive, stuck on its last trajectory.