Page 13 of Hijack! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #1)
Felicity stared at the viewscreen, her last breath congealing in her body. She might be just a non-command crew closed-worlder, but even she knew a runaway ship was not good.
While simultaneously issuing commands to the crew through the comm, Ellix took her hand, his furred skin almost hot because her fingers were so cold.
Vaguely, she heard his orders—probably important ones, something about trying to disable the engines, but what did she know about hijacked spaceships?
Hijacked. But who was controlling them? And why?
While Ellix hauled her back to the command module, all the while exchanging rapid-fire damage control protocols with the crew, she tried to think.
The happy, relaxed, enthusiastic, curious IDA guests had been gathered for one purpose: to make a connection. What had they made a connection with?
She’d seen something like a black tangle of fingers reaching for them.
Just a shadow, or maybe a projection? Had it been an actual thing, or just her closed-world confusion?
Nobody else seemed to know what it was either, so she had as good a chance as anyone of figuring it out, even if she was just the entertainment director.
Ellix threw himself into the center chair while the crew rushed behind him into the command module, their reports tumbling in. “No external comms.” “No nav.” “No internal monitors.”
“Engines at a hundred and thirty percent,” Suvan said in a cheerful tone. “And quickening. The harmonics seems to be augmenting our power, just without controls.”
Great, so they didn’t know where they were going, but they’d get there faster.
Ellix’s claws clicked against metal as he levered himself out of the small chair. “What are the options for deactivating?”
“Nothing easy. Primary interfacing is down, same as with comms and nav. Physical access with this nacelle configuration at current output levels is…problematic.”
Pacing a tight circle, Ellix grimaced. “A modern ship would have a secondary portal to the engine module.”
“A modern ship wouldn’t have a ghost,” Suvan said. His pet chittered in the background as if in agreement.
Felicity pictured the schematics of the ship which she might’ve memorized out of excess caution while dealing with an insomnia flare after their initial safety lectures. “If you can’t turn off the engine, can you jettison it?”
Through the empty engineering console, the goblhob shrieked with a sound like maniacal laughter.
Suvan grumbled. “Who said that?”
“Um, me? Felicity Rowe, cruise director?”
“The closed world female. If we cut loose the nacelle at this speed, the engines would explode right in front of us. Maybe stick to entertaining.”
“Well,” she said, stung. “That would be entertaining, albeit briefly.”
A strangled sound from Ellix distracted her. Was Captain Never-Smiles laughing at her? When she turned to glare at him, he just set one heavy paw on her shoulder.
“Chief Engineer Adrakh,” he said in that deep voice, “is there any indication the engines left in situ might exceed operating specs and”—his golden gaze slid slyly to Felicity—“even more briefly entertain us?”
A moment of considering silence reverberated in all their comms.
“It’s an old ship, but a decent one,” Suvan said grudgingly. “We’re not even close to flame-out. It’s not worth the risk.”
Ellix flexed his fingers on her shoulders, and for a moment, Felicity felt as if…almost as if she were holding him up, just a little.
“I want ideas from all of you,” he said.
“We don’t seem to be in immediate danger, but that could change.
I want to reestablish external comms; Griiek, can we bypass the lockout via a secondary array?
Delphine, I want a plot of what’s ahead of us based on our current course.
Suvan, get me options on other ways to slow or stop the engines. ”
As one, the crew turned to their stations, utterly focused.
Felicity wished she had as much of their calm and command.
She flicked through the passenger manifest, scanning all the profile backgrounds.
She’d read everything before, several times, wanting to notate potential matches, but she hadn’t been considering their skills and experience in terms of stopping a runaway spaceship.
“I need to check on the passengers,” she told Ellix quietly.
His heavy hand slid down her arm as he dropped into his chair again, his golden eye pinned on her. For a moment, she thought he would refuse her going, and she was ready to argue her expertise, at least in the field of distraction.
“Stay in touch,” he said in a low voice. “If internal comms go out, return here immediately. Your first responsibility is to preserve the ship. There will be no passengers if something happens to the ship.”
“Yes, Captain,” she murmured. When he said it that way, it did make sense.
The ship felt eerily empty after all the happy guests had been exploring the corridors for the game tokens. And yet her nape prickled with a sense of being watched.
She cast a quick glance at the monitors unobtrusively tucked into various corners. Of course she was being watched, if only passively since the crew was too busy at the moment to spy.
She tapped her comm to Ikaryo. “I’m coming to you. Do you need anything? Snacks? Ukulele? Xanax or the extraterrestrial equivalent?”
He chuckled, the sound authentic even though she knew he was following the scripts on Earther expressions she’d composed. “Could use some answers, although I’m guessing if you had those you wouldn’t offer the rest. But snacks are always good.”
After making a quick detour, she approached the lifepod and paused to take a steadying breath. She let out the air, checked the tension in her shoulders, plastered on a not freaked out smile, and let herself in.
Ikaryo had everyone in jump seats. Since they weren’t at full capacity, there was plenty of room, and he’d divvied them up like she’d done for the small group sessions. But an instinctive vibe check told her they’d have to do something else soon. Much like the engines, the mood was humming hard.
He must’ve noticed her quick assessment, because he said quietly, “So far there’s no signs of mutiny, but…”
She nodded. “Did you listen to the captain’s report?”
He touched the cybernetic implant curving behind his skull. “I didn’t have anything useful to add. I’m just a bartender, after all.”
She bit her lip, then quickly smoothed out her expression, knowing she was being surreptitiously watched by the passengers.
Careful not to take too deep a breath, she turned to face them. “It seems we’re getting more of a spontaneous adventure than we bargained for.”
“Is it a bargain if we didn’t pay anything?” Remy called from her seat—once again separated from the others.
A smattering of amused responses drifted around the room.
Felicity wondered if she should speak privately with the other woman, explain that such comments could shift their little group toward chaos.
But for the moment, she just chuckled. “We have temporarily rerouted”—that part was true—“and we’ll rendezvous with a support ship to make our way back to port”—at least she supposed they’d need to do something like that, assuming they didn’t explode or whatever—“but until then, I’ll ask you to stay here until further notice, and I’ll update you regularly. ”
She did a quick circuit of the room, apologizing and soothing as she went.
To her surprise, despite the understandable tension, she’d encountered more antagonism at the average five-star wedding back on Earth.
Even the Earthen women here were galactic citizens now, cosmopolitan in the cosmic sense.
Some of the non-Earther influencers Mr. Evens had selected probably didn’t much care what happened during the excursion so long as it was a good story.
Or maybe it was just that they were all patrons of the Big Sky Intergalactic Dating Agency.
They’d chosen to seek out love with other species, subjecting themselves to intimate questionnaires and proprietary algorithms, so perhaps they were primed for a certain amount of shenanigans and possible explosions.
One Earther woman was seated between two aliens, and all three were bent over their game tokens, comparing.
Even from across the pod, Felicity noted the synchronicity of their movements: the way they leaned toward each other, gestures echoing in unison, with shared glances that lasted a delicious beat too long, as if the dancing and dining from earlier had continued here in a different form.
The burgeoning connection amongst them was like a flower bud yet to open.
“What are the chances?” the Earther exclaimed, about what Felicity hadn’t overheard.
“Literally astronomical,” said the Keptelen on the right.
“Which is how you know it was meant to be.” The left-side Geminga’s feeling button beamed brighter than the third sunset that they’d missed.
Felicity glanced away, her throat tightening a little.
Her first alien matchmaking?
She accidentally made eye contact with Mariah and quickly plastered on a calm, reassuring smile as she turned to the other woman. Luckily, no one here realized just how fraught the situation had become, and they never would, if she kept her cool.
“So cool,” she muttered under her breath. “Very cool.”
“It’s quantum entanglement,” Mariah replied, mistaking Felicity’s mumbling for commentary on the blossoming connection in the other seats. “Spooky action at a distance. That’s the mysterious energy that brought them together. Or maybe they are weaving it themselves right now, out of nothing.”
Felicity perked up. “Are you a physicist?” She didn’t remember seeing an advanced degree in the other woman’s profile. Maybe she could help them figure out what was happening with the ship.