Page 14 of Hijack! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #1)

The woman shook her head. “Astrologer. It’s a nice complement to my fiber arts and massage business.

” She laughed, obviously reading more into Felicity’s blank expression.

“Theoretical physicists aren’t as much in demand at farmers markets and music festivals.

But sometimes I think only quantum entanglement explains out-of-nowhere back pain or what happens to my yarn in the middle of the night. ”

Felicity chuckled ruefully. “I know I’m on a spaceship, but sometimes I can’t be sure what’s science and what is fantasy.”

“Maybe sometimes the distinction doesn’t matter as much as you think.” Mariah tilted her head. “It’s all just a way for us to try to understand the energy in this moment of space-time.”

Felicity started to respond as one would to an astrologer/knitter/masseuse, then she hesitated.

Maybe a theoretical physicist would’ve been helpful, but physics had gotten them into this quandary.

Ikaryo had said his advanced prosthetics couldn’t identify the energy, so maybe something else was needed.

She settled into one of the seats in the little grouping. “Tell me more about quantum entanglement.” she urged. “Something about how particles reflect each other across time and space, right?”

The Keptelen leaned forward. “If everything that exists in the universe was once a single point, then everything is quantum entangled.”

“Well, that increases everyone’s odds for finding a date and a mate,” Felicity mused.

“But the universe is so much empty space,” the Geminga mused, with a glance between seatmates. “It’s not enough to just hope we’ll find our one—or two or three.”

Felicity sat back, contemplating. From what Mr. Evens had said, the ship had languished unused for centuries, unremarkable except for a funny old story about a haunting. And then on its first outing, it ran amok. What connection was it trying to find?

“That’s the idea,” Mariah agreed, and Felicity realized she’d asked the question aloud. “It’s all connected.”

They’d been all together during the energy spike—the harmonic distortion or whatever Ellix had called it. Had they created it or triggered it or summoned it? If so, did that mean they also had the means to stop it?

After one more look around the pod and a nod to Ikaryo, Felicity slipped out of the chamber, still worrying at the edges of their problem like a starving larf.

At least that was how she imagined a larf, though she’d never seen one.

The anomaly was some sort of energy, right?

The disparate array of passengers and crew had perceived it with their various senses while high-tech sensors and scanners had not.

But it wasn’t a figment of their collective imagination, because it was affecting the ship’s systems. How could they divert or control the distortion that was hijacking the ship’s systems?

As she hurried down the central corridor, intending to meet with Chef Styr about snacks, a glow from ahead made her pause.

That was the Starlit Salon. But Ellix had closed off the room as they left, part of sealing bulkheads between all the modules. If light was coming through, the doors must be open again.

But since they were racing through empty space, there should be no significant starlight.

What if a fire…

She broke into a run, catching herself in the open doorway.

No fire, no distant sun. The twisted fingers of the anomaly spread across the empty viewport. Instead of the shadowed filaments from earlier, now it glowed with a pale light, as if in the absence of the sun, the distortion was a bright negative against the emptiness of space.

The moment she stopped in the doorway, the restless writhing froze.

Meanwhile, the little hairs on her body—representing thousands of generations of primitive Earther evolution—prickled.

And somehow she knew, this wasn’t just an energy surge, like a runaway fire or electrical malfunction.

It wasn’t just a shadow or reflection or projection. It was something else.

Something aware.

Despite being the entertainment director for a speed dating cruise with an extraterrestrial dating service, she was not a fool.

She had a whole multi-documented section in her datpad on safety rules, alien first aid, extraterrestrial etiquette, and accepted standards for emotional welfare checks, so she wasn’t the sort to naively believe the future she’d found herself in had been purged of danger.

But this moment didn’t seem like an entry for that documentation.

Moving slowly, she tapped her comm. “Captain,” she murmured. “The distortion is manifesting in the salon again.”

From her earpiece, she heard scrabbling and partly translated swearing, then Griiek’s urgent tone. “Captain, I’ve been monitoring all sensors and scanners on your orders. No signs of power fluctuation”— “I told you so,” Suvan interrupted—“or incursion.”

“It’s here, in the ship,” Felicity insisted. “But also not here…” She shook her head, knowing she wasn’t making sense. “I’m going to attempt contact.”

“You—what? Absolutely not.” The sharp crack of Ellix’s refusal was like the voice of her own fear. And part of her—not just the part that had signed a contract acknowledging the chain of command—wanted to flee back to him.

Another part of her—the part shocked yet thrilled to discover the existence of the Intergalactic Dating Agency—knew Mr. Evens had revealed the secret of a universe of opportunity and adventure because he believed she was ready.

And once again, she could choose fear or curiosity.

She stepped into the salon.

Without all the guests, the big chamber felt a little sad and also scary.

Or…was that the anomaly? She’d always been sensitive to others’ moods—hypervigilant, her therapist had corrected—and yet that awareness left her prone to doubting her own instincts.

Launching herself into space might have been partly about running away, but she’d also realized she was running to —to a new job, to unexpected chances, to another way of looking at herself.

Forcing her feet forward was hard, as if the magnetic clamps on her boots had activated. A faint sound reached her, not through her comm but not quite in her ears either, more like a reverberation in her atoms.

All connected .

All alone .

Which one was true? The threads of possibility binding them or the emptiness between?

Tentatively, she reached out to the viewport screen where the fractal fingers—some no thicker than her own pinkie, some as wide as the captain’s body—stretched like a desperate hand. She touched slightly cool plasteel.

For an instant, a mix of relief and disappointment rippled through her. Just a strange energy glitch after all?

Then one of the filaments of light phased through her finger with a tingle more than electrical.

In the very next instant, every sci fi horror movie she’d ever reluctantly watched through half-slitted eyes flashed through her brain. What if she was infected? Or impregnated! What if—?

“Felicity!”

Chagrined, she glanced over her shoulder at Ellix as he charged into the salon. “There’s something here with us.”