Page 6 of Hijack! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #1)

Leaving the captain behind, Felicity circled around the salon to find the heckler. Remy McCoy was standing alone at the viewport, gazing out at the sun which was revealed again as the ship swung around toward their second destination.

Felicity halted nearby. “Remy, wasn’t that amazing?”

The woman pressed one hand to the transparent plasteel. “I wish I could feel it.”

The light and heat, Felicity wondered, or the amazement? She held out a goblet partly filled with a pale purple vapor. “Maybe you can taste it. Ikaryo said this one is inspired by the second moon. He’s calling it Breath of Bliss.”

Remy arched one eyebrow, the opposite corner of her mouth quirking. “You don’t need to charm me, Director. I realize—too late, sadly—that I should never have submitted my IDA profile. But that’s my problem, nothing to do with you.”

“Please, call me Felicity. And it might not be my problem, exactly, but it is my purpose here.” She kept her focus on the sharp green eyes, but in the corner of her vision, the other woman’s feelings button was dull. “I’d be happy to reintroduce you to a couple potential matches here tonight.”

Remy shuddered. “No thank you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have wasted a ticket, but I really can’t do this.” She snatched the glass from Felicity’s hand and gulped it down, finishing with a faint gasp. “I just thought…”

Felicity waited a moment. “It’s a little daunting to jump into dating extraterrestrially.

Once we step into the essentially infinite universe, it can seem like our chances at happiness should be unlimited too.

But of course we don’t change at lightspeed.

” She gently extricated the lolling empty goblet from the other woman’s hand.

“I’m really only here for the drinks and dancing, but the IDA has wonderful, compassionate counselors who would be happy to converse with you about any personal concerns.

Or at the end of this tour, if you’d rather, we can close your profile. ”

“Quitting would probably be best.” Remy turned her face away, her many earrings flickering in the star-shaped fairy lights. “I was fooling myself to believe anything would be different out here. Like you said, I’m still the problem.”

That hadn’t been what she said, but Felicity figured pointing that out wouldn’t help Remy. “It doesn’t have to be quitting,” she said instead. “You can start again whenever you decide you want to find a match.”

Bird quick, Remy looked back at her. “So you’re surrounded by all these people—beings—in search of love, but you don’t have a mate.”

Was it so obvious? Felicity restrained a wince. “Not at the moment. I admit, once I found out about aliens and spaceships, I might’ve gotten a little sidetracked from romance.”

Remy let out an inelegant snort. “Right. Instead of a single planet of isolation, there’s a universe of loneliness.”

Felicity’s heart ached at the bitterness in her voice.

With that attitude, Remy was probably right about quitting.

As Captain Never-Smiles had said, no one could be ordered to love.

“Would you prefer access to a quieter stateroom for the rest of the cruise? Not all the modules are open yet since this is only a three-sunset tour, but I can ask the captain about making an exception.”

“ Ask the captain?” Remy’s sidelong glance was clearly incredulous. “I saw you two dancing. Looked to me like he’d give you anything you wanted.”

“Oh no, that’s not…” Felicity laughed. Because it was such a ridiculous idea. If you demand . She ignored the whisper in her brain; she’d long ago learned not to trust it. “Captain Nehivar is just committed to overseeing an enjoyable cruise for everyone.”

“I think you’d definitely enjoy yourself taking him for a ride.” Remy turned back to the viewport. “I’ll stay for the music.”

Reluctant to leave the woman alone—and not just because the dull shadow on her button might affect the others and also not just to hear what else she might’ve noticed about the captain—Felicity took her elbow and steered her toward the bar.

“If you have music you’d like to hear, tell Ikaryo.

He can find the perfect song for your drink. ”

Leaving the forlorn Earther at Ikaryo’s bar, Felicity glanced casually around the salon. She wasn’t looking for the captain…

And just as well, since he’d disappeared. Doing captain-y things, presumably. She should be satisfied he’d welcomed their guests and broken the ice on the dance floor. Other than Remy, everyone seemed to be mixing as nicely as the tasty drinks.

While this cruise was too brief to claim everlasting love—outside of the brochure, anyway—their IDA guests would almost certainly get some dates out of the evening.

And she’d be left with dreams of a fleeting golden embrace.

+ + +

From one of the alcoves in the salon, Ellix watched Felicity make her rounds, smiling and laughing and then mirroring the pleasure expressions of their diverse passengers. Obviously, Evens had chosen well in the Earther cruise director.

So why linger here, watching over her?

On schedule, the ship was looping around the second moon, lining up the next beautiful sunset.

The food and drinks were definitely better than his last post with a freighter conglomerate had ever offered.

And the pay was good, for a one-time gig.

He’d done as Felicity had asked, welcoming the passengers, to tacitly apologize for his grumbling—and for stealing a lock of her hair, although she didn’t need to know about that.

Now he could go back to that strangling seat, like Suvan hiding down in the impulsion module.

And yet he stayed, his whiskers twitching.

While the curve of the alcoves muted sound and provided dimmed anonymity, making them perfect for intimate encounters—as he’d already discovered with Felicity—alone now in this quieter shadow, he felt…

something else. Opening his Kufzasin senses and his datpad sensor, he searched for the source of his disquiet.

But his eye kept going to Felicity. Even as Delphine’s course brought the ship into alignment with their second sunset, the little Earther glowed with a different kind of energy.

He hadn’t told her what it was like, all but alone on a freighter, far from the nearest outpost with lightyears of silence and darkness between stars.

But being near her seemed to promise he could set a new course and orbit, if he wanted.

He shouldn’t have teased himself with touching her. The dance had only piqued the devotion hunger. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The lights in the salon flickered. Not by a lot; if he hadn’t been tucked into the darker alcove, he might have missed it, considering the blaze of the sun. Scowling, he checked his datpad, which showed no change in power levels. He toggled the comm link. “Griiek?”

“Captain?”

“Just had a power fluctuation in the salon. Confirm?”

“Initiating scan, one moment… Nothing, Captain. Widening scan… Sensors, internal and external, report all systems optimized and consistent.” The Monbrakkan made a little noise, fainter than the light flicker.

Ellix stiffened. “What is it?”

“Captain, earlier today, I identified a minor harmonic distortion originating at the third hall junction, and I found a break in the fairy lights.”

“The what?” Ellix’s translator offered the Earther words but no context. Was this the ghost Felicity had mentioned?

“That’s what Miss Felicity calls the renovated corridor lighting. Such distortions aren’t uncommon in retrofitted ships, and I thought I had it resolved, but maybe…not?”

“Meet me at the junction,” he told Griiek.

Likely it was nothing, just a minor anomaly on an old ship. No system was perfectly aligned, connected, and trouble free. That was not how the universe worked.

No matter what the IDA brochures promised.

His gaze drifted once more to Felicity, still smiling, as if challenging his cynicism.

Maybe she felt the weight of his focus, because she started to turn toward him.

But then the ship crossed into the penumbra of the second moon, and the sunlight streaming around the lumpy satellite highlighted the stratospheric streamers of hundreds of volcanoes venting shining clouds of vapor into space.

Expanding her fingers in imitation of the flares, Felicity laughed with pleasure.

In silhouette, the fine strands of her hair that had escaped the twist he’d made shimmered and danced too, teasing him.

He pressed a clenched fist to his lips, inhaling the scent of her imbued in his fur.

It took more discipline than he wanted to admit to walk out of the salon. Maybe his willpower was on the same larf-eaten grid as the ship’s electrical system.

Griiek was already in the long corridor between the salon and the currently closed-off suites when Ellix arrived. A hovercart of equipment waited next to the open access panel, and the Monbrakkan had three of her four arms buried in the innards.

“It’s a very old ship,” Griiek said, her muffled voice coming half from the access panel and half from Ellix’s datpad.

“Unusual original build with a lot of repairs and renovations. But since Mr. Evens brought me in to work with the most recent overhaul team, I got to know the systems. At least I thought I did.” With a grunt, she backed out of the panel, a small object clutched in one forefoot.

Ellix squinted at the toothed clip in her webbed fingers. “Does that belong to Felicity?”

“I was running a final diagnostic when Director Rowe walked by and I didn’t have enough binders on me to separate out the passing conduits—” The Monbakkan must’ve noted his impatient expression.

“Anyway, she gave me this to clip them out of the way, and I forgot to return it.” She flapped one webbed foot over her moist, hairless scalp and made a gulping noise of amusement.

“You’d have more use for it than me, Captain. ”

He held out his paw. “I’ll give it back to her. You think this caused the problem?”

“No. It’s a simple non-reactive alloy, not conductive.

I don’t see any cause here for continuing distortions.

” She looked at him, all four eyes constricting and focusing in sequence.

“Might be the shielding is having trouble calibrating for the changing ionization of all these moons. I can run more intensive diagnostics with approval from the chief engineer, but it would require interruptions to non-essential services.”

So, not unlike his own interactions with the cruise director which should have been non-reactive and not conductive, with zero reason for fluctuating distortions. And looking deeper into that problem was definitely non-essential.

One flicker wasn’t enough to disrupt a charted course.

Or shouldn’t be.

“We only have one more moon,” he said. “Keep the sensors at max sensitivity, and tell me of any internal deviations or external interferences at once.”

“Of course, Captain.” Her deference held just a hint of soothing reassurance. Yea, she knew what had happened to his last ship.

The scars, only partially hidden by his regrown fur, stung with the memories, and he bared his teeth as he turned away. He would not let paranoia control him. Those fears had no more power than an imaginary haunting.

Or a hopeless hunger.