Page 7 of Hijack! (Cosmic Connections Cruise #1)

The longer interval until the third sunset had seemed like the perfect time to play the dating game. Felicity had invented it for the mingling time once the passengers had been introduced to each other, any nervousness softened by snacks and synthequer cocktails.

The game was just a bit of fun, a little intimate, with the hidden tokens designed to mix and match the guests beyond what the IDA algorithms suggested.

Because even though she believed in the science—she was on a spaceship, after all—she’d told Mr. Evens there had to be a place for serendipity and synchronicity.

If only the captain had waited just a little longer, she could’ve asked him if he wanted to play the first round. It would’ve been more than a bit of fun to watch him growl a nay and stalk away.

She caught the wayward wicked thought before she could accidentally envision where a little intimacy might’ve taken them. That wasn’t why she was here. She was not the sort of person who would challenge someone to sexy sunset shenanigans. Especially not her boss!

If you demand.

She had never been demanding. There’d been too much turmoil in her childhood to ever think anyone would care about her problems. Heck, her last relationship before she’d left Earth—not to say the reason she’d left, or not the only reason—had ended with the man-boy moan “you can’t keep asking me for stuff. ”

So, what would it even be like, a one-night stand with an alien pirate captain lion-man?

He was so much larger and stronger than her; would he ever let her take control?

She’d have to not call him captain. Ellix…

Maybe she could twine her fingers around those long, probably very sensitive whiskers, gently but inexorably urging him closer…

“And then what?”

The question from Remy knocked Felicity out of her reverie, and she focused on the crowd of curious faces turned toward her. Her body flushed with heat—the embarrassed kind, not the sexy kind. She could only hope the Earthers in the audience blamed a sunburn through the viewport.

“Um. So tokens like this one are hidden here and elsewhere around the ship.” She held up one of the game pieces modeled after D so many fun shapes and colors!

“When you find one, you then search for its match. But there are many ways to match since each facet has a different linking signal.” She summoned up a cheery smile.

“And of course there are prizes, including our next Cosmic Connections Cruise to a secret pleasure satellite. Shall we begin?”

As the passengers milled about, enthusiastically seeking the first tokens, Felicity surreptitiously toggled her datpad. She kept her voice below the ambient excitement, pitched to Steady Professional Who Had Zero Thoughts of Kissing at Work. “Er, Captain Nehivar? I was wondering—”

The lights went out.

Not just on her device but in the salon. With the sun only partially eclipsed by the third moon, there was still plenty of illumination. But the music cut out as well, leaving the festivities suspended in bewilderment.

The remnants of mortification washed out of her, leaving cold shock. “Everyone, please stay calm.”

“The only time anyone ever says stay calm is when it’s definitely time to panic,” Remy drawled.

Someone—Felicity thought it was Mariah, another Earther new to the Big Sky IDA—giggled a little hysterically and then abruptly shut up.

Considering she might’ve said exactly that to her therapist once or twice—with and without her own giggle—Felicity couldn’t really object.

Holding back a grimace, she shared a quick glance with Ikaryo.

They’d both been through the required safety drills, and she’d concentrated closely, just as she did when the flight attendants asked for her attention or when she reviewed the directions for opening a can of cinnamon roll dough.

Step one in the drills—and with opening those terrifyingly pressurized dessert tubes, for that matter—was staying calm.

“Ikaryo, will you please contact maintenance about rebooting the salon?” Was that a tremor in her voice? Hopefully no one else heard it. She needed to establish her authority. What would the captain do? “If everyone would please have a seat while we get sorted out.”

“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Mariah said. “You said the ship is haunted.”

Someone else cleared their throat. “If power is out, what about life support?”

Oh, the haunted story had just been a brief anecdote from Mr. Evens when they’d been drafting promotional materials.

At the time, she’d thought he seemed strangely serious about the story, but when she’d noted that the Big Sky IDA was about people finding their futures, not dwelling on their lonely pasts, he’d agreed.

And anyway, she didn’t think he’d actually want the precursor to ghosts—meaning corpses—on his ship. “Of course we have all the redundancies and backup systems necessary for any situation,” she said firmly. “But we won’t need—”

Before she could finish, the lights came on and the music resumed as if it had never missed a beat.

The salon comm clicked. “This is Captain Nehivar. Apologies for the interruption. As you all will recall from your prize tickets, this is the first sunset cruise for the Love Boat I. We anticipated rebalancing a few systems and performing checks enroute, and we appreciate your understanding. That concludes our evaluation. Please enjoy the rest of the tour.”

When the comm clicked off, Ikaryo added, “And don’t forget to grab another drink as you search for your tokens.”

That rejuvenated the jovial atmosphere in the salon. But maybe there was a lingering edge of fright?

Felicity’s heart was still banging just a little too hard.

She’d long ago mastered the deep breathing and catastrophizing thought interruptions and whatnot, but…

She’d never been on a spaceship before—just another pressurized tube, really—with the vast, cold, deadly emptiness of the universe all around.

She gulped another painful breath that was probably too shallow to count as therapeutic.

“Reminds you how precarious it all is, doesn’t it?” Remy’s voice behind her made Felicity jolt.

She turned, her automatic smile feeling too stiff. “The game, you mean?”

Remy spread her hands. “All of it.”

Felicity wanted to deflect the pessimistic interpretation.

Her job was keeping everyone entertained and amused and hopeful, and she knew too well what happened when she allowed anxiety to start nibbling at the edges of her composure.

But… “I suppose that’s true. And I guess that’s why we come together like this, to find someone to hold us in the darkness, to offer our own arms—or tentacles or wings or whatever appendages we possess.

” She gave the Earther woman a steady look.

“A reminder why we shouldn’t fear sharing our joy and pleasure with those who want to receive and reflect it, because we never know what comes next. ”

Remy tilted her head, a piercing look in her bright green eyes. “Ah. Was that little hint of danger meant to add zest to the evening? To urge us to seize our chance at happiness?”

A laugh burst out of Felicity, and she put a hand over her lips when Ikaryo glanced over. “That would be so bad!” She leaned toward the other woman. “I wish I’d thought of it. Much spicier than a find-the-match game.”

With a curt chuckle—Remy turned away. “Maybe I will try my luck. Since I’m here anyway, for now.”

Felicity let out a slow, steadying breath—then startled again when a deeper voice came through her datpad. “Director Rowe, if you are done there, please come see me.”

She winced. Had the captain been listening through the device? She hadn’t truly meant she wanted any sort of danger.

A quick glance around showed her the passengers were properly distracted, so she sent an acknowledgment through the datpad. After confirming with Ikaryo, she stepped out into the corridor, gulped down a few hasty calming breaths, and then hurried to her meeting with the captain.

Despite her best affirmations (damn it, how many times did she need to affirm she was choosing peace over anxiety!) her pulse quickened.

Probably just because she was hurrying. And anyway, being nervous about whatever had happened with the power was not unreasonable; catastrophizing thoughts weren’t as bad as actually catastrophically depressurizing.

She was not breathless just because she was beelining toward Ellix—

Her captain.

Who’d redone her bun as if he’d studied its twist. Who’d danced with her in the light of an alien moon. Whose fur felt like velvet with a voice to match…

Her datpad indicated he was in the atmo-hall.

All the passengers on this cruise had been selected for optimal compatibility in terms of bioelechemical necessities (no sense dating much less mating someone whose core metabolic processes were poison; the IDA strictly prohibited star-crossed romances that ended unhappily) so the ship’s breathable mix was calibrated via a stored and scrubbed atmospheric mix.

But studies had found that most species benefited from randomized trace amounts of other compounds, so atmo-halls provided those almost undetectable elements.

Also, it was so pretty and romantic, basically a garden wonderland.

Felicity sighed, feeling some of her more nebulous worries ease as she passed through the lock into the soft, fragrant air.

She’d been here several times, directing the establishment of flora representing their guests’ homeworlds, and then later just enjoying the results.

The subtle manipulation of light and temperature maintained all the plants at the peak of their splendor, providing lush ecosystems for small lifeforms, and as she made her way through the alien terrarium, she marveled again at her fortune.

That was the reason her heart lightened, not because the captain was waiting for her beneath a canopy of unfamiliar inflorescence.