Page 43 of Hijack!
Of course it had. Such detached efforts would always fail. She’d left Earth because she’d realized she couldn’t be captain of her own destiny from a distance.
Ellix gestured toward either end of the torus where the conduits connected, with cables wired to both the interior and exterior walls, and he mimed yanking the cords simultaneously. Then he imitated taking a deep breath and letting it go slowly before he smiled at her, or at least as much as a Kufzasin could smile.
So he was freaking out too.
At least they were getting pretty good at this extraterrestrial communications stuff. She launched herself at him to kiss him once—hard, no time for tongue—then raced to the other side of the torus. The hollow where they stood was too wide to reach both sets of cables at once. They couldn’t even reach each other.
She pivoted to face him, and he stood to one side of his conduit, showing his hand on the largest cable then pointing to her. Her side had the same setup, and she grabbed the thick cord. It vibrated in her hand, not in a fun way, rattling her tendons with a warning of the force inside.
She met his gaze again, across the distance between them, wishing she’d had the courage to tell him…
Wait, she’d just tell him later.
Together, they pulled the plugs.
+ + +
It was dark except for brief glimpses of colors she didn’t have words for. Felicity was floating, untethered and peaceful. Had they accidentally blown the engine module into space? Was she dead?
Had she missed the chance to ask Ellix about the bright gold of the button he’d handed to her?
Where the belonging?
It came again, that whisper in the dark. She’d first heard it in the corridor outside the Starlit Salon when the anomaly appeared, although there’d been no words.
There were still no words, she realized abruptly, just a feeling, like a hand reaching out in the dark, hoping to touch something, anything…
Before she could reach back, gold bloomed around the edges of her vision.
“Felicity? Azeeli!”
She blinked a dozen times, trying to bring the world back into focus. “Ellix?”
“Ah, bless the infinite stars. Are you hurt?”
One more blink and his lion-man visage shimmered above her. “Where are we?”
His eye narrowed. “In the torus. On the Love Boat I. Did you hit your head? Do you know who you are?” His big paw cradled her skull, his other arm wrapped behind her shoulders.
She nodded into his hand. “And I know who you are.”
He shuddered out a breath. “Stay still until I can get a med scan to clear you.”
“I’m not hurt. I just…” She struggled to sit upright, and with a low grumble, he supported her. But sure enough, they were exactly where they’d been except she was sprawled in his arms. “What happened?”
“The blowback of disconnecting knocked you to the ground. I feared you were…” Tenderly, he tightened his grip on her, holding her close to his chest. Through the disheveled fur of his mane, his heart pounded against her. “You feel no pain?”
“I did. But it wasn’t mine, I don’t think.” She touched the back of her head. No lump, just tender. Had she even really heard that whisper? “Are you all right?”
“Aye, except for the scare you gave me.” He brushed a lock of hair back from her forehead. “Again. But it worked this time. We isolated the distortion.”
He leaned sideways, letting her peer around his broad shoulder. The glowing electrons that had been circling wildly through the torus were frozen now and dim.
Caught within were streamers of shadow. A hand stuck in mid reach.
She bit her lip. “Is that the anomaly?”
“It’s only caught, like a stasis, not nullified. And I’m not sure how long the situation will remain stable. It moved through our systems before, so it could hijack this containment too.”
