Never mind the vow to keep a careful distance. He pulled her close to him again. “Of course not. I was trying to make a joke. A bad joke.”
She shuddered in his arms, clinging to him. Only then noticing when her fingers snagged in holes in his uniform, and he winced. “Ellix…”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“You wouldn’t say that if it was nothing and you were fine,” she retorted. “Let me see.” She struggled out of his embrace, distractedly noting how he hesitated to let her go. Probably just concerned the gravity would fail again. She circled him. “Oh. You’re burned.”
“Nowhere as bad as last time. Just singed.”
The stink of burning fur didn’t choke her as much as the evidence of how he’d protected her.
“It shouldn’t have burned,” he said. “There was no ignition source, and synthequer isn’t flammable anyway, certainly not enough to scorch through plasilk.”
Her fingers hovered hesitantly over the wounds. “We should get you to the med bay.” Though the trip was too short to warrant a doctor, the health module would have the basics for treating something like this.
He took her helpless hands, enclosing them in his much bigger ones. “Nay. What we have to do is get back to port.”
She grimaced. “Yes, of course. They’ll have medical support there. You don’t need me for that.”
He squeezed her hands. “Keep ahold of me in case the gravity cuts again.”
She grimaced. “Why did I not get magnetic boots?”
“You shouldn’t have needed them.” His voice dropped an octave. “This tour has been cursed from the start.”
“That’s not true.” She thought for a moment. “Although Mr. Evens did suggest the ship is haunted.”
“Ghosts are imaginary. These problems are not.”
“Captain,” Delphine’s urgent voice crackled through both their comms. “We’ve lost long-range contact with port… And with navigation. Controls are dead.”
Chapter 6
He should have left Felicity in relative safety with the other passengers, but Ellix didn’t have time to route past the lifepods. Instead, hauling her with him, he clumped heavily straight for the command module.
Which he’d left at high-speed when monitors had shown the disturbance in the corridor. He’d only caught a glimpse as he arrived, but that was enough to infuriate him. She could’ve been hurt or killed, along with the other passengers.
Haunted? Impossible.
But he had seen…something.
The command crew was already in the module when he arrived, all busy at their consoles. Except of course for engineering, although he could see data scrolling rapidly from Suvan’s remote access.
“Reports,” he barked. He fastened Felicity into the restraint harness of the captain’s chair—just in case—and spun the controls toward himself as he stood beside her. In his head, he imagined her startled laughter at the abrupt promotion, but in reality, she was murmuring into her comm with Ikaryo, checking the status of the passengers.
Ellix focused on his crew who were responding in order with updates.
“All environmental systems operational,” Suvan said. “Power, including propulsion, are active.”
“Good for you, down in the bowels, but nav and the subspace relay are still non-responsive,” Delphine countered. “Which means we have power but can’t go anywhere. And we can’t call for assistance.”
Felicity piped up, “At least we can breathe.” She slanted a look at Ellix, her cheeks pink.
The memory of her lips under his burned hotter than the sparks across his shoulders, and he had to tear his gaze away. “Our itinerary was properly filed, and we’re due back in port after the last sunset. We might be stranded and out of contact, but we’re not hard to find. Still, I want to pinpoint the cause of the power instabilities.”
“It’s not a power issue,” Suvan insisted. “I’m telling you, everything is fine down here. It’s something else.”
“A ghost,” Felicity said.
