Sanctuary Read Free

were all tossed to the starboard side. Only when it had subsided, and Ch'od and Raza were already up and running for the cargo hold with some kind of firefighting equipment in hand, did Jean realize that the aft section of the ship hadn't been vaporized in the blast. Of course, if it had, they would all have been dead. But the concussion had stunned her so badly that being alive wasn't a factor in her thought process at the moment.
    "What are we waiting for, people?" Scott asked, the crisis pushing him into leader-mode. "Let's make ourselves useful!"
    The four of them ran for the back of the ship, though Rogue stayed behind a moment to see that Gambit and Hepzibah had not been further injured by the blast.
    "He may be a wiseguy," Archangel said as they came upon Raza and Ch'od fighting a fire in the hatchway to the engine room, "but I wish Bobby was here now."
    "Yeah," Jean agreed, "there's never an Iceman around when you need one."
    Archangel laughed, and the two of them followed Raza and Ch'od into the engine room. Warren beat his wings to clear the acrid chemical smoke from the room, even as Jean surrounded the blazing hyperbum engines with a telekinetic field, and then mentally forced all oxygen from within the bubble of power.
    In seconds, the flames were out.
    Scott stood behind her, looking relieved and a bit awkward. Then he bent forward and kissed her on the temple.

    "I don't know what I'd do without you, Jean," he said.
    "Now we know why they call them hyperburners," Archangel said, still reaching for levity to alleviate the tension of their situation.
    "Now what?" Rogue asked, and it was the first time Jean had even noticed her in the room. She looked a little panicked, and Raza and Ch'od both looked up at the edgy tone of her voice.
    ''I'm dead serious," she continued. "Now what do we do? Those were the hyperburn engines, right? Well they burn pretty good. But now what are we gonna do? I could take this ship apart with my bare hands, but I can't do a damn thing to keep us alive."
    She looked directly at Jean, who wondered for a moment if Rogue was going to lose it. But then the woman took a deep breath, let it out slow, and shook her head with a sigh.
    "Okay, okay, I know. I'm not helping," she said, then turned to Ch'od. "But really, what now?"
    "As I'm sure you all have guessed, the hyperburners are now completely useless," Ch'od answered, his yellow eyes calming despite the alarmingly savage appearance of his huge reptilian face. As he moved, the scales on his body rippled, and the webbed ears that poked from the sides of his head seemed to contract and expand like tiny Oriental fans. "What this means is that the warp drive is our only hope of getting this ship moving under its own power again. The good news is that Raza and I both feel this is possible."
    "And the bad news would be—?" Scott began, then waited for one of the Starjarnmers to finish.
    Ch'od and Raza looked at one another, and in their moment of silence, Jean reflected that there were probably not two more dissimilar comrades in the galaxy. While Ch'od's huge, reptilian body was frightening, he was an eternally hopeful, amiable creature. Raza was a Shi'ar cyborg who had an air of intelligence about him. He was arrogant, ill-humored, and often even hostile. Still, they were both unfailingly loyal to each other and to the other Starjammers as well.
    "In truth," Raza finally answered, "Ch'od and I hath discerned that yon warp drive canst not be repaired from within."
    "Y'all are sayin' you have to fix the drive from outside the ship?" Rogue asked, incredulous.
    "Indeed," Raza responded. "And we hath not the ability to effect such repairs without aid."
    "Marvelous," Archangel mumbled.
    "You'll have whatever help you need," Scott quickly assured them.
    "We're all in this together," Jean added. "All of our lives are at risk, either when the life support systems shut down, or in some kind of accident outside the Starjammer . We've got nothing to