The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 2.1

Khediva was dark and silent and cold. Sabrina and Scotty stopped just on the other side of the airlock, shocked by the sense of desolation aboard the Wayship.

"Khediva? Khediva!" Sabrina called out, her voice echoing. "It's me, Sabrina!"

The only reply was a faint hiss of static, as if Khediva was attempting to speak but unable to. Ford said, "The first thing is to get that power feed up. Rudolf, go back to my ship and stand by the transmitter array controls. On my signal, beam a two-percent feed directly into Khediva's energy banks."

"Yes, Master," Rudolf said, obediently walking back into the airlock.

"Scotty, you get to looking for our stuff," Sabrina said. "Ford, I assume you've got to get to the engines?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll go up to the control deck and see if I can do something helpful."

Scotty started off, but Ford said, "I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish, Miss Devon. You are not qualified to operate a Wayship."

Sabrina's eyes flashed in the dim light. "For your information, I've spent a great deal of time aboard this Ship in very adverse conditions, and I at least know where the log is at! As well as life support controls! Don't worry, I'm not going to blow us all up. Now, we only have ten minutes, so I suggest you get on with your job and let me do mine!" She stalked off.
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The control deck was slightly less dead than the rest of the Wayship; a few console lights still glowed dim red and amber. From the instant she stepped onto the control deck, the room seemed to breathe memories to Sabrina, and she smiled. It was like coming home.

"I'm back, Khediva," she said softly. "Don't worry; we'll have you fixed up in no time. Now, let's see..."

She bent over the main control console. Manual operation aboard Khediva was rare, in Sabrina's experience; usually the Ship handled things much more efficiently by verbal request. However, Sabrina had once operated intership communications manually, and she knew a lot of the secondary computer controls from various emergencies. Life support was the most important of those, and she could tell from the dim red lights that all was far from well. She looked for the engine output readings, but the script remained incomprehensible, and Sabrina realized that without Khediva or the Crystal to enable her to understand, she would have to rely on her memory alone. Well, I wonder if Ford reads Wayfarer. If this were Praxatillian I might be able to take a stab, but...oh well.

A sudden flash of memory made her turn to what she was pretty sure were the autorepair readouts. No activity was registering. She tapped a finger, carefully out of range of the controls, and thought hard. "Secondary power generators..." she mused aloud, turning to the backup systems console. Then she frowned. None of the backup systems had been switched on. All were silent, in standby mode. "What in the world...didn't you have time? Or didn't you want them on?" Sabrina murmured. Her fingers hesitated over the emergency generator control. Perhaps it had been hit, or sabotaged? But it wasn't showing damage.

Booted footsteps rang out on the deckplates, and Sabrina turned to welcome her brother, looking sharp and professional in a black combat suit, with several handguns and another suit in one arm. "My feet've grown," he complained. "I had to borrow Haaron's boots, and they're still not big enough."

"Haaron's things are still here too?"

"Everything's still here. It's the Ship that time forgot," Scotty grinned. "I think ole Tirq did miss us! Here. Yours oughta fit."

Sabrina began yanking the flexible armored suit on over her jeans and T-shirt. Scotty said, "Rina! You know the biofeedback stuff won't work that way."