Chapter 28
The night was already beginning to draw in by the time Professor Xavier and Scott had set course for the mansion and started on their long journey home. It was a beautiful evening, with clear dark skies, like soft charcoal, and the stars shimmered like scattered sequins set against silver clouds, and an inky black sky. Their journey home so far had been relatively uneventful, and easy going… little could they know that just around the corner things were all about to change.
As they passed over an area of thick forest and dense woodland – the tops of the trees looking like blackened heads of flowering broccoli in the dark – an alarm suddenly went off in the cockpit of the Jet, correlating with the eruption of the small but bright emergency light which flashed red to alert them to the fact that something was wrong with their craft.
"What's going on?" The Professor asked a seriously alarmed Scott as he leapt to the controls in a bid to stabilise the out of control aircraft.
The young man sighed as he observed the negative readings upon some of the flashing gages on the control panel… it became evident fairly quickly what the problem was.
"The engine's overheating." He explained, in some alarm. "Something's caused the internal mechanism to short circuit and burn out… we're not burning fuel efficiently, converting it into energy, instead the tank is acting like a giant furnace, boiling it."
"Can you fix it?" The Professor asked.
Scott frowned, considering the question for a moment, before responding, slowly, nodding his head.
"I could probably do something to patch her up enough just to get us home." He explained with a frustrated sigh. "But she's going to need some extensive repair work doing to get her back up and running again, and it's far too dark outside for me to do anything now… we're going to have to make an emergency landing!"
The Professor nodded calmly at this, seemingly un-phased as he took in this fresh and normally rather alarming information – but somehow, as he always had done, he managed to maintain his usually composed frame of mind.
"Then we'll have to land here, and make camp for the night." He suggested calmly. "I'm going to try and get a message to Jean back home, to let them know what's going on." And as Scott fought to regain control over the Jet, the Professor slowly appeared to descend into a trace like state.
His eyelids closed gently shut, hands grasping tightly, almost spasmodically against the armrests of his seat as he attempted to focus his mind, and maintain enough mental composure to successfully telekinetically communicate his message.
'Jean, we've encountered problems with the Jet… having to make an emergency landing… won't be able to make it back to the Mansion tonight… please don't worry, we're perfectly safe, and we'll see you tomorrow.'
Meanwhile Jean, who'd been fast asleep in bed at the time, under Hank's strict instructions to get some more rest whilst he continued to tend to Logan, sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily – cold sweat trickling down the back of her neck. Her head was swimming, full of confused and disjointed thoughts which threatened to overwhelm her… she'd thought she'd heard the Professor's voice speaking to her from inside of her own head, if only for a moment… or had it all been a dream? She frowned, pinching the bridge of her nose with concern.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm her severely frayed nerves, she gently lowered herself back down towards the mattress and the soft pillow which cradled her aching head. Closing her eyes she struggled to banish the series of disjointed images which played upon her mind… of the X-Jet… an alarm going off inside the cockpit… of Scott, and the Professor… and of the Jet going down…
As she closed her eyes, and tried to convince herself that the images she'd seen were just the product of her severe exhaustion, and a seriously pressed state of mind however, she had trouble convincing herself that what she'd seen in her minds eye could really have been the product of an overactive imagination, and couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was very very wrong.
