Summerhill (26 page)

Even from a distance, Summerhill could see Katherine swallow. She looked up at the Admiral, her face pale and her eyes wide. She shook her head, the curls of her hair falling down over her forehead. Her throat rippled again, and her chest heaved as she gathered enough breath and composure to speak. “Sir, please, it’s not what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think, Tinsley.” The Admiral’s voice was flat. He again brought his hands behind his back. “Enlighten me.”

Katherine nodded several times in succession. “Of course, sir. It’s... Well, it’s a long story.”

The Admiral turned an eye to Summerhill again. “So I hear. Entertain me.”

“I hope you like good stories, then, sir,” Katherine replied, half of a smile cracking through onto her face. “First, the fact of the matter is that I’m actually from the year—”

Ambient speakers in the room sprang to life.
“
Nestor
to
Achilles
, priority one emergency channel. Our FTL support system just overloaded and—”

“
Achilles
, this is
Philoctetes
. We’ve lost main power throughout the ship. Sensors have—”

“—and are currently venting air into space. Repeat, this is
Menelaus
—”

Just as abruptly, the jumble of distress signals went silent. The Admiral whirled away from Katherine and turned to one of the ensigns seated at the row of consoles. “Get me Royeyri,” he barked. Gone was his stern lack of emotion; now he exuded the passion of command after three simple words. “Find out what the hell is happening out there.”

At the mention of Royeyri’s name, Summerhill jerked back in surprise so hard that he smacked the back of his head hard against the wall of the tube. While his skull was still ringing from the impact, the lights in the room flickered, and the speakers crackled back on.

“This is Vessel Three-One-Two-Two-Four Prime of the Transdimensional Spacetime Integrity Enforcement Consortium.”
The words were gurgled and distinctly inhuman, but still wholly intelligible.
“Your vessel harbors a fugitive from justice. Surrender your prisoner to us immediately or we will have no choice but to use force.”

Twenty-Four

Extradition

“Intruding vessel,” the Admiral bellowed, showing no open fear even as most of his assembled men had faces wide with shock, panic, or disbelief. “This is Admiral Donovan Choi of the Fifth Fleet, Kentaurus-Procyon Hegemony. You are currently in violation of our space, and I demand—”

“Your demands are inconsequential to us, human, as is your so-called sovereignty.”
The sinister, disembodied voice carried the faintest notes of contempt, as well as something else that Summerhill couldn’t quite place due to the bizarre, alien tonality of it. Impatience? Urgency, perhaps?
“Consortium law requires us to give only this initial request for compliance.”

The Admiral made a chopping motion with his hand across his own neck, then turned to the ensign at the communication terminal. “Do we have an ident on the vessel? Make, known designs, anything?”

“No, sir,” the ensign said, shaking his head. With more trepidation, he added, “Royeyri claims he doesn’t recognize it, either.”

Lights and computer consoles flickered again as the ship lurched to one side. Summerhill lost his footing, but given how narrow the confinement tube was, he was unable to fall. His hands scrabbled at the smooth, curved surface as he tried to regain his balance, but before he could, the entire ship shook once more, sending him off balance again.

A muttered curse slipped from the Admiral’s lips, the first sign Summerhill had seen of him not appearing completely in control. “What’s the status of the fleet?” he snapped as he hurried between different stations, checking various readouts over crew members’ shoulders.

In the midst of the chaos, Katherine stood there, forgotten by the Admiral and the crew. Summerhill could see the whites of her eyes as she looked at him, her face silently pleading with him for—something. What could he possibly do, though?

The communications officer stared at his monitor. “All ships reporting moderate to major damage, sir,” he said. “Our own defense grid is down, and our backup FTL is fried.
Agamemnon
and
Philoctetes
claim they’re dead in the water.”

Another jolt rocked the
Achilles
, and the bearded Security officer shouted into the communicator at his collar, his words drowned out by a series of explosions that echoed through the bulkheads. One of the nearby consoles started to blare an angry-sounding alert. The Admiral pushed the station’s crewman out of the way, then jabbed at the keyboard to silence the alarm. From deeper in the ship, Summerhill could hear the stampeding of hurried footsteps and people calling out orders.

The ship stopped shaking a few moments later, making the sounds of controlled panic louder and more distinct. Summerhill managed to get back upright again, bracing his body in place with his arms pressed against the sides of the confinement tube. Though the tension in the room was still palpable, military efficiency had taken over, asserting as much control over the situation as possible.

“Admiral, the vessel has ceased its attack,” the ensign announced. “Communications are down. Sensors show that all our ships have suffered extensive damage, but are still intact. No casualties reported from aboard
Achilles
itself.”

The Admiral drew himself back up and straightened the front of his uniform. “Where the hell did these bastards even come—”

A pinpoint of light blazed into existence over by one of the walls. The assembled crew in the room turned to look at the glow, which shimmered in the air with no obvious source. It then extended into a perfectly straight line through the air, parallel to the floor. With a sound like a thunderclap, space itself appeared to tear open as if along a seam formed by that line of hovering light.

The shape it formed was an oval, longer along the horizontal, its sides blunted. It reminded Summerhill of one of the viewing screens back aboard the
Nusquam
, only there was nothing physically there, only a window of nothingness which soon coalesced into an image projected to the entire room.

The creature in the viewing window was covered with a gnarled, glistening, wet-looking carapace. It had four legs, hindquarters extending behind itself, ending in a segmented tail that twisted slowly from one side to the other. Lacking any real torso, it instead had shoulders that served as the origins to both its forelegs and its arms, the latter ending in hands of four claw-like fingers. Its head was shaped vaguely like a walnut, complete with the seam running through the middle of the shell. Six shiny black eyes, three on either side, peered out from under horny crests that mimicked the appearance of eyebrows.

Its mouth was a comparatively tiny set of slavering mandibles that dripped as the creature spoke. “We will not be ignored, human. In the name of the Consortium, we demand that you relinquish the prisoner to us at once.”

Several of the humans flinched and recoiled at the sight of the thing, some going so far as to cover their mouths in shock. The Security officer drew a pistol that looked identical to the one Katherine had worn earlier. He drew a bead on the creature, but the Admiral hastily stuck out his hand, silently ordering his man to stand down.

The Admiral glared at Summerhill, then turned to face the six-eyed creature. “Before we extradite our captive to you, we would ask that you let us know what he has done.” After a short pause, he added, “Merely to satisfy our own curiosity.”

The six-eyed creature turned its huge head to look at Summerhill. It lacked eyelids, and so it didn’t blink, making even a brief glance feel like a penetrating stare. It clacked its mandibles, more thick liquid slurping down out of view, and returned its attention to the Admiral. “This being is unknown to us,” it said. “We request the surrender of the one you call Katherine Tinsley.”

“Tinsley?” With that single word, the Admiral’s facade broke, however briefly, and Summerhill saw just how out of his element the man was, facing a being like this in the wake of his fleet being ravaged. “What’s she got to do with any of this?”

“The joke’s on you,” Katherine called out, raising her head high despite her hands being clasped behind her back. “You’ve come all this way to find me, but I don’t even have your precious modulator circuit anymore. I got rid of that a long—”

The alien creature’s mandibles dropped further away from its face and spread apart, the only obvious change of expression it was capable of displaying. “The hyperspace modulator circuit is immaterial. Consortium agents will recover it via temporal manipulation, in due course. You have been found. Your people will turn you over to us or face further reprisal.”

Even trapped inside his tube, Summerhill could feel the air of bristling anticipation pervading the room. People exchanged furtive glances, everyone wanting to voice any number of thoughts, concerns, suggestions, or fears, but none dared speak while the being from the Consortium had the floor. The Admiral looked at Katherine, studying her, but she ignored him, keeping her eye turned toward her alien accuser instead.

“Tinsley, explain this,” the Admiral ordered, but before she had any time to respond, he turned to the viewing window and addressed the alien again instead. “What do you want with her? As her commanding officer, I demand that you tell me what connection she has to you.”

“You are in no position to make demands, human,” the alien replied. “Katherine Tinsley stands accused of three counts of temporal violation of Dimension Three-One-Two-Two-Four, two counts of existential integrity violation of Dimension Three-One-Two-Two-Four, one count of home dimension desertion relative to Dimens—”

“None of that was my fault, and you know it!” Katherine’s face was white, and her skin appeared stretched taut over her face. “Besides, how is that any different than what you yourselves do, hopping around time and space willy-nilly to do as you like? Admiral, please, you can’t let them take me, I beg of you.”

Summerhill tried to pound on the wall of his tube, but there was so little room to move his arm that all he could muster was a weak, ineffectual slap of his palm against the smooth surface. Nobody even seemed to be paying attention to him anymore, not even Katherine. That made the standing by and watching helplessly even harder to bear.

The alien rolled its half-dozen eyes and looked off to one side, its attention fixed on something not visible through the viewing window. It made a wet, throaty noise, and Summerhill couldn’t guess what sort of emotion that sound was supposed to convey. “Ah,” it then said, sounding eerily like one of the humans in tone for just one syllable, “we have further localized the source of the local spacetime anomaly. Human vessel, registration given as
Ajax
. History lists this vessel as conducting research on technology not permitted to your civilization in the current time frame.” One of the alien’s clawlike appendages reached over, out of view, and there was a single click. “Local spacetime infractions have been corrected.”

The ensign at the communication console spoke up again. “Admiral, the
Ajax
is gone.” Summerhill could hear the restraint it took to keep his voice steady.

The Admiral quickly stepped over to the ensign’s station, shoving Katherine out of the way as he did so. He leaned over the junior officer’s shoulder and stared at the monitor. “Impossible,” he breathed, but the look in his eyes confirmed what the ensign had already said. He stood back up and faced the alien, the look in his eyes as cold as his voice. “This is an act of war. I demand that you—”

“You may demand nothing. We have tarried long enough here. The record will show that Katherine Tinsley was forcibly extradited without formal consent. A requisite demerit for this noncooperation will be noted on your civilization’s record.” The alien snapped its mandibles back together, cutting free a dangling dollop of thick saliva. It pressed some other button or switch that was out of view.

A glowing white ring formed around Katherine, roughly in line with her waist. It looked much like the line that had grown into the viewing window. Katherine bit back a nervous shriek as she watched the ring coalesce and grow brighter, and then she looked toward the tube.

“Summerhill! Summerhill, please, do something! Don’t let them take—”

And then, Katherine was gone. The image of the six-eyed alien was gone. The room was silent save for the sound of machinery and equipment. Summerhill tried yet again to pound or punch or strike at the tube surrounding him, but all he could do was slap his soft palm against the translucent material, accomplishing nothing beyond making a pathetic thumping sound. His body started to shake, and he slumped back with a dull whimper.

Once several seconds had passed, the ensign made a throat-clearing sound to break the silence before announcing, “Admiral, the Consortium vessel has disappeared.”

The Admiral sighed and paced aimlessly back and forth. He clasped his hands together behind his back and kept his head bowed. “Get on the short-range wireless. Alert all ships to the situation, and get status and recovery reports,” he ordered, his
tone muted. “I want repair updates every twenty minutes.” He drifted over towards an empty chair and settled into it.

The crew went back to work, noticeably discomfited. Some of the officers stared at Summerhill again, and after a few moments of sulking, the Admiral joined in, too.

“What was that thing?” he asked. “Where did they take her?”