by Anthology
“Hey, what the puck, Blanchard?” I may be approximating our choice of words. I have no recollection of any words or phrases unbecoming officers in training, but I believe the time I spent in the stink-infested mess hall had a deleterious effect on my short-term memory. I may need several days’ R&R to recover.
“You’re a real piece of ship, Sherazi.”
Cadet Rajan joined us behind the pile of mats. “What’d he do?”
“What’d he do? Gee, Sherazi. Your mom just read me the riot act and sent me to the mess hall—which, by the way, smells like an open-air latrine on Titan—an odor I don’t think is ever coming out of my clothes—and—”
“Stop right there.” Sherazi pulled away from me and straightened his shirt. “You do not get to come after me because my mom disciplined you for setting off stink bombs.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said again.
“So show her the blame log on the MECU code.”
“Yeah, funny thing about the blame log,” I said. “It’s got my name in it.”
“Maybe you should secure your passwords better, Blanchard.”
I shoved my tablet to his chest. “It’s also got the terminal ID for the personal terminal in your quarters.”
Cadet Sherazi frowned and grabbed the tablet. “This is from 2100 hours yesterday,” he said. “I wasn’t there.”
“Yeah? And where were you, exactly?”
Sherazi paused for a second. “Somewhere else.”
I scoffed. “Well you weren’t down here, or I would have seen you. So…?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “I went for a walk.”
“Where, outside?”
“Oh for puck’s sake,” Cadet Rajan said. “He was with me.”
I stopped. “Oh.”
Sherazi looked at the floor. “Yeah.”
(Cadets Rajan and Sherazi have asked me to clarify, for the record, that they were playing chess, and that they remained in authorized areas of the ship the entire time.)
“So, what?” I said. “Your mother added the bad code, then blamed me for it?”
“My mother was entertaining some of the Earth trade delegation,” he said, “trying to figure out what to do about their agricorps rep—he’s been a pain in everyone’s neck since the talks started.”
“Could one of them have done it?”
Cadet Sherazi furrowed his brow. “Why would they?”
“I don’t know, maybe one of them is secretly an eleven-year-old boy? Login credentials can be used anywhere, but you can’t spoof the terminal ID in the blame log. It had to come from that terminal, at that time.”
Sherazi ran a hand over his hair. “Well, at least this exonerates you, right?”
Cadet Rajan and I shook our heads.
“What?”
“I don’t know how things were on your last ship,” I said, “but here, you can remote into a terminal from a tablet even through a bulkhead. They’ll just say I was standing outside.”
A bell sounded the end of Physical Training.
“Well,” Sherazi said. “Let’s see if any tablets were synced to the terminal at that time.”
I had expected the XO’s quarters to be larger.
The main room was the exact same layout as the cadets’ wardroom on deck twelve, but her sofa still had all its stuffing, and her dining room table didn’t have a cover that came off to convert it for billiards.
“Maman, you around?” Cadet Sharazi called.
There was no answer.
The terminal was built into a desk tucked behind a partition. Next to it was an external porthole with a decent view of Earth and its moon.
Sherazi sat down at the console, signed in, and pulled up the logs. “My mother’s tablet was synced in,” he said, pointing.
Cadet Rajan leaned over the desk. “Could a guest have used her tablet?”
I shook my head. “It was idle. No packets transferred.” I pointed at the next line. “Whose pad is this?”
Cadet Sherazi copied the device ID and did a whois lookup.
“It’s registered to Clark Ward,” he said. “Agricorps trade representative. I don’t think he was even here. My mom had the leaders of his delegation up to talk about him.”
I leaned over and tapped back to the logs. “And would you look at that? Mr. Ward’s connection was transferring data to and from this terminal at precisely 2100 hours.”
“But he wasn’t even here.”
I pulled up the ship’s directory on my tablet. “Guess who’s staying one deck directly below you?”
Sherazi sat back in his seat. “No one is going to believe a trade representative set off stink bombs. Why would he?”
“Let’s find out.” I pulled up the network options on my tablet and scanned the list for the same ID we’d seen in the logs. “Oops, looks like someone doesn’t have his tablet locked from remote sync requests.”
I set up the sync, then ran a search on his files for one of the lines I’d found in the MECU code.
It came up attached to an email:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: STALL THEM
Message: I did some digging around for you. Turns out the Stinson has some pranksters in the Cadet Corps—see attached disciplinary record for Cadet DeShawna Blanchard. It’s as long as your arm, so she probably has it coming. Here’s some code that was used in a prank on the APS Earhart that got all the ship’s MECUs to print stink bombs. It should buy you an extra day.
Yesterday, Clark Ward wrote:
Look, I’ve done everything I can, but everyone is losing patience with me. The XO has invited the heads of the Earth delegation to her quarters for dinner tonight, and you can bet she’s going to tell them to bench me. They want those samples.
Before that, Emile Deveroux wrote:
We just need a few more days. The nerds in the lab are sure they can fix the corn problem. We really need this contract. Can’t you ask them to go over the terms again?
Four days ago, Clark Ward wrote:
ETA on the corn?
Nine days ago, Clark Ward wrote:
Understood.
Ten days ago, Emile Deveroux wrote:
There’s a serious problem with the corn. They thought the modifications we made to deal with the new Martian superbugs were solid, but the Marsies in our test kitchen all ended up in the ICU. We’re keeping it quiet down here. Stall the talks until we can get hold of some nonmodified corn to send up for samples.
“Well,” Cadet Sherazi said, “that ought to prove you didn’t do it.”
“There’s more,” Cadet Rajan said. She showed me her own tablet, on which she’d pulled up another of Ward’s emails:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: Success
Message: Glad the stink bombs worked. I have some more code for you. This will cause an airlock malfunction on the lower decks. The air pressure warnings will clear any personnel before the place vents, but it should make them think they’ve got some major technical issues.
I showed the message to Sherazi.
He read it over and rose from his chair. “We have to show this to my mother immediately.”
The door hissed open. “Show me what, Kiyan? Oh.”
Rajan and I bolted to attention. “Commander—”
“As you were, Cadets. Kiyan, I didn’t realize you were bringing guests.”
“Commander,” I started again. “Clark Ward was responsible for the stink bombs.”
“Cadet, you’d better not have asked my son to bring you to my quarters so that you could—”
“Maman,” Cadet Sherazi interrupted. “You really ought to have a look at her tablet.”
The commander stared at me for a long moment, then held out her hand. “This had better be good.”
“I found some messages between Ward and one of his people back on Earth,” I said.
&
nbsp; She looked at my tablet, and I guess she got as far as realizing I had his files before she stopped to glare at me. “You found some messages, Cadet?”
Lesson 5: I am not permitted to access trade delegates’ tablets without permission. This is true even if there is no law against accessing a system that’s open to remote requests, Ward has no proof that his system was locked, and the cracking tools I allegedly used are apparently so ingeniously hidden that no one inspecting my tablet has been able to find them.
I met her gaze. “Yes, Commander, I found some messages, and you really ought to read them.”
She turned her attention back to my tablet. When she was done reading, I directed her to the message Cadet Rajan had found.
Her eyes widened. Then she handed my tablet back, turned on her heel, and headed for the door. “Go to your wardroom and stay there, Cadets.” Into her wrist cuff, she said, “Sherazi to the bridge. Secure all airlocks immediately. Inform Captain Mbata I need to speak to him at once.”
When the door had closed behind the commander, Rajan, Sherazi, and I all looked at each other.
“I bet he’s on his way to the brig,” Rajan said.
Sherazi smiled. “The brig’s on the way to our wardroom.”
“For definitions of ‘on the way’ meaning ‘I owe that guy a polite gesture of contempt which in no way resembles conduct unbecoming an officer in training,’” I said, starting for the door.
We arrived in the corridor outside the brig just in time to watch Ward being walked out of the lift.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the bulkhead, glaring.
“You,” he hissed, as the marines walked him past us.
“Yeah, me,” I said. “You’re a giant bag of Richards, Mr. Ward.”
Commander Sherazi rounded the corner at the far end of the hall, with Captain Mbata beside her.
“This doesn’t look a thing like your wardroom, Cadets. Do you need a marine to escort you?”
“No, sir,” we said, and scurried for the lift.
Lesson 6: An order to “Go to my wardroom and stay there” means go directly to my wardroom and stay there. It does not mean “Go to my wardroom by way of deck ten to watch Clark Ward, Corporate Tool, be perp-walked to the brig.”
“Blanchard,” Captain Mbata said.
We all stopped in our tracks.
I turned around. “Yes, sir?”
“You want to tell me why the voice-lock on my console asked me to recite ‘The Purple Cow’ in front of the entire bridge crew this morning?”
I coughed. “Perhaps you should ask Mr. Ward about that, sir.”
“I know it was you, Blanchard.”
Lesson 7: Never suggest that Captain Mbata “can’t prove a thing.” He can and he will.
Ron S. Friedman
https://ronsfriedman.wordpress.com/
Game Not Over(Short story)
by Ron S. Friedman
Originally published by Galaxy's Edge Magazine, January 2015 issue, edited by Mike Resnick
Molten lava flowed through Death Valley, bypassing islands of glowing flint and brimstone. The air stank of sulfur and decaying corpses. Dark acid clouds were scattered throughout the amber sky. Occasionally, vengeful lightning discharged fury against the agonized soil.
In short, it was a wonderful day, thought Esh.
The small fire imp stopped in front of the magma pit.
“Go away,” boomed a voice.
“But, Mistress!” said Esh, taking a step back.
“You dare to defy my words?”
Esh looked at the she-daemon who rose out of the boiling hollow. She was a good-looking mistress. Her dark hair fell in waves over her shoulders. Her pitch-black eyes shone like the abyss, reflecting intelligence and wisdom. With her feminine horns and folded bat-like wings, no mortal woman even came close to Sheda’s beauty.
“Satan demands your presence, Mistress.” Esh bowed. “Humans have infested his den.”
“Again?” Sheda sighed.
Esh shrugged, staring at the she-daemon.
“This human infestation problem is growing beyond…”
Suddenly, she groaned. Black marks appeared on her forehead.
“What’s wrong, Mistress? Aren’t you feeling well?”
She grabbed Esh’s hand and squeezed it tight. “My belly…I feel…ill.” Esh saw her face turning green. “It’s so painful…”
Esh felt helpless. “Shall I call for aid? Perhaps Satan can help.”
“Curses!” She shook her head. “I think I’m being summoned.”
“Summoned? That’s horrendous. Who dare…”
“It’s those damn sorcerers from Earth,” whispered Sheda, still holding her abdomen. “Why can’t they solve their own problems? Why do they need to involve us daemons in their puny affairs? I don’t care who this wizard is. I swear I’m going to eradicate him! Damnation shall fall upon his soul.”
In that instant, Sheda vanished into thin air.
Sharp pain hit Esh in his stomach. The whole of Gehenom began to spin. Smoke and steam engulfed his small body. Something pulled him into oblivion.
***
Slowly, Esh regained his vision. His first thought was to fly out of there. The fire imp fluttered his tiny wings. Something smashed into him. He flinched in pain and charged again, only to be subjected once more with grief by that cursed, invisible barrier.
“We’re trapped,” said a charming soprano voice.
“Mistress, what happened to us?”
Sheda said nothing.
Esh looked downward. Both he and Sheda floated helplessly above a glowing pentagram which was painted on the floor. The dim illumination intensified the direness of their situation. This wasn’t Gehenom. In fact, this place didn’t look like anything he had ever seen in any of the upper plains. They were in a cold, dark, flameless dungeon.
Around them he noticed a few broken tables, traces of blood, body parts, smashed armor, shields and other shattered weapons of war.
Furthermore, there was her. The one which was complete. The only non-mutilated body. Her beautiful yet motionless statue looked alive; frozen inside a large amber cube, a seven-foot-long rectangular prism.
“I wonder what happened here,” said Esh.
Before Sheda had a chance to respond, Esh heard chains rolling, followed by rusty axles squeaking. He turned to see a figure in red robes entering the dungeon.
The figure halted at the center of the hall. Then it bowed. A deep voice greeted them, “May you burn in Hell for all eternity.”
Sheda looked at the figure, her face red, her eyes blazing anger mixed with flames. “Damn you!” she exclaimed, spitting venom. “Burning in Hell is exactly what I had in mind before your intervention.” She shook her head fiercely, pointing at the figure. “You summoned us to this cold filthy place. Speak your words and send me back to Gehenom!”
The figured bowed once more. “Forgive me, Mistress. I hold nothing but the greatest respect to you. I would have never called you to this mortal plain of existence if it wasn’t for a matter of grave importance.”
Sheda burst into rolling laughter. “You can remove your hood, Nakam. It is transparent to my kind.”
The figure bowed again and took off his head covering.
Esh flinched at the sight. Nakam’s face was rotten and decayed. His nose and both ears were absent. Bones could be seen through the eroded flesh. Little hair remained on the semi-exposed skull. What intimidated Esh most were two glittering diamonds in the sockets which were supposed to host eyes. Nakam ground his teeth in an incomprehensible gesture. If it wasn’t for the missing lips, Esh would have sworn Nakam was smiling.
“I don’t think he is human,” whispered Esh.
“Esh, dear,” Sheda chuckled, “this one is Nakam, the Lich Emperor of Sham-Rahok.”
Nakam took another step toward the pentagram. “I see there is no fooling a great daemon such as you, mistress Sheda.”
“What is it that you want of me?” she bar
ked impatiently.
Nakam rubbed his skull, nodding toward Sheda. “My lady and your daemonic shape-changing ability could be helpful for this task.”
“You’re pathetic if you think I would help.” She looked around at the carnage, at the maiden elf, then at the pentagram.
Fire sparks trickled down Esh’s forehead. The flare burning within his chest pounded. He flinched at the thought of what Nakam might do to them if Sheda declined the offer. When nothing happened, he swallowed flames.
“Now,” Sheda put her hands on her hips, “by the names of all the daemons and devils in Hell, send us back to the abyss.”
Nakam just stood there in silence.
“I gave you an order, Lich.”
“Mistress Sheda,”—Nakam coughed and shook his head—“if you’ll allow me to speak, I shall explain myself.” He rolled his diamond eyes upward. “Surely, you don’t think I went through all the trouble of summoning you here just so I would send you back.”
Esh tried to read Sheda’s expression. She seemed ready to explode.
“What I want you to look into,” said Nakam, “is who this elf is and who these invaders are.”
All Hell broke loose. Thunder, lightning, fire shook the pentagram. Unimaginable shrieks and inconceivable screams filled the space around Esh. He shut his eyes and held his hands against his tiny ears. It didn’t help. The noise was immensely strong and the flashes strikingly bright. His small body was pushed and sucked, shattered and smashed, shoved and scratched, squished and smote, yet the force field remained intact.
“Send us back to Hell, you miserable piece of zombie excrement! I shall slay you. I shall scorch the earth, dealing death and destruction of apocalyptic proportions. I shall suck your life force and banish your soul. Even the Hell of all Hells is too good a place for a miserable worm-infested scum like you.” Sheda attacked the invisible barrier with all her might. But to no avail.
Seeing that the force field held against her attacks, Sheda’s rage subsided. Esh opened his agonized eyes. The Lich Emperor stood outside the pentagram in a stoic calmness.