SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

I blinked. “Fix the MECU code, sir?”

“Did I stutter, Cadet?”

“No, sir, but you did just order me not to modify the MECU code for any reason, ever.”

Lesson 3 : No one likes a smartass.

Lesson 4 : Ordering a cadet to use a terminal at stink bomb ground zero is not a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Titan Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, or the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child. I am not entitled to a tribunal to redress this heinous injustice.

Even though I could have fixed the code from any other terminal on the ship.

The mess hall itself didn’t smell so much like a wet fart as it did like an uncleaned lavatory in a norovirus-infested sick bay.

The commander hadn’t been on the Stinson long enough to internalize the slanderous gossip about my reputation for alleged involvement in works of staggering comic genius. But once I logged in, I could see why she had come gunning straight for me.

The malicious code had been checked into the MECU repository from my account.

I looked up the terminal ID from which I had supposedly vandalized the MECUs. It was assigned to the personal terminal in Commander Sherazi’s quarters.

My thoughts immediately went to Cadet Sherazi, talking about this happening on his last ship. I reverted the code to the previous commit, then copied the blame log onto my tablet and headed back to the gymnasium.

Cadets Rajan and Sherazi had reached the aft end of the track when I finally caught up with them. I grabbed Cadet Sherazi by the collar and yanked him behind a stack of tumbling mats.

“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: clark.ward@agricorp-alliance.org

From: Emile.Deveroux@globalfarms.com

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: