Disclaimer: 'The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers' is copyrighted by Hearst Entertainment, Inc. This is a work of fanfiction and I make no profit of it.

Summary: More evil email (eemail).

(repost from 2002)

"Gooseman. In my office. Now!" Walsh commanded with barely hidden anger in his voice.

The Commander looked as though a tyrannosaur had just devoured his aquarium and he blamed Gooseman for raising said tyrannosaur.

Ranger Gooseman, however, wasn't aware that he had raised any tyrannosaurs lately, so he boldly entered Walsh's office.

Seeing the ranger's confident smile, Walsh's scowl deepened as though he suspected Goose not only of raising the aforementioned dinosaur but of actually having trained it to eat his fish.

"Would you care to explain why you sent this message to alt-dot-tourists-dot-complaints?!?"

Walsh angrily pointed to the printout of a newsgroup message.

Goose frowned, confused.

"Sir, I didn't send anything to alt-dot-tourists-dot-complaints. I haven't had a vacation in thirteen months. How could I complain about one?"

By now, Walsh was looking like an angry tyrannosaur himself.

"Do you have any idea what this means for our diplomatic relations with the Ippshaa? Earth was at the brink of signing a trade agreement with them!"

Goose looked somber now.

"Sir, I really have no idea..."

"You said half of their capital was a construction site!!!"

"Sir, half of their capital _is_ a construction site."

Suddenly, recollection struck, and Goose assumed the posture of an angry tyrannosaur who sees his aquarium under attack.

"I said that in a _private_ e-mail message. Could you please explain to me how the Ippshaa got hold of one of my private, triple-encoded messages?!! Beta's mail server is supposed to be safe!"

Walsh and Goose exchanged the worried looks of tyrannosaurs who perceive a threat to their favorite fish population.

"Ranger Hartford! In my office. NOW!" Walsh bellowed.

Doc was checking the BETA mail system for the fourth time, finding no error for the fifth time.

He sighed and weighed his options between suggesting that Goose might have mistyped the address (and spending some time in the infirmary), developing a theory of black mail magic (and spending some time in the psychiatric ward) or waiting till Niko came back from her diplomatic mission on Ippshaa Prime (and spending some time pretending to check the mail system for the 600th time while playing 'Doom').

Well, at least he didn't have to be interviewing the BETA mail staff like Goose and Zach were doing. He briefly wondered whether paranoia was contagious and decided to apply for a vacation.

"You're name is Paul Miller, isn't it?" Zachary Fox asked.

"Yes."

"Are you working for the Queen of the Crown?" Goose interjected.

"No!" The interrogated subject shook his head violently.

"You've been working for BETA for twenty years, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Have you accepted bribe money from the Blackhole Gang?"

"No!" The interrogated subject shook his head even more violently.

"Do you like your job?"

"Well, yes."

"When was your last vacation on Tortuna?"

"I haven't had a vacation in ten years, and I've never been to Tortuna!"

The interrogated subject was shaking with outrage.

"And I have a super security mail update to install, so if maybe you could let me go before the next Crown invasion...?"

Zach sighed deeply.

"You can leave. We'll send you a sealed envelope if we have any more questions."

The pointless interviews were tearing at Zachary's nerves, and it looked as though it was going to be a long evening for him.

"I have to call my children that I won't be home for supper," he announced.

He prepared to activate his vid-telephone.

"You're not going to use public communications, are you?" Goose protested, alarmed.

Zachary sighed even more deeply. It was going to be a long evening with a paranoid Supertrooper and a game-happy hacker.

He envied Niko for being on Ippshaa Prime to visit their construction sites.

One week later, Niko came back from Ippshaa Prime, slightly dusty but otherwise unruffled.

"Hi guys. Have you had fun without me? Did I miss any alien invasions?" she asked cheerfully.

"We've just upgraded every computer system we have to the highest security level, and could you please prove your identity?" Doc muttered from somewhere under a console.

Niko questioningly raised an eyebrow.

"When was your last vacation, Doc?"

"I think we all need some down-time on Tortuna," Zachary commented from somewhere under the heap of interview forms he was filling.

Goose drew Niko aside.

"So what about Saturday?"

Niko looked at him, uncomprehending.

"What about Saturday?"

Goose took the flustered look of a brontosaur trying to stand on a balance beam.

"Are we going to visit that Inca exposition in Phoenix you wanted see? I got tickets..."

Niko assumed the delighted look of a pterodactyl that has just discovered a good air current.

"That's so sweet of you. Why didn't you tell me before I signed up for the extra computer security course BETA is offering this weekend?"

"I sent you a message five days ago."

Niko considered this for a moment.

"You mean that large byte package with the 300 layers of encoding? I'm sorry; my AI hasn't been able to decode it so far."

Goose looked irritated at that announcement.

Zachary decided he did not want to wait and see what Goose would blow up this time and changed the topic:

"By the way, Niko, how was your stay on Ippshaa?"

Niko raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"But I sent you my report yesterday by e-mail. Hasn't it arrived yet?"

Zach jumped up in alarm. Doc followed suit as fast as the console over his head would allow him. Goose growled like he was about to blow the entire interstellar network up.

"We have to check alt-dot-tourists-dot-reports at once," Zach ordered gravely as he considered going back to using mail pigeons again.