Chapter 6

We killed the time waiting for Hunter and Tracker to escape the hospital by touring the artificial planet that was called Headquarters. The surface was mostly devoted to shopping malls and entertainment sites. The offices of the Rangers and the living quarters were inside the depths of the planet. Artificial gravity kept the gravity the same at all levels, 1 g, even though the planet was not massive enough to generate that level of gravity without assistance.

Most of the galaxy was advanced enough to support the general use of replicators, but there were artisans and craftsmen who made and sold many unusual items that were not available through the replicators. Nobody was ever hungry for more than a few minutes, nobody was ever sick for very long, and everybody had a tendency to become bored after about a thousand years of living. Therefore, the suicide rate was fairly high for the people over a thousand years old, but nobody cared as long as they did not hurt anyone else when they killed themselves.

That extra long life was another of the perks available to my four friends is they joined me in the Rangers. The women were certainly not interested in returning to the rigors of living on a planet undergoing the end of an ice age, but they would do whatever their husbands wanted. All we could do was to wait until I could make my sales pitch and see what they had to say. The population was continuously expanding, but there were still plenty of “empty” planets left in the galaxy, and one of the main jobs of the Rangers was preparing them for occupation by the expanding population. That was why we were always looking for recruits for the Rangers.

Unexpectedly, I got a call from CR Osnof Friznan’s office ordering me to report there at 10:00 AM tomorrow. Uh-oh, what is so important now? I had no idea what to expect, so it was with some trepidation that I showed up. I went through the usual routine and found myself standing in front of the Chief Ranger’s desk.

“Sit down, Sergeant Ranger Ojif Markol and make yourself as comfortable as those horrible seats will allow. You did an excellent job on your last assignment against the olan, and we have another similar problem facing us, courtesy of the Marinkos again. Dammit, we have got to do something about those cretins before they do something that we cannot handle.”

“Thank you, Sir. What have the Marinkos done now?”

“Nothing, yet, but I just got word yesterday that they are cooking up another one of their practical jokes at our expense. I wish I knew what the hell we could do to scare them into showing a little consideration for us and for the rest of the galaxy. If I had my way, we would drop a couple of dozen orlans on them and let them feel what it was like to be the butt of a stupid practical joke.

“The trouble is, there is a trace of Iodine in their atmosphere, and that is instant death to orlans. Right now, I hate Iodine!”

“Sir, are you serious about using an animal against the Marinkos? Because, if you are, I may have a possible candidate. While on the orlan hunt, I ran across an Earth animal that may be as tough and fierce as the orlan, and could conceivably scare the shit out of the Marinkos. The animal is the dire wolf, and four of them were able to wound the orlan we were chasing. The orlan killed them, but the wound they inflicted was instrumental in our elimination of the beast.

“Perhaps we could threaten the Marinkos with a plague of dire wolves if they did not stop their practical jokes. The Marinkos look so much like the native hare of Earth that the dire wolves probably would not be adverse to attacking and eating them. At only a little over two-feet tall, not counting the ears, one of them would make a nice lunch for a dire wolf.

“It’s my guess that a few 3d pictures of a pack of dire wolves going after a 1,200-pound bear would get their attention. If not, we could drop a few of the wolves on their planet so that they could get some first hand experience with the animal. Those damned Marinkos have caused me enough trouble that I would have no qualms about trying the experiment.”

“SR Ojif Markol, how dare you suggest that the Rangers do such an underhanded and dastardly deed! By all of the gods in all of the universes, that is a brilliant suggestion! I’ll submit it right away and make sure that you get the credit for the idea. If it works, you have earned your paycheck for the next thousand years, and if it doesn’t work, we will have learned a lot about the psychology of the Marinkos. Yes, my boy, I can’t imagine the idea not getting the approval for speedy action.

“That blasts all of the other suggestions I have heard right out of space. Go away, now, before I do something that we will both regret. You have certainly made my day!”

I know when I have been dismissed, so I scooted out before I got into some kind of trouble. I rushed back to my friends, and started my sales pitch to Tracker and Hunter. It was Hunter who interrupted. “Ojif, my friend, you do not have to sell us on the idea of joining the Rangers. Our wives have already sold us on the idea. Tracker and I pride ourselves on being intelligent, and only an ignorant fool would turn down what you are offering. Certainly, we will enlist in the Rangers. Where do we go from here?”

I felt kind of deflated after what Hunter said, but I did get them around to the recruiting office before they could change their minds. They signed the forms with a thumb print, and that was all that was required. Their wives signed up at the same time, and all four were directed to report to a specific office tomorrow at 8:00 AM to begin the training.

The first thing they were to do was to get the basic high school education through a learning machine. They would then take a test given by psychologists to make sure that they understood what they were agreeing to. Assuming that they passed the test, they would go into the hospital for the medical changes and the implanting of the AI. From there, it was a daily grind with learning machines and physical training until they were ready to become rangers.

I took advantage of the time we had that afternoon to explain my idea of dropping dire wolves on the Marinkos to teach them a lesson about what their idea of practical jokes could do. All five of the humans were laughing so hard at my plan that it took a little while for them to settle down to an honest planning session. We had a lot of the basics worked out by supper time. We finished up after supper before we went to bed.

The next day, while they were starting their training and Sunshine was off to her class, I dictated the plan into a recording machine and printed a copy to send to CR Friznan’s office. That went out a few minutes later, and all I could do now was to wait for official approval.

The stew over the Marinkos calmed down for a while, so my idea was tabled until there was a need for it, but it seemed that my idea had received universal approval. All that was needed was the official endorsement and money to be approved.

My request to be made the leader of a Special Ops. unit was approved, and I had to attend some classes to learn how to be an officer. Sunshine, Moon, Snow, Hunter, and Tracker were all assigned to my unit, and I could see CR Friznan’s hand in that. They were all pleased when the classes were over and they were deemed ready for active duty. Naturally, the first thing they checked was that they had indeed been issued a replicator.

Three days later, you know what hit the fan. The Marinkos sabotaged the air conditioning unit (AC) at an isolated base on Ailinot, the planet closest to the sun in a system several light years away. The problem was that four people died from the heat before the AC could be replaced. Okay, that was not funny. I received orders the next day for my unit to execute Operation Blueballs.

Basically, all we had to do was to return to Earth and find 15 or so dire wolves. We were planning to enclose each dire wolf in stasis field for transportation to the planet with the most Marinkos. There, we planned to release the dire wolves to see what would happen.