Bad Alien Apples

Galorif gurgled. Had he been human, he'd have sighed. He pulled his ship out of the traffic, out of the way of the other ships, beside the spacelanes and parked next to an asteroid. He extruded a pseudopod and pulled out his license and registration.

How very depressing. With all the technology of the galaxy, with data links to personal devices with yottabyte bandwidth and superluminal speeds, they still required a piece of paper. Three actually.

He took out the paper and rose from his seat. He slurfed his way to the airlock and waited. He was to remain in the spacecraft but had to hand off, ha!, the license, registration and proof of insurance.

The police cruiser docked with his little hauler with a kerklump and Galorif watched the pressure equalize. At least there were no exotic gases there. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, he burbled.

The police cruiser's airlock opened. And in stepped the cops.

Ah sticky and splattering fecal matter. The cops were Yanards.

"Open the airlock door, citizen."

He extruded a pseudopod and brace himself for what was coming. He began to ooze. His people oozed when nervous. It was far from flattering, but these cops were Yanards.

He held out the required information. Please, Please let this go smoothly.

The cops saw he was a Horka. They tensed. You could see in their frills: they'd gone stiff and pointed away from him. Oh splatter dash...

They examined his documents and then turned to him. Distaste was in their orbs. "We need to take a look around your ship. We have reports of a ship matching this description being stolen from a Yavik. We were given access codes to prove whether or not a given ship is the stolen one."

He both relaxed and tensed. He didn't know any Yaviks and never done business with one. His ship wasn't the stolen one. He'd bought it off his mother who had bought it from a Svrah 30 years ago and the Svrah, a family friend, had bought it new. He was still worried about the idea of Yanard cops on his ship though.

He acquiesced: the last thing he wanted was a scene or to get roughed up. He motioned them in.

The cops motioned him ahead of them. He wanted to protest, but, again, no scene. They followed behind. It really wasn't a good idea. But ...yep. They slipped and fell. Horkas leave slime trails and the bots would normally clean it up, but after the Horka had passed.

They were mad, but didn't say anything.

They poked and prodded and examined. His ship wasn't the missing one and he could tell how unhapy they were about that. He led them back to the airlock, as per their request, they were nearly there when...

"Look what I found!" one of the cops said.

Surprised, Galorif turned back to the cops. The taller cop was holding a little bag.

"Dried human tears. You know how much this goes for on the market, blub?"

Galorif freaked and spasmed. he didn't traffic in drugs! He would NEVER go to Earth! The place was under quarantine! The War on Alien Drugs made contacting humanity impossible! If they cried, a single droplet would addict almost any sentient by contact! DRIED human tears was the worse! It was a permanent incarceration!

One of Galorif's panicked spasms thrust a pseudopod at the nearest cop. It wasn't intentional. It was physiological! He was a Horka! Even so, the cop reacted quickly and pulled his piece.

"DOWN! GET DOWN!"

Galorif flattened his body to the deck as fast as he could. Even so, the cop fired the stunner and he all but drooled bodily all over the deck. Coherence was not an option.

The one cop turned to another and motioned at the body camera.

The second responded, "Yeah, our falls destroyed them. Let's plant the evidence. We'll rig the computers so they respond to the codes, hack the feeds so they're down. Leave the dried tears. We'll get our bonus! Then, profit!"

Galorif spasmed. He had to do something. But could not. Cops. Damned dirty cops. Didn't matter where you were, there they were.