The Interstellar Police Force, Book One: The Historic Mission

by Raymond F. Klein

  There was also the PK30A Assault Rifle equipped with a laser range finder and removable stock. A lightweight weapon with a gas propulsion firing system capable of utilizing multiple types of munitions. It could also fire suppressed with the flip of a switch. With the stock removed, the PK30A could easily be concealed within a shoulder holster.

  And then there was the K8, the standard IPF sidearm, a semi-automatic handgun with a twenty-five round clip of cartridgeless ammunition and a computer assisted laser sighting system.

  There were small explosive devices that were used to open locks and weakly barricaded doors, and larger ones that could take out sections of walls. There were also various knives, handcuffs, and batons.

  Trent walked over to a small display on the wall and picked up a shoulder holster. It had two holsters on the left side and one on the right. He slipped off his suit jacket and strapped the holster on. He then rotated his shoulders, and then made a windmill motion with his arms. A perfect fit. He then took a step over to the wall of handguns. He removed a PK30A, examined it, then pulled back the metal slide with a metallic click, picked up a magazine and slapped it into the weapon. He removed the stock and slipped the weapon into the top left holster. Then he selected the K8 handgun and went through the same procedure of inspection.

  Genghis surveyed the arsenal from one end to the other. “Which one am I going to take?”

  Trent stopped what he was doing and looked at the Doberman Pinscher by his side. “What do you mean? You're qualified in all these weapons. Just take one.” Then, motioning with his head, “You’ve always been partial to the A56.”

  Genghis sat down on his haunches and rolled his eyes, “Hey! Have you forgotten, no opposable thumbs.” And waved a paw in the air.

  “Oh, right,” Trent said, realizing this fact. “Well ah, . . .” He started to look at all the options available to them. “Here we go.” He reached up and took down a small weapon and held it out for Genghis. “The Immobilizer, a tried and true weapon of the IPF,” he said happily.

  Genghis glanced at the weapon with disdain then back to Trent. “A stun gun? You want me to carry a . . . my . . . my grandmother carries a stun gun!”

  “Oh, I adore that woman,” Trent said, with loving admiration.

  “Can we leave my Me-Ma out of this and stay on the subject please. I need a weapon! A real weapon.”

  “Well, that looks like the only thing we have that you can operate,” Trent said while looking over the cache. “Yes, that looks like about it. It’s thin enough that you can fit it in between your human canine digits. And you can snap it to your . . . um, your . . . ”

  “My whaaat?” Genghis mocked.

  “Well,” a slight stammer could be heard in Trent’s voice. “Ah, your . . .”

  “Go ahead, say it,” Genghis demanded. “My collar.”

  “Well, yes . . . there.” Trent glanced away, loaded the gun in his hand and stashed it in the bottom left holster. He selected one more from the wall.

  “Well, that’s not going to happen because I’m not demeaning myself by wearing a collar.”

  “But you have to! I think it’s a human law. Anyway, where else are you going to put it?” Trent reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the collar produced for Genghis.

  “Oh, thanks for bringing that along really, thanks.” Genghis started to think about it. He hesitantly took the collar from Trent.

  Genghis Khan looked at the offensive object and rolled his eyes and said, “Alright.” Then, with great disgust, “This is going to be so damn humiliating.” He then attempted to put the collar on, but all he could do was just fumble with it. Most likely because he had no opposable thumbs. And then, the collar fell to the ground. “Son of a bitch!”

  “Here, here let me.” Trent bent down and retrieved the collar, looped it around his partner's neck and fastened the buckle. “There you go,” he said. Then vigorously rubbed the top of Genghis’s head.

  “Don’t,” Genghis said angrily. “Don’t you ever do that again!” If Genghis had an index finger or possibly a middle one, he would have shook it furiously at Trent.

  Trent smirked, quite amused with himself, then locked and loaded his third weapon and placed it in the holster on his right.

  Reluctantly, Genghis picked up the stun gun and held it in between his human canine digits. He thrust the Immobilizer forward a couple of times as if he was in an imaginary stun gun fight. Then squeezed the trigger to test it. A short, one inch beam of immobilizing laser shot from the front prong in a quick second burst. The Doberman sighed loudly, then sat and using his hind leg like he was about to scratch his ear, awkwardly clipped it to his collar.

  After loading the duffle bag with ammunition and devices of all sorts, Trent picked up a wallet from a small wall shelf and put into it all his currency, ID, and other cards, then slipped it into his back pocket. Genghis watched him, then looked at the second wallet on the shelf. He slightly shook his head and heard the distinctive jingle of his collar tags and rolled his eyes skyward.

  They closed and locked the armory door and walked back into the science lab. Trent put his suit jacket back on and looked down at himself, then looked at his partner and shrugged his shoulders. “Well?”

  “You look,” Genghis glanced up and down at Trent, “a little bulky.”

  “Yes,” Trent said while patting down his jacket. “These human garments do not fit as well as my uniform.” He walked over to a small compartment, the door silently slid open and Trent pulled out a black, knee length trench coat. He put it on, looked himself over to make sure the shoulder holster was completely concealed then said, “What do you think?”

  “Gorgeous, Mr. Trent,” the big dog said. “Simply gorgeous. You're ready for the catwalk. Now can we get going, please?” Genghis started walking toward the stairs. As Trent followed he reached into his trench coat pocket and retrieved a small lint brush and started brushing lint from his lapel.

  As Genghis walked in front he asked, “Does this Immobilizer make my neck look fat?”

  “Ah, no.” Trent said, more concerned with a rogue piece of fiber, “Not at all.”

  The replicated human automobile with its convertible top down was gently being warmed by the morning sun that was now higher in the sky. A crow had landed on the top of the windshield for a brief respite after a long morning flight. And when the back cushion started to move and then flopped down, he flew off in a frenzy.

  Genghis emerged, followed by Trent with the duffle bag. He placed the duffle bag on the back floor of the car and stepped out onto the pavement. Genghis hopped between the two front-bucket seats and took his place in the passenger seat. Front paws on the floor, back legs and hindquarters lying on the seat. Trent slid behind the wheel and started the engine, put the car in gear, and proceeded down the road.

  Genghis brought up his holographic computer console and accessed several screens. The computer started to beep in five second intervals indicating that they were traveling in the direction of Interstellar Police Prison Transfer vehicle 964. As they went down the deserted road, Genghis looked up from the computer. His nose twitched. He stuck his head out to the right, past the windshield and into the blast of wind. His ears flopped in the wind while he pointed his nose into the air stream and started a series of short, deep sniffs. He pulled back in and turned to look at Trent.

  “Do you smell that?”

  “Smell what?

  Genghis stuck his head out again. “I’m smelling things in the air.”

  “Like what?”

  “Everything! I can smell the trees. I can smell the dust being kicked up by our tires. I can smell the pollen from that fruit grove over there.”

  Trent looked at the fruit grove over to their left. “That’s almost a quarter mile away.”

  “I know. But I can smell them!”

  Trent stuck his head out his window into the wind, just as Genghis did. The car slightly wavered, but Trent kept control. He started quickly sniffing the air.
Nostrils flaring, head bobbing back and forth like a meerkat. He pulled his head back in and said, “I can’t smell a thing!”

  Genghis pointed his nose out the window again, sniffed the air, and calmly announced, “I can even smell the plasma leaking from the breach!”

  “Oh, you can not!”

  “I can too!” Genghis protested. “I don’t know,” he pondered for a moment. “I guess these human canines have incredible olfactory systems. Not like Codas canines, with their genetically inherited Deviated Septum.”

  “And the snorting and sniffling,” Trent added.

  “And let's not forget the post nasal drip.”

  “Yes . . . wretched creatures. ” Trent paused for a second then said, “Maybe it’s because your proboscis is so . . . ”

  “Watch it.” Genghis warned.

  “Well it is pretty big!”

  Chapter Seven

  They proceeded down the long stretch of roadway. The computer continued beeping.

  In the distance on their left, two and a half miles away, was a major highway congested with cars. The road that they were traveling on was once the major roadway for the area traveled by many. But when the interstate came through, it created a death knell for this little roadway. Unused and forgotten for so many years, the roadway fell into disrepair. The asphalt became potholed, weather beaten, and cracked. Long blades of grass were able to protrude through the breaks like fingers, stretching outward toward the sky as if trying to touch the sun.

  Genghis was watching the dots of cars going back and forth on the interstate. Sunlight sparkled, reflecting off windshields. Curiosity got the best of him and he reached into the backseat. He retrieved a pair of IPF issued binoculars from the duffle bag by hooking his paw around the strap. Then, held it tightly between both paws and started to scan the vehicles. When set properly, the binoculars were capable of reading the individual numbers on the license plates.

  Genghis concentrated on the cars as they traversed the highway. He made an adjustment to the glasses which brought the vehicles closer into view. He could see the details of the interiors. He could see the occupants. He studied the exteriors of as many cars as he could. Lowering the glasses he started to inspect their own replicated human automobile. Glancing through the windshield, he looked at the front of the cruiser, then brought the binoculars back up to his eyes and studied the cars on the interstate once again. He lowered the glasses, and looked toward the back of the cruiser.

  With the top down he could clearly see the curvature of the trunk, the slight slope to the rear, and the small tail fins on top of the outer edge of each fender running the length of the back. He looked at the interstate again and said, “Why does our auto-mo-bile look so different from the others?”

  “Different? How do you mean.?”

  He lowered the glasses, “I mean, ours looks different. Our auto-mo-bile is longer. And we have these little fins running along the sides of our aft section. And on the top of the bow, we have these tiny round ornamental do-hickeys on each side.” He motioned with his nose, “See ‘em?” He again looked through the binoculars. “And we have a lot more shiny metal. I’m not seeing anything that comes even close to what we're operating.”

  “Well,” Trent surmised, “perhaps, the Replicator replicated the cruiser into the latest model of auto-mo-bile. We’ll be the envy of all the other humans.”

  While still looking through the binoculars, Genghis said, “Well, the whole idea is to blend in and not be noticed.” He lowered the glasses, then said, “No, no, we’re definitely different. Perhaps this auto-mo-bile has documentation too. Mainframe offline,” he said, which turned off the holographic computer console, giving him access to the glove compartment. He opened it and reached inside. “Yeah, here’s something.” He retrieved a slip of paper, then asked for the holographic console to come back on. He started to read.

  “What the hell!”

  “What, what did you find?” Trent asked.

  Genghis lowered the slip of paper and then with an exasperated tone asked, “What human year is this?”

  “Well, the computers were never really able to pinpoint it exactly. But it’s somewhere between 2015 and 2025, give or take.” Trent looked at the big dog sitting next to him, “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Because according to this document,” Genghis waved it in the air, “We’re operating an auto-mo-bile that was manufactured in the human year of nineteen hundred and fifty-nine.”

  “Oh! That’s not good.”

  “No, no it isn’t!

  “Nineteen hundred and fifty-nine?” Trent said unbelievably. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure! Specifically, something called a Ford Thunderbird! The Replicator replicated the cruiser into a fifty-year-old auto-mo-bile.”

  “No, possibly older!” Trent mused out loud. “This style of auto-mo-bile probably hasn’t been seen on the roads of this planet in more than thirty, forty years!”

  Genghis sat there with a furrowed brow then said, “Ah, Geez O’ Cow! We’re supposed to blend in.” If he could, he would have had his arms crossed. “We’re gonna stick out like a wart on a monkey's ass!” he said, like a petulant child.

  “We’ll have to make up some kind of scenario if we're asked,” Trent said, looking a little worried. “Something that will be plausible.”

  “Yeah like what?” Genghis said in a huff.

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to think of something!”

  “What? What would possibly make sense!” Genghis said. Then in a mocking tone, “Oh, we bought an old farm house in the country. Found this auto-mo-bile rusting away in the barn for the last thirty years and thought, ‘Hey what the hell!’ Let's restore it back to its original condition and drive it around.” He made steering wheel motions with his paws.

  Trent thought about that for a moment. Then turned to look at his partner. Genghis was coming to the same conclusion and glanced back to Trent.

  “Well,” Trent said. “That kind of sounds feasible.”

  “Yah think?”

  “I don’t see why not. I mean, people on our planet have restored old things like that before.”

  “Yeah, you got a point there. Maybe humans do the same thing. Okay, that might work then,” Genghis agreed. “Until we can think of something else.”

  Genghis’s nose twitched. He pointed his head straight up, above the windshield into the slipstream. “We’re about a mile from IPPT 964.”

  “What?” Trent said in disbelief.

  Just then, the computer made a five-second-long buzz, indicating that they were a mile from the transfer ship. Astonished, Trent looked over at Genghis. The dog looked back and with a smirk said, “Try that, biped.”

  “You really do have a good proboscis!”

  Chapter Eight

  They drove the mile needed to get to the transfer ship. The computer started to emit a steady buzz. Genghis reached up and turned it off, then audibly turned off his holographic computer console. Trent pulled over to the shoulder of the road. The cobblestone crunched under the weight of the replicated 1959 Ford Thunderbird. Trent put it in park then slowly reached up and turned off the engine.

  Twenty yards away, off to the right of the road, leaning against a tree, was Interstellar Police Prison Transfer vehicle 964. Trent reached into his coat and retrieved his PK30A from his shoulder holster. He slid back the mechanism, loading a round into the chamber. There was nothing said between them as they got out of the Thunderbird and started walking toward the transfer ship.

  Genghis instinctively put his nose to the ground and started sniffing. He looked up, then over toward 964. “It looks as if the transfer ship was replicated into a human auto-mo-bile as old as ours.”

  Trent was surveying the area. “See these faint black marks on the roadway. That means they applied the brakes too hard.” He started pointing. “And look at the disturbance in the earth here. They must have lost control, hit this small embankment, rolled a couple of times and ended upri
ght against that tree. They had no idea how to operate a human auto-mo-bile.”

  “We’re lucky the replicated generation field around the vehicle held,” Genghis added.

  If the generation field had not held during the crash, Jeff Trent and Genghis Khan would be looking at the actual sixty-five-foot transfer vehicle. But, instead they were looking at a twelve-foot-long replicated 1948 Divco milk delivery truck with its two-toned yellow and white paint scheme and its distinctive short, rounded front end with two headlights flanking a narrow, once chrome grill.

  IPPT 964 had been resting against that tree for more than eight months. Being exposed to the elements that long, the paint was fading. The lettering and logo showing a smiling cow's head framed by a daisy was almost completely gone.

  After landing at around 220 miles per hour, the escapees did lose control of the replicated automobile, hit the embankment and rolled six times before stopping against the tree.

  Trent, leading with his PK30A, cautiously walked to the bi-fold driver's door. It was rusted and opened slightly, making a squeaking sound every time the wind blew. He held his gun up, trained on the door, and opened it all the way with a loud screech. It had one seat, the driver's with upholstery that was torn and faded. The steering column and stick styled gear shifter were rusted. The black paint around the steering wheel was peeling off in spots. The right corner of the dashboard was covered with what looked like old nesting material from a long departed rodent or bird. Trent moved to the rear of the vehicle where Genghis sat waiting and pointed the gun at the closed double doors. Using his hind leg Genghis reached up and touched the Immobilizer to make sure it was still attached to his collar. He felt naked without a real gun.

  “Now the fun starts,” Genghis said, as he reached up with both front paws and threw the back door open. It hit the tree with a loud bang. A blast of hot, sour air hit them, assaulting their nostrils.

  Jeff swept his gun back and forth as he looked into the interior then stated, “Clear.”