"Now, please, take my word for it when I say Officer Martin is good at what he does. And, please, believe when I say that he had been having a long, brutal, boring Thursday afternoon. It was a hard day for everyone. If he had his head on straight that day then, please, believe he would have not had those outbursts.
"All the talk of 'aliens' and 'monsters' was obvious connected to the fact that he had worked for forty-eight straight hours, no breaks. He has never, and will never, make anymore-outlandish statements. Yes, there have been some strange occurrences, but, obviously, the two delinquents he caught had nothing to do with it. At most, they were twelve. One said he was ten!
"The occurrences probably connects to some political stunt. We've seen the state of our government and, at the moment, it isn't pretty. So, please, believe me when I say Officer Martin just had a bad day and this will never, ever happen again."
Officer Jovian took a breath and leaned back in his chair. In front of him sat Chief Terra and to his left sat chief Martin. Terra looked at him quizzically. He kept opening his mouth as if he was going to speak, but then he would stop himself. He regained his composure and asked, "Are either of you aware of how much danger you have put this station and yourselves in?"
Officer Martin was not looking at either of them, instead he stared wistfully out the window. He had a bitter expression on his face that annoyed Officer Jovian.
"Well?"
Officer Martin put his hands up to his mouth as if his hands desperately needed to grasp his words. His fingers move as he spoke like they were trying to throw the words at the two officers.
"I told you what I saw. It was not a lie. If you chose not to believe and take the side of two vandals, so be it."
The chief stared at him, dumbstruck.
"You honestly expect me to believe that two boys transformed into aliens and destroyed the town?"
Officer Martin put up his hands in a shrug to portray his surrender.
"I can't argue my case if you don't want to believe it."
Officer Jovian looked at Officer Martin. Despite himself, he shouted, "You're not going to get your job back like this!"
Before he could respond, Chief Terra interrupted and said, "It doesn't really matter at this point, because you're not fighting for your jobs. You're fighting for your arrest."
"What?" They said in unison. Where Jovian was surprised, Martin looked annoyed.
"Sir, strange occurrences happen all the time, but never are the officers arrested," Martin stated.
"Yes, but in those cases, all the evidence isn't pointed at the officers with the only alibis being two boys and an outrageous story about aliens."
"I had nothing to do with this," Jovian said, losing all his decorum. "This is Officer Martin's mess."
"Yes, but you were with him."
"I picked him up from rubble of some-some-some," he was at a loss for words, "some kind of explosion."
"Listen," Chief Terra said. "If you two can find me a new story with viable evidence, by say Tuesday, then I'll drop the warrant for your arrest and we can forget about this whole thing."
"Thank you," Jovian said.
"No," Martin said.
Jovian gave him the death glare.
"We should be spending our time searching for these boys instead of making up some nonsense."
"Officer Martin," Chief Terra said, staring into his eyes. "No one's going to hear your story. If you keep it up, then I might be forced to send you to a mental hospital… for your own good," he added as an afterthought.
Officer Martin put on a fake smile.
"Officer Jovian and I will be happy to find more evidence. If you excuse us, we will go start."
He left the room and whispered the f-word quiet enough more only himself to hear it.
