Chapter 5

I remember as a kid , sitting out in the back yard with my father, gazing up at the stars and watching the moon. Comic books would have stories about rockets to the moon and beyond, but until now that was all fiction. Now, here I was,in the observatory on the moon with General Gray, watching the Earth rise and sipping some sassafras tea that Caption codger brought from earth. WE had been discussing the events of the past 48 hours when it hit me

Caption Camper: I been thinking general

General Gray: About pie?

Caption Camper: Well yea, that too, but don't you think its odd that the Ants want to get rid of all that chocolate? Ants usually like sweets, and val was acting a little weird with all that chocolate on her face, and sugermags was on her knees begging to drive the XT,there was some chocolate on her face too.

General Gray: I see what you mean, I'll have a sample sent to the lab first thing in the morning

Caption Camper: It might be a good idea to check out the area where the Ants come from too, its only about 5 light years from here in quadrant 933

General Gray: good idea, you can take PI-E with you

Caption Camper: Blueberry or Peach,,, oh,, you mean the droyed, ok we can start charting the course in the morning.

With our goodnights said we parted and headed for our rooms. In the hallway, I passed a small group of women jabbering about something, big smiles and chocolate on there face. Once back at my room, I notified security and suggested that no one that had been eating the ant chocolate be allowed to leave the base for any reason until further notice

Early the next morning, we had PI-E and a couple other of the crew start plotting a course to quadrant 933. General Gray and myself dropped a sample of chocolate off at the lab then sashayed on down to operations. Im sure you remember that little stone camera that was carried into the ant hill? Well, it was still operational and we wanted to do a little spying. At this time, the Ants were not as active so we could move the camera with out being detected easley. We explored several hallways with out much success until we found an elevator shaft that was open. It must of been a good half mile to the bottom of the shaft, and what we found there was appalling! SLAVES, humanoid SLAVES, some looked human and others did not, all were female, with big smiles and,,, you guessed it,, chocolate all over there faces.

Immediately, we notified security to lock down all chocolate pending a full investigation and to round up all the women who had been eating it. Val, who had been eating the most, was taken to sick bay for blood work and behavorial analysis. It appeared that anyone that was eating the Ant chocolate would willing do anything that was suggested to them,OH MY!

A lab report from an earlier sample was handed to the General, and here is what it said

Ant Chocolate, consists of a high grade concentrated form of sugar with a molecular structure similar to that of cocaine.

That's all we had to see. We had security place all the women who had been eating it under observation for we had yet to experience any after affect

Back at the XT1, preparations were underway to launch and would do so as soon as I arrived. Science officer Rico, who was sent back to earth with a case of horse fever, and medical tech sugermags, who was under observation, were replaced with the Droyed PI-E

Caption Camper:    Places everyone,        Take her out Dan

Dan:     Aye Caption

You could hear the engines whine as it slowly lifted off the pad then disappeared into the depths of space. This would be a two day trip due to the distance of travel, giving us plenty of time to install and test the new shielding system that had been brought aboard at the last minute. Again we were making history. This was the first time mankind had ventured beyond his own solar system. We stood in amassment watching the stars flash by like so much fire works, but enough of this, we were on a mission and there was work to do. It only took Bigguy and trapper three hours to install, Im still amazed by the speed at which those two work. In order to test it, we slowed near an asteroid belt. You could almost feel the static in the air as it was turned on. As we approached an asteroid about twice the size of the ship, it was like dropping a bowling ball on an old puff ball, nothing but dust.

We were approaching our destination from behind a moon on the edge of the system so we could scan the area for trouble. As we did our scan sweeps, four alien ships approached from our rear.

Caption Camper:   Shields up, open a hailing channel eddy,    This is XT 1 from Earth, we are on an exploring mission and mean you no harm.

Alien ship:       Surrender or be destroyed!

Caption Camper: Yea Yea, and your mother eats chocolate too.

( Brief silence )

Alien ship: How do you know of this food substance and my mothers partaking of it?

Caption Camper: We encountered ant men on our moon where they were using humanoids as slaves to do there mining

( another silence )

Alien ship: Please to stand down and follow us, no harm will come to you

With that, the alien ships headed toward the dark side of the moon with us following,. As we approached, a huge crater opened up reveling what looked like a hollow moon and we followed the alien ships inside

Eddy:     Caption, I was getting an urgent message from earth concerning the women, but lost it when we entered the moon.

                         Chapter 6