This was originally written for a writing class I took over the Summer in 2021. Some of these stories had prompts, which are noted after the story along with other comments.
“...so you’re saying no country has legal claim of anything in space?” Abe asked.
“Yeah, that’s right. Space Treaty I think.” said Huey. He had just read about it the other day.
“What’s stopping us from taking over the Moon, then?”
“Well for starters we don’t have a space ship.”
“I think I know someone who does.” Abe replied with mischievous grin growing on his gray face.
“I don’t like it when you make that face.”
The two were seated in the cafeteria of Area 51. It was well-past dinner time and the place was empty outside of the duo. Huey was the resident chef and was wearing his usual chef’s uniform, a white button down, black slacks, and a dirty apron. He had worked his way through government cafeterias across the country, each one in a more secretive place than the last. His cooking became the stuff of legend among intelligence agents. Huey was able to whip up some pretty tasty stuff all on a government cafeteria budget.
Huey wasn’t sure if aliens were real or not, but wasn’t really phased by seeing them in person. Years of watching sci-fi movies with his brother had desensitized him to the very idea. He made quick friends with Abe, one of the Grays on the site. Abe sat across from Huey in a garish Hawaiian button-down, cargo shorts, and socks with sandals. Abe spent a lot of his time wandering the tidy halls watching dried paint dry even further. Needless to say, he was bored. In his boredom he often found himself concocting outlandish pranks or other stunts that would usually get him in trouble with the agents.
Huey found Abe’s antics amusing, and tried to help him from time to time, all while trying to be discrete about it. Of course, it’s hard for an amateur to be discrete among some of the best intelligence agents in the world. Luckily for him, they usually let Huey slide so long as he kept making good food.
In their last escapade, Abe and Huey took a flying saucer out for a joyride. Abe promptly had his hangar access revoked. Huey had no idea what Abe wanted to do with the moon, but he did notice him watching a lot of TV lately. The site installed cable in the alien dormitories after the complaint department finally got tired of swimming laps in their mountain of complaint forms.
The site was initially trying to give the aliens a “proper education,” limiting them to books and the ancient computers in the library that were still on dialup. The dialup didn’t even work. Someone let a dozen Betelgeusean Cable Chewers loose in the library 50 years ago and nobody bothered to fix anything. That lack of fixing was mostly because Betelgeusean Cable Chewers are aggressive territorial creatures that can spit highly-corrosive acid at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. They also live for 200 years on average, have nigh-bulletproof skin, and are immune to every known poison on this side of the galaxy. So really the aliens only had some books and a Betelgeusean Cable Chewer sanctuary. The TVs were a welcome change.
Huey closed up the cafeteria for the day and followed Abe down the hall to who knows where. All the while Abe kept humming various commercial jingles.
“You sure like those ad jingles, huh?” Huey asked to hopefully stop the accursed humming.
“Oh yeah, they’re nothing like the ads we’ve got back home. You Earthlings really know how to sell stuff.”
“You see anything interesting?”
“That game thingy looks really cool but it’s way out of the allowance this stinkin’ place gives me,” Abe said, punching a tacky framed poster from the 70s. “Plus I don’t even have a phone to make an order.” The poster swung back and forth a little, ending up slightly tilted. A robotic arm quickly burst out of the wall to re-align it.
“I hate those things. They give me the creeps.”
Huey eventually found himself in the alien dormitories. The walls were lined with doors marked with strange glyphs. Those glyphs were English letters and words. To fresh-off-the-space-ship aliens they’re pretty strange, but you get used to them. Abe stopped in front of a door and knocked.
“Carl, open up! It’s Abe!”
An annoyed groaning sound bellowed from the door.
“Ugh, just as I was bouta get some shut-eye.”
The door swung open, revealing a tired-looking Sasquatch in polka-dotted pajamas. Yes, Sasquatches are from space. They were some of the first aliens to land on Earth and spook people for shits and giggles. But the biggest joke was on them after they brought chicken pox back to their planet. Take that, stupid aliens. That’ll teach you for scaring me at camp and stealing my DS.
“Eyyy, Abe, what’s going on man? And Huey, nice job on that lasagna!”
“Not much, not much,” Abe replied, “You know about the Space Treaty?”
“The what now?”
Abe and Huey explained the space treaty and something about taking over the Moon.
“Hohoho, so whadaya thinkin’ of doin’ with the Moon, little man?”
Abe whispered something to Carl in a language Huey barely understood. It was Spanish. From what little he remembered from high school, Huey heard something about a projector and money. The two shared a laugh.
“You got it, buddy. Meet me by the hangar entrance tomorrow at two. I gotta get back to that sleepin’ thing I was tryin’ to do.”
Carl promptly closed the door and presumably went to sleep. Abe and Huey headed back out of the dormitories.
“So what was that about a projector?” Huey inquired.
“Oh, we need to put something on the Moon. It’s gonna be good.”
“Uh huh…”
The two continued down the halls talking about some other things before they reached Abe’s room.
“Alright, you heard the ‘Squatch. Hangar door at two. See ya tomorrow, Huey!”
“Wait, I don’t even know what we’re do-” Huey was cut off by Abe shutting the door excitedly.
The next day was like any normal Tuesday at Area 51. Huey made food and talked to some agents and aliens during down time. All the while his brain was a mix of dread and excitement. Before he knew it, it was nearing two. Lunch was well over now, so Huey started making his way to the hangar entrance.
By the door stood Carl and Abe. Both were wearing their space suits. On the floor were a couple of large cardboard boxes with some wires peaking out of one of them.
“Seriously, what are we about to do? I’ve been in the dark about this the whole time.”
“Put yer space suit on first,” Carl said, throwing him one.
“Okay…”
After a brief visit to the changing rooms, Huey returned to find Carl opening the door to the hangar using his key card. Carl hadn’t been on the aforementioned joyride so he hadn’t gotten his privileges revoked. Huey assumed whatever this ended up being would.
“They got your uniformed bugged, y’know.” Abe said as they piled into the same flying saucer they took the joyride in.
“Don’t they have everything here bugged?” Huey retorted.
“Not this puppy,” Carl replied, patting the dashboard.
“So are you gonna tell me what we’re doing now?”
“At this point I wanna keep it a surprise,” Abe said with that same mischievous grin.
“Fine.”
Carl and Abe hit some buttons and flicked some switches. The dashboard lit up with colors. Some of which humans can’t even perceive. Before long they taxied their way to the runway and got clearance to take off. Of course, they needed to turn on the saucer’s cloaking before they got out of Area 51’s airspace. Soon enough they were up in the vacuum of space, steadily approaching the Moon.
The saucer touched down on the lunar surface, kicking up a little dust. The saucer still had to be kept invisible in case there were any nosy telescopes back on Earth.
“Alright, grab the boxes.”
“What’s in these things?”
“Nothin’ much. Some solar panels, a computer, a whole buncha wires, and a big ‘ol projector.”
Setting everything up was pretty easy. The projector was plugged into a computer, and the computer into the solar panel. The once-monochrome surface of the Moon lit up with vibrant colors.
“So… what’s this?”
“We gotta be a little further down to see it.”
The trio went back into the saucer and took off. As they got further from the Moon, Huey realized just what they had done. In massive, colorful letters, the Moon had “YOUR AD HERE” plastered on it followed by a familiar phone number.
“Hey wait a minute, that’s my number!” Huey exclaimed.
This was the final story I wrote for the course, which didn't have a prompt. It was fun writing it. The tangent about the cable chewers was pretty obviously inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.