Sporadic, inconsistent, and scrambled. The readings on Hector’s tactical suit jumped and dove. His datapad, along with its communicator, was worthless. All signs of a cloaking device nearby. His guess had been right. But what was the XLS hiding and how had they managed to get a cloaking device into the 1970s?
Hector coughed, swaying. He held his head as though the moonscape around him was spinning. Lack of sleep and weariness taking its toll. He waited another second and stood.
The tactical suit adjusted to the moon’s gravity.
Hector tapped the Heads-Up Display panel. The readouts meant nothing. He had no connection to command. No critical information about his location or the status of his tactical suit. Oxygen level. Damage report. Health status. None of it worked.
He had transferred into a small crater. Anything above the crater’s rim was out of sight. Scrambling up the slight embankment, he climbed to the rim.
Barren, gray moonscape. Except…Apollo 14’s lunar module, Antares, docked in the ashen dust. But something was wrong. A gaping hole on the side of the lunar module. Debris all around it. A tattered USA flag.
Hector loosed his sidearm. It got worse. Two bodies sprawled out on the ground. He examined the first. A bullet hole had punched through the copper-colored visor. Red stripes on the helmet, arms, and legs of the suit. A golf club rested inches away. With the exception of the red stripes, the second body looked similar to the first.
Hector fought the urge to puke. He’d missed the attack. Something had gone wrong in the transfer process. He was too late.
Astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell had been murdered.
