“A what?”
“A gun, and look at the end of the tube. That isn’t any sort of weapon currently available to any inventory in the world.”
As they looked on, the camera view zoomed in at four times power. Everyone saw what Hugh was talking about. At the hollowed-out tip of the cylindrical object, just in front of what Evans had called the front sight, was a small crystal.
As everyone started absorbing the possibility of what they had found strapped to the back of the skeleton, loud warning alarms started sounding in Pasadena.
“What is it, Stan?” Evans asked. The screen on the main viewer changed to the outer rim of the crater. There, George had a shot that froze the hearts of everyone in both Pasadena and Houston. The rover Ringo had made its second major discovery of the day. At the far right center of Shackleton Crater was another red and blue space suit. As the camera adjusted its picture and zoomed in closer, the scene changed dramatically. As Ringo started backing away from the scene as it had been ordered to do, they saw the three skeletons that were ringed around the second space suit. They were more than three quarters buried in the lunar dust, and not one of them looked to be in environmental suits. They seemed to be partially dressed in burned and shredded lab coats of some kind.
“Jesus, what in the hell have we dug up here?” Stan Nathan asked from Pasadena.
“What we have here is a damn battlefield,” Hugh answered.
“A what?”
The most experienced flight director in the United States stared at the most unsettling image he had ever seen from space.
Then he hit his transmit button.
“It’s a killing field.”
“What is the body count thus far?” Virginia Pollock asked from her seat next to Niles.
The entire divisionary infrastructure of the Event Group was seated around the large conference table next to Niles Compton’s office on Level 7. They had been silent as Pete Golding played them the video of the last series of images he had just stolen with the use of the supercomputer Europa-or “hijacked” as he put it-on the large thirty- foot monitor on the wall.
Virginia Pollock had voiced what was on all their minds.
“Yes. The body count.” Compton turned toward the lieutenant commander on detached service from the Navy. The Japanese American signals officer was tasked with infiltrating NASA and JPL communications. “Commander Yahamana, what have you found out?”
“In a secure message sent to the program’s head, that being the vice president, we have learned they have uncovered parts of sixty-two bodies inside Shackleton Crater. Some were whole, some less intact. Most were without space suits. That is where we stand at the moment since JPL has ordered all four Beatles to stand down for solar recharge.”
“I’ll add this,” Niles said. “There seem to be support structures from a destroyed composite environmental unit, or shelter. They don’t know at the present time how many or how large these shelters were.”
“I take it we are now leaning toward this site not being of Earth origin?” Colonel Jack Collins asked from his seat at the opposite end of the table.
Next to him Captain Carl Everett, the second man in charge of the Security Department, was at a loss for words, as were most in the room at hearing about what was happening on the Moon. He leaned over and whispered to Jack. “Okay, I spent the last eight hours off base-what in the hell did I miss?”
“Oh, you’re going to love this one,” Jack said. He turned his attention back to Niles.
“No,” Compton answered with a slight shake of his head, “not unless someone made a leap in technology that would outpace the rest of the world by at least two to three hundred years.”
“Have they uncovered any more weapons?” Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III, the head of the Cryptozoology Department, asked from the center of the table.
“They think three,” answered Yahamana. “One of them considerably larger than the weapon strapped to the back of the first skeleton.”
“Do we have any idea the makeup of any of the weapons?” Virginia asked Niles.
“Jack, what does our resident military man have to say?”
“If I had to speculate, which is bad business in our world, I would say it was some sort of light weapon.”
“Light? You mean in weight?” Ellenshaw asked.
“No, I mean it’s a particle beam weapon. The crystal installed on the end of the first weapon is the tipoff here. Aberdeen Proving Grounds used a crystal that intensifies a particle or light beam upon discharge through the emitter.”
Charlie Ellenshaw looked around the table and passed his hand over his head. “Okay, you lost me,” he said, as a few chuckles and agreeing nods came from around the table.
“A ray gun, Charlie,” Jack simplified.
“Oh.”
“Which brings me to the next point,” Compton said, standing and pacing in front of the large table. “How many nations have the capability to decode NASA and JPL transmissions?”
Jack turned to Yahamana and then to Captain Carl Everett. “These two would be far more capable at an educated guess than anyone else.”
“Anyone with a ham radio could receive the data, but to decode?” Yahamana said, looking at Everett for his concurrence. “I would say maybe five or six nations can decode NASA’s and Jet Propulsion Lab’s communication codes.”
“The imagery from the Moon would be far easier. It would be like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle,” Everett said, still not understanding the full extent of what was happening on the Moon.
“What are you thinking, Niles?” Virginia asked, knowing her boss was ten steps ahead of everyone else in the room.
“What I’m thinking is, if nations, particularly the space-capable nations, find out we are digging up advanced weaponry on the Moon, how soon before they’re crying bloody murder about us withholding valuable information from them? This could open up a can of worms we really don’t need right now.”
“What do you propose to do about it?” Virginia asked, seeing Niles’s point.
“We have some work to do historically. And we have things we need to find out about what exactly happened up there on the Moon. I will have orders and instructions very soon for each department. Jack, you and Captain Everett may be able to get a jump on the rest of us and take a trip to Ecuador. Snoop around a little. Take whatever men, tools, identification you deem necessary and see if you can get a lead on Columbus.”
Jack nodded his head as the meeting broke up. As he gathered his papers he looked at Carl, who was staring at him.
“We’re chasing Columbus now? I think he’s dead, at least that’s what my fourth grade teacher informed me.”
Jack smiled as he looked at Everett and then started picking up his notes and briefing materials.
“Far deader and for far longer than you may have been led to believe, Captain,” he said.
This time the smile was missing when he looked back up at Everett.
Jack had made the arrangements for himself, Everett, Will Mendenhall, and Jason Ryan, to fly south to Ecuador. The two lieutenants, Ryan and Mendenhall, were thrilled to be getting out of the training schedule they had been facing with all of the new recruits in the Security Department. In their absence the training would be conducted by the Army and Marine noncoms under them. Ryan would be doing the piloting of the Air Force Learjet C-21A.
