One Giant leap for all Mankind

July 20th 1969, Apollo 11 is making its final approach.

“I’ll see ya later Michael, keep my seat warm would you,” Buzz smiled affixing his helmet to the spacesuit. The suit hissed as the seal pressurised, the sound brought moment home to him, he was about to do it, years in the making, expanding the bounds of humanity.
“Heck kid, you won’t need this seat on the way back, you’ll have plenty of room in history books, cheers, fan fair and all that jazz,” Collins said priming a set of switches. He was putting on a brave face and everyone knew it. He didn’t look down as Buzz joined Neil in the pod, the contempt in his expression too hard to hide.

Buzz twisted the hatch shut, knocked twice and slid into his seat beside Neil.
“Ready to play amongst the stars,” Buzz said, his head bobbed in the helmet like a giddy kid. Neil gave a disapproving look then turned back to the controls.
“ready for departure in 3,2,1,” he said systematically working his way across the control board. “Come on Neil, three days and you’ve been nothing but humbug,” Buzz said flipping the switches on his side of the cockpit.
“I’ve done nothing but do my job, we don’t get a second shot at this. I’m not dicking about, not this close,” Neil said tutting to himself. The pod shook with the sudden jolt of acceleration. They leaned forwards together to see the silvery dusted ground rising to meet them out a set of triangular windows.

“You're not even a little emotional?” Buzz asked seeing tiny pores growing into craters, his eyes wide with amazement.
“The completely opposite, but i’m not doing this for me, i don’t need to reveal in my own self satisfaction,” Neil snapped. He flicked the radio dial then spoke “Huston, All instruments good, we are on final approach copy over” static lingered for several seconds.
“We copy, god bless Apollo, safe landing, over.” Huston replied. Neil switched off the radio and turned to Buzz.
“There, go nuts, we’re landing on the moon in a minute,” he said, his expression was like the tone of his voice, bludgeoningly professional.
“Is this the story you’re telling your grand-kids? You came, you saw, you grumbled,” Buzz said crossing his arms in the cumbersome suit.

“The golden boy said before the decade’s out we’d be here, here we are. We beat Russ. This isn’t my story cupcake, this is the USA’s story,” Neil said looking back to his dials. Buzz laughed and clapped his hands.
“cupcake? pretending to be your drill sergeant? Or has the radiation finally infused you with a sense of humour” Buzz reach down and flipped the burners to slow their descent. The lunar surface specs had blossomed endless expanse of grey pits and raveens. They fell like a feather moving at a crawl for the last few meters.
“You got the flag?” Neil said. Buzz looked around.
“left it on with Colin” he said smirking. Neil flushed red, his fists tied into knots
“what?” he asked in a cold sterile voice.

“Kidding,” Buzz said producing the flag from beside his seat and handing it to Neil. Neil snatched the flag and shook his head as the craft shook, they had reached the surface.
“I think we’re on the moon,” Buzz said.
“Show time,” Neil said. Making his final checks, he pulled down on a lever and the lander opened unveiling the alien wasteland. Only a thin pane of glass in their helmets between them and the void. Neil stepped out and fell slowly to the ground. His feet pressed into the dust and he pushed off leaving his first American boot print on the moon. He looked up to see earth shining blue in the night's sky. A watery mass encompassed by an endless sea of stars. His heart sank to new depth knowing just how small he really was.
“Unload the rover while i make the broadcast” Neil said, dragging his thoughts back to the present. Buzzed nodded and began the sequence to unload the rover. The casing was fiddly and despite having being trained by the best, the performance felt far less fluid. He fumbled and yanked but found the forces he usually relied on conspicuously absent. Moreover he kept looking up, as if watched by the eyes of the world, all three and a half billion pairs.

By the time he’d unpacked the rover and got it ready Neil had finished his broadcast.
“One small step eh?” Buzz asked. Powering on the vehicle, it was little more than an electric buggy stripped down to relieve itself of all unnecessary weight, a lightweight space machine just like Neil. He climbed in beside Buzz and pointed out a crater ahead.
“Collins came in after the broadcast, said he saw something odd ahead, we’re going to go check it out” Neil said. Buzz nodded and pressed the pedal. The vehicle crawled forwards not much faster than a normal walking pace but up here it felt like a sprint. Tire print tracks followed in their wake.

They dismounted twenty minutes later at the edge of the crater, the pod still visible in the distance. Buzz took two long strides gliding through the void. his eye caught a golden gleam in amongst the grey dust. He blinked hard once and then several more times for good measure “what the…” he said bending down reaching for the object. “Over here,” Neil said over the radio. Buzz turned to see two mounds at Neil’s feet. Neil knelt down and dusted one off. A black spacesuit, sleeker than theirs , its face down in the dust. Neil flipped the suit over. The reflective vision was down, Neil turned off the radio reached down pensively to lift it up. Buzz watched the silent motion as Neil shot back. pushing away from the spacesuit with all the haste his own suit would allow. His arms waving through the air like he was trying to swat a fly as he fell onto his back.

Buzz gasped, at once he began moving over to Neil. His eyes caught on the golden object as the suits side. He stopped glaring at it, curiosity tantalised, heart racing in his chest. He bent down to pick it up, dusting it off as he lifted it up. His hands shook with a faint tremor, a golden eagle. It sat atop of dusty pole, as he pulled it up some of the dust fell away revealing a red flag. “Oh god above no,” Buzz said as he dusted off the centre of the flag. A swastika sat screaming out emblazon in the middle. Buzz dropped the flag and turned to move over to Neil. He ran over perhaps quicker than he ought to, sweat beads touching his brow. He helped Neil to his feet the man had gone pale as their space suits. Neil’s Microphone clicked back on.

“That's fucking Nazi flag, what the hell is going on here, did brass tell you about this.” Buzz sped through the words frantic and short of breath. He could feel a cold sweat dripping down the nape of his neck and he shivered in the cold of space.

“I’m as surprised as you,” Neil said steadying his own breathing.
“We need to tell Housten,” Buzz said. Neil shook his head.
“Broadcaster is back on the lander, we’ve only got enough charge in the rover for thirty minutes more driving,” he said resting a fist against his visor.
“You're suggesting we stay?” Buzz said looking around at the expanse with alarm in his voice. “This is a historic revelation, we’re going to learn all we can with the means at our disposal this mission cost twenty five billion and you want to cash out on the count of a little fright, grow a spine man,” Neil said walking back over to the suites. He inspected the face inside the visor. Frozen streaks of blood jutted from his eyeballs, his expression was a eternal scream.
“We’re not alone up here Neil,” Buzz said anxiously.
“Don’t get paranoid Buzz” Neil replied. Buzz shook his head hopping from one foot to the other, wriggling inside his suit.
“There’s no wind up here right,” Buzz said. Neil thought about it for a second.
“That's what the instruments said,” Neil answered, probing the suit for tears.
“Then why is any of this covered in dust?” Buzz asked with a dreadful weight in his voice.

Neil froze. His eyes following a trait of foot prints that lead away from the bodies and towards the lip of the crater.
“You ready to turn back yet,” Buzz said. His right cheek nervously twitching. Neil ignored the question, he crept along the trail with deliberate low gravity strides. As he drew close he saw a arm jutting out the side of the lip, covered in dust and easily mistakable for a natural formation. He grabbed the hand and pulled. A body sprang from the dust in a space suit of its own. The helmet looked like a Bicorn hat crossed with a rudimentary gas mask. On is crest it bore an emblem of bee’s atop the french flag.

Buzz came up behind.
“that looks borderline Napoleonic,” Buzz said pointing at the flag.
“How so,” Neil asked.
“It was part of napoleon’s family crest, worked it into a lot of his iconography as emperor,” Buzz replied.
“You don’t mean to suggest...?” Neil left the absurd idea behind in his tracks. As he moved deeper into the crater.
“Look we can bring it back, maybe get a photo at the ship,” Buzz said but Neil was already pulling out another body, this one was covered in a thicker layer of dust but Neil now knew what he was search for. The helmet of this suite had a helmet that looked like a large onion that sat atop the thin glass visor, the glass rough and not quite smooth or as transparent as their own. On it was engraved the a star rising over a crescent moon.
“That an Islamic symbol” Buzz said catching up. “almost looks like a Janissary” he poked the layered mesh the made up the suit.

“This is just bizarre,” Neil whispered creeping yet further forwards. A metal plate was sticking out the ground its surface again covered up. He wiped it down tensing for what secret it might hold.
“A two headed eagle” Neil said to himself. He looked behind the sheet to find an even more primitive looking space suit with Greek letters scrawled along one side.
“Is he meant to be an ancient Greek?” Neil asked. Buzz looked him over then looked at the crest. He sat for a moment thoughtfully.
“Byzantine probably, that is the mark of their flag, plus they were meant to have moved away from Latin to Greek,” Buzz said, his anxiety had given way to infantile curiosity. he poked and prodded. Felt and flicked at every available surface. “This is amazing, how did any of this happen. I knew they had Greek fire but this is ridiculous,” Buzz said twisting dials clearly made of iron fixtures.
“It’s fake, it had to be,” Neil stammered.
“We should leave, none of this is right,” Neil said turning to walk back up the crater.
“ if this is real the last people here were at least thirty years ago, we’re in no danger,” Buzz said Standing up, hands on hips.
“It's messing with my sense of what is and isn’t. It's too odd to be believed yet here it is,” Neil said looking around teeth gritted.
“We’re explorers, so let's explore,” Buzz said.
“I’m a pilot,” Neil corrected but Buzz was having none of it, he walked on deeper into the shadow of the crater. When he bumped into a standard laying on the ground. The letters SPQR surrounded by leaves carved into its surface.

“No way,” Buzz said elated as he waved it above his head chanting“Hail Caesar,” over and over. “When did you become an historian?” Neil asked skeptically. Buzz set the standard down and frowned.
“they’re called hobbies Mr. Pilot,” he said as his eyes noticed another trail of footsteps, these were actual naked footprints, he pointed at them and Neil looked down and sighed.
“Now that's clearly fake,” Neil said dismissively.
“Those weren’t here a second ago,” Buzz said, the excitement fizzling out in his voice.

Neil turned to see something floating out the shadows, a stone tablet with rows of pictorial characters etched in the surface drifted out. He grabbed the tablet hands shaking inside the suite and turned to Buzz.
“Aramaic,” Buzz mouthed. The two moved in back to back, rotating in the shade of the crater seeing movement in the dark. Buzz caught sight an imprint on the ground, it looked like it had been an animal head on a human body.
“Egyptian mythology?” he thought briefly as terror shook his nerves. He heard Neil squeal. His radio but out. Buzz swung round but the suit was slow and Neil was gone. He scrambled for the crater's edge moving as quickly as he could over the bodies, there were so many bodies, dead bodies. The realisation hit him at once.
“a graveyard,” he said aloud. He leapt out the crater into the light, towards the rover.

A figure sat in each seat. Pronounced brows, strong jaws, big noses. Bodies exposed to the open vacuum of space but unlike all other he’d seen. They were moving. He looked either side to see more of them crawling out the craters, bodies draped in furs. Clubs in their hands. He froze in place and fell to his knees as they surround him and beating his suit with their clubs, his metal visor dropped down. shielding him from the sigh, it rattled with every impact, his bones snapped from the force of the blows, he screamed out in pain, his ears rang and he realised he’d gone into shock. one pulled back the visor, it grinned apishly with stained teeth and a club swung smashing the glass.

The vacuum pulled the air from his lungs, it burned his senses with an array of pain that cut through the shock, it was mere seconds before he lost consciousness. One giant leap for mankind...