Tidal Locking

I'll be gone in ten."

"Copy that. Houston out."

Army prepared the camera and wiped his eyes. His pulse was going haywire and that crazy sensation was beginning again. Oh shit, he thought. I'm hallucinating too! This is no time for that!

As he neared the site he had marked the last time, he could see a small blinking circle slowly crawling out from the pyramid. The building itself was almost translucent, but its outline was unmistakable. The lights went round and round whatever was being moved out, so Army instinctively looked for a sign of a person nearby. When the saucer shaped lights cleared the bay doors, he saw him. "Holy Mother…," Army said.

He fumbled with the camera and managed to get only ten shots before the image disappeared behind him. He watched the horizon overtake the apex and now he was certain that whatever hallucinations he might be having, they were not the visual kind. Darkness covered his tiny ship and Army held his hand out to watch it shake as he knew it was. The impossible was happening.

"Houston are you there? Houston…" He knew it was too soon.

Talking out loud to himself seemed to be the best idea. He couldn't rationalize his experience any other way. "Am I sleeping? No. Am I losing it? No way. Then what logical explanation could there be? There is a pyramid down there with a flying saucer being towed out. A man is standing in the doorway. That's what I bloody saw!"

He waited in uncontrollable anxiety and growing disbelief as his Command Module cleared the dark side and came into range again. "Wayfarer, do you copy?"

"I copy! I copy! General Stout, are you there?"

"Go ahead," Stout said. "I'm right here."

"General, I saw a pyramid structure and a saucer shaped ship! I saw a man too! Or at least I thought I did."

"OK Army, now calm down. Son, we would like you to find the medical kit and administer 200 milligrams of sedative to yourself. We've got to get your pulse rate down or you're gonna explode. Now do this right now, and then we'll talk."

Army was enraged at what was being insinuated, but he complied anyway. "Right. On the way Sir. I can't believe this. All that UFO shit is real. I saw a saucer! This is their base! They probably have a whole fleet in there – a squadron of flying friggan saucers! What should we do General? What should I do?"

"Now son, I want you to be real careful now. I want you to photograph everything you can, and keep the talk to a minimum. No one down hear doubts your story, but there are those who are gonna insist on evidence. So you get a grab on your Navy ass right now and get ready to document this. I'm going to Washington as soon as you go blackout again, and Dr. Canaday here, he will be your contact. No sense in talking about this to anyone other than him. You got all this?"

"Copy General. Just me and the Doc. Copy that. I can't friggan believe this!"

Army sputtered and talked throughout the live feed from his orbit. Then he went blackout and the chills returned. Someone was there. He spun around looking over his shoulder constantly. He scanned the surface, but this time, neither the pyramid, nor the lights, nor the man showed. Only the sensation that he was not alone remained. Now he was panicking for a different reason.

The dawn of earth appeared. "Wayfarer, are you there yet?"

Army hesitated.