When morning arrived, no one spoke of the events from the day before. They simply continued on with their duties once Nicholas told them to, and only spoke about who would be chosen to go out on the dark asteroid once they had arrived.
When Danny woke up and came out of his cabin, the members of his crew simply smiled at him or greeted him with a cheerful good morning, Captain.
Nicholas flew the shuttle again that day, while Danny sat in the seat beside him. Neither of them spoke to each other, and they hardly even looked at each other.
Nicholas did not mind entirely that day; he knew they both had things going through their minds, and he knew that Danny had more than just the landing on his mind. The one thing that had in fact allowed Nicholas to calm his nerves down to a certain degree was that the cake he had given his captain the night before had been devoured, and the mug of milk and honey was empty.
A computer beeped, and Lancer looked up. "We're nearing destination, Captain," he announced.
Danny looked up at him from the map he was studying. "Good," he said softly. He looked at the map again. "How much longer, Dr. McCarthy?"
Arthur typed in a command and looked up at him. "About an hour, Sir," he replied.
Nicholas looked at Danny. To his surprise, he found a worried look on the man's face as he studied the map he had in his hands. "Great," Danny muttered incredibly softly. "Just… great."
Nicholas decided to remain silent that time; if Danny needed encouragement, it certainly was not at that moment, when he seemed to be incredibly concerned about something. Instead, the red-haired man would wait until his commander decided whether or not to tell him.
"The Ghost Portal's gonna open about sixty minutes after that," Danny whispered worriedly, almost as though he had sensed Nicholas' curious mind. Danny placed a hand over his mouth and nervously tapped his finger against his cheek.
Nicholas looked at him again for a second before continuing to fly the ship in silence.
The hour passed quickly. If it had not been for the computers and radars, Nicholas would not have been able to see their destination approach.
"Captain, the asteroid is right ahead of us," Melissa announced.
Nicholas squinted and tried to see better in the dark, although Danny seemed to be having no difficulty at all. "I can't see it," he said softly.
"Just follow my instructions," Danny replied just as quietly, leaning forward.
The others behind them seemed to be struggling to see the same thing as well. "Sir, where is it?" a man asked aloud.
"Right there," Danny said. He looked at the computer screens before them. "Use the computers and radars to guide you if your eyes can't see anything, Dr. Stevenson," he instructed.
"Y-yessir." Nicholas looked down at the computer screens and could just see the surface of the black mass before them. Trying to calm his anxiety and follow his captain's orders, he slowly began to land the shuttle.
The landing gear came out of the belly of the shuttle while rockets began blowing from below it as well. The computer screen that monitored the rockets began to flash red.
An astronaut under Arthur's command looked up. "Captain Fenton, Sir, the landing rockets aren't working properly," he said.
"Because of the damage from yesterday," Danny agreed. "Ignore it. Dr. Stevenson, turn the rockets on low so that they don't melt the haul and continue to land the way you're landing."
"Isn't that going to bring more damage, Sir?" Nicholas wondered.
"Just a bit, but nothing our engineers can't fix. It'll be just a little rough, but you'll land fine. We'll need the rocket power to lift off quickly afterwards, so conserve it."
Nicholas reached over and turned a knob. Gradually, the rockets cut their power down to low and only stopped once the shuttle had landed with a few dull thuds.
People muttered in surprise as the ship shook.
Danny grabbed an earphone set and placed one side to his left ear while Nicholas let the controls go and put them into lock. "Houston, this is Shuttle B-614, do you copy?" he said.
"Loud and clear, B-614," came the voice of one of his crew members that had remained on Earth.
"We have just landed on our destination," Danny continued. "We are preparing to disembark. Stand by for any updates."
"Yessir, over."
Danny put the headset down and stood up. "Okay, people; time to do what we came to do," he said, turning to face his crew. "Five of us will step out and gather the samples that we need. Dr. Stevenson and I will be two of them, and the three others I spoke to earlier today will be coming as well. Drs. Erickson, McCarthy and Krahn, you stay on board and watch our progress." He pointed at the doorway. "Time to suit up, kids."