Nightfall - Chapter 1 (revised)

I realized I was asleep.

And by that I didn't mean in the sense of dreaming. It was rather a feeling of numb existence where there had been a black void only moments before.

Another thought entered my mind. A smile. Blue eyes.

I strained to sharpen the image in my head, but sharp pain erupting from deep within my chest startled me. I struggled to breathe, gasping like a fish out of water and panicking even more when my arms and legs failed to move just as miserably.

By the time I was able to string together several thoughts the pain had become unbearable and forced my consciousness back into a void where the absence of pain embraced me. My last thought was a voice calling out for someone.

'Connor'. I realized now why that name felt familiar. That someone was me.





"Chief Davidson? Can you hear me?"

A ray of light pierced the darkness. Someone was holding my eyelid open, flashing my pupil with a torch. My head ached something fierce and every ray of light felt like a dagger driving deep into my brain.

Had I been shot again? There was no mistaking that sterile smell and the subdued voices. I was in a hospital.

The light kept hovering above my eyes. My fingers twitched with the need to knock that bastard out cold, but I couldn't get my arm to move. I heard myself gasp from the effort. Was I paralyzed? A jolt of fear shot through my body.

"He's moving. He's coming back." Someone grabbed my hand, rubbing it to increase the blood flow. I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. Or a whole dozen of them. The neurons in my brain sparked to life, bringing everything back in a rush.

The journey to Nightfall. Kyle. Trappist-One.

"His vitals are stabilizing," someone said with the calm assurance that only medical staff can muster.

"Chief Davidson?” A slap on my cheek caused me to groan in pain, but that touch was nothing compared to the pain I felt in my throat when I tried to swallow.

I raised my hand. Slow, everything I did was slow, I realized with a stab of shame. My fingers escaped the hand that circled them. What the hell. Had they thawed me out of a block of ice?

Another second ticked by and I remembered. Kryosleep.

I had no idea how it worked in detail, but I was pretty sure the torment I went through waking up wasn’t part of the deal.

Relief swept over me when that jerk in white stopped flashing my eyes. I contracted my arm muscles and was rewarded with the feeling of touch in the pads of my fingers. Awaking from kryosleep did actually feel like coming back to life. As my nervous system adjusted to a responding body, my mind wandered to Kyle. Had he felt the same torment waking up? My newly-revived heart skipped a beat when I thought of the scalding pain that felt so much worse than even the gunshot wound I had taken back when I was a dumb recruit in the wastelands of New London.

I needed to find Kyle. My eyesight was still shot to shit and I felt like running a marathon just trying to crane my neck a bit. I blinked the shapes hovering above me into shape. A face appeared, accompanied by a hand with raised fingers waving back and forth in front of my eyes. It took me a moment to realize that the lady asked me a question.

"How many fingers do you see?", she repeated. My throat was still on fire, but I found a strange pleasure in raising my hand and extending three fingers, mimicking her motion.

"He'll be fine, but for the first couple of hours, someone needs to look after him, make sure his brain functions are stable."

I heard rustling beside me. I blinked and forced my eyes open despite the glaring light from the spots above the examining table. My skin was slippery, as if I'd been bathing in slime.

A male voice spoke up.
"The descent will begin in 30 minutes. These unforeseen complications with his wakeup process already delayed our approach by three hours. We'll lose today's window if we don't act now."

The doc sighed. "You know we'll have to seal sickbay until landing is complete. His vitals need to be monitored or he might not survive the dive!"

This wasn't the kind of conversation a guy wants to hear waking up from kryosleep.

"He'll have to bite the bullet then. Further treatment needs to wait until we're planetside. Understood?" I heard footsteps leaving the room.

I grabbed the white clothed arm beside me, startling the lady doctor.
"Chief Davidson?", she gently removed my fingers from her coat. I blinked at her, moving my lips, failing to make a sound.
"Connor, don't worry. Everything will be fine." She began to wipe my skin with a cloth, removing the liquid I was covered in. I stopped her, grabbing her arm once again and pulling her closer to my face.

"My... room mate. He'll look after me," I wheezed, surprised how fragile my own voice sounded. The doc lifted her head and looked at me with a frown.

"You sure? Is he medically trained?" My mind was still too dizzy to respond, but my eyes followed her as she walked over to the side, picking up a tablet and typing away with her fingers. She moved to the intercom surface by the door and pressed a button.

"Open line to quarter 34," she said. A beeping sound confirmed the connection, right before a male voice responded.

"Officer Harrison here. How can I help ya, doc?"

"Please report to sickbay immediately."

The voice I heard wasn't Kyle's. My brain was still in shambles, but the one thing I felt confident about was that I would recognize Kyle's voice anywhere.




My nervous system was still playing tricks on me. First my skin felt warm, then a wave of coldness made me shudder. I was relieved by the time my skin simply itched and the need to scratch myself actually motivated me enough to move my hands and arms.

A hand on my shoulder had me look up, the rush of excitement in my blood a sure thing I was getting my senses back. But the brown eyes I looked into weren't familiar. The smile was handsome, but it wasn't Kyle's.

"Hey Chief. Glad you're among the living now. Doc says it's time for you to get ready for a little rough ride down to Nightfall."

I couldn't place the voice. 

Someone put a sticker on my temple and flattened it . I winced at the pressure.
"This," the doctor put a small black device into the stranger's hands, "will scan his brainwaves. You need to make sure the readings remain in the green area. If they move to red, call me."

Everyone was in a rush now. I saw a nurse approach the examining table, finishing the job of cleaning me up and putting some sweatpants on my naked body.

"What if the readings go bad during the descent?" the stranger asked. The doc sighed before helping the nurse lift me to a sitting position. I could feel the blood rush from my head, leaving me dizzy and blanching like a ghost. Awesome.

"Then we gotta hope he's still alive by the time we're down. The Commander won't wait for another day."

I forced my eyes to stay still, willing the world to stop moving. I pressed my eyelids together to focus, when a strong arm gripped my shoulder and pulled me off the table. My knees were like jelly and my weight bore down on the man's smaller frame.

"What if he loses consciousness during the dive?", he asked, his voice straining with the effort to keep me upright.

"He will lose his consciousness, Officer Harris. Be grateful if you don't. ."

The doc sounded impatient now. "You need to get him to your quarters and secure him for landing."

Everyone looked up when a computer voice began announcing a countdown until the ship entered the planet's exosphere . 15 minutes. Hardly enough time for me to reach my quarter and get secured, let alone to look for Kyle. I was reluctant to admit that I was scared and helpless while everyone around me seemed to lose their shit.

Testing my legs sent a jolt of pain through my thigh muscles and I gripped the man’s shoulder.
"Easy big guy, I've got you," he said and more dragged than walked me out of sickbay.

The lights in the corridor had gone red and blinking. I strained my body to help with the walk, but the pain in my muscles was unbearable. I was barely conscious when we entered a small room and my companion lowered me into a seat pulled from the metal wall. He strapped me into the safety belts and pulled them tight. I groaned.

"Sorry, man. But you don't want to slip out during landfall. There's no runway down there waiting for us."

The computer voice gave a final warning. 1 minute left. I grabbed the guy's arm and looked into his face. Beads of sweat clustered his forehead and his eyes were cast down on the medic reader in his hand. He looked back at me with a forced smile.

"Looking good, Chief. You'll make it down in one piece, I promise" He pried his arm away from my fingers and stumbled to his seat on the opposite side of the room. We faced each other. I watched him secure the belts around himself and lean back just in time for the ship to make contact with the planet's gravity field.

A jolt went through the ship and the metal frame of our quarter began to shake.
My seat belt cut into my chest and I struggled to breathe. I looked at the window where the planet's curve lit up in an orange halo.

The shaking got even stronger now, like riding a mountain bike over a field of rocks. My head banged against the wall behind me and I couldn't keep my neck upright enough to counterbalance the staccato of jolts. My new friend looked at his reader, then back at me, giving me a thumbs up.

The metal screamed around me and the world faded away. I found my mind wandering back to the only question that mattered. Where was Kyle?

***

The landing was messy. Our pilot did one hell of a job, though, keeping the craft calm even when hail the size of tennis balls banged against our quarter window while crossing a cloud.

The shuddering of the hull had stopped. I glanced over at Chief Harrison. His head hung on his chest, his body suspended in the belts like a ragdoll’s going with the motions. The brain wave thingy still beeped calmly, the reader staying within the green limits. Apparently everything was fine, even if the man looked white as a ghost. His torso swayed back and forth, a sheen of sweat making his skin glow in the flashing safety light.

I noticed mountain peaks outside our window. We were approaching touchdown any minute. I heard the thrusters being fired, slowing our descent to airplane speed. It couldn't be long now.

Harrison groaned. Judging by his size and built, he certainly wasn't a guy who was used to his body playing tricks on him.

The thrusters finally slowed the ship to touchdown speed and the wheels were extended for immediate landing. A jolt went through the hull, the vessel swaying when one of the axes kissed a rock, veering the ship to the side. The pilot fired the thrusters again, ripping off the ship’s wheels and the velocity jarring us over the surface until we came to a screeching halt.

I raised my hand and winced at the growing bruise on my head. What a welcome.

Not waiting for the blinking lights to die, I unfastened my belt and knelt down in front of Harrison. The belt had chafed his skin raw, a trickle of blood flowing down his chest. I cursed myself for putting him in that thing without a shirt on, but the thought hadn't even crossed my mind only minutes before the descent.

I opened the belt and his large frame fell into my arms. He smelled of sweat mixed with the remnants of neuronal fluid. I managed to manhandle him to lie down on his cot.
Checking the reader I noticed that the screen had gone black.

"Shit! Chief Harrison, can you hear me?" I tapped his shoulder and shook him . "I think you need to wake up, sir!"

He groaned, a frown on his face, as he raised his arms to wipe at his eyes. I wasn't sure if he was in pain or just exhausted after that clusterfuck of a landing.

"My name is Officer Griff Hansen, sir. You're in your quarter and I need to make sure you're conscious."

His eyelids fluttered and closed. Damn, that wasn't good, right?
I took his chin in my hand, startling him. His eyes locked with mine.

"Where’s Kyle," he said and grabbed my arm with surprising strength, moving himself into sitting position. Who the hell was Kyle?

I was grateful when the intercom announced an incoming call.
"Chief Harrison, gather a security team and report at the airlock for further instructions." Sub-Commander Davidson's impatient voice.

Harrison watched me with a frown, his fingers digging into my forearm. I made the decision in the blink of an eye.

"Understood, sir. End of call", I pried Harrison's fingers off my wrist. "Open a line to sickbay," I ordered over my shoulder.

Doctor Martinez’ voice sounded tense. "How is he doing?" .

"He seems confused. Can you take over now?"
The doc confirmed and I patted Harrison's shoulder, pushing him back down.

"Why don't you rest a bit. I'll take care of things until you're ready, sir." . His gaze followed me to the door. I stopped for a beat to look back at him, his eyes still locked on mine.

"And then we'll go find Kyle, alright?"
He nodded and I left the room, the sliding door closing behind me.

***

"Richard, I can't keep a lid on it any longer. She's filing a lawsuit right this minute!"

I pressed the cell so hard against my ear, I was sure it'd come back in pieces. "You gotta shut her up for good, Phil."

I could imagine Phil's face. The wimp. "I'll just pretend you didn't say that," he said.

"You're my lawyer, Phil, and I expect you to keep that shit under control," I hissed, aware that people were staring at me from across the room at the McArthur Space Center in Pensacola. I couldn’t afford to attract attention. 

"Damn right, I'm your lawyer, Rich. And in that capacity I'd advise you to finally take the command of the Nightfall mission." Phil lowered his voice. "And as your friend, I'd tell you to get your ass outta here better sooner than later. She's instigated a fucking FBI investigation. If she vanishes now, you'd be the prime suspect in any case. So don't even think about it."

I rubbed my eyes, the strain of the previous months weighing me down. I looked around the room. There wasn't a sofa or even a plastic chair to rest my ass on. Damn NASA and their cheap suits.

"The Nightfall mission is a one way ticket, Phil. If I sign on, I'll spend the rest of my life with a bunch of sci-fi nerds on a shithole planet that doesn't even have a beach."

Phil seemed to ponder that for a moment. "Last I heard, there's a huge ocean on Nightfall, so you'd probably find someplace nice if you looked hard enough."

He didn't take me seriously.

"The planet doesn't have a sun, Phil," I commented drily. 

"That's bullshit. Trappist-1 is a sun. Even I know that," . 

I heard him shuffle paper in the background. Apparently he considered the official side of our conversation over.

"It's a fucking red dwarf, you asshole!" I yelled into the cell. People were turning their heads at me. I raised the back of my hand to wipe sweat off my temple.

"I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life in a place without daylight, dammit!", I added, lowering my voice again.

Phil sighed. "You're the space expert, Rich. All I can tell you is, take the mission and be a legend to billions of people, leading mankind to a new planet. Or stay, and rot in prison. Let me know what it'll be." A beeping tone told me that Phil had ended the call without waiting for my response.

The little shit. I couldn't believe this was happening. Replaying Phil's words in my mind, my choice seemed to be easy. Still, I felt as if I had to put a signature under my own death warrant this time. 

Hansen didn't wear his uniform when he showed up at the airlock, finding me, my entire command team and a couple of scientists waiting there.

"This is the security team Harrison has gathered?", I asked . "One man? Where's Harrison?"

Hansen looked at me, fumbling his arms in a half-hearted salute.
"Chief Harrison is still recovering from kryosleep, Sir. He instructed me to lead the team." My impassive face unsettled him. I liked that.

"So, where's your team, then?" I said and turned my back on him, instructing my second-in-command to fetch the oxygen masks .

I was aware that Officers Jackson and Riley were with us, but I enjoyed watching Hansen's confusion, before he spotted them and gave them orders . He wasn't doing too bad. I had to give him that.

I liked my security fearless and flexible, which was the reason why I had hand-picked them for this mission. Hansen hadn't been my first choice, though, so I wasn't sure about his value to my crew.