Free Orbital Maneuvers by R Davison Page A

station and the docking latch held tight.  Alexander looked at Nicholas, who stared back in frustration and fear. 
    Alexander smiled and said, “Hang on.” Before the Nicholas could respond to the warning, the Commander hit the thrusters with full power, first backward and then forward like rocking a car that was stuck in the snow.  Nicholas didn’t know whether to laugh or scream as he was slammed between his seat and safety harness, suddenly feeling like he was on a bucking bronco, much like the ones he enjoyed watching when he visited the United States.  He did not get much time to think about it as the Commander suddenly fired the rotation thrusters left and then right in quick succession followed by another series of forward and backward bursts.  Suddenly the vibrations and rocking stopped as the capsule quietly floated away from the station, slowly rotating as it went.  The cosmonauts were treated with a view of MIR quickly receding from their ship.  They turned to each other, smiled, and gave each other a thumbs-up sign.  Alexander stabilized the capsule, checked that their orientation was correct and lit the main engine again.  Nicholas let out a cheer and gave a salute as the Soyuz capsule blasted past the slowly spinning MIR, rapidly leaving it behind.  Unencumbered by the station, the Soyuz capsule rapidly gained speed and altitude. 
    After two minutes of continuous firing, their fuel was exhausted and the capsule was filled with silence.  Alexander smiled as he pointed toward the display indicating their altitude, which was slowly increasing.  The readout just barely rolled over two hundred and eighty nine kilometers: they had just climbed twenty-one more miles above their original altitude.  Nicholas radioed their new altitude and heading to Endeavour.
     
     

VI
     
    Susan breathed a sigh of relief when she finally heard the static-laden message from the MIR crew come over the failing comm system.  She took their coordinates and velocity and entered the data into the computer to determine a rendezvous point.  It took the computer a few minutes to calculate and display the results.  Soyuz would pass beneath Endeavour on its next orbit and they could drop down to make the rendezvous in about twenty-five minutes.  This would give them almost ninety minutes of reserve oxygen, provided that they could transfer the cosmonauts quickly and the leak did not get worse.
    “Ivan, I don’t think we can afford the time to try anything fancy when we rendezvous with Soyuz.  The cosmonauts are going to have to space walk to us so you’d better fill them in on the procedure.  Also, we don’t have much reserve O2, so it’s got to go smoothly.”
    “Yes, I am working out the details now.  I will let you know if there are any problems.  They managed to get a spare oxygen generator into the capsule, so that should buy us some time.”
    “Good.  Paul, Jerry, what’s doing with that leak?” Susan asked as she turned back to her computer screen to plot out the next part of their race to the space station. 
    “We’ve ripped out one of the equipment bays and can’t find anything.” Paul responded in a very tired voice. “We thought we had it narrowed down, but we found nothing there.”
    “Damn,” Susan swore as she stared out of the cockpit window.  Gazing out into space, she thought back to the collision with the asteroid and tried to focus on where it appeared to hit the shuttle. 
    She could see the tiles shatter on the top of the shuttle just before the arm and Jill were hit.  Susan leaned her head back in the cockpit seat to look at the viewports on the ceiling of the flight deck behind her that were used when the shuttle docks with another vehicle.  “Paul, I think I’ve located the leak.  I think it may be in, or near the left viewport on the flight deck.  The asteroid shattered a bunch of tiles on the top of the shuttle, and it could have stressed the outer skin or broken the seal