Space & Time

Chapter 8- Way Off Course

Previously inside the Intrepid's crew capsule, Svetlana could not believe what was happening. They were so close to landing back on Earth and chaos was swiftly taking hold of the last few miles of their journey. Once the ship began moving erratically, she knew something was wrong. Looking into her brother's eyes and glancing at Eva, she could effortlessly read the concern on their faces as well.

Then a forceful blow suddenly struck the ship, a gash appeared on the sidewall of the cabin and the pressure alarms began sounding. The cosmonauts were following standard re entry protocol and had already donned their pressurized space suits. As the severity of the damage became obvious, each of them immediately put on their helmets and began to evaluate the options left to get through this.

Svetlana was the first to make a move, she unbuckled her harness and spoke to the other two, "Come on, our best hope is to all squeeze into the pilot capsule. This capsule might not hold together during re-entry." She advanced first to the round doorway connecting the pilot capsule and crew capsule. Svetlana grabbed the handles on each side of the doorway and with a grunt began to pull herself towards the passageway.

When she briefly looked up, she made eye contact with Anatoly as he had just spun around to face the doorway. She signaled for him to move out of the way so they could pass. Anatoly made eye contact with Svetlana and then as she was about halfway into the pilot capsule, he used his heavy space boot the push her back into the crew capsule.

Svetlana was surprised as his boot made contact with her helmet‟s clear face shield. She was not prepared to brace herself against his forceful shove and she slipped back into the crew capsule. The last thing she saw as she looked at the doorway was the hatch closing from the other side and the latching mechanism spinning locked. "Damn you Anatoly!" she screamed with frustration into her helmet.

Svetlana yelled to Boris and Eva, "Get back in your seats and buckle up, they sealed the doorway." She then grabbed the hatch on their side and slammed it shut latching it tight. She knew what was most likely going to happen next and it did not take long to confirm her assumption.

On the pilot capsule side of the ship, Anatoly pulled the lever beginning the separation process causing the crew capsule to suddenly shudder and then feel a brief jolt as it jettisoned from the pilot capsule. Now Svetlana, Boris and Eva were in an uncontrollable spin as the disconnection occurred well before intended. The crew capsule veered off on its own path, heading away at a ninety-degree angle from the others. Svetlana thought quickly and began taking the steps necessary to detach them from the remnants of the rocket ship. This would give their capsule a better chance of re-entering the atmosphere in one piece.

In order to get visual confirmation, she pressed her helmeted head against the small round porthole window. She observed the rest of the ship was now distancing itself. Then she glanced back towards the others as they sped away. Svetlana was barely able to see across the space separating them and into the Dauntless‟ observation window, but she did get one last look at Mikhailya. With one brief moment of eye contact, she could make out the fear in Mika‟s soft blue eyes as the expanse of space between the two vessels grew further and further apart until they were no longer able to see each other.

The Intrepid‟s crew capsule continued racing off in a violent spin and all the remaining crew on board could do was buckle in tight and pray for the best. The slash from the satellite collision looked severe on the outside but on the inner wall, it was not as brutal. The pressure was slowly escaping the craft as it struggled to stay in one piece, but despite the damage inflicted upon it the capsule willfully held itself together with reinforced determination.

As the pod arced through the sky, it slowly began to succumb to the gravitational pull of Earth. The ship began to glow red hot from the friction created as it pierced the air molecules slicing into the atmosphere, to a person watching from the planet‟s surface below it would have appeared as a magnificent shooting star racing across the night sky.

The severed metal on the inside began to smolder with a red-orange intensity from the extreme heat as well. This caused a substantial amount of high temperature to transfer into the capsule. The three cosmonauts were all within minutes of becoming unconscious from the combination of the extreme g-forces and overwhelming heat exhaustion when the capsule finally pushed through the turbulence careening towards the open ocean.