Dimatta scanned the area through the canopy, then refocused on the screen.
“All we have to do now is watch, Nitro.”
“And wait,” the backseater said.
Maslov drifted the MakoShark slowly toward the space station from above. The Earth beyond the station was a huge, vari-colored ball, well saturated with cloud cover. The Pacific Ocean was a muted blue that trapped the eyes.
“Closure rate five feet per minute,” Nikitin said.
“I am going to open the bay doors,” Maslov warned his passengers. “Are you prepared?”
“We are ready,” Bryntsev said. “It will be much easier, and much faster, this time, Aleks. I promise you.”
“Speed is secondary to accuracy and stealth, Yuri. There is no need to rush.”
The view of the station was clear in his windscreen, and Nikitin had also deployed the video lens, placing an image on the instrument panel’s cathode ray tube.
He was approaching the station from above and behind, out of the eye of its single porthole looking down on earth and of its space telescope. He was absolutely confident that the satellite’s radar and infrared detectors did not know of his presence.
The Soyuz Fifty space station did not appear anything like that of the Americans. It was one elongated tube, composed of sections of A2e rockets that had been launched over the years, then bolted together in space. The diameter was about six meters, and with nine components, the entire length amounted to nearly thirty meters. The component on this end was the nuclear reactor, a modification of the Topaz Two reactor that the Soviet Union had been injecting into space for many years. Various components had antennas, solar arrays, and other appendages extending from them. The finish was a bright aluminum, designed to reflect the sun’s rays and decrease the heat build-up within the station.
Maslov had once received a briefing on this space station, and he knew that the other eight components housed laboratories, presidential spaces, communications and surveillance electronics, and work areas. The center module, the first one injected into space, had an airlock fabricated into its side, and the module on the end opposite the nuclear reactor had a forward bulkhead that could be opened, in order to accept additional add-on modules.
“Be very careful, Yuri,” he cautioned. “Do not cut cables unless it is necessary.”
“I have been over this mission many times in my mind, Aleks”
“I am sorry. I want to get it right.”
“We will.”
Maslov nudged the nose thrusters one time to stop their forward progress directly above the nuclear reactor segment. The body of the station was less than six meters away.
Moments later, Bryntsev and Filatov appeared, jetting toward the skin of the satellite from under the nose of the MakoShark and trailing their tethers behind them.
Bryntsev, probably because he was a pilot, had learned the finer points about controlling his thrusters. He touched down lightly on the aluminum of the rocket.
“The skin is hot,” he reported. “I can feel it through my boots.”
Maslov did not reply.
He watched as Bryntsev first studied the VHF, UHF, and HF antenna array, then tracked their cables to where they entered the station.
“They are simply connectors,” Bryntsev said. “I will have to unscrew them, then pull them loose.”
“Do it quickly, Yuri.”
Bryntsev’s body blocked Maslov’s view, but the man apparently unscrewed each of the cable lead’s ferrules first, then rapidly pulled each one free and let them hang in space.
The station was now deaf and dumb.
Isolated.
Filatov signalled from further forward, where he had just disconnected the video lead from the remote-controlled camera mounted on the exterior.
The station was now blind except for its porthole, radar, and infrared detectors.
If the three men inside had been conversing with someone. on Earth at the time communications were lost or watching some exterior view on a monitor, they would now be a little concerned, though probably not yet alarmed.
“All right, Yuri, that is good. Let us go on.”
Maslov applied a spurt of rear thruster, and the MakoShark eased forward, following the two spacemen as they aimed for the center module and the airlock. He raised the MakoShark away from the satellite a couple meters in order to clear several large antennas.
Filatov reached the airlock first. “As you said, Colonel, it can be opened from the outside.”
“Proceed,” Maslov said.
Filatov began spinning the large wheel.
The men inside would now be alarmed.
The large hatch was raised easily by Bryntsev, then the two men detached their tethers and communication cables. Bryntsev waved, then pulled himself into the airlock. The corporal followed, and the hatch closed behind them.
A tense fifteen minutes followed. From what Maslov knew, the airlock could be pressurized from within the lock. It remained to be seen whether the cosmonauts would be frightened enough by events to attempt to keep the inner door locked.
Apparently not.
The hatch opened again, and Bryntsev stuck his head out and waved a bulky hand.
Maslov waved back, then found his emergency air cylinder and changed his nitrogen/oxygen feed line to it.
“I am depressurizing my cockpit now, Boris”
“Be careful, Aleks. I do not wish to lose my pilot.”
“There is Yuri.”
“Yuri has never performed a reentry.”
“You and your computer do that, Boris.”
“Still.”
When the panel readout reported that the cockpit was fully depressurized, Maslov opened the canopy. He took the hook of the twenty-meter nylon line stuffed between the seat and the fuselage and snapped it to his belt, then released his harness. A push with his hands lifted him straight up out of the seat.
Dodging the raised canopy, he pulled himself outside of the craft.
And became so dizzy that he almost vomited.
Without the security of a familiar seat and cockpit, hanging over an infinity of nothingness, the mind rebelled. That slim nylon line was all that connected him with reality.
He hung onto the edge of the canopy, closed his eyes, and fought back the nausea. It took several minutes.
Maslov looked back, and the sight of his weapons system officer strapped securely under his canopy helped to reorient him.
Through the faceplate of his visor, Nikitin appeared very worried.
Maslov nodded to reassure both Nikitin and himself, then carefully placed the soft soles of his boots against the coaming and shoved with his hands. His body rotated forward and down, and when the airlock appeared to be in the right place, he flexed his toes.
He sailed softly across the abyss between the station and the craft.
Almost too slowly.
He thought he might not reach his destination and would have to pull himself back with the tether and attempt it again.
And then he realized he might have aimed too high.
The airlock passed by below him and he could not reach it.
But Bryntsev rose out of it and extended a hand. Maslov grasped it thankfully.
Together, they descended into the lock. It was an extremely tight fit for two men in bulky space suits, especially with Bryntsev’s EVA pack in place. Bryntsev pulled the hatch down and spun the wheel to seal it. He fumbled at a control panel, and Maslov heard the hiss of gas being forced into the lock.
It was unlit and so dark inside the lock that they could not see each other. Maslov almost violated his own rule and activated the environmental suit’s radio in order to talk to Bryntsev. The chances of their unscrambled conversation being overheard were too great, however, and he fought back the impulse.