A Daring Rescue

"Flight 09, stand by."

The apparent size of Flight 17 in the docking camera grew larger, and the docking ports aligned precisely just before I heard the docking adapters clamping.

A few lights on the cockpit panels lit up, confirming the successful docking manuever.

"Contact... Airlock secure. Positive pressure on intersect point."

With the confirmation of no air leak in the docking ports, we could now get everyone to safety.

"Flight 09, you seem to have a lockdown underway. We won't be able to reach you unless you activate the airlock controls."

I had completely forgotten about that. It was rather simple to remove the lockdown, but it could mean that someone could escape from the engineering. That was a risk I was unwilling to take.

While thinking of a solution, I started getting dizzy. That was just before I felt Nuan trying to hold me up and release some of the air in her spacesuit.

"Flight 09, please respond."

"This is Flight 09." I replied, and explained the dilemma shortly to the pilots of Flight 17. Maybe they could think of something better.

"Flight 09, uhh... our crew can forcefully open the airlock, but there is a good chance we will render it inoperable in the process." they said.

We had to open the airlock as soon as possible, otherwise, we could lose the passengers due to lack of oxygen in the cabins. But luckily, as the sensors read, the cabins had a lot more air than the cockpit did; and despite their greater numbers, the other passengers probably had better chances of survival compared to me or Nuan. Which meant... I could spend some more time thinking about it.

"Commander, are you there?"

"Yes." I answered. "I think... we can proceed with the plan you suggested. However, you will have to take one step further and rescue us from the cockpit. We are stuck here."

"Understood." said the commanding pilot of Flight 17.

After a few moments, I heard some mechanical noises coming from the side of the ship. The crew of our companion ship was trying to cut through our airlock in a relatively safe way. I heard some screams from the cabins.

"Nuan, could you push that button please?"

"Which one?" she asked. I pointed at it.

"That one right there."

"Alright?" she pressed the button.

"No, hold it as I speak."

After a short beep, I started speaking to the passengers via the intercom.

"A team from Flight 17 is here to perform a rescue operation. Please obey the crew's orders for a safe transfer to our companion ship. Thank you."

The screams of fear slowly stopped as people realised it wasn't danger, but help that was coming through the docking port airlock.

After a few moments, the crew had managed to open some holes on the airlock doors. As the sensors read the fluctuations in the internal atmospheric pressure, more and more alarm tones began playing. One of the computers in the cockpit automatically tried to reboot itself, probably in an attempt to fix the inconsistent sensor inputs.

Suddenly, our ship started moving. The ship's main engines have activated!

Nuan found herself flying to the back wall of the cockpit. But since we were docked with Flight 17, instead of moving forwards, we started to rotate around the two ships' combined center of mass. As the ship rotated, I could hear the sounds of metals clashing, stretching, bending, even crumbling and breaking apart under stress. This was very bad for the structural integrity of the vessel, and could even cause two ships to undock prematurely, almost instantly killing everyone in both ships because of the depressurisation through the open airlocks.

"Flight 09, shutdown your engines! Flight 09, shutdown your engines!" the pilots of the companion ship started shouting.

"I am not doing anything!" I said. Then, I saw the truth. Someone had probably overridden the cockpit flight controls from the engineering section, which was actually meant to be another safety feature for civilian flights. At least they have not yet found a way around the lockdown, but now, I had to take the flight controls back to the cockpit.

I tried switching the primary control to cockpit and reduce the throttle, but it didn't work. We were beginning to spin faster and faster. Just then, I had a bright idea.

"Flight 17, activate your main thrusters. Full throttle!"

"Aye, Commander. Full throttle."

The companion ship, Flight 17, has activated it's engines as well. Now, the main engines of the other ship could counter the offset acceleration and prevent us from spinning any faster. But to actually stop the spinning, our companion ship had to be more powerful; which wasn't the case. The only upside of the spinning was that we were boosting at approximately the same rate at all directions, meaning that we weren't altering our cruise trajectory a lot.

I heard someone banging on the cockpit's door.

"Who is that!?" Nuan asked in shock.

"We are here to get you out!" someone responded. I heard another bang on the cockpit door. The metal door was bent inwards.

"This is not going to work." someone said. "We will have to cut through this as well."

A moment later, I saw hot red - orange sparks flying off of the door. The rescue team cut the door in half and managed to remove the lower part so we could get through.

"Madam." I said and guided Nuan out of the cockpit. I came out after her. With the artificial gravity disabled, she floated towards the airlock and made it to the other ship.

"We found no one else in the cabins, sir." a crew member of Flight 17 told me. "We should go."

"Wait a minute." I said and pushed myself towards the door of the engineering section.

"Sir, we used brute force to cut through the airlock. There are tiny air leaks through the ship. You should go." the rescue team insisted. I didn't listen.

"Braun!" I tried to shout to the other side. "BRAUN!"

I got no answer. Someone held me by my shoulders.

"There is no time. We are leaving."

A person from the rescue team dragged me out of the ship. I entered Flight 17 through the airlocks, and once again, I could feel myself being pushed towards the floor. There was artificial gravity here.

Just after I transferred, Flight 17 sealed it's airlocks, and undocked from Flight 09. Having it's airlocks open, Flight 09 immediately depressurised. With it's engines running, it started moving away from us. The people we have left back in the engineering section had only a few seconds to live at best.

Meanwhile, Flight 17 had shutdown it's engines and was preparing to make a correction maneuver to get back on it's precise cruise trajectory to planet Earth.

While looking around, I saw someone approaching me.

"Commander, you need to come to the cockpit. The Olympus HQ says they wish to speak to you, urgently."