Painful memories flash before her, haunting her. Ryan�s lump in her throat is washed away by a gentle sob. She turns off the light, reaches for a valve and opens it. A hissing sound is heard inside the vessel, and on the screen, the Oxygen in the cabin�s atmosphere begins to drop. Ryan closes her eyes, simply listening to the lullaby as it grows fainter and fainter, and then it's gone. For a long beat Ryan merely sits there.
The cold and the gentle humming of the Soyuz cradles Ryan. She closes her eyes, and as her breathing relaxes she begins to fall asleep, until . . . click, click, click. Ryan opens her eyes, startled. She turns in confusion and looks at the porthole. Through the glass, the helmet of an astronaut is looking in. It is Matt. He knocks once more, this time louder. Ryan is still drowsy and does not understand what is going on, when she sees that the latch on the porthole begins to move.
She musters a protest, but the latch continues to open. Ryan covers her eyes and face with her hands when the latch releases and the hatch swings open. The vacuum of space sucks in one sharp gust all the air inside the cabin and with it every sound. Her hands press tightly covering her face. On the Control Panel alarms begin to flash. Matt makes his way in and with one sharp motion, turns and closes the hatch. He presses a button and the cabin begins to pressurize.
And sound re-emerges with the beeping of the alarms as the red-orange-green graph on the control panel show the atmospheric levels reaching green. Ryan uncovers her face and stares from the shadows at Matt, who straps into the seat next to her. He unlocks the ring around his collar and takes off his helmet. He immediately boasts of breaking Anatoly's record. He taps a few buttons on the console turn up the lights and a face blooms: Ryan stares, mouth agape. He reaches out and effortlessly flicks a myriad array of switches.
Instantly, the alarms go silent. Ryan looks at him wide eyed, wanting to know how. . . he volunteers an explanation, "I found a little extra battery power." Matt fishes a small flask from under his seat, spins off the cap and takes a big gulp. He offers the flask to Ryan, who appears to be dozing off. She blinks, shakes her head no. He looks at the monitors, where the Chinese Station is seen, a distance of a hundred miles.
Stone tells him that there is no fuel left for the main rocket, but Kowalski, ever the optimist, tells Stone that the capsule still has re-entry rockets that cushion the landing of the capsule before touchdown on land, and that they will use those to navigate to the Chinese station. When she insists she tried everything and there's no hope, he interrupts, "Listen you want to go back or do you want to stay here? . . . It's time to go home." Ryan is almost sound asleep and then her eyes snap open. She turns and the cabin is empty, no Matt.
Stone realizes she hallucinated Kowalski in her oxygen-deprived state. A soft cool light shines in through the condensation that has frozen on the glass. It is the moonlight caressing Ryan�s face. With a new surge of determination she turns on the cabin lights and opens the valves, allowing Oxygen to flow, pressurizing the cabin. She grabs the green binder manual, turns some pages and stares closely at the manual. She she stares intently at one page of the manual, where there is a diagram.
An illustration of the Soyuz Capsule two meters before landing and hitting the ground. A thrust is shooting out from under its bottom, cushioning its fall: The soft landing engines. She remarks, "You're a clever son of a bitch, Matt." She needs to get rid of the BO and Engine module. She presses the Tri module separation button. In Space, we see the locks connecting the three modules of the Soyuz release. The control cabin, airlock, and engines separate. A mechanism pushes the cabin away and slowly gains distance from them.
Ryan scans through the complicated charts and diagrams in the manual.As she prepares the thrusters, she 'talks' to Matt and shares a sentimental about her daughter and to give her a hug for her. Ryan punches a new set of commands. She places her finger over one of the buttons, smiles, remembering... and then presses it. A three second thrust ignites at the back of the cabin, pushing it at great speeds toward the Chinese Station. The Soyuz is approaching the Tiangong. A new sense of urgency comes up on Ryan�s face.
She looks out of the porthole. The Chinese Station is getting closer. She disarms the emergency exit and holds on to the latch. She pauses and turns to grab the fire extinguisher and holds it tightly against her chest with one arm. With the other arm. She reaches for the Latch. The Station is hovering right next to her and the cabin is going to pass it. She turns the latch, and pyrotechnics shoot the porthole into space. The brutal force of the infinite vacuum of space sucks the air out of the cabin, and Ryan is launched out of the cabin at a tremendous speed.
She passes the Chinese Station as she twirls up toward the Heavens. The Soyuz continues its straight trajectory toward Earth. She spins and sees the Tiangong, one mile below her, but it's getting farther away. She points the nozzle of the fire extinguisher away from her and triggers a spray. It acts like a thrust that pushes her toward the Station. It helped, but she is still off target. From this distance the damage caused to the Tiangong by the debris is clear.
The solar panels are shredded to pieces, and several modules appear to have been badly hit. Ryan gives another spray, propelling herself even closer to the Station. The Station is less than a hundred meters away. She can see that the lifeboat, the Shenzou, a vessel very similar to the Soyuz, trajectory by giving another spray, but only a very small thrust comes out of the extinguisher, not enough to push her on the right track. The extinguisher is empty. She lets go of it and it floats away. She drifts toward the Station, slowly.
She is less than twenty meters away, and getting closer. And she misses it by a hair. She drifts, very slowly, two meters above the Station. Her arm, outstretched, tries to grab hold of anything it can. She slowly drifts across the modules, the tips of her fingers almost touching the surface of the Tiangong. A handle passes under her, within reach, the last object to grab and she manages to catch it. Ryan can see, far away over the horizon - bright dots. Pieces of debris burn as they hit the atmosphere.
A swarm of incandescent locusts that are coming directly at her. She climbs up to the body of the station. She goes over the module and makes her way across, pulling herself from handle to handle. When she reaches the end of it, with one last big pull she makes it to the hatch that leads into the airlock. Ryan pulls on the latch and opens the airlock. A gust of air bursts out, pushing the hatch wide open. Ryan holds on tightly to the handle. Above her, clusters of debris pass by, flying at different distances and at great speeds.
Pieces collide with each other, exploding into more debris. The Station is rapidly approaching Earth�s atmosphere. And over the Eastern horizon, a cloud of dust is quickly approaching. The tide of debris. Ryan secures the hatch. She makes her way to the control panel. The red, yellow, and green graph is bright red. Under it, two buttons with Chinese ideograms on them. Her finger hesitates as she takes a wild guess. The cabin pressurizes. As oxygen fills the space, sound begins to emerge.
Unrecognizable at first is a rhythmic pattern under a syncopated murmur. But as air allows sound to conduct its waves, it becomes clear an alarm is going off. Over it a recording plays in a Loop. It is in Mandarin. The voice in the recording is urgent. Clearly it is not good news. She waits, floating. Ryan unlocks her helmet and takes it off. She feels the Station quake fiercely, reverberating. The Tiangong is plummeting. Ryan rushes out of the airlock.
The tip of a solar panel is already grazing over the outer layers of the atmosphere, leaving a trail behind it. Debris passing under the Station burn up. Everything shakes. A new intensity sparkles in her eyes. Her fearlessness and determination are bordering with madness. She inspects her surroundings. Through a hatch she sees a long corridor-like cabin that leads to another node. It is the Lab Module.
The Loop keeps on playing. She enters the hatch into the Tiangong Lab Module. Objects float in chaos. The shaking intensifies as she reaches the end of the module and goes into the Tiangong Node Two. She sees the Docking Module, very similar to the one in the ISS. At the far end of it an open hatch leads into the Shenzou escaped pod. More rumbling shakes the station.
The tidal wave of debris is catching up with the Station. Ryan springs into the Docking Module. Floating through it and reaching the open hatch at the other end, she tosses the helmet inside the Shenzhou. She dives through the hatch into the Shenzou. She does a quick flip and closes the outer hatch. Then she pulls on another latch and closes the inner hatch. The Shenzhou is sealed off from the rest of the Station.
She sits, buckles herself in, and looks at the control panel. All of the buttons are labeled with Chinese ideograms. The remaining solar panel resists breaking off from the structure, but still goes up in flames, leaving a trail of sparks. She passes her finger over the board, trying to make sense of the buttons. She guesses on one button. An alarm rings, she remarks "Ok. That doesn't sound good."
She glances around frantically, turns it off. It�s shaking very intensely but she�s wide-eyed now, clearly close to being beside herself. She tries a big button - a new alarm. She keeps searching for the right button. And she presses a new one. The lights on the Control Panel go on. The cabin makes a humming sound as systems begin to activate. On the control panel lights go on in patterns reminiscent of the switchboard in the Soyuz. She presses one more button and systems turn to green and a countdown appears.
She looks around as the cabin starts shaking even harder. Ryan keeps her eyes fixed on the countdown. Ryan flips the safety lid of a button open. As the cabin rattles violently, she closes her eyes, puts her finger over the button, "It�ll be one hell of a ride." Ryan presses the button. In Space, we see the Station is bouncing over the atmosphere. One end of it is glowing more brightly and catches fire. The tide of debris is getting closer. Not far off some pieces are already burning.
A large piece of debris has caught on fire and is flying at great speed and collides with the station, tearing it into two parts, which are sent twisting in opposite directions. The Shenzhou escape pod, attached to the dock, is spinning towards earth. Ryan is shaken and rattled in her seat. Gravity is still minimal, but the force of the inertia is rough and it jerks her around. She sees a red lever above her, but she can only reach it with her bad hand. She stretches and grabs the lever and pulls it.
The lock disengage.The cabin separates from the rest of the vessel and from the Station. It spins away, plummeting toward the atmosphere. The two fragments of the Tiangong follow, spinning in a rage of sparks and fire. Shenzhou escape pod. The spinning is punishing. Ryan is shaken violently. She is also mumbling words to herself that we can�t hear. It looks like she rambling. Some lights go off. The capsule�s aerodynamics slow down the spinning, positioning the vessel nose up.
It cuts through the atmosphere at incredible speeds. Its metal is burning hot. Smoldering debris and the fragments of the station chase the Shenzhou in its descent. A blinding light pours in from outside the window. The spinning is over, but the cabin vibrates with a loud rumble. As the G-Force restrains Ryan against her seat, she clenches her face and sweats. On the ceiling, condensation begins to form.
The Shenzhou is a ball of fire precipitating from the skies. It�s followed very closely by debris and the two fragments of the station. The two fragments collide and explode into a ball of fire that breaks into many pieces. An avalanche of fire cascades towards the Shenzhou, rapidly closing the distance. From the porthole, burning debris is passing by outside. The gravitational pull keeps Ryan tense in her seat as drops fall on her face. She looks at the ceiling where condensation is dripping.
The avalanche is about to swallow the cabin when the burning debris disintegrates before reaching the cooling stratosphere. On the way down, Stone hears Mission Control over the radio tracking the capsule while rescue teams are being dispatched. The capsule escapes the inferno as the debris crumbles in a final explosion expelling a very small piece of debris that shoots towards the Shenzhou and skims its surface, tearing one of the outer shields.
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