Several precisely controlled spurts of propellent from the manoeuvring thrusters left Hesperian in a near-identical orbit to Pathfinder 2. With barely half a kilometre between them, this was the closest the two vessels had ever been to each other. They could see the Pathfinder on the display screens in the control room but, because of the lack of windows along the sides of the Hesperian, Ria missed being able to look outside in real life.
"Orbital alignment complete, Commander," Foxy reported.
"We're here!" added Stephen.
"Thank you, Foxy," replied Ria. "Now all we need to do is bring the two vessels together. Stephen are you ready to take the helm?"
"As ready as I'll ever be, but I'll need your authorisation to disengage Foxy's safeties. Otherwise, she's going to counter any attempts to move the ships nearer to each other than two hundred metres."
"Here's my code," she replied, tapping it into the tablet attached to her command chair. "You have the ship. I'm going downstairs to get suited up."
"I don't think I'll ever get used to zero-G," said Stephen.
"It's only for a couple of hours, then we'll be off again," said Ria.
"Are you sure you should do the E.V.A. yourself, Commander?" asked Susan.
"Well, as you're supervising the operation, Stephen's flying the ship, Phil will monitor the connection between the ships and the status of the Pathfinder, and Skylar's already going outside as she's our most experienced E.V.A. expert, there's no-one else left."
"No time to defrost anyone else now, either," added Stephen.
"I'm not changing the plan now," said Ria. "Let's make this happen. And don't forget, Stephen, Skylar and I will keep our suit radios open the whole time so try to give a commentary about where we've got to with the manoeuvring so we can attempt to time the airlock to minimise the time both ships will be together untethered."
"Sounds good," he replied. "My biggest worry is damage to the exo-frames if both vessels rub against each other before they are secured. That could cause all sorts of headaches when it comes to deploying the modules on Proxima C."
"Just get us within ten metres. Skylar and I will do the rest with the winches. Susan, you stay suited up, ready to assist if we have any problems."
* * *
"What's the best way to do this, Skylar?" Ria asked via her E.V.A. suit radio.
Both women were moving themselves hand-over-hand up the ladder that ran the full height of Supply Module 2. As the vessel's ion drive was no longer running, they did not have the perceived gravity to deal with but they still had to move cautiously as each of them was pulling along a portable winch on a short tether cable. The winches were only around forty centimetres along their longest axis but each weighed fifteen kilograms which made them hard to manage.
Ria was trying to ignore the looming form of Pathfinder 2, aligned with the Hesperian and seeming to float silently alongside it. Hanging there ten metres away with no support or thrust defied human logic.
"Let's get a pair of winches attached at the top, that should be the easiest to do," Skylar replied. "Then one of us will need to head across to the Pathfinder and attach the winch cables to its exo-frame. I think I should do that, Commander."
"I won't argue," Ria laughed. "Once that's secure, you'll need to get back over here so we can do the same at the other end."
"Then we head back to the airlock, pick up the other two winches and do the whole procedure again."
"Exactly. That's the plan," Ria replied.
"I'm just hoping that four winch cables will be enough."
"It better had be. It's all we've got. Other than those, it's just ropes, and they won't hold 2,900 tonnes of metal together enough for an interplanetary flight."
Once they reached the highest platform on the Hesperian's exo-frame, they swung themselves onto the top of it and let their magnetic boots lock onto the wire-mesh. Skylar untethered her winch and attached its tether through the mesh panelling. Ria did the same with her winch then moved to the edge of the platform nearest to the Pathfinder and worked out the best place to clamp the winches in place.
Every major strut in the Hesperian's exo-frame had the same cross-section, allowing the winches to attach wherever they might need them on the outside of the vessel. She plucked Skylar's floating winch from above the platform and pulled it into position against the frame. It was difficult to slide the clamps into place while wearing E.V.A. gloves but as soon as they were in position, she twisted the safeties to lock them down.
She wound out some cable and passed the clip on the end to Skylar to clip onto the tether loops around the waist of her E.V.A. suit. That left Skylar free to unhook her own tether cable from the ship. The retractor wound it neatly back into her E.V.A. suit. Ria then repeated the process with her winch.
"I'm going to spool out more winch cable, enough to reach the Pathfinder, if I get it right. Are you sure you're okay making the jump?"
"Yeah, no problem. If I fail to catch hold of it, just winch me back over here and I'll try it again," Skylar replied confidently. "The really tricky bit is going to be launching myself at the right angle."
"The winches are ready when you are," Ria replied.
Skylar took a step closer to the end of the platform, then leant forwards over what had been a drop to infinity just minutes earlier when the ion drives were still running. Peeling one of her boots free of the platform surface, she stepped over the edge, tilting her foot as far as her thick boot would allow, then pressed the sole against the side surface of the exo-frame strut.
As soon as the powerful magnets in the sole took hold, she gently lifted her other boot free of the top surface and let the rigidity of her E.V.A. suit rotate her until she was standing perpendicular to the side of the Hesperian. She dropped her free foot down to lock into place beside the first.
"Here goes," she announced via the radio.
Ria could only watch nervously as Skylar crouched a little and then launched herself vertically towards the Pathfinder vessel. The magnets in her right boot snapped cleanly clear of the metal strut, but her left boot lingered for a fraction of a second before breaking contact. As far as Ria could tell, the slight hiccup seemed to have little impact on Skylar's launch velocity but sent her into a slow spin.
There was little Skylar could do to affect the spin as she travelled across the space between the two vessels, trailing the two snaking steel cables behind her. Ria attempted to judge which way around Skylar would be when she met the other ship, but it was hard to be sure.
By the time she was halfway across, her legs had spun her around until she was facing directly away from her destination but, with no friction, she would keep slowly turning until she hit the Pathfinder. In the couple of seconds that Ria could see her through the visor of her helmet, she pulled facial shrug but did not look panicked.
Ria considered activating one or both winches to pull her back, but it would complicate the situation further and arriving at either vessel in a spin would not improve things. It would be better to see how the situation played out on its own.
Skylar stretched her arms out to either side as her feet continued to rotate above her, relative to Ria, and swing towards the Pathfinder. Ria could not believe what happened next. In a move with ballet-like precision, Skylar completed her half-turn at the exact same moment that both her boots landed smoothly with soles flat against one of the Pathfinder's exo-frame struts. Magnets on both boots clamped onto the metal structure with no bounce. Skylar absorbed her momentum with a slight bend of her knees and was left standing as though she had practised the manoeuvre many times.
She whooped over the radio and Ria clapped in response, not that it made any real sound and Skylar could not see her anyway.
"Expertly done there, Skylar!"
"Don't expect me to do that with the next one," Skylar laughed.
"It might be easier if you walk down that ship to the location for the other winches and I throw the cables over to you. It will save jumping backwards and forwards too many times."
"We didn't think of that," said Skylar as she unhooked the first winch cable from her suit.
"What?"
"How am I going to get back over to you at the end?"
"Jump?"
"Without a tether? I can't bring a winch cable back and my suit tether won't reach that far, even if I could throw it to you."
"I guess that's why they picked me as commander," Ria laughed. "Once you've attached the last winch cable, you can clip your tether to that and climb along it back to the Hesperian."
"I didn't think of that."
"Get both cables attached, then we can get down to the rear of both ships and get the other winches attached too."
Looping the winch cables around the exo-frame strut before clipping each onto itself was a fiddly operation in an E.V.A. suit but, by wrapping her arms around the strut as though she was hugging it, Skylar was eventually able to complete the job.
The next step sounded like the simplest task, walking along each vessel's exo-frame and deciding on another suitable location to attach the vessels together with two more winch cables. This was, however, complicated by having to detach and reattach their suit tethers at every junction between struts, because the tether rails were not continuous between them. Ria also had to split off for a while to collect the other two winches from outside the airlock on the way.
As soon as Ria had the winches safely clamped onto Hesperian's exo-frame, she started the motor on one to unwind enough cable to reach the Pathfinder. During their extensive training, no-one had mentioned throwing steel cables in zero-gravity, let alone practised it.
She assumed the logical approach would be to roll up the unspooled cable into a loose coil and then to throw the whole coil towards Skyler. When she tried it, instead of uncoiling in flight as she expected, it hit the end of the short length of loose cable and bounced. The coil unfurled but none of the resulting loose cable was still heading towards Skylar.
Skylar laughed as the widening jumble of cable half bounced off and half wrapped around Ria's E.V.A. suit. Ria swore quietly, then gingerly peeled the cable off herself. She coiled it again, but with much larger loops and much more slack before swinging it underarm towards Skylar again.
The coil of cable flew until it used up the slack, then spun and unfurled. For a moment, the part of the cable closest to the winch bounced and then flowed slowly back towards her, but the hook at the other end had kept more momentum this time, and kept travelling forwards unhindered, with unfurling cable pulled along behind it. Skylar reached out and caught it.
Skylar looped it around the strut and hooked it back onto itself, then they repeated the procedure with the final cable. With all four cables securely attached, Skylar attached her suit tether to one and methodically pulled herself back to the Hesperian.