Jean Dunois, the flight supervisor and George Fujieka, the second pilot were killed because of depressurization of the laboratory and the engine compartment.

Dick Aidem, the general major of the SAS air forces, received multiple fractures, concussion of the brain and now was lying unconscious in the control room under the supervision of the navigator – Alexander Dybal.

The German ship was less damaged.

However, everything that had been fixed in it without welding, was swept away from its places by inertial acceleration; the clamp bolts were cut from the storage batteries, as well as the main and local computers, propulsion systems, aiming systems, food containers, not to mention personal belongings of the crew, rubbish, rags and oil from the broken gyroscope that appeared out of nowhere…

All of these things were sadly floating inside the battle station that now looked more like a garbage truck, rather than a military ship.

The Germans were all alive, but two of the four officers had fractures and the board gunner Wolff Lawyer Hoffman was in a comatose state.

Otto Franz Eichberger, the navigator of «Das Rhein», who was performing the duties of a doctor, having examined the Lieutenant just sighed:

– Poor Hoffman, he can only be saved on Earth, in a special ‘Raumwaffe’ hospital in Dusseldorf.

Several minutes after the collision, having lost the opportunity of using their engines and in a state of shock, ‘Independence’ and ‘Das Rhein’, sharply started to de-orbit and began to fall.

A few minutes later, having lost contact with the outer world, people realized that there was no possibility to use their rescue capsules and from the thought of it they winced; this was not just a heavy accident: it was a disaster.

For the last two hours Whitehouse has been shaking the bracket, Mackliff has been trying to somehow establish the external communication, and call the repair vessel on duty.

All the while three Germans were consistently working on sealing their capsule.

Now, seated on the cracked telescope casing «Hubble-514», Whitehouse was a doleful observer of their vain efforts to hammer in the titan-stratum fiber into the microscopic cracks by melting them with krypton.

The titanium was bubbling, forming small spheres of an unpleasant brown that burst like soap-bubbles on the rough armor plating, leaving quickly evaporating blots.

At the same time, it was clear that only the astronaut in a pale blue commander’s space suit worked well, and the other two could barely move.

The one, who was meticulously melting the titanium fiber in equal intervals of time, most likely had a broken left arm; it was hanging like a whip.

The other only stirred when an instrument box slipped out of his hands and he had to catch it frantically.

– Listen, Mackliff, do you know what they are doing? Mackliff, hey! Did you fall asleep? Hey!’ – Whitehouse knocked his hand in a dirty white glove on a box of internal communication, which has been finally disturbed; and heard a voice of the flight engineer in response, that sounded muffled like in a dungeon:

– Yes, I can hear you. Who are you talking about?

– The Germans of course, damn it!

– Oh well…They must be messing around with their capsule, like us.

– They are caulking it, like an ancient boat with titanium fiber!

– So are they making progress?

– Seriously? Have you lost your mind, John? Will titanium fiber stand the temperature of atmospheric friction? What about the buffing? I have a feeling that they are doing it only because they want to be engaged in some sort of activity. Perhaps it is easier for them to await their deaths like that.