Word: main
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Tsibliyev liked his romance tunes and played them whenever he could. But after the commander's blue mood last night, Foale had not expected to hear them this morning. Wriggling out of his sleeping bag in the Spektr science module and drifting into the main module, he saw that Tsibliyev looked positively jaunty. Instead of his usual rumpled jumpsuit, the commander was wearing his stiffer, more formal dress jumpsuit. The fabric no doubt itched, but Tsibliyev was a pilot first, and today he had a piece of flying to do. He wasn't about to underdress for the occasion...
...crew prepared for the day, Lazutkin floated into the main module and rigged the television monitor that had so famously failed weeks before. He worked the cables with the skill of a snake charmer, hooking them up to the TV with an authoritative snap. "You're not going to have a problem this time," he reassured Tsibliyev. "The picture is not going to disappear...
JUNE 25, NOON Tsibliyev could always count on Lazutkin. When Sasha told you a piece of equipment was going to work, it usually did. Shortly before midday, the Mir crew gathered in the main module, and Tsibliyev sent a command to the Progress vehicle, instructing it to open its electronic-eye camera and train its gaze on the station. The camera responded, and moments later, the TV monitor, as promised, flickered to life. Tsibliyev and Lazutkin seemed pleased; Foale was decidedly less...
...when Foale entered the spherical transfer node that connects the main module to Soyuz and the four other modules, he felt and heard a sudden, sickening thud. Somewhere on the outside of one of the station's modules, Progress had hit fast and hard. An instant later, a deafening Klaxon went off, a signal that Mir's electronic brain was also aware of the impact...
...find a way to replace the air that had been lost. While Foale remained behind in the transfer node to make sure the bolts holding the sphere together hadn't been damaged by the collision, Lazutkin unstowed a large tank of pure oxygen, wrestled it into the main module and, with Tsibliyev's help, opened its nozzle. Instantly, a loud, sibilant hiss echoed through the ship. Off in the node, Foale heard the noise and, knowing the difference between the sound of air entering a spacecraft and the sound of air leaving it, heaved a relieved sigh...