Rescue by Pushing

Another attempt was made to rescue the ship stranded in close orbit. Matching orbits went a lot better this time:

And we caught up properly, with plenty of fuel and RCS propellant left.

This is after lining up and issuing a de-orbit burn with the stranded ship stuck in the "claw". Success!

But then, failure! I did a quick save right at the point of re-entry not realizing that if I had two ships re-enter at the same time I could only control one, and thus the other would be lost :(

So in the end I had to sacrifice the ship with one kerbal for the sake of the one with two. A noble end. I should have moved them all to the same ship, or even just used the remaining fuel to delay re-entry of one of them.