The last piece of the diamond carapace slid into place silently. The vacuum of space being step one of the seal. Step two was molecular sized robots working on the atomic scale, weaving the new piece to the main body so seamlessly that, when all was done the capsule would be gas tight.
"That's it. This one's all done. Stage two, do you copy?" Leander said.
"We copy L. Our board just lit up green all across. 43 minutes until the seam closes. Why don't you head on in and grab a bottle of coffee. The insertion clock just went on for T-90 minutes."
"Roger that control. Heading in."
Leander unbuckled his suit from the diamond rings that studded various parts of the capsule and marveled at the scene. The diamond capsule was as long 400 meters long, by 100 wide and 100 thick, although the thickness belied what was actually inside. The capsule was merely a shell 3 meters thick containing the vacuum of space.
The purpose of the capsule was going to be one of several "floats" to buoy MB1 within the Jovian atmosphere. 15 of these dirigibles had already been constructed, and Leander's was overseeing the 16th and final. All that remained was to start up the rockets, move this behemoth into position and attach it to the rest of the flotilla.
2 kilometers away Leander could see the rest of the waiting flotilla already lashed together with the diamond braid that linked the zeppelins. The habitat, once constructed, would hang underneath the flotilla circulating around the gas giant mining helium3 and constructing other versions of itself for research and other mining operations.
Leander was excited about the habitat. After the 8 months it took to get into orbit around Jupiter and another year and a half extracting the minerals that Io spewed into space from its volcanoes to build the flotilla the habitat would seem palatial. Phase one of the habitat had the 43 of them living in a space the size of a 20 story office building. Electricity would be generated by the myriad of wind turbines studding the outside of the habitat. There would even be a pressurized dome at the top and bottom of the habitat where one could marvel at Jupiter in all her glory.
From they could finally be a real hub not leaching off of their neighbors and make the entire Jovian system self sustaining. They would be trading electricity and heavy metals for water from Europa, volatiles from Callisto and send further surveying teams to Ganymede and Io.
Leander was in on the ground floor and he could see his stock options piling up during his seven year contract away from home.
"Control to L."
"Leander here, what's up?"
"Phase your helmet. You're in the path of reflection as the other team moves the flotilla."
"Copy that control, thanks for the heads up."
Leander typed a command into his wrist plate and most of his view winked out as gold filters came down over his visor. Stars disappeared and Jupiter itself became a dim blur. He watched as the concave flotilla began a slow arc and reflected the sun's weak rays in a direction towards the planet. His shuttle lit up brightly for a second then returned to its ghostly gray.
The beam reached the disk of the planet and began a slow drag across one of the cloud layers. Leander zoomed in on where the light hit the planet and tapped the code for autopilot back to the shuttle. He still had 10-11 minutes of down time before he reattached to the ship.
The roiling clouds fascinated him. He would zoom on a section in his room and watch the colors change like a thick oil painting mixing.
The reflection made him do a double take. Something had glinted in the cloud layer. The beam from the flotilla was moving across the surface of Jupiter at hundreds of kilometers per hour but something had lit up under the clouds.
"Control did you just see that?"
"We did."
"You think it was the test habitat that we lost?"
"Negative. Test habitat was lost near the north pole. That was 20 degrees south of the equator."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Any chance of getting the flotilla crew to spin the other direction and see if we could get it lit up again?"
"L, this is Cooper over at the flotilla, we're way ahead of you. Just waiting on clearance from ground control to delay insertion of your capsule."
"Ugh, that's 20 minutes from now!"
"Just c'mon back inside L, we'll clear a space up here for you."
No sooner had orbit control radioed him when the upper cloud layer flickered to life. Leander's jaw went slack. The dark side of Jupiter was full of lightning. Flashes were nothing new. Lighting bolts that, on earth, would stretch from New York to Chicago were old hat for the crew.
The light emanating from a small puff of white clouds in among a darker red area was simply turning on, then off, on, then off, in a time that that Leander could almost set his watch to.
Leander zoomed in his helmet cam and punched the code to record the feed.
"Control, please tell me you're getting this."
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