As surging energy poured into the acceleration system, the ancient giant orbital capsule began moving toward Firmament Station in orbit. It carried 120 engineering personnel and the first batch of twenty-two "Mother Star Barrier broadcast components." Thanks to the incredible technology of the Voyagers, the cargo would be delivered smoothly into space within a few hours and installed over the following days at several reserved points near the transit capsules. A week later, they would undergo trial operation without connecting to the Neural Network.
Among the stars, the ancient Firmament Station floated silently in the darkness of space. The towering Orbital Elevator extended from the planet's surface to the station's inner ring, and the transit capsule sections connected to it were brightly lit. The engineering force led by Nicholas had successfully restarted roughly a tenth of the entire station's power units. Those awakening systems, in turn, awakened other parts of the station. A tide of revival was spreading through Firmament Station, and almost every day, new lights appeared on its distant Ring Belt.
Against the vast backdrop of space, those lights stretching through the darkness resembled a Great Wall of lights encircling the planet.
Along the inner edge of a Ring Belt near the transit capsules, brilliant sparks lit up space. Flickering particle jets reflected against the lights on the nearby bulkheads. A bizarre-looking piece of construction machinery had wrapped its tentacle-like limbs tightly around a support pipe, using a spear-shaped structure at its front to weld the outer wall of the station. At the machine's "head" was a spherical shell made of high-strength transparent polymer. Cassandra, clad in a deep-space work suit, sat within it, gripping the controls and watching the machine's progress tensely.
A moment later, the welding flare gradually died out. Cassandra let out a quiet breath