Brilliant Man/Vir Clarissimus (Latin)

Chapter 4 Plight over El Niño

Returning to their route in Space, Ozwald had time to dapple over their situation. They likely wouldn't see Mars for another year (its airy, mahogany pores had dropped since their departure, euphemizing its dreary state), they had been to Ceres, and had received Garfield's greenlight while visiting Jupiter. Now what lay ahead was empty, voltaic atmosphere. Jove was a planetary slingshot.. a vehicular catapult they could utilize to swing themselves further into the Solar System.

"Well, Alicia. We survived our suicide mission, thankfully," Ozwald yawned, the smeared, slightly-matte glare of the Sun ripping his eyes apart. "I wish to lie and call this leisure, but there's no use in sugarcoating the two-weeks journey it shall take to cross Jupiter's gravitational field. Try not to get too stagnant."

"Shit...." Alicia frowned, her expression jaded. "The inertia's gonna sting; just wake me when we're on Pluto."

A blossoming expression filled his face. "A girl can dream," he snorted, glance still fixed outside his window. Jupiter's threads of light, salmon-colored atmosphere filled the view below.

Drawing from the window, Alicia recognized that she and Ozwald's mission as 'The Artifici-Flavorists' was more than just simple play; actually, it was essential in the protection of man's ingenuity and survival. Their flight joined the innovations, equations, and analytics developed by him, threading this into one wholly-encompassing web of brilliance. As a species marked by its innate, unrivaled seeking of discovery and quest for immortality, so long as dullness and destruction are kept at bay, he shall never cease to exist. In fact, Man has grown alien, sometimes sporting three feet and webbed fingers: humanoid. This represents the most recent step of faith into an advanced, genetically-optimized world.

During this two-week span, Alicia also began to see their vessel Spirit as simply another product of capitalism. But like every satellite roaming the stars, it bore the unique distinction of.. human; an intelligent product of man, whether their adventurous pair may face tragic circumstances or victory. The natural cannot leave the natural, but the artificial can unleash this boundary, rendering whole worlds, stars, and moons in the space of their fingertips.

In fact, Spirit must tackle a double-goal. It had the significant role of keeping mankind steady, but also in migrating a singular Martian man and woman to Pluto. The furthest we've ever gone and all of this under intergalactic pressure.

~

All sound went deaf in the long weeks of crossing Jupiter's sputtering, electric atmosphere. One thing to note is that they'd sustained a minimum safety height of 6,000 kilometers above the steamy, boiling, tomato-juice atmosphere.

Also, with so much time in their hands, Ozwald and Alicia dove head-first into Jovian facts, science, and fallacies - the same antics which'd occupied them between school lessons. They discussed exospheres, electronics, and other interesting fields but were never fully drawn from the mundane task at hand.

Electric, rich-colored clouds latticed and wove together like lines on pie-crust, rippling when the pie filling cracked and boiled.

~

"Holy stars, Ozzy!" Alicia squealed, rapping his suit helmet. Ozwald awoke, turning his attention from sleep to her. While sleeping, he'd entrusted their safety in the gravitational hands of the mastermind Neptune's road, which would simply enact its centripetal effect on their vehicle. "Look! Jupiter's gone. Now all that's left is Saturn!"

"In three months," he reminded her, smiling.

"Three months." Alicia nodded, resolving that they, still, had made progress.

Saturn is the graceful, next largest satellite of the Sun, only slightly subordinate to Jove's undefeated height. The ballerina is believed to have acquired its tiara following an aerial collision, its icy rings having existed for several hundred-million years. Uranus came next (6 months), then a pit-stop to Nesonia (10 hours, and some needed rest), then finally Neptune (an additional 4 months).