Checkpoint

Let’s pull all these fragments back together and see what we have. Here’s the original snippet:

They came in to Leo Five out of the midday sun. Around them, starships rose and fell in orderly lines, their wings gleaming in the golden light. On the comm, they could hear subspace stations full of chatter; the crackle and buzz of communications; the non-stop whirl of activity in the world below.

It was a relief to get going. After everything Lucky had been through, it felt good to breathe fresh air again; to feel wind on his skin, and sunlight on his face. He drank in the sights and sounds eagerly, relishing his first new world.

And Leo Five looked dazzling. The streets were drenched in rich golden light, and lined with tall buildings all lit up from within. Between them, the skyline was spiked by countless cranes, building even bigger structures. Words and pictures scrolled across their walls. Advertisements flashed by on enormous vidscreens, faster than Lucky could read. Cycles and aircars whooshed past them as they drove, an electric blur of motion, their lights like one continuous stream of flame.

This was the height of Human wealth, and it made the moon he’d grown up on look like a toy town. It was astonishing to see all that energy burning in those buildings, powering this civilization.

Phoenix

Here are the examples we've been building:

Biff delivered lunch to the captain of the Ulysses IV, as requested, at midday. Around him, the crew busied themselves in an efficient dance, discussing the upcoming mission, tapping screens that bathed them in moving blue light. As he stepped onto the bridge, Biff could hear communication with the station’s flight control; the beep and hum of preparation; the captain quietly asserting orders to her team.

It was exciting just to be standing there. The captain had requested this meal especially cooked, a tradition she indulged in before a journey this long, and Biff jumped at the chance to stand where it all mattered; to feel the excitement, the trepidation, the importance of being on the bridge of a starship. He savoured it all, knowing the moment may never happen again.

And the Ulysses IV was astounding. The size of a small city, its white, sleek exterior looked like it was carved from pure marble, the electric green light of the plasma drive weaving around the exterior of the ship like veins. The interior was lush; it felt like a cruise ship, not a military vessel. The crew Biff encountered were polite, professional, and friendly, which was far more than he could say for the usual society dregs he worked with. Maintenance bots floated past him as they did a final spot check before take-off, a humming, harmonious weave of perfection.

This was what it should be like. It made schlepping cafeteria rations on a D-grade space station feel like a wasted existence. Being on a military starship was a better life, with a better class of people. A better future.

They settled into orbit around Grendel B in time to see the sunrise. Other interstellars hung perfectly still a few miles above the atmosphere, shuttles running back and forth to the black disc at the top of the space elevator. The etherchan was silent. The only sound was the hum of their ship’s life support systems.

This planet made Vijay nervous. For all the eerie stillness up here in space, the thing below was a planet-sized hurricane, one of the most violent in the universe. Nobody had even managed to get a sensor down to the core, much less a person. The space elevator wasn’t tethered to the planet at all; its base was just another giant black disc orbiting lower down inside the atmosphere. The whole setup was bananas. As she walked to the shuttle, the non-robotic parts of Vijay felt queasy, her stomach squirmed and her skin prickled with sweat. She rode the shuttle to the upstation like she was being ferried across the abyss.

And Grendel B was hell. The upstation was nice enough, with a burnished golden lounge, twinkling music and excellent food synthesisers, but it was well above the atmosphere. As Vijay rode the lift down, the planet showed its true colours. At midstation 6, where the production commanders disembarked, the cable was undulating around them, and the view outside was a hazy screen of yellow gas. At midstation 3, where the exospheric miners departed, the cable was twisting serpentine and the window was streaked with violent orange and black liquids. Then, by the time she reached the downstation, the light was dark brown and red, the sound was nothing but an endless moan, and the pressure on her body told her the station was being dragged along at three or four times the speed of sound.

This was madness. Space was infinitely deadly, but Grendel B was a pure meat grinder. There was no way they could be getting anything from Grendel’s atmosphere that made this insane station worthwhile.

Jola arrived at the Thyna Shelf mid-morning, right on schedule. Surrounding her was the ebb and flow of marine life, scales and fins and plants going about their business. Her nav device checked in to Command with a satisfying beep, as its detection matrix slowly pulsed in ever widening circles, quietly searching for intruders, invaders.

So far, so fantastic. A security position was hard to get and Jola had only just managed to qualify, but she managed it, so who cared? The water flowed fresh in her gills and there wasn’t another of her fellow amphibs as far as the eye could see. The space and peace Jola felt was intoxicating.

And the Thyna Shelf was spectacular. The shallows, dappled in morning sunlight, were populated with smaller fish eager to feed on surface insects. Just away from the light, schools of tuna, parrotfish and comber going about their business, chatting in their various dialects. Surrounding this, kelp forests that ran deep, hiding all manner of secrets. And, fortunately, no humans to be seen, either in their surface vessels or swimming in their strange, rubbery skins and breathing devices.

This life needed protecting, Jola thought, from the human invaders with their destruction and their chemicals. Why they hated our world below the surface with such a passion was a mystery to her.

And below is your version, joined together. You'll need to delete the line breaks to create a continuous paragraph.

Is there anything you want to edit? This is your last chance to make improvements before we conclude the lesson!

Make sure you've:

Given some objective first impressions of the place.
Inserted your character into the scene.
Shown the reader your underlying theme or concept for the world.
Summed up with a comparison that has an emotional impact on the character.
Chosen details and qualities that evoke the mood of the place.

Delete excess paragraph breaks and polish your scene.

Science fantasy worldbuilding in Phoenix 3: A whole new world