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I don't know how much advice I can offer, as I write coming-of-age pieces that aren't necessarily vast or world-building. I may misjudge your audience.

However from a personal level, I can tell you that I come to a story for a character and the plot he/she goes through. I know that in scifi world-building is a huge element, but books involve stories, and stories involve characters, and the character should be mentioned as early as possible. Not just the fact that he's a sweaty pilot--say something painterly about him, humanize him.

As a reader, I don't mind being confused about the plot if I like something about the character. If he's 19 and scared out of his mind and there's someone waiting at home for him. Throw the readers a little treat, and they'll be patient on their leash.

Then, once you've roped them, you can find ways to sneak information. Use dialogue during this mission to explain to the readers important details in a natural way.

And don't forget that you may want to reveal some details to the readers in later chapters instead of earlier on. The right amount of confusion is a plot device that keeps people reading the next chapter.

Game of Thrones has what people jokingly call "sexposition," which (as you may have guessed) when exposition is revealed through the dialogue of people having sex. I'm not suggesting you use sex scenes as liberally as GoT, but keep in mind that it's easier to read important details while characters are doing things or talking than it is to read great big chunks of information--especially if we don't care about the characters yet, or know what they're going to do.

Again, I don't know if this is at all helpful--if it's relevant to your audience--but I think it applies to general readership.

Also, I highly recommend 2 excellent books, "Stein on Writing" and "How to Grow a Novel," both by Sol Stein. He's an old editor with plenty of brilliantly sharp writing and editing advice. He has a lot of "rules", but it's really fantastic advice if you take it with a grain of salt.

https://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0312267495/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=09Q68W3D49Q8ZQ5PJTTR

Sounds like an interesting project. I hope you end somewhere on one side or the other. A quasi something might work, but I'd prefer a solid option for my time and effort.

That said, I went to your link, good stuff. As in your r/writingcritiques post, the dialog is strong, realistic, and compelling. Publishing editors often skip straight to a segment of dialog, in order to determine the viability of a submission. You have dialog in your favor.

Might I suggest Imaginative Writing: Elements of the Craft as a solution to your dilemma? Janet Burroway will help you put those images you see on paper.

No problem.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Craft-Storytelling-Comprehensive-Techniques/dp/1582975590

I think that this book has some pretty good advice for creating a page-turning read, and sort of developing that technique. It’s a very practical book and is blunt with you— you must accomplish storytelling magic within the first couple of sentences, or your story will fail.

Here is the desktop version of your link

Random, but I found the book that helped me a lot. Here's an amazon link.