Sci-Fi Shorts

Sci-Fi Smackdown Round 3 - The Drifter

A/N - The prompt for this round was to use the above song as inspiration for a story about collecting ice in the Oort Cloud, 1000 years from now.  3500 words.

A thousand years into the future, humanity has become a space-faring race. Their frontiers now lie in the Oort Cloud, where city-sized ice-collecting ships orbit endlessly around the distant sun, harvesting H2O to slake the never-ending thirst of the solar system's growing network of colonies.

Just as in earlier times, the frontier draws people of all types; young and old, rich and poor, honourable and otherwise, all seeking something out on the edges of human existence, some undefinable thing that can't be found in the safe confines of known space, their desires as diverse as they are.

Communities evolve and grow, while generations live and die on and around the ships, never knowing the sun as anything more than just one more bright star, nestled among the millions that bedeck the heavens around them.

In a habitation module of one of these ships, a retired ice-collector is putting his grandchildren to bed.

"Alright, time for sleep, you little terrors."

"Tell us a story, Grandpa!"

"Tell you a story? Why in the Cloud would I do that?"

"Because we like stories!" shouted Ben.

"Because I'm not tired," reasoned Jane.

"Because Momma says you like the sound of your own voice," said little Grace, wide-eyed.

"Does she, now? Well, your momma's a smart lady. Alright, into bed and I'll see what I can do. Let's see, a story. Hmm...have I told you the one about how I single-handedly saved a collection-crew from a rogue asteroid?"

"Yes!" chorused the children, with simultaneous eye-rolls.

"How about the one where I secretly took your grandma to the Oort Ball?"

"Yes!"

"Phew, tough crowd. Well, how about-"

"Tell us a new story, Grandpa," pleaded Jane.

"And no smoochy stuff!" demanded Ben.

"A new story?" The old man looked thoughtfully at Grace. "Well, I reckon you're all probably old enough, now. I'll tell you the story of the Drifter. But you have to promise not to let your momma know."

"We promise!"

"Well, it all started many years ago. I was out on a muster, and as usual, I was in trouble..."

"Jimmy, quit your stargazin' and round up them stragglers!"

Guiltily, I looked around my section of the herd. Sure enough, a couple of strays had drifted away from the group. "Sorry, Belle. I'm on to 'em." As the youngest in the family, I always felt I had the most to prove, and hated to be found lacking in my duties. And my sister wasn't an easy one to please.

Once they were set in motion, Mr Newton's first law usually kept the comets on track, but just occasionally a passing asteroid would knock one or two out of formation. Checking that my beam-lasso had plenty of charge, I peeled away from the main herd and set off in pursuit of the recalcitrant snowballs.

The stragglers were moving fast, and I had to crank my impellers up to maximum in order to make ground on them. Weaving around a large M-type asteroid, I was just lining up the larger of the comets with my lasso when I was interrupted by a mocking voice in my headset.