The Prodigal Son (part 1)

Prentice Aldrich. Son of Laurence Aldrich - the Solar System’s wealthiest man.

On Prentice’s 25th birthday, his father gifts him the WF Rockefeller, named after their ancestors. Prentice is the world’s most eligible bachelor and a renowned playboy. His parties are legendary, the number of broken hearts left in his wake a tragedy. Seldom seen without several beauties (of any sex - Prentice is wholeheartedly pansexual) the youngest Aldrich flits from one decadent adventure to another. Casinos of Kowloon II? Check. The brothels of Ceres’ mining hub? Check. Causing a whole chapel of nuns to break their vows? Check. The world watches Prentice with a mixture of fascination, jealousy, disgust, and an undisguised hatred of the systems that have given this young fool the world.

Leaving the party alone, for a change, Prentice flies directly away from the plane of the Solar System for two days before he stops. After a shower (the WF Rockefeller is nothing if not luxurious) and a change of clothes, Prentice leans back in the solitary seat in the bubble canopy and thinks.

Nobody knows where he is. Private spaceships don’t have to file a flight plan, and a ship’s transponder only broadcasts when activated - either by the pilot of the ship, or buy a request ping from another ship, station, or planetary space authority area. Right now the ship sits almost 600 million kilometres from Earth, in astonishingly empty space far above the plane the planets, asteroids, and pretty much everything else, orbits in.

Bumping in to something else up here would be extraordinarily unlikely. So the fact that a substantial object was appearing about 5km away could not be a coincidence. Gradually, as its operating, navigational, and docking lights switched on, a space station was revealed. Made up of three fat, rotating donuts attached to a thick spine, the station was almost a kilometre in diameter and two along its axis. Dark grey, with no logos or name visible, the station was as subdued as Prentice was normally flamboyant.

The WF Rockefeller approaches the end of the spine of the station automatically, matching the spin easily, and with a satisfying triple-clunk it’s docked. Prentice grabs a holdall and steps through the door, his stomach lurching as he transits from the false gravity of the WF drive of the ship, in to the zero-G of the station spine. An older man, in plain grey overalls, grabs Prentice’s arm and guides him to the hand rail.

“Hello Sir. Pleasant journey?” The man’s English accent is an anachronism these days. Humanity is largely beyond accents that align with borders.

“I’m good thanks Stannings.” Replied Prentice. “The journey was fine. I caught up on a lot of sleep.”

“Very wise Sir. Would you like some dinner before you get to work?”

“I’ll have something in the lab. I want to get started straight away. Do we have tacos?”

“Of course. I’ll have some brought over straight away.”

“Thanks Stannings. I’ll see you in the lab.” And with that, Prentice gently kicked off and down the wide corridor. He was a little out of practice in zero-G, but his kick was pretty good and he only touched the sides of the corridor once as he reached the central donut of the three.

The lab took up half of the central ring. Spin gave an equivalent of 0.8G gravity, meaning walking and movement was almost the same as on Earth - you just got a little less tired. The lab curved away and up from where Prentice entered the ring via the hub spoke. A technician approached wearing a bright orange lab coat.

“Prentice! Good to have you back. We have progress!”.

“That’s great Ada. Show me.”