An attempt at flash fiction

[karohemd]

I'm resurrecting this blog for a post that wouldn't fit into my wp one.
Last week a friend tweeted a link to This Northern Boy, an artist who mainly does line art SciFi illustrations. He had a sketch for sale I really liked and I ordered it. It arrived today.

There was no context, no name, or any indication who or what the ship was so I had a bit of a brainstorm and came up with a tiny story:

The small spacecraft dropped out of hyperspace a few clicks from a massive asteroid field. As it approached slowly on thruster power, its compact shape extended to reveal a cockpit with a large, lens-shaped window. A solar array and various sensors and aerials deployed and clicked into place as it drifted into the field and began a search pattern.
Inside the cockpit, the sole pilot worked the controls, multiple legs prodding and adjusting dials, multi-faceted eyes checking visual readouts, feelers searching for vibration patterns, antennae sensing the olfactory outputs. Every now and then, a small transmitter was jettisoned from a chute at the bottom of the craft and buried itself in one of the asteroids.
Its search pattern complete and its supply of transmitters exhausted, the surveyor retracted its sensors and returned to its travel configuration. When it had cleared the asteroid field, space folded around it and it was gone.
Just another day working for the Krktk mining corporation.