Five Views of the Planet Tartarus
ShortStory 549 words Recommended by 5 award/anthology sources
"Once a decade, a titanium-nosed shuttle plows through the rings of the planet Tartarus with a new batch of prisoners destined for the Orpheus Factory. The debris that makes up the rings is so thick that it thunders like a hailstorm, deafening the passengers. As the orbiting debris bounces and scrapes against the hull..."
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.