Sample: "Dirty Deeds at the Second Star of Toilet"
Story by Spiders Thrash on SoFurry
Sorry this one's so short. I'm planning to submit it to a magazine and I don't want to ruin my already slim-to-none chances of getting it accepted by posting too much of it somewhere else.
I swore I'd never waste my time with this again, but I need money and the stuff I'm posting on Tapas and other sites just isn't working, so I'm back to this again. The first one I'm trying pays 10 cents per word but only accepts subs between 1600 UTC Monday and 1600 UTC Tuesday, so I have to wait until tomorrow. Their guidelines say they're not put off by profanity, so I figured why not start it off with a bang. When they inevitably reject it, I'll edit it accordingly and try the usual batch of a half-dozen or so other magazines until they've all rejected it, then I'll just toss it up on Patreon and then here and Tapas and Inkitt. Maybe Wattpad, too.
Anyway. This one's set after the end of Uncharted Territory (even though UT still isn't finished yet). I was planning to write something for a contest and wanted to do another quick story with Kolya. The first prize was $1,000 ... but I'd never heard of the publisher before (ServiceScape) so I decided not to go ahead with it. This story may or may not end up modified for inclusion in a sequel to UT, so I didn't want to get it wrapped up in a scam or get stuck in a contract that let the publisher claim my other books just because they have the same characters. Not that I would've had a chance anyway, but still.
So here are the first few paragraphs...
"Shit!" Kolya Mason slammed into the cavern floor and the air rushed from her lungs as a cloud of dust puffed up around her. She pushed herself up while still riding the out wave of pain paralyzing her lungs.
Blood trickled down her right cheek as she leaned against the cave wall until she could finally draw a breath. She glanced up at the ledge that had crumbled under her, wiped her cheek off, and grumbled.
Oh, well, who'd notice another scar? It would just join the ones from the accident that had turned the left side of her face into a thousand miles of bad road nine years ago.
She picked up her flashlight, brushed more dust off her long black coat and cargo pants, and continued onward. She scanned the cave with the apps on her comm and headed for the faint power source the Mae Jemison had detected. The crew had already had Beta Leporis c on their bucket list because the Chinese translation of its name amused them, and when a client hired them to investigate one of the unexplored continents, they'd jumped at the chance.
And it had paid off. The Jemison had found the ancient ruins of an underground city -- which was right up Kolya's alley. She'd started hitchhiking on starships years ago for a chance to see places like this with her own eyes. Well, her one good eye, at least.
She followed the blip on the comm's screen and the ground sloped downward. Her boots scraped over the loose gravel -- then her left foot shot forward as if it had hit a banana peel. She landed on her ass and slid until the ground gradually leveled out.
Just what I needed. She laughed, picked herself up, and realized she could see remarkably well for being this deep underground. She swept her eye over the subterranean vista stretching out before her and whistled softly.
Enormous structures connected by a network of catwalks appeared to give off their own subdued light. The colors were mostly shades of blue and green with the occasional splotch of orange or yellow.
Maybe that was the power source we picked up from orbit. Might not be anything else here.