QSFer Frankie Figs has a new sapphic pulp sci-fantasy book out: Terrorforming.
A short, sweet, sapphic adventure with western vibes…
Sheriff Sarah Chen just wanted to keep the peace and live quietly in her little corner of the universe, but then something ancient and malevolent had the nerve to start stirring beneath the crust of New Montana.
Now the good Sheriff is on the case, but she’ll need more than a plasma nine-gun and a can-do attitude to whip this varmint’s butt…
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Excerpt
Never a dull moment for a law-bringer out in the void.
The crimson light of New Montana’s twin suns blazed through the dust-streaked windows of the Last Chance Saloon, painting savage shadows across the fury of two brawling men. Sheriff Sarah Chen’s hand dropped instinctively to the worn grip of her plasma nine-gun, its power cell humming to life against her palm.
“Only going to give you the one warning, boys!” Her voice cut through the chaos like a ripple of thunder on the plains. “Drop those mol-knives or I drop you!” While they weren’t going to start blasting holes in the walls with their molecule-thin blades of energy, Chen had seen first hand what one of those little blue-white energy shanks could do to a body, and she wasn’t having none of that grisly spectacle in on her ground.
The larger of the two miners—a hulking brute with auged-up muscles bulging beneath his pressure suit—hurled his smaller opponent across the bar’s synth-wood counter. The force-field protecting the barkeep’s airspace did little more than slow the poor sucker down, shattering bottles of watered-down nu-hol and knockoff Terran bourbon in his wake. Liquid and glass splashed against the establishment’s atmospheric purifiers, sizzling and filling the air with the scent of ammonia.
In the the far corner of the room where the harsh shadows clung the thickest, a figure watched intently. Grey Horse she was called, and if she had ever had another name than that, no one under atmo on this bit of dirt had ever heard it. Long, tapered fingers traced a symbol in the air as though she meant to pluck at invisible strings. Propped up against the wall behind her chair, a ripple of light caressed the tip of a battered old walking stick as though responding to the music of those invisible strings.
Back in the thick of things, Chen’s reflexes—honed by years of doling out frontier justice—sparked like a strike of lightning. Her niner cleared its holster in a blur of motion, its baroque engravings firing to life like it had magma in its belly. Two shots—precise as a medic’s pig-sticker—transformed the air between the brawlers into superheated plasma. They stumbled backward, their face-shields automatically polarizing against the brilliant discharge.
“Sheriff!” The smaller miner’s voice crackled through his vox-mask. “He’s running an illegal mining operation under Tower Three—they’re using unstable crystalline catalysts!”
“Lying vacuum-sucker!” The brute lunged forward, one augmented fist crackling with kinetic energy.
Chen hugged her plas-gun nice and friendly next to her hip. “I said enough!” Twin bolts seared past the brute’s helmet in rapid succession, close enough to leave scorch marks on his shoulder plates. “Next one goes through your kneecap, Hawkins. Don’t imagine those fancy corporate augments of yours will do the walking for you.”
In the corner, Grey Horse’s mouth quirked up on one side. There was something deep and hungry about this big-talking, fast-shooting, law-bringer. Something full of spark and current that pulled at the Pattern around her. The watcher plucked at the air again—yes. There it was; power. It wove and dipped through the fabric of reality like a trail of effervescence. Grey Horse had to wonder if the woman knew it yet, or if she just chalked it up to being a fine shot with a mouth full of might.
“Both of you—hands against the wall!” Chen commanded, her boots clicking against the metal floor as she approached. “Scanners out. Full spectrum.”
The smaller miner complied immediately, but Hawkins’ enhanced muscles tensed for rebellion, his boulder of a hand still clutching the mol-knife. A moment before the brewing violence erupted, however, his eyes went far away and his jaw slackened. The hilt of the knife hit the ground, the blade flickering to nothingness as it left his grasp.
Under the blanket of shadows, Grey Horse’s fingers completed another delicate pattern in the air.
Chen’s scanner hummed as she waved it over the miners, its quantum sensors penetrating the micro-environment of their suits. Her eyes narrowed at the readings. “Crystalline residue on both of you. Hawkins, yours is concentrated in those flashy augments. Turner, yours is all over your prospecting gear.” She kept her nine-gun trained steadily. “Looks like you’re both taking a walk to the hoosegow.”
As she secured their restraints, the air shifted and her spine shivered in response. Chen’s head snapped up, eyes finding the deepest shadows in the room as though guided by some hind-brain instinct. She caught only a glimpse of a long, sandal-shod foot dangling off a crossed leg and the drape of dark grey leather. A low beacon of light murmured against the wall, helpfully casting a dim view of the woman who sat there.
The Sheriff flicked the brim of her hat and nodded to the Tech-Speaker. “Ma’am.”
The law-bringer’s com crackled to life. “Sheriff Chen, priority alert. Got another disappearance out by Tower Seven. Same as the other two, seems like.”
The Sheriff’s jaw tightened as she secured her prisoners. “Copy that. Tell Deputy Rogers to prep the hover-cells.” Her gaze drifted back to the corner, but foot and its sandal had vanished like morning mist before a plasma storm and taken the leather and the little ball of light with it.
As though pulled by a string clipped to her belly, Chen took a step towards where the other woman had been, eyes intent on the dusty floor. An odd pattern lay imprinted in the filth, and something whispered on the edge of her hearing as she clapped eyes on it. She whipped her head around and narrowed her gaze on the two prisoners.
“Both of you keep those traps shut if you know what’s good for you,” she snarled, irritated for no good reason.
With every step towards the office her unease grew, though she couldn’t have said why that it was—or what it meant. For a woman like Sarah Chen, however, who was used to relying on the wisdom of her guts, it was a powerful unpleasant sort of feeling.
From the corner of the Last Chance Saloon, Tech-Speaker Grey Horse watched the Sheriff walk away with the arrested men. All things always seemed to have a way of coming together in their proper moment, and for perhaps the millionth time in her long life, she marvelled at how the Patterns moved through the Weave.
“Something ancient stirs in the depths of this world,” The grey-woman whispered. “Are you prepared for what is to come, Sheriff Sarah Chen? Are you ready for your orderly world to collide with mysteries older than humanity’s first steps into the void?” She shook her head, as if in denial of the possibility that Lilith’s granddaughter could be anything but what she was needed to be. “Well, let us hope that you are,” she breathed on a sigh, clutching her gnarled staff as she turned away. “For your real troubles have only just drawn breath.”
Author Bio
Hi! I’m Frankie Figs, and I write short, pulpy novellas in the sci-fi fantasy genre(s). Expect epic adventures, big personalities, wlw / sapphic vibes, general shenanigans, and lots of cheese <3 I live with my wife, kiddo, dogs and cats in rural Maritime Canada, and I’m an avid lover of table top roleplay, reading, and gaming!
| Author Website | https://frankiefigs.carrd.co/ |
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