Here’s a scene from my finished science fiction novel, The Sands of Mime. It will be part of a duology and I’ll shop it once the second book is done. Writing a chase scene in a flooding slot canyon was fun!

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Dust and wind swept past Don and Effie as they ran under darkening skies. Misty rain started to shine on the rocks of the desert canyon.

He heard thunder in the distance, thought of the weather report he’d seen, and grimaced as they pounded down the narrow cleft. The rain came down in drops now, slowing them as it accumulated under their feet. Sheets of water splashed down the canyon walls, growing in strength and volume. The rain started to pound.

Effie looked back past him, the fear naked on her wet, determined face – she had to know what the rising stream and cascades meant. Ominous as it was, if their pursuer didn’t know the reason a slot canyon had smooth sides, well, Don decided they could use that. If he and Effie could find a way to climb, if they left the pirate in the slot, a flood pushing rocks up to and including giant boulders would be forced through this narrow defile.

But no handholds, Don noted in despair as his calves sloshed through rising stream at the floor of the canyon. No handholds: the unclimbable walls continued to be cut smooth by previous floods, with the added hazard of being wet. And, in his case, no hands to hold with: Don struggled with his partially-cut bonds as he slogged forward, his breath now coming in ragged gasps.

He nearly slammed into Effie when she stopped suddenly at a narrow cut in the wall, the site of a sudden spectacular waterfall. There were some boulders wedged above the streaming cut; an agile person could climb above the floor here, if they weren’t washed away. Don tried not to think of the force of a flood that could propel boulders the size of the ones wedged above them.

There. His hands were free.

“Hold on, Eff.” He surprised her by grabbing her by her sopping waistband and swinging her up onto the top of a boulder. If she could climb that wet, thin-cut channel she’d probably be up and away from the torrent he knew was coming. He tried shimmying up the same rock chimney, but the thing was too narrow and he slid back down with a thud.

“Don!” Effie yelled over the sounds of rushing waterfalls and more rain.

“Climb, dammit!”

“But what about you?”

“In a minute!” He rubbed his sore wrists frantically, kicked off his wet shoes, and tried climbing again. Over the pounding rain he yelled, “Get as high as you can!” Someone grabbed his bare ankle with a snarl. The pirate.

Effie shrieked, a high piercing sound like a sharp whistle.

“Effie! Climb!”

At about 1 AM Claire and her cleaning crew were leaving by the front door of her restaurant because the area around the back door, frankly, looked unsafe to her. Too many places to hide in the dark around that door, she thought as she locked the storefront behind her.

“See you tomorrow!” Claire waved as all three of them piled into the autotaxi they’d called. Her auto-t was just pulling up.

The car’s mechanical voice asked, “Fitzgerald?”

“That’s me…I mean, yes.”

“I am carrying another fare,” the car informed her. “Is that acceptable?”

Claire hesitated. She had not been able to see that through the silvered windows. “I guess so. I mean, yes.” You had to be so careful to be specific with the damned AIs.

The back door on her side opened. There was a largish red-haired man in neat business attire seated on the other side of the back seat, doing something with his link, oblivious to her. She shrugged, and got in.

The auto-t accelerated smoothly, almost as smoothly as the other passenger used what had looked like a link to spray something cool on her face.

Claire lost consciousness almost immediately. Her last, waning thought was that maybe the back door alley would have been safer.

Then, oblivion.

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Claire awakened very slowly from being drugged. Air puffed on her face from a grille in the wall. She was lying on some sort of bunk in a very small metal room. She tried to get up. She could sit but not stand yet. Still woozy. Queasy.

Perhaps the room was monitored, because a few minute after she woke, the door opened. An armed guard came in. He didn’t look military to Claire, but he did look like he and his huge gun meant business.  

“Where am I?” She asked him.

No answer. Stony silence.

Another rabbit of a man entered the small room, taking up most of the rest of the space. This turned out to be a medical person who checked her over perfunctorily, ignored her questions, and left. He seemed afraid.

The silent guard stayed; the door remained open with tantalizing views of a slightly-curved corridor. Where was she? There was a faint hum of some sort of mechanism in the background. The air smelled a bit stale, and of machinery and…paint? And humanity.

Rapid footsteps approached. A very plain older woman in a tattered black jumpsuit glanced at the guard and passed him. She seemed afraid, too. She had a similar jumpsuit over her arm, and a tray of very plain food in her hands.

“Where am I? Who are you people?”

The guard gestured with is gun, and the woman all but dropped the clothes at Claire’s feet and spun—never taking her eyes of the guard—to place the food tray on the bunk, the one flat surface in the room. She choked back a sob, and backed out of the room. Claire could hear her running down the corridor.

Not good. This was not good.

Claire looked around, really looked around for the first time. Her link and her bag were nowhere to be seen. Her shoes were missing.

The guard stepped just outside into the corridor, still visible and watching her, but doing something with his link. Behind where he’d stood in the room, Claire’s eyes focused on a glass covered cabinet, marked “Emergency Oxygen.” She put the clues together: curved corridor, mechanical hum, stale air, emergency oxygen, metal room.

She was in a spaceship. She was in space.

The guard finally spoke. He pointed at the clothes heaped on the floor with the tip of his gun as he said, “Put those on.” His voice was guttural, accented. He indicated the tray of food in the same menacing way. “Eat that.” As an afterthought, he added, “It helps nausea from the drug.”

He closed the door.

Claire got up and walked shakily to the door, leaning against the walls as she went. It was locked. There were scratches in the metal near the latch, as if someone had been trying—and failed—to get out.

She couldn’t handle the food yet, but she didn’t want to tangle with that guard. She supposed she’d better put on the black jumpsuit. It wasn’t prison orange, at least.

On the other hand, maybe it was worse.

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