Woot! It is countdown time for the release of Under Strain, the second emotionally-packed standalone story in the Rebel Cyborgs series!
While we wait for Under Strain to release on May 11th, I’ll be sharing the first chapter, starting today with the first scene.
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Chapter One
Strain was malfunctioning.
He shifted his weight from his right booted foot to his left. The ground below him was solid, real. But he was 98.2569 percent certain the screams accosting his auditory system weren’t valid inputs. The smell of rotting flesh filling his nostrils, he projected, was also a figment of his damaged processors.
It was becoming more and more challenging to separate the present from the past. Footage from the death planet, from the worst planet rotation of his lengthy existence, replayed on a continuous loop inside his head.
He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t delete it, not without further corrupting his systems.
Those images and sounds were currently too loud, too vivid. The noise interfered with his logic, with his ability to detect threats or protect the rest of the cyborg retrieval team.
Strain slid his gaze to the transport ship parked seventy-two strides from his position. Cyborgs waited to escort newly arrived beings, the beings they’d rescued, to their assigned domiciles on Mercury Minor. He was 99.2569 percent confident those beings existed.
Which meant the black-haired human female walking with a C Model warrior on the edge of his visual system was part of his reality too.
Strain’s muscles flexed. She had pointed a gun at the male during the retrieval.
Additional footage played in his processors, meshing with the images from the distant past, from the bombings, the trauma.
There had been a gaping pit of smoking rubble situated behind the human female, similar to the debris on the death planet. Beneath the smell of that destruction, he’d detected the putrid aroma of long-dead bodies.
It was too much like the original ordeal, too similar. He lowered his form more and more, preparing for the female to attack. Humans betrayed. They had no sense of honor. He was reminded of that truth with every replay of the bombing footage.
There was a loud click, and the montage residing in Strain’s databases restarted.
The commander of the fleet, a human aligned with the Humanoid Alliance—with the cyborgs’ cruel manufacturers, accessed the communication lines. He gave the orders to decimate the enemy’s planet.
The commander’s human female laughed in the background, triumphant in her victory, reveling in the progression of her sinister plan. She had plotted to have the D Models replaced by newer models…or playthings, as she’d called them. The bombing would bring that scheme to fruition.
The terrain was populated by the older cyborgs, by Strain’s brethren. Forced to fight for the Humanoid Alliance, viewed as disposable machines, they hadn’t been evacuated with the humans.
Bombs fell, the assault synchronized, the coverage thorough. Cyborgs bellowed warnings and ran, seeking to evade the impending destruction.
There was nowhere to retreat. The humans had taken every functional ship, and not a single expanse of the surface was spared from the explosions.
His brethren, his friends, everyone he had ever cared for, were blown apart. Their screams of pain, of betrayal, of desperation had flooded the transmission lines.
The human female, from her vantage point on the commander’s battle station high above the planet, had laughed, acting as though the warriors’ deaths were a source of great amusement. The sounds of that mirth distorted in Strain’s auditory system, elongating, becoming more sinister. It was menacing.
A threat.
He had to eliminate its source. His body shook with barely contained emotion. If he didn’t kill all the humans, his brethren would die, and he’d be left alone on a death planet for solar cycles, sentenced to replaying footage of his ineptitude, of his failure to save his friends, again and again until parts of him broke, never to be repaired.
The screams echoed in Strain’s ears, and the images of the bombing, of the death, the despair, flowed through his processors.
He watched with horror as the black-haired human female turned toward the C model male and glided her hands along the warrior’s body armor-clad torso.
Her fingers were too close to the male’s guns.
A rumble rolled up Strain’s throat.
“Human.” He shifted toward the danger, leaning into it. His fingers folded, as though by their own programming, into tight fists. His body shook, the tremors escalating in intensity.
If the black-haired human female moved her hands a breath closer to the weapons, if she laughed, smiled too widely, the thin thread holding him back would snap. He would attack, kill her, remove the peril to his brethren and—
The muzzle of a gun pressed against his nape. The connection with another object grounded him. The coolness of the metal dissipated a sliver of his haze, pulling him back from the brink.
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Read the next scene (available April 19th) here:
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Under Strain
A damaged cyborg warrior is hunted by a peace-loving human female.
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Strain is severely malfunctioning. The D Model cyborg was the sole survivor after a horrific decision was made by his cruel manufacturers. He hates all humans, and when he attacks one who is under his cyborg leader’s protection, he is reprimanded, stripped of his weapons, and told to watch and not actively participate in the next mission.
That mission takes place on a small remote planet. Its lush terrain should only be inhabited by the cyborgs they were sent to rescue, but Strain senses another presence on the surface. She is watching him, tracking him, hunting him.
A fully operational cyborg would end her lifespan.
Strain wants to claim her. Forever.
Kamyelle is the only one left of her kind. Warriors have killed the other nonviolent human inhabitants of her planet. She survived…barely…by hiding in the trees, observing her enemies, and covering herself with lifeform scan-concealing mud.
When a handsome, gray-skinned, brilliant-blue-eyed male arrives, surrounded by weapon-carrying warriors, she has to save him. Warriors harm and they kill. That is what they do.
She won’t allow them to hurt Strain.
***
Under Strain is a STANDALONE Cyborg SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes-violent universe.
It features a broken warrior, a human female who thinks he’s perfect, and velociraptor-like dinosaurs who view them both as light, tasty snacks.
Pre-order Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R322L7S
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08R322L7S
Amazon AUS:
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08R322L7S
Apple Books:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/under-strain/id1545957749
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/under-strain-cynthia-sax/1138505613
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/under-strain
Smashwords:
