Under Strain releases on May 11th. As we wait, I’m sharing scenes from the first chapter.
You can read the first scene from the first chapter of Under Strain here:
This week I’m sharing the third scene of that first chapter.
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The bots completed 86.1288 percent of the cleaning. Strain and Grudge restocked supplies, inspected weapons, reset the modified freighter’s systems.
Grudge chattered during the tasks, continued to talk as he lumbered toward the front of the ship.
Strain, situated in one of the holding chambers, didn’t contribute to the conversation.
He’d spent eight solar cycles, five planet rotations, and two shifts on the death planet. Utterly alone. He hadn’t spoken to another being throughout that entire duration, hadn’t transmitted for the first four solar cycles, forty-four planet rotations, and two shifts of his solitary sentence.
Transmitting had been too risky, and it would have served no purpose. His brethren remained under the control of the Humanoid Alliance. They couldn’t help him, and he didn’t want to draw attention to them, to put them in additional danger.
Once the cyborgs had mass rebelled, he requested a transport off the planet. Three solar cycles and three hundred and twenty-six planet rotations later, Cadet and her team arrived.
Chatter felt…unnatural at the point. And he had nothing he wanted to convey to anyone. He hadn’t saved his brethren, hadn’t died with them as an honorable warrior would have done.
During the bombing, he’d been trapped in an underground tunnel. By the time he escaped, there had been no one left to assist or fight. His fellow warriors were dead. The Humanoid Alliance and their ships were gone.
He was alone, had only his brethren’s corpses and his regrets for company.
For solar cycles.
His lifeform scans pinged, snapping him back into the present. A cyborg was approaching the chamber.
Grudge was currently situated in the bridge. Strain closed the compartment he had restocked with nourishment bars. There was a 75.1258 percent probability the newcomer was Cadet.
She had ordered him not to damage any humans. He had attempted to attack the rescued female. Cadet could relieve him of his duty, kick him off the team.
He would then have no access to a ship, would be stuck on the surface, unable to escape if there was an attack, a bombing. Strain’s muscles flexed to the point of pain. The screams in his auditory system amplified.
The stress would be too much. His slender hold on reality would be severed.
The door slid open. Cadet stepped into the holding chamber.
Strain braced his booted feet apart and faced her directly, waiting to be reprimanded.
“Unless I authorize it, human females are not to be killed.” The female cyborg leveled a hard glance on him. “You agreed to that directive when you joined our retrieval team.”
The human female had pointed a gun at a warrior’s back.
Strain said nothing, because that circumstance didn’t negate his leader’s orders. The Humanoid Alliance had beaten that truth into them. Orders were to be followed at any cost.
Even if those orders were illogical, were issued to soothe a human commander’s irrational female, and following them resulted in the loss of fifty-two thousand, three hundred and ten cyborgs.
Fraggin’ hole. His lips twisted. He hated humans.
“Cyborgs can’t lie.” Cadet shook her head. The inability to bend the truth was hardcoded into their programming. “You must have believed you could adhere to that rule.”
“I will adhere to that rule.” Strain forced himself to speak. “It won’t happen again.”
The female cyborg studied him. “You’re severely damaged. Frag.” Her laugh contained a hard edge to it. “We all are that way. But your damage puts the team and our mission at risk. We will find beings destined to be ours during the retrievals, and some of those beings will be human. I can’t stop you from attacking them and, at the same time, keep the others safe. That exceeds my bandwidth.”
“I won’t attack them.” He jutted his jaw. “I can do this.”
“If anyone can do it, you can.” Cadet nodded. “When we arrived on that war-battered planet you were trapped on, you were standing all alone on top of that toppled domicile, your fingers curled into fists, your stance defiant. The remnants of your body armor hung from your frame. Your eyes were wild, and your hair was scraggly. You reminded me of the images I’d seen of my dad when he’d first been freed.” Her face softened. “You definitely had his vocabulary.”
Cadet’s dad, the C Model he’d seen her with earlier, spoke as rarely as Strain did.
“It took tremendous strength to survive what you did.” The respect in the female cyborg’s voice straightened Strain’s spine. “I projected you’d make a solid addition to our team. All the other cyborgs were required to go through the rehabilitation process. I made an exception for you. Was I wrong to do that, warrior?”
“No.” He wasn’t like all the other cyborgs.
The rehabilitation program lasted for an entire solar cycle. None of the warriors in it were given access to the ships on Mercury Minor.
There weren’t enough vessels to allocate to everyone, and there were thousands of cyborgs who had arrived on the planet earlier than he had.
Not having a means of transport off the planet would break him.
“You weren’t wrong to do that.” He had to be the exception. There was no other option for him, not if he wanted to survive with some of his processors intact.
***
Read the next scene (available May 3rd) here:
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Under Strain
A damaged cyborg warrior is hunted by a peace-loving human female.
***
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
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