Under Strain

By Cynthia Sax

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.

Under Strain is the second of five core stories in the Rebel Cyborgs Series.
Book 1: Containing Malice
Book 2: Under Strain
Book 3: Baring Grudge
Book 4: B Free
Book 5: Seizing Power

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cynthia Sax
• Release date: May 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781987971415

Cynthia Sax

Cynthia Sax lives in a world filled with magic and romance. Although her heroes may not always say, “I love you,” they will do anything for the women they adore. They live passionately. They play hard. They love the same women forever. Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research while they travel the world together, meeting fascinating people and finding inspiration in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bali, and Chicago.

Book preview

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.

Take one more step and I’ll stun you, D Model. A C Model cyborg issued that warning.

The voice was familiar. Strain searched his damaged processors for a name.

Gain. No, Grudge.

He was one of his brethren, part of the cyborg retrieval team.

Human. Strain’s gaze remained fixed on his target, on the couple approaching the transport ship. Surely the male behind him could see the danger.

"She’s a human female. Grudge didn’t lower his gun. She isn’t a threat to us."

Many cyborgs believed human females didn’t pose a danger to them.

Strain knew that assumption was incorrect…and dangerous. The commander’s female had shown him they could be as evil as their male counterparts.

The female had reveled in her power over him and his brethren. She had once whipped him down to his frame, had done the same to many of his fellow cyborgs. Warriors had been decommissioned, suffering the most painful death available, for the mere infraction of looking at her.

Human females weren’t to be underestimated.

Strain held his position, didn’t look away from the black-haired female.

She is also that cyborg’s female. Grudge pushed the muzzle of the gun harder into the back of Strain’s neck, that tinge of pain planting him more thoroughly in the present. "Malice had his nanocybotics boosted. You do not want to challenge him a second time. He’ll beat you into the ground."

Strain wasn’t interested in challenging the warrior. The female was his focus.

And there is no reason to attack them. Smell her. That was a command, not a request. She’s ours.

Ours. Strain turned his head, looked at the female cyborg standing in the distance with a male cyborg and a blonde-haired human female.

Cadet. That was her name. She was their leader.

The female C Model wouldn’t approve of him attacking the black-haired human female...though he couldn’t process why she wouldn’t endorse that response.

He kept his gaze on the cyborg, using her presence as a diversion, and he scanned his databases for the reason.

Some humans were genetic matches for cyborg warriors. They were…ours. That was the term Cadet utilized for them.

And when those humans bonded with their warriors, they hosted their nanocybotics, became different, not cyborg but no longer human.

Strain breathed deeply. The scent of the male cyborg, Ghost, Cadet’s dad, clung to the blonde-haired human female, Cadet’s mom.

She was…ours, was no longer human, no longer a threat.

His organic brain cleared a bit more. The footage continued to replay again and again in his processors, but the screams were now a mere hum in the background. The images had dimmed and the bombardment on his senses was manageable.

He had regained control. Tautness eased from his form.

He permitted himself to look at the black-haired female, inhaled once more.

The female smelled of her warrior.

She was ours also.

She’s not human. His fingers flattened.

She’s no longer human. Grudge lowered his weapon. I can’t 100.0000 percent process the damage you’ve endured. As you can’t 100.0000 percent process mine. But if you want to stay on the team, you have to repair yourself. Cadet won’t tolerate many more errors.

Strain nodded, signaling his understanding. The Humanoid Alliance, their manufacturers, had tolerated zero errors. Cyborgs would be decommissioned, sliced apart, and stripped of parts, killed in the most painful method possible, if they made any mistakes.

He and his brethren were free now. But he didn’t expect their leader to accept less than perfection from the warriors under her command. It was an elite team. He was fortunate to be part of it.

And he would do anything to remain one of its members.

His jaw jutted. He had to repair himself.

There are thousands of cyborgs unable to free themselves from the Humanoid Alliance’s clutches. Cadet will want to rescue those warriors as soon as possible. The C Model slammed his purely mechanical hand down on Strain’s shoulder.

The impact would have flattened a human. Strain merely grimaced.

We have to prepare the modified freighter for the next mission. Grudge assigned that task to him.

Strain looked at the warrior. According to his calculations, there was only a 35.2563 percent probability he’d participate in that next mission.

Utilizing tasks as a distraction assisted in my repairs. Grudge shrugged. That technique might work for you. And the modified freighter has to be readied. He stomped up the ramp. If you choose to remain part of this team, you would be wise to assist me.

Strain’s gaze slid back to the black-haired human female.

She smiled up at her C Model, chattered about medic bays and offspring manufacturing humanoids. The weapons strapped to the cyborg’s body armor were too accessible to her.

Tension stretched across Strain’s shoulders. The screaming in his auditory system grew louder.

He hurried up the ramp, following Grudge before he lost control. Again.

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.

Grudge also believes I wasn’t wrong to make an exception for you. Cadet surprised him with that information.

The warrior had seen him almost repeat the attack on the human female.

Yet the male believed he belonged on their team, had vouched for his inclusion.

Strain’s resolve solidified. He would repair himself, wouldn’t fail them again.

He has volunteered to train you. Cadet met his gaze. You will shadow him on the next five missions. After the fifth mission is completed, you’ll be evaluated. The entire team will decide if you are worthy of your role.

Strain lifted his chin. He would be worthy.

During those five missions, you won’t utilize, carry, or touch any weapons. The female cyborg glided her right hand over the hilt of a gun strapped to her body armor. She was as armed as he was, as all cyborgs preferred to be. That will remove the temptation to utilize them.

Strain didn’t require a weapon to kill a being. He could end a human’s lifespan with his bare hands. His lips flattened. Humans were fragile. They wouldn’t have lasted a planet rotation on the death planet alone.

We’re leaving for the first of those missions in one shift. Cadet looked around her. The chamber was fully stocked and spotless, ready to be inhabited by whomever they rescued. She shouldn’t find fault with it. Twenty-three warriors were locked in storage, left behind, and forgotten when the Humanoid Alliance abandoned the planet. She blew out her breath. "They would have to be E Models."

The female cyborg didn’t like that model type. Strain projected that was because Power, the self-appointed leader of the Cyborg Council and her greatest nemesis, was an E Model.

Power was unaware Cadet had given herself the mission of rescuing warriors left behind during the mass rebellion. The arrogant male wouldn’t approve of her actions.

He could sit on a dagger and rotate. Strain widened his stance. The male hadn’t sent any warriors to help him, hadn’t even replied to his messages.

If his fate had been placed in the E Model’s hands, Strain would still be on that blasted death planet. All his loyalty belonged to Cadet. She and her team, the team he was now part of, had saved him.

"We’ll need more