Cyborg Liberation: Diaspora Worlds, #7

By Melisse Aires

Ursa boarded the cruiser to join an agricolony on a newly opened plant. She'd had enough heart pounding excitement and danger in ten years in the military. Now she wanted a slow paced, healthy life.
 

 When the cruiser goes off course and arrives at a remote planet with a history of cyborg processing, pregnant ex-soldier Ursa and Zh Cle' math teacher Rhys are thrown together to survive. Cyborg Harvesters search for survivors, so they hide in the wilderness, taking care of young ones who escaped the crash sites. In all this chaos, Ursa and Rhys acknowledge the passionate attraction between them. Then the Harvesters find them.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pure Escapism
• Release date: Apr 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223499633

Melisse Aires

Take a shy Catholic school bookworm from Montana. Hand her a stack of her much older brother’s sci-fi and fantasy novels, James Bond books and horror comics. Later, introduce Barbara Cartland and the world of romance fiction.Get her a teaching job or two in authentic, one room Montana schools, ala Laura Ingels Wilder.Marry her off to a great guy, move her to a big city in Tornado Alley, then pop three daughters out of her in twenty-two months (one set of identical twins).Then, make her a jinx. Every great genre TV show she loves gets the ax: Beauty and the Beast, Dark Angel—and Buffy and Spike NEVER have a happy ending! She gets upset about no romance in the world and fires up to write her own stories with happy endings.Throw this all together into a small house in Wyoming, along with a small bouncy dog named Baxter and too many cats, shake constantly and pour it out onto a computer keyboard.There! You have me, Melisse Aires.

Book preview

Blurb

THEIR LOVE BLOOMED during chaos and danger. Is it real, or just a survival reaction?

When their cruiser goes off course and takes them to a remote planet with a history of cyborg processing, pregnant ex-soldier Ursa and Zh Cle’ math teacher Rhys are thrown together to survive. Cyborg Harvesters search for survivors, so they hide in the wilderness, taking care of young ones who escaped the crash sites. In all this chaos, Ursa and Rhys acknowledge the passionate attraction between them. Then the Harvesters find them.

Author’s Note

IN Diaspora Worlds Book One, Her Cyborg Awakes, Sabralia and her cyborg Kaistril escape from a Warlord Sirn’s stronghold on a planet named Jewel. It is remote and never opened for colonization, even though it was Terra Formed by the Ancients, the Seeders. The rulers of New Prague are aware of it, but during the Gorvas war they did not use resources to send an exploration ship.

Zh Cle’ is pronounced Zhay-Clay’. A race of humanoids with lizard characteristic, able to bare children with Terrans. The Alliance has not treated them as equals.

Diaspora Worlds Series

Set in an Alliance of Terran colony planets in the distant future, Diaspora Worlds is a high-tech world of adventure.

Terrans found two other races of humanoids who, while looking different and alien, were compatible with Terrans. Tensions exist in the Alliance due to racial prejudice. Another colony of Terrans, The Gorvas, have several planets colonized from their main world, Arden. They are advanced in cyborg technology.

Books 1-4: Four Brother from high tech New Prague find danger and  love.  These can be read as stand alones.

HER CYBORG AWAKES: A Cyborg servant saves his mistress and remembers he is a warrior. Kaistril of New Prague.

ALIEN BLOOD: Kellac, bored in diplomatic lock up, joins a broadcast competition on a wilderness world with an actual prisoner, Gema.

STARWOMAN’S SANCTUARY: The heir to the hereditary Protectorate of New Prague is stuck on a space station and helps a charity run by a fascinating woman.

ESCAPING POISON: Academic scientist decides to marry a society woman to please his mother—but some one wants his new bride dead.

CYBORG SECURITY: A short story set in the Diaspora Worlds Universe. After widow Aerria’s precocious daughter rescues a boy from a no-contact planet, she enlists the help of old friend, escaped cyborg, Domingo.

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Acknowledgments

COVER: MELISSE AIRES, using Photoshop

Stock photos from Canstock Photos, Pixabay, and Deposit Photos

Editor: R. Sheridan

Chapter One

ABOARD THE RELIABLE space cruiser

As Ursa stepped onto the Reliable, she couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at the luxury of the hybrid cargo-liner. The plush seats were a far cry from the hard metal benches she was used to on military transports. She sank into the soft cushions, relishing the feeling of comfort. The snack and drinks bar was a welcome sight, and Ursa couldn't resist the urge to grab a bag of savories and a cold tea. Having spent the last decade in the military, she was used to hard, dry, tasteless rations and metal seat with thin padding.

The Lounge had a theater area with rows of raised seating and another  area of tables and chairs. Ursa noticed the different gaming consoles available, some meant to be played by a group. She felt a twinge of sadness as she thought of all the missed opportunities for Ardo and Paulus. They would have loved the gaming consoles, they were always playing any game they could find during downtime in the Guard. 

Her seat had a good view of the large screen. Watching  the latest ficvids in high definition was something she would enjoy during this stage of the journey. Ursa had always been a fan of vids, and she couldn't wait to lose herself in the latest shows.

But the private sleep pod was the real luxury. Ursa had spent countless nights crammed into a bunk bed with other soldiers nearby, barely able to move or breathe. The idea of having her private space to sleep and relax was almost too good to be true. It was a tiny room barely large enough to accommodate a bed and a small table. The walls were made of metal panels, and the floor was covered in a thin carpet. A single porthole provided a recorded view of the endless expanse of space outside. The room was actually on the interior of the ship, which had no actual windows, just vid feeds.

The bed was narrow and barely long enough for a person to stretch out fully.  It was made up with clean sheets and a thin blanket, but there was extra bedding available. The table was just big enough to hold a meal or tablet , and there was a small chair tucked underneath it. A tiny closet was positioned against one wall, barely big enough to hold a few changes of clothing. There was a small bathroom at the foot of the bed, with a shower, sink, and toilet.

Overall, the room was cramped and claustrophobic, but it was clean and well-maintained. Despite its small size, it provided all the basic necessities for a passenger traveling through space. And it was private, no shared anything. As she settled into the cozy pod, Ursa felt a wave of gratitude wash over her. After all the years in the military, privacy was a luxury. It was moments like this that made her feel like maybe, just maybe, the universe wasn't such a terrible place after all.

Ursa found her her tablet while she waited for a ficvid to start. Her stomach roiled and she swallowed hard. Acting up again. Soon she might have to retreat to her pod, with the small toilet. She nibbled on a salty snack, since eating seemed to help.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled out her tablet and opened the book, Pregnancy in the Modern Age.

Congratulations! You have chosen to experience one of the most profound biological activities in all of human experience. In this age of artificial wombs, you have made an honorable, almost noble, decision to carry a baby to term.

Ursa decided to carry the embryos of her fallen friends herself instead of using a birthing womb. That way she could afford the deluxe colonist farm package in an optimum location. Her neos would be raised in a small agricolony with fresh air, outdoor activities, and home-grown food. The farm package was expensive, taking all of her considerable combat bonuses as a Striker in the Alliance Guard, but she liked the idea of living somewhere with fresh air and sunshine.

Living in a dome on New Prague wasn’t appealing. She didn’t want to work in manufacturing. Or try to survive on the New Prague rainforest continent, though she had considered it. It would have worked if it was just her, but she would have two infants to raise.

Somehow, she had assumed she would breeze through pregnancy. Her body, fit, strong and graceful, had always been capable of doing what she wanted or needed to do as a soldier. She had not expected the debilitating nausea and vomiting or the profound exhaustion. Having rarely had as much as a sniffle, she felt betrayed by her body.

Her mother had been Puregen, Ursa had always been viewed as another New Prague Puregen and thought she’d received her mother’s perfected genetics.

Maybe not.

Two security officers passed her in a hurry. They were both beefy guys and so had to walk single file down the aisle. She couldn’t see over their bulk, but could hear arguing and a scuffle. The guards came back down the aisle with a prisoner, wrists manacled.

Is that a Zh Cle’ lizard man? That has to be. Look at that hair! Someone near her whispered.

I thought the hair was fiction, Ursa said. She’d met people with Zh Cle’ blood with ordinary hair, not the mane.

It looks real enough to me, said the woman one seat behind her, with a bit of a salacious tone. I saw that vid about the O’ Shadow black market clan. Lots of them had the manes. Dark red curls and odd bright eyes. So good-looking!

I didn’t see that, Ursa said. Being in a combat unit had cut into her vid time.

He looks yummy, the woman continued. And look, there’s another one. Younger, but quite appealing. The other red-haired man had been slumped down in his seat, but now sat up.

I thought the O’ Shadows were fiction, Ursa said.

The older woman sitting next to her patted her knee. No dear. The O’ Shadow name is made up,  but the black market smugglers are probably a number of related Zh Cle’ clans. The notorious crime syndicate is real. They prospered during the war with black market smuggling. Most can’t be proved, though, so they remain free. Traders.

Ursa turned to the woman, a pleasant faced older lady in blue, with threads of silver in her light brown hair. I guess I missed all that in the news.

You were in the military, yes? The black market was quite the rage with civilians since so much interplanetary shipping was halted by the war. Funny how the O’ Shadows always got through. The older woman shrugged. Giving two planets far fewer rights due to race just leads to rebellion and crime. Historically speaking.

Ursa could never understand the prejudice against Zh Cle’ people. But she’d been raised on New Prague, and only some high society people believed strongly in Puregen ideology there. The planet had no DNA requirements for citizenship, only work requirements.

The guards marched a man between them. He was tall and broad of shoulder, with a square jaw and hard cut cheekbones. His hair was thick, in loose curls all over, a shiny dark auburn, shaved at the sides which made a thick wavy mane along the top and back of his head. Maybe it was a natural hair growth pattern, since the other Zh Cle’ man had the exact same hairstyle.

Not military men, that’s for sure. Military hair was cut short. His curled around his nape.

A faint marking of golden scales glistened on his neck. Ursa had seen Zh Cle’ with scales before, in the military dorms. Some of her fellow female soldiers were of mixed ancestry. Their uniforms, though, had high collars and