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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
CENTAURI DAWN by Cynthia Woolf
About the Author:
Introduction
When the human race bordered on extinction, a group of wounded soldiers volunteered to become the first Synthetically-Enhanced humans (Syn-En). These proto-cyborgs donned a new generation of prosthetic limbs in order to enter areas ravaged by disease, war and radiation. Their heroic efforts saved our species and united mankind.
Now, one hundred-twenty years later, a stratified civilization has emerged:
Citizens-Composed predominately of the rich and powerful ruling class. Citizens control the government and its laws. They avoid technological penalties by using genetically-engineered tissue and organs to improve their looks, health and longevity.
Civilians-Former middle and lower-class citizens who needed cheap technology to save their lives, were convicted of a crime or became so indebted that they find themselves stripped of their rights. Each are offered the option of cutting off a limb or two and replace it with prosthesis to earn their way back into society quicker than their sentence.
Syn-Ens- Inducted into the Corps as infants, the cyborgs are taught, trained and programmed to believe the best in humanity, the sacredness of human life and to fairly enforce the law of the United Earth Council. They are prohibited by law and the amount of technology in their bodies from ever becoming citizens.
The Syn-Ens ideals of honor and duty, plus their inability to be bribed, bought or blackmailed stand in the way of power hungry citizens and their agenda. Worse, the civilians trust the cyborgs more than Earth's citizen rulers. When a wormhole is discovered on the fringe of Earth's Solar System, these citizens believe they have found the final solution to their Syn-En problem.
Why did I agree to leave Earth and aim my ship
toward the stars? For the same reason that small tribe of humans left the
Rift Valley in Africa. To get away from the people-