Across the Stars by Lauren Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“We wait, we hide, and watch Earth burn across the stars…” 
– From the lost pages of the ARK Diary

She’s one of the last free humans. On the run… And running out of time.

Laina Roberts has been on the run for ten years, a freeborn human hiding from the cyborgs of the Silver Legion who now controls what’s left of humanity. Moving secretly from planet to planet and space station to space station makes for a damn lonely life—and don’t even get her started on how long it’s been since she last had sex. Sometimes she thinks it might be worth turning herself in to the cyborgs just to end the loneliness. That is, until she’s caught!

Captured by a hot-as-hell Legion officer, the cyborg Ronan makes her think being probed by him might not be so bad. But becoming a cyborg’s slave—sex or otherwise—isn’t high on her to-do list. She doesn’t trust him and doesn’t understand his constant questions about Earth—especially those about her long-dead relatives. Ronan can just kiss her ass—oh yes, please—because she is not going to let her desires or his incredibly perfect body weaken her resolve. She now has a new mission, to convince the cyborgs and the rest of the galaxy that all Terrans, humans and synthetic humans like cyborgs, have the right to be free.

If only he didn’t make her feel like melting into his arms and never leaving. Being captured by a cyborg might not be so bad after all…

Across the Stars

Awesome world building!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💜💖
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍🌎
Character development: 🤨😟😳🥰🥰

The heroine: Laina Roberts – her family are the keepers of the sacred Ark. It is a chronicle of the past, of humanity and so much more. More than thirteen generations ago, humans created synthetics and cyborgs and treated them as slaves, until their creations rose up. Humans are now exiled and hunted, they took to the stars to hide, but it won’t be long till all are found. The synthetics and cyborgs know of the existence of the Ark and are looking for it. It is the last hope of humanity, yet it can’t fall into their hands. Laina is fighting to stay alive and currently is the only Terran working on a clunker of a ship headed out to the edge of the protectorate to an unknown world she is hoping will accept a castaway like her.

The Hero: Ronan Antares – he is a cyborg and Sub-Commander of the TCF Orion. Which means he is part of the Galactic Protectorate. The TCF Orion is a Silver Legion heavy cruiser, and it is sleek and efficient with devastating agility. Ronan hates freeborn humans and he adhere’s strictly to the dictates of the Silver Legion.

The Story: When Ronan’s ship comes across the ship that Laina is on, He and some of his officers board the ship looking for illegal activities or crew members without proper papers. They find Laina who is a freeborn human and so under the Galactic Protectorate law, is a slave to the synths and cyborgs. They take her captive.

The story is good, it is intricate and very interesting. In that Raina’s descendant was one of the group of scientists that created the synths and cyborgs. The commander of Ronan’s ship is named Alaric and he has been studying an old incomplete Arc that he found which details some of the things that happened before Earth was destroyed, including the creation of their species. He is looking for a way to save them. As it is now, though cyborgs can live for hundreds of years, they can’t reproduce, since they were born as adolescents from birthing chambers that were destroyed along with Earth. Alaric thinks the Roberts bloodline have the missing information that is key to the survival of the cyborgs.

The story gets even more interesting after adding in the fact that there are cyborgs and synths on board the ship that hate freeborn humans and will do almost anything to get back at them for their treatment even though it was hundreds of years ago and the humans that mistreated them are long dead. They just want to punish any freeborn humans. So, there is an ever-present danger to Laina on the ship and off.

The romance starts slow since it is an enemies-to-lovers trope. Ronan is attracted to Laina from the start, but he can’t figure out why since he has always had a great deal of anger that he has held toward freeborn humans, not only because of his beginnings on earth, but he has been through some other things more recently which he may blame on the freeborns even if illogically. Laina, on the other hand, was born in space and has been on the run from cyborgs for her entire life, they also may have caused the death of her parents when she was young. She didn’t know much about them but was always afraid of them. She comes to see that they aren’t all that much different before he does.

I have to say that I sometimes have a pet peeve about the names of Romantic Heroes and heroines. I hate boring or really old-fashioned names, but I do love the name Ronan (can anyone say Ronan Dex from Stargate Atlantis?) I swear I have binged that show like 3 times because of how how Jason Momoa looks as Ronan Dex.

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