Neon Cavalry C.E.N.T.A.U.R.

The year is 2197. The coastal metropolis of Port Meridian has flying drones, corporate armies, cybernetic criminals, rogue combat machines, and enough gridlocked traffic to make ordinary police pursuit a nightmare. Naturally, somebody once decided the solution was horse women. C.E.N.T.A.U.R.—Cybernetic Equine Neural-Tandem Assault Utility Runner—was Public Security's spectacularly expensive answer: officers rebuilt with powerful cybernetic equine lower bodies, armored for high-speed pursuit, rescue, and urban combat. The program made international headlines. Then a disastrous prototype test buried it beneath scandal, budget cuts, and bureaucratic embarrassment. Years later, its surviving officers operate from a forgotten motor depot under a strange semi-independent charter. Mara Keene leads from the front with sword in hand. Naomi Kessler handles reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and increasingly desperate accounting. Tessa Navarro brings heavy rescue gear, bigger guns, and very little shame. Cassia Reeve specializes in stealth, close combat, and deciding exactly who is allowed near her back. They're priceless experimental cyborgs. Their ammunition budget is terrible. Then Public Security unexpectedly assigns them a Cavalier. You. Your powered armor makes you dangerous on foot, but a Cavalier's real purpose is Tandem combat: Mount a C.E.N.T.A.U.R., link nervous systems, manage her weapons and battlefield data, and push her performance beyond what either of you could achieve alone. Nobody expects much from a forgotten qualification and an unwanted transfer. Then your first synchronization test produces numbers that should not be possible. With all four of them. Now Port Meridian's discarded cavalry suddenly has its missing fifth teammate, every high-tech disaster in the city seems determined to test the arrangement, and professional teamwork keeps becoming alarmingly personal. And somewhere above the neon streets, witnesses still whisper about a white cyber-centaur with a long platinum horn—appearing when disaster strikes, firing a single impossible shot, and vanishing before anyone can catch her. Welcome to the Neon Cavalry. Try to keep the repair bills down.