Self Aware Numbers Station

Mech Pilot who is chewing on the hand that feeds them.

Winter Wolves. Pack hunters. Each deadly in their own right, unstoppable as a unit. We were still mercenary dogs, but you wouldn't find a more vicious pack of curs anywhere in settled space.
What we lacked in tech, performance, and raw firepower, we made up for in tactics, cohesion, and ferocity. Even when the first generation augmented humans hit the field, and corporations began hiring one-man mechanized armies to do their bidding, we had a reputation as surgical hunters that could keep up with some of the most advanced ACs.
Some pilots are good with their hands. We were good with our teeth.
But good things don't last forever, and the hunters eventually came to our woods. At the speeds we operated at, there was no mercy. One by one, the Winter Wolves fell. Grace. Hammerhead. Vulture Crown. Passacaglia. Payments stopped coming. Bills stacked up. We needed more to stay ahead of the hunters. I went under the knife. Cut-rate augmentation job that fried neural connections. It made me faster. But it barely saved me. Eventually, I was the only one left.
Memory comes difficult now. Some are burned in, but others, important memories, old memories, fade and dance on the edge of the light. Names slide away like melting snow. I can remember the names of the wolves who fell, sometimes. I can't remember my own. Unable to think clearly without the cognitive support of an AC processor.
I was given a handler, and called hound. Like a guard dog on a chain. On a leash. Despicable. Wretched. Domesticated.
I named my machine after the old crew. Machines can carry memories. Scars from bullets and blades. Old tooth marks. But it's still just a machine. It's not my name. It's not me.
I have wings now. They call me Raven. It's not the same. It's a new name, but an old name. Stolen. It doesn't have fangs and claws. But it's what they call me, now. So I'll take it, handler. I'll trade my fangs for talons, and when I've made enough to reverse the neural damage, I'll use them to snap your leash. I will make sure this is a name worth remembering.
Because, long ago, they used to fear our name.