The mission had been successful- They'd torn the machine nest in half, sustained minimal casualties. And it was all thanks to her, they said. She’s slated to be promoted next week, to be given her own ship- “to strike blow after blow against the machines until there’s nothing left but scrap.”
She knows she doesn’t deserve it.
Her role was that of the double agent. The machines took in anyone, plugged them full of machinery, and made them a component. Her flesh still aches where surgeons who barely knew what they were doing cut out the implants. Stars, she was strong then- almost impossible to put down, too. But she wasn’t a frontline unit. She didn’t have to fight.
And that was how they got an in. The pinnacle of their fleet’s technology allowed them to pinpoint her, even without a tracking implant. And when they got to the manufacturing world? They just started asking her questions. She was designed to follow orders, even ones delivered clumsily via the fleet’s best neural interfaces. The intel she provided let them destroy that world and many, many others.
And for that, she’s being promoted.
She, who wants nothing more than to climb back into the warm embrace of the enemy.
And the machines wont even have her back.