The Goddess of War

Diana was hiding behind the window because her squad AI had decided it was the optimal position and had commanded her to. She felt infinitely patient as the enemy convoy passed slowly below her position. The AI had decided patience was the optimal feeling, and with her neural implants under remote control there was no need for orders or scope for choice.

She had felt whatever was tactically optimal during her years as a soldier. Joy. Hate. Determination. Comradeship. Duty. Calm. Never fear or despair. By that alone it would have already been a better life than the one she had been drafted away from.

Beneath her window the enemy walked, strangely human overconfidence despite their numbers and weapons, both superior to her own. Diana wondered if it was intended as bait. Somewhere both far away and under her skin, the distributed AI that did not command as much as was the sum total of her country's military decided that it probably was a trap, but one worth springing, if it could be done at trivial cost, to draw the enemy out.

Diana felt with the suddenness of a solid state device switching on that she no longer wanted to live. Her weapon raised in fully automated aim-and-fire mode, she stood up from her hiding place and began firing at the enemy below.