Book excerpt: Rika is a scout mech, once human, now she is the property of the Genevian military. Rika's crime was small, stealing food. But when faced with a five-year prison term, or conscription in the Genevian military, she chose war. She had no idea what that conscription would entail. Now little of Rika's human body remains, and she serves as an SMI-2 scout mech, the meat inside a cyborg body. She, and others like her, are sent in ahead of the human soldiers to tip the scales of war. But the enemy has upped the ante and the mechs of Rika's fireteam will have to go up against unimaginable odds if they want to serve their time and become human again.