Meep

Eddie Saguero glanced down at the controls that lay beneath his fingers, caressing them lightly. They glowed eerily in the darkness of his cockpit, the symbols of each button clearly visible. Eddie had done this so many times, it had become second nature to him, but this time, there was something different as he prepared to leave the hangar. He couldn't quite place it, but he knew that something wasn't quite right with the mission. Some people called it a warrior's instinct. Others dismissed it as superstition or a bad lunch that was back with a vengeance. It didn't really matter. Eddie wasn't in any position to be picky about the missions he had to run. The Clan raids had already taken a considerable toll on the Inner Sphere war effort. He was a soldier, an instrument of war. He received orders and executed them. It was't his place to ask questions or wonder what the point of all his missions were.

"When you're ready, Eddie,". The voice startled Eddie. He snapped out of his pensive stare at the console and moved to power up his 60 ton harbinger of death. Harbinger of death. At least thats the way he would like to call his mech to distract himself from the fact that the 90 ton machines that he might run into would turn his 'harbinger' to scrap metal quite easily. Still, nothing like a good dose of self delusion to get the spirits up before a mission.

Eddie powered up his mech and listened to the comforting sound of the fans of his fusion reactors starting to spin. His heads up display lit up immediately, and he heard the clinical, yet strangely seductive female voice of his on board computer running him through his system diagnostics.

"Nav Baker Three"

"Ambient tempetature, 24.49 degrees"

"Local time is seven five, three five, seven six, GST"

"All systems nominal"

On that cue, Eddie eased the throttle forward, making the mech take its first few tentative steps away from the support beams that surrounded it as it docked. The mech produced a resounding thump everytime it took a step, its metal legs hitting the concrete floor of the hangar with the same comfortingly familiar sound it always made. Eddie toyed with the torso controls a bit, turning to get a feel of the machine he was piloting. His eyes wandered over to the screen that showed his weapon statuses. They were highlighted in green, each of them showing a full stock of ammunition. He wondered inwardly if he had chosen the right armanent for his mission. He favoured energy weapons over everything else, which explained the extensive heat sinks on his mech. He knew that he would outlast most projectile or rocket oriented builds in a long fight, but wasn't quite sure if he could evade the onslaught long enough to take advantage of his relative independence from ammunition constraints. After all, he didn't have the most well armoured unit in the hangar.

As Eddie stepped out of the hangar, he hammered the throttle forward and made towards his nav point. The fine dust that his mech kicked up only served as a reminder of just how dry and hot this planet was, which in turn brought him back to questioning the wisdom of being dependent on beam weapons. He shrugged to himself. The choices had been made. Any cock-ups would be his to bear.

Passing the first nav point, nothing had yet happened. Not a life form in sight. Another boring patrol.

Then his sensors beeped. A red triangle showed up at the right of his radar. Eddie perked up.

"Control, I'm getting signs of an anamoly in sector seven. I'm moving to check it out," Eddie relayed speaking into the mike.

"Copy that Delta 3. Be careful out there," came the reply.

As he drew closer to the target, Eddie could see a crater smack in the middle of where he was headed for. A small, wispy slither of smoke rose out from the middle of the crater. Dust billowed around the blackened center, obscuring the line of sight through his cockpit. Eddie decided to draw closer, his thumb resting on the trigger of his primary weapons group.

Visibility was almost zero at this point. He turned of the image enhancement system, and everything went black. The contours of the hills before him were represented with coloured lines, as was the object that had made the crater. It was metallic, that much he knew. And very, very hot.

A million possibilities raced through his head. Was it a clan probe? Was it a scout? A single light mech sent to record data and clear the landing for a invading fleet? Blood rushed through his veins as his heart thumped.

Eddie drew closer and the image of the object got sharper. It had jagged edges and a fairly irregular shape. It certainly didn't look industrial, much less space age. He ran a quick scan on it when he got close enough. His computers beeped and whirred as the numbers where crunched.

The green fonts of his heads up display flashed "Object identified".

Below it, the results flashed. Meteorite. It was the most anti-climatic moment in his life. Eddie sighed.

In the monotony of the daily patrols, he sometimes wished that something will happen. But nothing ever did.