It was winter. The 11th solid month of it. I hated winter. Especially here. Here it was winter for almost 16 months straight. Here was Tycro, a mostly frozen wasteland of a moon, circling the planet of Cyrvin III.

It was 20 below outside,and snowing lightly. Despite the cold, I was wearing little more than most MechWarriors wore: a light fabric shirt, a pair of underwear-like shorts, sandals and a rediculously heavy helmet. The helmet, as long as I stayed in my 'mech, was really the only clothes I needed.

I was on routine guard patrol. I hated it. Guard patrol offered little in the way of interest or excitement. It's nowhere near as exciting as scouting or live combat. It was so dull most times, that I'd have settled for helping the techs do some repair work. Unfortunately, there hadn't been a skirmish in so long there wasn't even any maintenance to do on The Companys 'mechs.

I suppose it should be cleared up that I belong to a mercenary unit. No, not one of the big units like the Lancers, or Dragoons. Nope, just one of the countless backwater merc units that seem to make up most of the standing militia of just about anyplace. I belonged to Norvan's Mercernaries. Great name 'eh? Norvan was never very imaginative. But, I was tired of living at home, not doing anything, so I joined the only unit around, Norvan's.

It wasnt long after joining when I was put into battle. In fact it was on my first training mission. It seems that Norvan had forgotten to tell the local militia that he would be training near one of their storage houses. My instructor and I hadn't gotten very far into basic manuvers when about 6 medium militia 'mechs showed up. At the time, it seemed more like 100 assault 'mechs, but I know better now. My trainer, Roy, and the lead militia guy had a very brief conversation over the comm, ending in Roy's 'mech being pummeled by 3 or 4 of them. I suppose they figured it would be good practice. The remaining two converged on me. Of course, like all untrained pilots, I panicked.

Most pilots know that when you panic, the 'mech you're in starts doing funny things. For those who don't know, let me explain a bit about how piloting a 'mech goes. The big helmet on your head reads yours thoughts, and along with a multitude of cockpit controls, converts them into coherent actions of your 'mech. Panicking, doesn't do this at all. Often the 'mech sits there doing nothing, or worse, tries to do several things at once. Mine, at this time, freaked right along with me. Weapons fired, the 'mech jerked around, twisted, turned, and then broke into a run. Straight into one of the two militia mechs. That was when I learned that those helmets aren't just for controlling your 'mech.

The force of impact against the militia mech sent it reeling backward, until it finally crashed. It just sort of lay there twitching, then it rolled over. I lerned later that rolling over was an automatic feature of most 'mechs. At the time, I didn't know. I freaked again, this time firing a number of weapons directly into the back of the mech. Lsers cut through the external plating of the 'mech easily, while a few missiles started damaging engine, gyro and other sensitive components.

Suddenly, my 'mech had started to vibrate noisly, looking to my left, made me remember that there was still a second 'mech bringing an awful lot of weapons to bear on me, and firing them freely. Had I known where to look for damage stats, I'd have noticed I was missing most of my 'mech's left arm, and I was not getting better for wear. Escape was the only thing on my mind, and my 'mech agreed. One moment I was watching my 'mech being ripped to pieces, the next I was hurtling upward and backward, launched out of my 'mech by the ejection system. The militia forces decided to take that as a sign of surrender, and graciously did not kill me. I spent almost a year in jail for my actions, but when I got out, I was readily accepted back into Norvan's Mercenaries. I guess they needed the bodies.

Since then, I've been involved in a number of attacks, and skirmishes, but nothing that would constitute a real campaign. Norvan is good enough to reject anything that could get all his 'mechs destroyed. Unfortunately, Norvan also thinks I'm too much of a hair trigger to be let into any mission involving diplomacy, so he's kept me on missions like the one I was on. Guard Patrol.

I was guarding a Class 3 HPG Uplink Station. It relayed low priority mesages between the inhabited planets of several neighbouring systems. Nobody in their right minds would bother attacking it, since the loss of such an old station wouldn't affect communications for more than an hour, when all messages would be re-routed to the Class 2 Station on Cyrvin II. But, nobody said people were always in their right minds.

At the time, a rogue mercenary group called the Stingrays, were trying to show the local government and militia that they were in control. Unfortunately, it was working. That's why Norvan's had been called in.

I suppose, now would be the best time to describe the mech I was piloting. I was in my favourite mech. A STK-5M Stalker. I had altered it somewhat, so it wasn't really the standard variety of Stalker. Because it was almost always winter, I had painted it white. Despite it's size, the camoflague worked suprisingly well. From a distance, it was hardly visible. I liked that.

On this particular shift, the Stingrays had apparently decided that an interruption in communications was in order. Being on guard patrol, I was practically able to sit back and watch their 'mechs approach. I was ready to show them a good fight, but figured that it would be more fun to suprise them. They were well within range now, and I could celarly see that there were 4 of them. It looked as though they were all piloting medium mechs, or perhaps lighter.

Because of the low priority of this installation, I was, of course, the only person put on guard duty. Just about the time most of my weapons were screaming at me to fire them, the mech nearest me stopped and turned in my direction. Since I was going to be detected anyway, I figured I maight as well let the fool have what he was looking for.

I fired with all of my lasers, and jerked the Stalker into a run. I'm sure that the pilot was not expecting this big snowbank to open fire, so he didn't manage to retalliate all that well. Despite the fact that I was moving at top speed, I really wasn't going very fast, a heavy 'mech like the Stalker combined with the cold, made getting any speed difficult. Not wanting to be caught short, I decided it was in my best interests, to lay some more fire on the enemy before they had a chance to lay any on me.

I took aim at one of the heaviest looking 'mechs, and fired most of my weapons into it. Large and medium lasers melted holes in already cold armour plating, while missiles shatterd pieces off onto the snowy turf. My first target finally got around to laying some heat on me, doing some minor damage to my left side. The mech on the extreme right of the line had turned and was not doing a good job of connecting with his weapons. The mech I had just blasted decided to get into the action and laid a stream of SRM fire at me. The explosions rocked the Stalker slightly, and encouraged me to turn to face this threat. One thing I knew for sure was that in a straight-on firefight, the Stalker could take out most 'mechs of it's weight class, so these boys weren't going to present too much trouble.

The Stingrays were smart enough to realize that they were not much of a match for me in a standoff, and decided to circle me, to get the best shots on my 'mech. I was in good shape still, so I just concentrated fire on the 'mech closest to me. SRMs, and medium lasers did a good job of cutting up my chosen opponent, but I took a second to nail the guy on my right with a NARC Beacon. I had always liked NARCs. Exchanging blows for a few more seconds, I noticed that it was only 3 on 1. I didn't remember seeing any of the 'mechs disabled, so I searched for the fourth 'mech. I found it.

It was laying a beating on the HPG station. I didn't like that at all. Taking a last shot at one of my three agressors, I hit the Jump Jets and leapt over toward the fourth. You may be asking "Just where did a Stalker came to have Jump Jets?" Those were one of the improvments that I had added to this 'mech. The station was pretty badly damaged, so I decided to do something I hated. A death-from-above.

Not is this manuver stupid, but it is almost equally damaging to the attacker as it is to the target. I lined up my 'mech's feet witth the shoulders of my opponents 'mech. Landing the attach succesfully, I crashed the 85 ton Stalker onto my much smaller opponent. The force of impact sheared off it's right arm, causing me to shift to the right. My left foot smashed forcefully into the head of my oponent, shattering the glass of it's cockpit easily. My Stalker continued to lean to the right, and was starting to lean backward as well. I crashed hard onto my back, severely damaging my external back armour. My opponent fared little better, his mech having become entangled with my right foot, it crashed down as well.

The automatic roll-over system kicked in, making my mech force his 'mech to roll over as well. I knew that the pilot of the other 'mech would not be fairing well. The damage to his cockpit would let the extremely cold temperatures of the atmosphere in. As well, his 'mech was now face down in the snow, and the cockpit was likely crammed with snow. Despite him being my enemy, I knew I had to get my 'mech's legs off his 'mech's shoulders. I hit the Jump Jets again, this time while down. At first, nothing happened. My 'mech sat there in the snow, refusing to be pushed in this way. Then, slowly, I noticed it starting to move. Suddenly, the Stalker leapt forward, into the air short distance. I cut back on the Jets, and crashed to the ground again. My 'mech yelled out the new damages and I again learned the second use for those heavy helemets.

I was still dazed, and couldn't think clearly. A few seconds later my head had cleared somewhat. This was about the time I remebered the other three 'mechs. I jerked the mech into a standing position, and expected them to take full advantage of the situation my 'mech was in. However, the other three had taken the opportunity to flee the area, rather than risk further damages. Hoping that I hadn't killed the other guy, I radioed for emergency teams, and started off after the other three. I knew that if I let them go, they'd be back, and they might not be so nice about it the next time.

Using my Jets, I managed to catch up to them rather quickly. Two of them turned and fired on me as I landed. This time, most of their shots hit. My front armour was already badly damaged from my earier sliding manuver, and was not looking too healthy on my displays. Only one medium laser was not functioning, so I let loose with the full grommet. The NARC Beacon from earlier was still functioning on my target, and brought home every one of my SRMs. My opponent's 'mech went from damaged to severly crippled in a single volley. It's right torso crumpled and the attached arm fell away to the side. The engine was steaming in the cold. Condensation had already started to ice over it's outsides. I knew that it would be less than a minute before th engine became too cold to function. His ally was too busy laying fire into me to bother noticing how damaged his friend was, and was starting to do some internal damage to me. My own engine started to register hits, and I knew that my 'mech would soon become a deep-frozen hunk of scrap if I didn't do something soon.

The Stalker turned jerkily toward my opponent, a bad sign. My actuators had begun to sieze because of the extreme cold. Still, I fired all the weapons I could at my opponent. I concentrated my fire as much as I could on his left leg, blasting away at it in an attempt to minimize his manuverability, and disable his 'mech. He continued to try to remove vital components of mine the hard way. Fortunately, I bore far more firepower. The left leg of his 'mech suddeny fell out from under him, and his 'mech crashed hard onto the ground.

About that time my mech began to shudder. Another sign of a 'mech that is too cold on the inside. Suddenly, my 'mech lurched forward. The last of the force of Stingrays was behind me, and was firing into the back of my 'mech. I tried to turn the mech about to face my attacker, but could not get the shuddering hulk to turn. MY engine had alomst cooled, neutralizing my Jump Jets as well. In despiration, I fired all of my weapons into the air, and ground in an attempt to overheat my 'mech and hopefully warm up my engine. More shots came in and more damage registered on my displays. My rear armour was non-existant. But, my effort was producing results, and the engine was heating up again, and some of my actuators were defrosting. I lurched the 'mech into a torso twist, and fired all of the weapons I had available, hoping that some of them would connect. I was lucky.

Several of my SRMs managed to find bits of my opponent, while one of my medium lasers also cut into him. I was rewarded with a number of hits to myself, and a loud explosion at the back of my 'mech's head. Looking over my shoulder for a moment, I saw a rather large hole my cockpit. I was not liking this. I forced the 'mech to turn more to face my enemy and fired repeatedly. I no longer cared that my 'mech would overheat, or that I ran the risk of an ammo explosion. I just kept firing. My opponent was surpried at the seeming comeback of a 'mech which by all rights should have been crippled.

Armour slagged off of my opponent's 'mech, leaving large gaps in the shell of the 'mech. Still, I continued to fire. I was also taking heavy damage, with my 'mech's damage display turning up almost completely black. Finally, my oppoent's 'mech staggered, and fell. I stopped firing. The sound of my engine began to die off almost immediately.

I realized I was cold. The hole in my cockpit did not help matters. I radioed my situation to command and turned on my locator beacon, hoping that they would arrive soon. They did. I was never awarded anything like in the big merc companys. I was just told I did a good job, and got three days vacation time. At least I started to appreciate the excitement of Guard Patrol.