A well-maintained machine is a thing of tranquillity, even in the most chaotic of circumstances. If the joints have been oiled, the wires kept from fraying, the interface kept properly aligned to the pilot's physiology, the functions of a mech can be so predictable as to be almost an extension of a sufficiently skilled operator. During the heat of combat or during a routine patrol, the steel can seem to melt away, leaving the pilot to transform instinct into action with nary a thought.
Annette von Metternich is, of course, familiar with this sort of experience. She's been experiencing it for longer than she's been a pilot, in a way, back to when she was a cadet in high school practising on a simulator. The social funnel might be something of a bane for some, but in the case of Annette, it is precisely what she needed, or so she likes to think when she does bother to think about these things.
Regardless, this is no reverie, uneventful as a routine patrol of the base's perimeter might be. She can't space out, lest her CO notice and chew her out later. Still, there is something a bit meditative about slowly walking her mech out the gates and onto the road in front of the base. Annette idly tunes her radio, barely listening to indistinct chatter that clearly isn't relevant to her.
"Claro, claro, claro…" Annette idly imitates some snippet of a voice from the radio, angling the mech into a turn. She wonders about reinstalling those analogue controls, after maintenance took them out again. This has been a dispute for some time, and while she's worried maintenance will start refusing to repair her stuff again and her CO will get angry, she really wants some joysticks in here, if only to fidget with.
"...listing! Repeat, Annete, you are listing!" Someone is yelling on the radio, and this shakes her from her thoughts for a moment. Indeed, the display does seem to suggest she's cleaving awfully close to the sidewalk. This is a trivial correction, and the voice stops shouting at her when she corrects her course and mutters a "claro" into the radio. Still, she's probably going to have to explain this when she gets back, which is going to be something of a nuisance.
Perhaps she ought to sleep more.
The rest of the patrol is otherwise uneventful, though Annette maintains a higher degree of vigilance for the rest of the circuit. Mostly she just watches pedestrians and other civilians watching her as she passes by. Sometimes she thinks these patrols are more for them than any kind of security for the base, since they have guard towers and the like which provide far better spotting than a mech slowly walking around the perimeter three times a day.
It's a little nostalgic, being on the inside of the cockpit on one of these patrols. Back home didn't have a military base, the town wasn't large or important enough, but every year the school would take all the students to the capital, New Cairo. These trips were usually on Independence Day, and they'd attend the parades, where a young Annette would gawk up at the mechs with envy. These mechs were draped in the emerald banners of the Protectorate, and the pilots inside wore special dress uniforms for the photographs and films taken of them at the parade's conclusion, outside the Federal Building.
Those are the clearest memories of those trips, frankly. The rest is occupied by vague recollections of not liking her dress, or a particularly boring history lecture about the Confederal Republic, or having to stand around for hours in her cadet uniform in the later years of high school. The parades really were the only highlights in an otherwise unpleasant mandatory field trip.
She's reached the last stretch of the route now and turns back towards the primary gate. Annette gives a little wave to the gate guard as she passes him, which he can't see because of the opaque steel cockpit, but it's become something of a ritual. She then guides her mech back to the hanger, moving especially slowly to ensure it doesn't crash into the walls or any of the equipment. She succeeds, naturally, having done this for years by this point, but she's still careful.
The mech is in its place, and Annette carefully goes through the shutdown sequence, which involves quite a bit of taking stock of various systems and their conditions before actually turning anything off. Given the nature of the patrol, nothing has been damaged, so this isn't particularly time consuming. There is a moment of darkness after the systems do finally shutdown, between the displays turning off and the cockpit opening up to let her out. This moment is special. The cockpit isn't pitch black, her eyes cast enough of a glow that she can at least see the ceiling, if not anything much further than that. It's not silent, either, the sounds of the hanger can still be heard echoing through the walls of the cockpit, and it's not long, not more than a couple seconds. Still, it feels like the furthest Annette ever is from the world, and she treasures these seconds each day.
There will be more work tomorrow.
