Battle writing tryouts the first!

A Duel Spar Between Salamii

To the uneducated observer, the atmosphere on board the Duchess of Somerset looked as if it were a time of peace and tranquility, its personnel relaxed and rather jovial. The Salamis class ship cruised effortlessly through space with its engine at half burn with the intent of rendezvousing with the similar cruiser Pride of Damascus. The Zeon had been harassing and delaying valuable Federation supply convoys on Earth and this had the effect of delaying the completion of the two Salamis cruisers in question. As a result of this, the ships had not deployed into space in time for a fleet wide war game, but this certainly did not mean they wouldn't be able to squeeze in some training before their first actual engagement of the enemy.

"Sir, we're being hailed on channel 2. Priority message yellow," said a young ensign, turning around in her swiveling chair to address the captain.

The Duchess of Somerset's captain, a one Francis Bertrand curtly replied, "On screen, ensign." Seconds later, the main display on the bridge produced the bridge of Pride of Damascus, its commanding officer centered in the middle.

"Greetings, Captain Bertrand. I am Captain Landry of the Pride of Damascus. I'm sure that you already read the message from Luna command, so let's get on with this, shall we?" introduced the rather well groomed and young officer.

Smiling, Bertrand nodded and wished the other Federation officer well, and then terminated the feed, mumbling something under his breath about the brash demeanor of his training opponent. He then leaned closer to the right console and pressed a button before addressing the entire vessel, "This is Captain Bertrand speaking. I am sounding general quarters as of now, so please report to your battle stations." Shortly afterward klaxons began to transmit a series of bell rings to serve as a constant audible warning to the entire ship.

---

The exterior of both ships began to slowly come to life as their respective cannons, missile launchers, and point defense guns began to pivot on their mounts after disengaging from the travel locks. Both ships began to emit elevated levels of Minovsky particles, and before long any sort of long range communications was all but impossible. It was now just a duel between two ships, ironically in a style that had once been considered outdated in the late 20th Century and up until the discovery of the Minovsky particle.

"I want 'HE' warheads in starboard tubes and anti-beam warheads in port tubes, Lieutenant Roberts, and please confirm that MPC power settings are at minimum," ordered Bertrand, wanting to absolutely avoid any training mishaps.

"MPC levels are confirmed to be at minimum sir. Shouldn't do anything more than ruin their Jaburo-fresh paint jobs," replied the weapons officer with a smirk. Both ships should have swapped out their stocks of lethal ammunitions for simunitions for the purposes of a war game, but there had been documented instances of relaxed oversight that led to disastrous consequences.

Several hundred kilometers away, hidden behind a rather large piece of colony debris was the Pride of Damascus with its engines shut down and merely waiting for its target. That is until its communications officer reported that their cover was already subject to mega particle bombardments from its opponent. Initially the bright beams were going wide, but as time went by, the shots seemed to all contact the large piece of debris. Given that the mega particle cannons were all on minimum output, Captain Landry ordered the ship to abandon the makeshift cover to simulate that the hulk had actually been destroyed.

Finally the ships were now in clear visual range of each other and in no time each ship had fired its respective compliment of missiles while beginning to train their MPCs at each other. Knowing that the Duchess of Somerset had more time to adjust its fire control missions, the initial missile barrages that the Pride of Damascus had sent out were anti-beam. The prudent choice of Captain Landry paid off as the anti-beam compounds diffused the mega particle beams right in front his bridge, leaving the crew dazzled but still able to participate in the war game.

Point defense guns were now entering the fray as simulated HE missiles began to swarm each ship, a majority prematurely detonating harmlessly in front of the Salamis cruisers. However a few managed to thread the needle and find their target, exploding into a colored particulate mist that stained the region of the ship and gave the monotonous canvas of dark space a rather welcome makeover.

"Sir, we're receiving damage to our port missile launchers, so we'll have to rely on our starboard launchers, but that'll increase the missiles' time on target due to the extra distance," reported the Pride of Damascus' weapons officer.

Biting his lower lip, Captain Landry ordered the ship to maintain its position to take advantage of its position despite the undeterred heading of Bertrand's ship, "Helmsman, maintain speed and distance and maintain azimuth and inclination with respect to the Duchess."

Each ship began to report various failed systems, including that of their missile launching capabilities, and the Duchess of Somerset had already lost its top bow MPC. Furthermore, the Pride of Damascus was in an advantageous position in relation to the advancing Duchess of Somerset due to the fact that Landry's ship was crossing the Duchess' T. This position allowed the Pride of Damascus to train four of its MPC cannons at the Duchess, whereas the glancing Salamis cruiser could only train three of her cannons at her enemy.

Captain Bertrand knew that the broadside that his opponent presented to him exposed the one main weakness of the Salamis class, and it was that weakness that he hoped to exploit: the single large rocket engine. The head on maneuver actually shielded its own engine from Landry's fire at the cost of losing the firepower war, but it was a gamble that he was willing to take.

The rotating barrages of HE missiles and anti-beam missiles continued to crisscross the relatively open span of space, but the frequency of such events began to dwindle as each ship constantly brought various systems offline due to simulated damage. Fortunately for Captain Bertrand and the crew of the Duchess of Somerset, its gunnery crew and fire direction control surpassed that of its foe, and it would succeed in knocking out the Pride of Damascus' engine and top aft MPC at the cost of losing its right bow MPC.

But the loss of two MPCs would be easily compensated when Bertrand's ship began to cross the Pride's T via its rear under the protection of its remaining stocks of anti-beam missiles. Closing in, Bertrand managed to knock out Landry's left aft MPC and before long the relative positions of the two ships had reversed. The remaining rear MPC that the Pride of Damascus could bring to bear onto Captain Bertrand was outclassed by the three MPCs that the Duchess of Somerset brought to bear against Landry. A series of critical hits to the engine and the Pride of Damascus' superstructure ended the session and prompted the now colorful and charred ships to return to Luna II for restocking and repainting.

Sweat trickled down Alice's dark, rich skin. The transparent bead slithered through the shapely, attractive nape to travel down an unexpected route into the sculpted bosom of the young, yet proven leader of the Pink Panthers. The half-buttoned shirt, thinly covering the chest, gently wavered in the breeze blowing in whispers. Mild footsteps from behind disturbed the quiet gentleness of the atmosphere, and Alice turned his upper body to greet the perpetrator.

"You know, if you were a chick, you'd be utterly popular with the guys."

The older man brushed his unkempt hair to the side, and motioned towards the north with his thumb, towards the horizon that Alice had gazed at earlier. He continued to talk, his innocuous tone masking the excitement. The "Amaranth" name tag glistened and sparkled in the afternoon sun, echoing his true feelings. "...You saw them, right? Two targets."

The superior brushed a glance briefly to the north with a binoculars, and checked again the movements that he saw seconds earlier. They bothered him more than the first comment the man made, though he had gotten used to the teasing of his team by now about his small frame and girlish hair. Alice would never admit it, but he was grateful that opponents could never see him behind his Zaku's cockpit door. "...They look different. The hell's up with those fins?"

Amaranth chuckled. "And two eyes! They look like toys! So, how about it? They're heading this way, so we probably should decide on something before they step on Josh and Kam." He rubbed his palms, most likely thinking about how to best duct-tape the "V" fins onto his Zaku.

Without batting a glance at Amaranth's comment, Alice spoke with clipped precision. "Yeah. Only two. Tell them the usual for two, and take down the..." With a grunt, the light fingers adjusted the dials and buttons on the binoculars, gathering the information he needed to make his command. "...Take down the one with a grey bar on his left shoulder...they -are- in position, right?"

As Alice spoke, Tommy Amaranth had been looking through his own binoculars, eyeing the strange new machines sauntering as if they owned North Africa. "...Ooh, don't worry. They've been real good since Daddy told them that he knows where all the -good-, -nice- girls are in Tangier."

"...Ugh. Time to earn our pay."

~

The humming of the electronics console didn't bother Ray as much as the godforsaken heat in this region, or the chattering of his teammate. It was distinctly true that he told Mannings to not use the comms for private chatter, especially during patrol. It was also distinctly true that fifteen minutes earlier, he had already told the more junior pilot to "Shut the F*** up!" Regardless, both orders went unheeded. Ray continued to wonder if he was too soft as a commander.

"...And you know what they say that white guy did? He ate him! The mobile suit actually ate Slender!"

"...You know, I'm seriously going to court martial you."

The lumbering, majestic steps of the Ground Type, flickering on the left monitor contrasted heavily with the inane ramblings of the pilot. Stoic, solid, and tall. Now if only that autopilot system could also handle combat, then he might be able to sortie with someone that won't drive him insane. Exasperated, Ray unzipped his flight suit down to his belly, and wished that he had sought the advice of anyone who was previously in this region. Well, perhaps, "not wearing bulky s**t" like this pilot suit was common sense, but he was too busy organizing the load-outs of both Ground Types. Urgh.

"And you know what they made in Jaburo? A friend told me! A hammer! A Gundam-sized hammer!"

Ray's eyes gazed at the corner. The waypoint was t--

Something sparkled. The sun reflected off in a mean manner that attempted to blind him, but the camera filtered it. Oh...!

~

"On the count of five. Five...four..."

"...Hey, toybot greybar stopped moving. I think it saw me."

"...Mother--"

A spray of deadly fire brushed the edges of the large trench where two Zaku IIs had nestled themselves. The offending Zaku that had poked its head up to keep an eye on the two formerly steady machines quickly dipped down, its knees rubbing against the solid rock completely overshadowing his partner down below. The said partner Zaku's singular eye flared, with its fingers expertly checking the machinegun it would be using later. It won't jam. In contrast to the haggard, sand-crusted appearance of the leader's Zaku, the pink eye moved with precise intensity to glare at Amaranth's unit. "We're not changing anything. They're only maybe 30 meters to the point where we were supposed to trigger the ambush. They only had two machineguns, right?"

Amaranth's Zaku once again tipped its head out to quickly survey the situation, and was rewarded with a solid "DING!" on the steel helmet of the machine. It quickly dipped down to repeat its previous action. "...Yeah, but they have a backpack. Who knows what's in it. Shit, they nicked my Zaku!"

"If you're thinking they're good, no. They're just lucky."

Alice gave a quick pat to his partner's Zaku, to trigger their operation. A nice little tap on the shoulder. The leader Zaku then raised itself a little from its crouching position, and began to briskly crouch-walk towards the side. As the rest of the Pink Panthers' Zakus had removed their antennaes, Alice's Zaku predictably drew the fire of the more junior pilot in the toybot. The grey toybot brusquely brushed his palm against the other's head, clearly aware something was wrong.

Irrelevant.

~

Charlie Mannings tilted his controls and pulled back the frontal arms of the Ground Type, pointing his 100mm machinegun towards the sky. He kept his eyes on the moving antennae, and opened his communication with his own superior. "What's wrong with suppressive fire?!" He clicked his tongue and turned his eyes to the commander, who then pushed him very roughly towards the front. The Gundam stumbled forward, but caught its footing just in time to be kissed roughly with a blow of dust and sand from behind. "Wh...What the heck?!"

Mannings nearly turned his Gundam around, but instead chose to run towards the side to seek what cover that he could. He realized that this was only the start of an ambush, and his captain...his captain...! As the Gundam briefly glanced back, he saw that Ray's unit was fine, though its left feet and calf were covered in black ash. No doubt, something had scorched the paint.

"S..Sh...!"

He quickly scanned the area for enemies, but found none except Mr. Moving Antennae. The Gundam's pilot cursed and wished deeply to not die after talking about his favorite TV show.

~

"Joshy boy! You missed!" The voice sounded robotic and distorted, coming from a hand firmly gripping "Joshy boy"'s Zaku II on the back. That hand can sod off, for all Josh cared. "Grey toybot isn't retarded after all. I guess he's the leader. They both have command fins, what the hell is this?"

The other Zaku II readied his bazooka, and quickly acted without responding. Kam had his own work to do. The fourth Zaku II to make his move quickly stood up from its own natural trench, hidden very conveniently behind the two weird mobile suits colored like toys. "Eat this and die, feds!" While the taunt did not make it past the cockpit of the Zaku, the shell that followed it flew above the uncaring desert, trailing smoke behind it in a morbid omen. The shell missed its target as well, yet it shattered the sands next to the grey-barred Ground Type's feet. Stumbling, the massive giant was unable to regain balance and kissed the ground with its excessively bulky chest.

Another bazooka round followed, this time smashing into the prone machine's chest. The strange toybot's chest promptly exploded with a blazing fire, a top panel on the middle of its chest blowing open into the sky. Perhaps, the cockpit cover. To Kam's irritation, the kill was scored by one of the Zakus on the other side.

~

Tommy Amaranth quickly crouched, lest he receive the wrath of the 100 milimeter bullets that struck hot on the rocks above his Zaku. A few hard objects rained down on his Zaku's head. Tip, top. Probably components from the grey toybot. But any trophy from these two machines won't be as sweet as the tears he will taste from stealing Kam's kill. Oh boy, when radio silence is broken, he'll explode. After chuckling, Tommy waited for the others to make his move.

By this time, Alice had crouched down, about 300 meters away from Mr. Amaranth. He occasionally peeped up to survey the battle, but he remained quiet in general. He resented his position as the lure sometimes, as he very rarely got to feel the rush and excitement of individual combat. But it's nice to share in the congratulatory moments afterwards...

"...Grey's down? Hrm, took a bit long, but this is good enough."

Giving himself just one moment of excitement, Alice's Zaku rose and quickly sprayed a burst of the machinegun at the lone toybot. It recoiled and cowered behind its impossibly tiny shield, but Alice did not stand long enough to see his next action. The young man wanted to consider himself fairly smart, and staying around for retaliation would betray that expectation of himself.

~

In either case, two bazooka shells simultaneously launched from the two Zakus on the other end of the trench. While the left shell missed, the right shell caught its mark with the right leg, sending it into an explosion, toppling the other blue and white giant onto his ass. The humongous backpack of the unit gave it some stable footing, preventing it from landing on its back. But a prone, immobile position is still a prone, immobile position, and Charlie's heart began to sink.

As Tommy raised his head, the strange toybot aimed his machinegun at his head, but nothing appeared to come out when the fingers of the toybot moved. "...Out of ammo, eh?" Tommy patted his own freshly reloaded bazooka, when he spotted one of the subordinate Zaku IIs behind the toybot beginning to pull his heathawk out. He cursed.

"...C'mon, we don't have to burn a shell on here, I can just give him a single blow to his cockpi--"

Josh's Zaku stopped as Kam's hand landed on his machine's head. "Hey, cool it. Just because you didn't hit anything doesn't mean you should go gung-ho there." Irritated, Josh responded. "...Says the person who taunts me when I miss?...Cih, whatever, I didn't want to get chewed out by Alice and Tommy anyway." Josh's Zaku retreated, as a shell originating Tommy's position put the last of the strange toybots out of its misery.

"Panther 2 here! Good hustle, boys! I think big man's gonna let us have some leave at Tangier after this!"

Alice, irked at the manner in which Amaranth broke radio silence, commented nothing.

"How's the Mack running Lieutenant Stevens?" asked Captain Jacobs. Stevens looked up from his console "The Merrimack is running at 100% Captain." Jacobs gave a slow nod as he took pride in how efficiently his crew moved about the bridge. He knew it was almost time to begin the spar with the Merrimack's sister ship the Monitor. "That old bastard Evans is probably already planning how to celebrate his victory." Jacobs muttered to himself. "Sir?" questioned Lt. Stevens, but Jacob's just shook his head. With a small flourish Jacobs stood up. "This is the Captain speaking. All hands confirm combat ready status." Jacobs nodded to himself as everything was green lighted across the board. "It's time sir." piped in Lt. Stevens. "Very well." responded Jacobs. "Helmsman, take us out at combat speed." The helmsman responded right away, and the Merrimack glided through space heading away from Luna II towards the sparing range.

Captain Evans lightly drummed his fingers on his chairs armrest. He launched his ship a little early to get the jump on his old friend, hiding it among some debris and rocks floating around the sparing field. Some might say it was a bit underhanded but he didn't remember them agreeing on any rules besides paint rounds only. "Anything yet Ensign Shields?" asked Evans. "Nothing yet sir." she said without looking up from the sensor station. "Hm perhaps Jacobs is running late." Mused Evans until Shields called out "Confirmed contact Sir. It's the Merrimack." Evans licked his lips. "All hands to combat stations. Helmsman get ready to move us. Gunnery station make sure all our cannons are loaded and ready to fire." Evans smiled as his bridge came alive with action. The Monitor was positioned perfectly to get the drop on the Merrimack as it passed by. As soon as Ensign Shields reported them in range Evans gave the order. "Helmsman take us out. All guns are to fire at will when they get a clear shot." The Monitor gave a small jerk as her engines pushed her from her hiding spot. Evans could only imagine the confusion on his friends face as his cannons opened fire.

"Captain, Incoming fire from the nearby debris cloud." Called out Lt. Stevens. Jacobs gave a slight shake of his head. "Helmsman, take evasive action. Gunnery station fire off a pair of missiles to intercept." The ship lurched as the helmsman struggled to get them out of the way. Jacob's watched as a pair of missiles tore off from his ship exploded in a cloud of paint just shy of the incoming rounds. The idea was that the cloud of paint would cause the paint rounds from the monitor to rupture early. It worked for the most part but one round made it through and slammed into the front end of the Merrimack. "Status!" growled Jacobs. "Sir, it hit two of our fore cannons." replied Lt. Stevens. "Shut them down to simulate real damage and return fire." replied Jacobs. The Merrimack rolled as it fired off it's last four port missiles.

"Reload and fire again!." Yell Evans. He couldn't believe Jacobs had pulled that off. Any further outrage was cut short and Ensign Shields reported four incoming missiles. "Target the missiles and fire." Ordered Evans. The Monitors cannons tracked the missiles for a few seconds before firing. Two of the missiles went up in a burst of paint. Another flew right by the Monitor but still exploded close enough to shower it with some paint. The final one impacted low on the backside of the ship. "Status!" Yelled Evans again. "Light damage across the ship from the first missile. The second one impacted on our engines sir." answered a tight lipped Ensign. "Shut it down to 50 percent to replicate damage. Helmsman get that debris between us and the Merrimack." Ordered Evans. His ship slowed as it angled back towards it's hiding spot.

"We got their engines Captain!" said Lt. Stevens. A cheer went up around the bridge. "Lets see if we can't finish this then. Helmsmen accelerate and get us an angle for our aft cannons and starboard missiles." Said Jacobs. The Merrimack picked up a little speed as the helmsman pushed the ship into position. "Fire!" Yelled Jacobs. Six missiles launched from their tubes followed by six cannon rounds.

"Fire everything!" Ordered Evans. The Monitor launched it's own missiles and fired it's cannons. However it would prove for not as one of the Merrimack's cannon rounds survived and impacted directly into the side of the bridge. "Sir, our bridge has been destroyed." was all Ensign Shields said. Incoming communication said the comm officer. "Put it on." Evans replied. "Well now." Jacobs voice said. " I believe the win is mine. So what do you say we head back to base. Drinks are on me." Evans could hear the laugh in his friends voice. But the prospect of free drinks did sound appealing. "Alright, but next time I'll get you." replied Evans.

The two Salamis's formed up and began to make their way back to Luna II. One's front in was covered in yellow paint. While the other sported pink around the backside and one massive spot of hot pink paint on it's bridge.

Okay dudes, some notes.

JIM: I like yours a lot. You have a good attention to detail, but it's a little long and it starts off a little slow. You have a tendency for starting battles off a little slow. Build up is great for a multi person event, but for a spar it's not super necessary. It's just sparring.

DAREN: You're doing nice quick spars which is good, and they had decent action, but your formatting is a little odd. You don't use commas enough (or like, at all), some of your spelling is off. Spellcheck stuff.

DRACO: Yours is good, but your text has this way of being kind of silly. You are a really silly guy, and it leaks into your writing. Silly battles are good, but sometimes you have to write a battle that's serious too. IMO, you should do comic book battles. Also, I can tell you copied it from word and didn't have word set to ASCII encoding, you can't do that.

See the " marks on Draco's battle? See how they're slightly tilted? Those are MS Word encoded " marks. They come up as %& signs on the website. You have to set Word to ASCII encoding otherwise I have to manually go through and change every quotation mark, every apostrophe and every comma.

ALTOH: Your battle is good, but it's waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. I'd like to see you post another, and make it shorterar.

Diz gud. ILU plz do moar.

Just as an update, I won't be getting that tin cod thing up tonight. After fighting to remove some malware from my computer for a few hours. I just don't have the will to finish the rest of it tonight. So I'll toss it up tomorrow.

Sparing Zakus!



All is quiet at the Zeon asteroid fortress, Solomon. The newer pilots take this time to get better acquainted with their mobile suits they were assigned to. In this case there mobile suits in question were two Zaku II F's. Since there was little going on, for now, the pilots would spar each other to see who was the better Zaku pilot. This also presented some of the soldiers with something entertaining to watch and bet on. The two Zakus floated to their separate positions just outside of Solomon. Their ammo for the weapons had been switched out to paint ball rounds and their heat hawks were switched out with training heat hawks.

~

With out being told to start the spar the two Zaku pilots started the battle. Zaku pilot one started off by firing his Zakus bazooka at the other Zaku. He had fired off two shots at the opponent Zaku, one at the torso and the other at the legs. The opponent Zaku threw two of her cracker grenades at the bazooka shells headed towards her. The shells collided with the grenades and a big puff of paint appeared where they collided. As the puff of paint slowly dispersed the opponent Zaku was no where to be seen. Zaku pilot two had wisely moved out of the way of the explosion. She waited until Zaku pilot one was not paying attention before she fired her machine gun at her opponent. Zaku pilot one didn't notice it until he felt the paint rounds hitting his Zaku, splattering pink pain on his Zakus right arm and right foot.. After that he boosted away and fired off his two remaining bazooka shells in two random locations. Zaku pilot two tried to boost away in time only to feel the shock of the shell impact on her Zakus left arm.

~

The soldiers in space fortress Solomon were cheering on as they watched the battle unfold. As both combatants had separate arms tagged. They were the arm in which each pilot used to fire their guns. Realizing this the pilots drew their training hawks and prepared for some close quarters combat Zeon style. The pilots looked down at each other staring at each other waiting for someone to make the first move. Zaku pilot one could not take the suspense and made the first move, boosting forward and coming down to cleave the other Zaku in two with a vertical slash. Zaku pilot two blocked it with her hawk and kicked the attacking Zakus torso, thus pushing him back. Zaku pilot one was sent back flying a bit until he used the thrusters to gain control only to see the other Zaku starting its attack with a horizontal slash. Zaku pilot one figured he could parry the hit and get the killing blow, so to speak. Zaku pilot two continued to proceed with its fake attack only to change it from a horizontal attack to a diagonal upper cut type of slash. The slash hit its mark ion the cockpit and it was clear that Zaku pilot two was the better combatant. Zaku pilot one was in disbelief of his loss to a girl so we went off sulking into the hanger. Fairly proud of herself, Zaku pilot two did a little victory pose with the training hawk and then proceeded back to the hanger to receive her cut for the spar and some celebrating.