|
The red lenses of her binoculars captured the busy lights of New Amsterdam, as construction equipment roared alongside the snowstorm, seemingly unabated by the battering winds and mean flakes of ice in their tasks. Although she was less than a few hundred meters away from the enemy, Ferusha was quite calm and composed. The Federation workers that she observed walking out of what appeared to be a barracks under construction, were slack and inattentive in their march towards the temporary messhall. She briefly wondered if they would be feeding on a better meal than what Captain Shoji and she previously had before the mission. Refocusing, she set her camera to record the airfield and hangar, at the moment housing air rather than aircraft. The Communications tower nearby looks 95% complete... with three officers below talking underneath a makeshift tent. Grunting, the scouting soldier thought about pulling out a portable microphone to amplify the sound, but found it impossible to do so under the surging winds. Ferusha briefly snapped several more images of the port, before slowly crawling up and walking away. She wanted to return before her Zaku's joints completely freeze over. One of the Federation officers felt that he saw something in the snow move, but ignored it. The story his buddy was telling? Way too good. "...And that's when I discovered that he tampered with the DNA evidence!" Ferusha Glavadeen 3 VP gained, No Damage Lt. Roher tilted his head side to side trying to loosen his neck up. It seemed like he had been on patrol nonstop lately. A small beep alerted him to an incoming call before the face of LCDR. Garret Schmitzer appeared on his screen. "Lt. Roher, we've just picked up an enemy contact in your area. Your team is to investigate and destroy any Federation units you find." said Schmitzer. "Understood, Roher out." replied Roger. Signaling to the four zaku's accompanying him, his team moved out. A lone Type 61 was slowly pushing its way into zeon territory. Cray Vermillion was seated in the commander seat of the tank. He was leaning forward slightly his shoulders were tense and his face pinched with worry. "How much farther Ion?" Cray asked. "Still a ways to go. But if we can get in far enough we'll be past there border patrols." she replied. Cray nodded, they'd just crossed the line into zeon turf nearly ten minutes ago. Any further questions were interrupted as alarms began blaring through out the tank. Cray grabbed the scope in front of him and looked. Off in the distance he could see four Zakus taking shape. "Four Zaku J types ahead, take evasive action." ordered Cray. Ion was sliding the tank to the right before Cray had even finished giving his order. Seconds later multiple missiles slammed into the ground all around them. Cray heard metal shards rain into his tank. "Get us out of here!" he yelled as the tanks turret turned to face the zakus. Just as the tank was about to fire. A lone missile landed a lucky hit on the very tip of the cannons. Cray was thrown half way out of his seat as the turret and cannon were all but shredded. "Fall back he managed to choke out." he managed to choke out. Ion wheeled the tank around hard. She attempted to use the smoke and dirt that had been kicked up as cover. She was tense at the controls as a minute passed, then two. At three she finally began to calm down until she heard a loud tearing sound. "What was that? More fire?" she asked a slightly recovered Cray. He gave a small shake of his head. "No I just think we lost part of the tread on one side." he said with sadness in his voice. Cray Vermillion 5 VP, Repairing 5 "You sure you don't want to use that sniper rifle of yours?" "Now now, it wouldn't be very fair to you now would it?" Inside the red mobile suit sat a one Derek Carter surrounded by the usual equipment that littered all mobile suit cockpits. Bright blue readouts from the screen remained partially reflected off of his visor while his gloved fingers effortlessly glided across a far touchpad. Toggling on and off the various optical filters, the Guncannon's pilot was finally satisfied with the preflight checklist knowing trifle oversights such as optical blackouts or certain AMBAC issues wouldn't be detrimental to the simulated battle. His opponent sat snugly inside one of the more advanced Federation mobile suits and remained rather motionless to the point where even his chest movement from breathing was indiscernible. Instead, Michael Kreuz rested his hands loosely around the control sticks and continued to relax and try to make sense to the ideas running around in his mind. Thankfully for him, breathing control and proper methods of pulling a mechanical trigger were not issues when firing a weapon from a mobile suit. The marvels of technology. Both pilots were a bit startled when a rather booming voice crackled over their speaker systems. Not long after a feed of a uniformed officer automatically overlaid itself onto the side screen in each suit. "Capture pods have been scattered. Please note that a green flare will be discharged to signal the start of the exercise, and that a red flare will be discharged when the exercise is deemed terminated." And with that the audio visual feed was closed, leaving the two test pilots with an odd semblance of silence aside from the constant low humming that emanated from the numerous electrical components surrounding them. Michael had not as soon more firmly gripped his control sticks when a brilliant green flare shot up from somewhere around Green Noah. Carefully, he began to track the erratic thruster signature on his visuals, but it was still out of range and he knew that his own mobile suit had the detection advantage. To his surprise a couple pairs of shots went within hundreds of meters of his stationary location, but he quickly realized that the his sanguine opponent could not accurately take aim at such a great distance. "Such a brute weapon," he thought, twitching his wrists and ankles to constantly shift the GM Sniper II's posture in space. "Now maybe if I was a ship..." With more than a kilometer head start, the GM Sniper II's sensors worked diligently in tandem with its targeting software to present an adequate firing solution for Michael. His confidence in them was soon put to the test when he jerked the firing trigger and sent a pink beam straight into space before beginning to egress backwards to maintain his sensor advantage. Derek had seen the pink beam discharge and jerked his controls in time to perform a flawless evasive maneuver while continuing to blast forward at full burn at his target. Letting loose his own beam rifle shot, the elder pilot dodged several more shots from his savvy opponent with ease, therefore making it quite evident that taking shots at these such ranges weren't netting either pilot any sizable gain. Realizing that this simulation was for the testing of the suit's overall abilities and not that of their luck, both Derek and Michael both took the liberty to close in. Once again Derek was the first to fire his full compliment of ballistic cannons, beam rifle, and beam spray gun, providing a visually impressive spectacle to all and humbling the sniper GM's pilot for a second as he tried to dodge the hodgepodge of fire headed his way. The scattering beam spray gun had managed to contact the high tech GM's foot, but the energy dissipation from the distance allowed the beam particles to do nothing more than bubble the paint. Had the beam spray gun actually been at full power, however, things might have been different. After letting loose a string of rounds from his dual vulcans, Michael utilized the exemplary propulsion package of his mobile suit to match his opponent's maneuvers move for move and then some. Firing off another sustained burst, the sniper's pilot released in quick succession a flashbang grenade and then a standard one before facing the suit away from the ordinance. The momentary lack of situation awareness however would give Derek the chance to tag the Sniper II's hip with a beam rifle before being blinded by a white light. He instinctively threw up his hands to shield himself from the sensory overload and by doing so gave his sparring partner the opportunity to exact a well aimed shot. Realizing what he had just done, Guncannon's pilot quickly stomped down on his left foot pedal while frantically reaching for his control sticks. But alas, he knew he was too late when sudden jolt followed by a softer shudder rocked him within his harness. The low powered beam shot from Michael had certainly connected, but unfortunately it wasn't the kill shot. The second grenade that Michael had launched at the Guncannon shifted the hulking mobile suit so that the the sniper's shot connected further up than intended. With his computer working tirelessly to pass and repass the optical feed in an attempt to recover, Derek relied solely on his non-visual sensors to determine where his target was and on luck to dodge whatever shots Michael was throwing at him. With its visuals back online and left arm deemed useless, the Guncannon MPT once again fired its full compliment at the evasive GM Sniper II. This time, however, Derek had fired them in a way to form a triangle shaped saturation hoping to somehow shotgun his way to victory. His gambit worked. In an attempt to dodge the vulcan rounds and beam shots, Michael had unfortunately ran into the 200mm "shells", quickly ending any hope of emerging from the engagement as the victor. Two rather hefty paintballs burst against the his GM Sniper II; one of the rounds had erupted against the shield, but the other round plastered itself all across Derek's mobile suit. As expected, a red flare was soon observed by both test pilots and they moved to return to Green Noah's hangar bay. "Nice shots you got there." Derek Carter: 6 VP Gained, 2-1 Days Damage Michael Kreuz: 4 VP Gained, 2-1 Days Damage Side 4, Side 5, Side not 3, Side X. They were all the same. Twisted metal hulks as far as the eye could see. Seas of glistening glass shards and the occasional agonized corpse. Ensign Richard Banks had helped make it that way. He was a practical man though and his thoughts never once lingered. He merely noted each obstacle on the path before him, maneuvered around it, and then continued to search for his prey: Specialist Chris Burnett. The boy was one of Flanagan's own and he had the mobile armor to prove it. "Braw Bro," Banks recalled from the reports, "MAN-03 Braw Bro." The Ensign knew what it could do. He had personally read Burnett's every after-action report (at least the ones that weren't classified) and the reports were interesting. And the reason why quickly became apparent when a lance of Minovsky particles incinerated the wrecked car mere meters from Bank's Rick Dom. Ensign Banks barely noticed it. The car, after all, was not really incinerated. There was no lance of angry particles. Just a quick flash of light and an interpreted signal that told him the car had been in its path. It made things a lot safer but Banks could not help but feel a bit underwhelmed. The Braw Bro had the capability to attack targets from far beyond the range that battles were typically fought at. In theory this meant that a handful of the mobile armors could pick off enemy fleets with relative impunity. Bank and his Rick Dom should have been easily cremated. Burnett, however, had thus far failed to live up to the possibilities though. "That doesn't make this any easier," Banks thought while tracing the beams path. The Braw Bro couldn't just hit fleets from long distances. Wire-guided weaponry enable it to hit those same targets from angles that made tracking its true position nearly impossible before it relocated. Here though that was not the case. Ensign Banks had made sure to start this spar kilometers away from his opponent. The idea was that it would force Burnett to use his machine's particular perks to the fullest. Burnett had so far failed to effectively use his machine in this capacity, and as Richard Banks finished tracing the beam's path, the likely-hood of the Specialist making up for his failings quickly diminished. The jogging pace that his Rick Dom was engaging in built up into a sprint as Richard accelerated deeper into the shoal zone. For this particular exercise he had brought a standard bazooka loaded with duds. It was the weapon he would have brought if he was engaging a heavily armored target or even just a unit as high powered as the Braw Bro. Banks banked around what used to be a parking garage just in time to catch sight of another imaginary Minovsky beam. It was virtually straight along the rough path that he was making through the shoal; confirmation that his calculations had paid off. He readied his giant bazooka and strained his eyes on what his screens were showing him. Somewhere in the rapidly growing wreckage in front him, the Braw Bro was waiting and watching. Suddenly something smashed its way the shoal. Banks fired his verniers to make a rough dodge, and thanks to his quick thinking, his computer registered a miss. He was still getting used to this particular Rick Dom though. What would have taken him a just half a meter from an electric car in his old suit, caused him to send the tiny vehicle careening off into the distance. Its torn up outer surface and the high speed of the collision combined together to tear a chunk out of the Rick Dom's skirt but nothing that really slowed him down. Banks noted his mistake momentarily before getting back to the matter at hand. The wired cannon was still there, charging another shot, and Banks was quick to scan past it for the source. He couldn't quite make it out before being forced to jerk his Rick Dom out of the way of another light beam. Still though he now had a general target and he was determined to take it. His Rick Dom darted this way and that before finally committing to a corkscrew path that would bring him under where the gun was firing on him from. The acceleration forced him back in his seat but Richard did not mind. He just kept his eyes on the prize, his finger on the trigger, and his feet ready to make an adjustment at a moment's notice. Another light beam missed followed by another and another as he rapidly closed in. "Panicking, Burnett? This early?" he thought with some suspicion. It matched one of his earlier reports but surely the Specialist had learned to better control his emotions since then? It dawned on him too late that he was underestimating the younger man. The moment that he was under the cannons position, the firing from the single gun stopped. It was instead replaced with all of the other guns of the Braw Bro opening up at once from roughly two kilometers below Bank's position. Bank's computer instantly registered his suit's right side being reduced to molten nothing but the Ensign wasn't about to let up that easily. He tilted his gun upwards and let loose with several shells as another light beam told him he was finished. Burnett, thinking his fight was over, reacted too late to save mobile armor's tentacle appendage from being mangled by the shot's impacts. Still though it hardly mattered. He had won. Chris Burnett: 1 Day Repairing 5 VP Gained Richard Banks: 1 Day Repairing 4 VP Gained Jarvis Ackart and his ms team were moving loudly across the North American land scape. They'd been lucky when they spotted what appeared to be a zeon armor patrol moving through the area. Jarvis gripped his controls tightly urging his suit to move faster. He didn't want to miss the chance to do some damage to zeon. "As soon as we get a little closer we're gonna boost jump and hit them from above. Come in hard and fast." ordered Jarvis. Jarvis's mind raced as he tried to pick the best moment to give the order. Seconds later he screamed "Now!" and his suit shot into the air. The gm and gm cct quickly flew after him. Jarvis noticed by now the tanks had noticed them. The were swiveling their turrets around to engage his team while the apc's continued on. "Well at least they seem to know they aren't going to win." Jarvis said and gave a bitter laugh as he fired his beam gun and his suit began to fall. Beams slammed into the ground all around the Magella's as the ms rained beam fire from above. One Magella went up right away after a beam punched clean through it. Another took damage from a near miss but the damage was mostly superfical. However Jarvis and his team had lost the element of surprise and their air attack abruptly came to an end when their suits landed hard a short distance away from the remaining Magellas. Not wasting any time all four remaining tanks opened fire with everything they had. Cannon rounds, machine gun fire and even granades exploded all around Jarvis and his team. Jarvis brought his shield around quickly and braced himself as fire tore into it. Just as he was about to return fire a stray round impacted directly into his suits right knee. The round exploded and tore the knee wide open. Jarvis's suit fell onto it's knees and was immobilized for the time being. As if sensing some weakness the Magella's attack seem to intensify. However while Jarvis was down his GM and GM CCT we're not. They returned fire and another Magella exploded. As if realizing they had no chance from the beginning. Two of the Magellas turned and ran, the remaining one charged their federation ms firing. The GM CCT carefully aimed and fired a round from it's beam spray gun straight into the charging tanks cockpit and watched it explode. Jarvis felt no satisfaction as he watched the final tank explode. His team couldn't risk leaving him to chase down the others with the condition his suit was in. "Damn it." were the only words he could get out as he slammed his fist into his suits console. Jarvis Ackart 7 VP, Repairing 2 |