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Shangri Stormwind (GoTA) Mistress of the Nutty Dough Posts: 700 (10/20/04 6:18 pm) Reply |
Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version) Claude suffered from claustrophobia when he was a child. It hadn't lasted long. Some intense therapy, coupled with some multicolored pills, did cure this aversion for small, confined places. Claude didn't fear anymore to enter a building, and he could drive his speeder on the highway to Mega York without feeling nervous, trapped in the pressured and uncomfortable cockpit of a vehicle that could hit the 500 Miles per hour limit. But, when he sat on his vinyl seat in the boarding shuttle, he couldn't help noticing that the ceiling was quite low, and that there were no portholes to contemplate the sky outside. For good reasons: portholes would have weakened the ship structure, and boarding ships were usually the favorite targets of gunners during an assault. He felt a bit anxious about those missing portholes though. He had many other reasons to feel anxious at the moment, but for some reason, his mind was constantly coming back to those damned missing portholes. If a missile or a concussion ray ever came to fully hit the spacecraft, Claude couldn't see it coming. Maybe he would see the walls exploding, maybe he would feel the death taking him away in her cold embrace of eternity, but he would never know where the shot did come from. This simple thought was concerning to him. All around Claude, some other men were sitting against the walls of the boarding shuttle, on the vinyl seats. All of them were wearing the massive black and blue armour of the space marines, a heavy exoskeleton reinforced with titanium, supposed to protect them against any threat. This armour was their only luggage: They would return fast from this journey through deep space, or they would not return at all. Too many men in armour, not enough room in this craft. In spite of the therapy he followed against claustrophobia, in spite of the multicolored pills, Claude felt uneasy now. The sergeant Sam Muttons, a veteran of many wars, did sit in front of Claude. He was also named "four-leaves" by many of the recruits, thanks to his talent to survive anything, from the simple street fight to the universal exo nuclear conflict. Kind of a character: A blond giant with an artificial arm and a cybernetic eye, wearing more scars than the rookies like Claude could imagine. The physical wounds being not the deepest ones, as the sergeant liked to mention it. "So Paxton?" he said, glaring down at Claude. " You seem a bit nervous here?" Claude shrugged. "My first battle... Who wouldn't be?" he replied. Sam nodded. "It already began, you know." Said the sergeant. "It always begins with artillery. Right now the Destrega is firing with all of its cannons at the Lubella. And Lubella does the same indeed. And they re, oh.... like 6000 miles away the one from the other? We don't feel anything because of the shields, and because we are far from the hull. And in space, you have no sound, but you already know that." A long beep interrupted the sergeant. A voice could be heard in the intercom. "Guys, its your pilot talking. We will launch in aproximently 30 seconds, so strap in now." Every soldier in the shuttle grabbed a metallic harness above his head, and pushed a button on it. The harnesses detected the weight of the passengers, their sizes, then dropped themselves on the seats, as giant metallic spiders hungry for space marines in armour. All of the passengers were automatically pinned on the walls, unable to move, trapped in those automatic harnesses that would protect them from vibrations and impacts during this little expedition of theirs. Claude was unable to move anything except his fingers. The harness was firmly keeping his neck and head in a straight position, and he could only face the remaining grey eye of the sergeant. "Kinky huh?" smiled Sam with a wink. Claude didn t share this feeling. He felt defenseless, and the claustrophobia slowly and surely gained ground in the battle against his tired mind. But he couldn't show his trouble. Then he would be rejected by everyone. Today some of them would probably die, and he knew some of his friends had already been ripped into pieces under the rays of the enemy, so then what was the meaning of some simple claustrophobia? The whole shuttle seemed to shiver for a few seconds. Claude thought at first the pilot started the engines, but it wasn t the case. "The Destrega took a bad hit here...." commented the sergeant. Claude was about to say something, but then the pilot did really start the engines. And they screamed, they screamed as raging beasts, turning all of the space marines deaf for a few seconds. Simultaneously, Claude felt the quickening, slightly reduced by the harness, affecting his body. His saliva filled the left half of his closed mouth. His stomach was compressed, fighting to reject it's contents His heart pumped so fast, faster, faster! He didn t remember when he closed his eyes, but they were closed now. He could feel the blood speeding its way through his veins at his temples. The whole shuttle was screaming, its structure suffering and absorbing the main part of the quickening, following the Varstein physics. And suddenly it stopped. The metallic screaming was replaced by the regular sound of the low-pulse engines, strangely peaceful after this chaos." Ommm.... Ommmm.... Ommmm...." Were whispering the engines to the space marines, propulsing the shuttle at some insane speed through the invisible starry sky. Claude heared someone puking. But how someone could puke in this position: with the head and neck straightened by the harness, which probably didn't care about human weaknesses, Claude didn't know, and wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Sorry guys...." said a pathetic voice, but noone replied, except the low-pulse engines. "Ommmm..... Ommmmm...." Claude opened his eyes. The sergeant was still here, staring at him, but anyway, the harnesses left them no other choice: they were sentenced to stare at each other for the time of their travel. And some people disliked being trapped in a lift with someone they didn t know? They should have tried the Space Marines boarding harnesses. "And now.... phase two begins." said the sergeant. "Our fleet is dashing to the lubella, fighters leading to clear the way. Lubella probably sent some fighters to stop us, artillery being not able to stop high speed vehicles. Their priority will be the boarding ships. It s easier to stop a space marine while he s sitting against a wall. Let s hope we have a good pilot, and good angels to cover our six." Claude realized he didn't see the pilot. He only heard his voice before the landing, but was that a human voice? When there weren't enough valuable pilots, too precious to be wasted, the ships were simply controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. Those computers were able to react instantly to any threat, and could perform highly skilled maneuvers, but even the most recent ones had been defeated in fighting simulation against humans. Then the boarding shuttle and its content were vigorously shaken by a concussion ray. Claude had the time to think he was already dead, as the impact resonated against the hull like a cannon shot, as the vibrations, partially absorbed by the harnesses, did run into a cold shiver on his skin. His stomach danced in his body. The low pulse engines hesitated: "Ommmy... Om... Om..." Then all was back to normal. Engines pursued their unfinished speech: "Ommm.... Ommmmm..."Some space marines did whisper, with some relief in their voice. Claude took a deep breath. Suddenly a soldier near Claude shouted: "Rivet! Rivet!!" Claude stopped breathing. He knew that, in spite of the appearances, the shuttle was spinning, turning, quickening, slowing, dozens of time per second, many commands and maneuvers being semi automatic. Thanks to Varstein physics and to low pulse engines, all of those efforts were only suffered by the ship structure. The space ships were designed to suffer such violent efforts. But when their structure was damaged, after a direct hit like the one they had just taken for example, those efforts put pressure on the weaker points of the ship, like wall junctions.... and rivets. And when the pressure on walls and rivets became too much, the rivets were simply ejected like champagne tops. Now true that there weren't loads of champagne tops made of aliasteel, and able to reach the amazing speed of 150 meters per second. In normal circumstances, a "rivet hopper", as pilots called those incidents, was already dangerous. In a boarding shuttle filled with space marines, the rivet hopper could bounce many times against the reinforced walls, killing a passenger or two on its way. When a soldier shouted "rivet!", that meant he had noticed a rivet about to pop. Claude realized ironically that the harnesses supposed to protect them from the vibrations were leaving them defenselesses against rivet hoppers. "Where?" said the sergeant. "Where do you see this rivet? -Above your left shoulder sergeant!" Claude couldn t see the soldier who spotted the rivet, but he could see the sergeant. He raised his eyes and immediately spotted the rivet. It was blue, vibrating in its socket and aimed at Claude s head. "Ommmmmm.... Ommmmm..." Said the low pulse engines. 'Tak...tak... tak..." maliciously replied the rivet, slowly extracting itself from its socket. Claude felt nothing but some vague surprise. He didn t hope to survive for long -This war had already killed so many people.... But, killed by a rivet hopper, before he even fought as a soldier? "Ignore it." said the sergeant. Claude downed his eyes and noticed the sergeant was still staring at him; There was no other choice anyway. "What?" said Claude, and his voice sounded pathetic to his ears. "Ignore it. I was at your place once: I ignored the rivet, and the rivet ignored me. So ignore it." said the sergeant. How could the sergeant see that the rivet was aimed at Claude s head? He didn t need to. He had simply read the expression on Claude s face, or maybe the same rivet was always popping first on those shuttles... Claude vaguely heard some concerned whispers around him, but he distinctly heard the "tak" when the rivet freed itself a bit more. When would it pop? When would it make its way to Claude s head, piercing his forehead, breaking his skull, clearing a way through his tender brain? The sergeant was staring at him, so Claude stared at the sergeant and ignored the rivet. No other choice anyway. The shuttle was talking to itself, while the men remained quiet. Machines were the only ones to rule the stars. "Ommm..... Ommmm.... -Tak. -Ommmmm.... Ommm.... Ommmmm..... -Tak! -BAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!" The missile that exploded near the boarding shuttle could have put a definitive end to this interesting situation, but the pilot -who was probably human after all- did somehow manage to save his ship and his human shipment. All became blurry. Claude was shaken on his seat and one of his hands violently hit the side of the chair. He felt the vibration shaking his spine, his muscles, his flesh and the few liters of human fluids a body could contained. When things returned to normal, Claude blinked, breathed, blinked again. Its the kind of thing you do when you can't believe you're still alive. Then he raised his eyes. The rivet was still here, and it popped at the exact moment Claude was glaring at it. BANG! Claude felt something passing really fast along his right temple. There was an enormous noise, then Claude right ear didn t hear anything more. Though, his left ear heard too well the horrible sound of the rivet entering one s flesh, breaking one s bones. It wasn't his flesh, these weren't his bones, and, as awful as it could sound, Claude felt some relief about it. Claude saw something flying in front of him, dripping some blood on its way, in some elegant motion. The thing fell on the ground in some tingling noise, but Claude couldn t see it landing, his head and neck straightened by the harness. He could only see the sergeant, who had a surprised expression, and blood all over his face. Claude couldn t hear anything from his right ear. He saw the scene again on the black screen of his mind. The rivet did miss him, hit the wall near his head, causing him to lose hearing from his right ear, and killed the man sitting on the next seat. Well the man had to be dead. Claude just saw some of his teeth, still attached to their jaw, flying in front of him. They were probably laying somewhere in the alley now, between the two ranks of men in armour. Someone puked, maybe the same guy as before. Another one said "Mother!! Blaine s face is... Oh, God!" The sergeant spit some of the blood that had been spread on his face. He couldn't raise his hand, so the hemoglobin would have to dry there. "It shouldn t be long now." he said. "Keep cool and shut up boys. We re almost done with this shit." And everyone shut up, hoping the sergeant was right. Everyone except the low pulse engines. "Ommmmm.... Ommmm...." After a few minutes -Claude was feeling some warm blood soiling his cheek, maybe his ear was bleeding- the voice of the pilot was heard saying: "We passed the defense perimeter. Approaching the Lubella. Switching to proxy engines, disabling the harnesses." Simultaneously, the "Ommm" stopped and were replaced by the reassuring sound of the proxy engines. Claude did partially feel the deceleration, and the harness released its grip on his neck and head. The ship was shivering time to time, due to occasional hits, but the anti fighter defenses of the lubella couldn't affect the shields of the boarding shuttle in a significant way. Claude was free and alive. His first reflex was to look at his neighbor -this guy who took the rivet aimed at him. He immediately regretted his move, and turned his eyes away from a show that would haunt him for years. "Boarding...." said the pilot in his microphone. Was he human or not? Maybe that wasn't that important, now that all of them -except one- made their way to their destination. The sergeant was staring at Claude, wiping his face with a towel. "It s over for him. It hasn't yet begun for us." he said. Claude didn't understand at first. "Connected to hull. Piercing the hull. Prepare your weapons guys." Then Claude remembered. All around him, the space marines were checking the guns implanted in the right sleeve of their armour. Some others were wearing their helmets -that weren t worn during travel to allow the harnesses doing their work correctly. They only survived to this travel to fulfill their duty. Sergeant "four leaves" was right. It hadn't begun yet. "Area clear, Hull pierced, scan negative. Pressurization ok, all levels green. Opening Sas in ten..." The Marines were gathering in front of the only door, at the bottom of the ship. Claude stared at the sergeant. There was no more harness, he could have avoided it. But he stared at the sergeant. "Five...." said the pilot. "It begins now." simply said Claude. "You got it right boy." replied the sergeant. "Sas opened. Good luck guys." The door opened itself, and the 23rd division assaulted the Lubella. "To the NJO clan, and many thanks to Duffman, who spent an hour with me on msn reviewing the syntax and the many little mistakes a froggy like me can make at times. Duff, you re the man! Shangri." Edited by: Shangri Stormwind at: 10/23/04 7:13 am |
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Shangri Stormwind (GoTA) Mistress of the Nutty Dough Posts: 701 (10/20/04 6:44 pm) Reply |
Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest) I have to fix a few things about mistakes, typos and unknow words, but I spent four hours and more writting this little post, so I hope you won t mind if i do that tomorrow lol. Feedback is welcome though. Edited by: Shangri Stormwind at: 10/20/04 7:05 pm |
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Shangri Stormwind (GoTA) Mistress of the Nutty Dough Posts: 702 (10/20/04 7:14 pm) Reply |
Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest) I did edit, reread, rewrite, etc etc.... If you see anything else that looks non english or a word misused, don t hesitate to tell me 
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Talyl Donut Pirate of Tael'Aen Posts: 861 (10/21/04 6:36 am) Reply 
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Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version It's soooo great to see your writers block is gone! This is such a long post! Wah!  I remain in awe of your ability to write so fluently in a language which isn't your first! I used to struggle so much with Italian that I gratefully gave it up! Because English is your second language I have gotten particularly nit picky in my comments in order to help you out. (I have Australian friends who's grammar is much worse than yours though, so please don't take offense). It is very clear what you are trying to say, but it's always nice for things to be exactly right. That said, I honestly commend you on your English abilities!  "It hadn't last long." It should be lasted. "Claude didn't fear anymore to enter a building..." It works better as: "Claude didn't fear entering a building anymore..." Also the rest of that sentence is veeeery long. Perhaps you could put a full stop in there somewhere? "...he couldn't help but noticing that the ceiling..." You have two options here. You could change it to "... he couldn't help but notice..." or "He couldn't help noticing..." "He felt a bit anxious about those missing portholes though." Nice observation.  "...black and blue armours of the space marines, an heavy exoskeleton... " You don't need the 's' on the end of armour. Also, we only use an if the word following it begins with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u). Eg. An Elephant. You want to say a heavy instead of an heavy.  "This armour was their only luggage..." Cool line! "In despite of the therapy he followed against claustrophobia, in despite of the multicolored pills, Claude felt uneasy now." I think you're getting mixed up with in spite and despite. You could change this sentence to In spite of the therapy... or you could change it to Despite the therapy... "...thanks to his talent to survive anything..." Try: ...thanks to his talent of surviving anything... ""So Paxton?" he said, downing his glare on Claude." The word 'downing' doesn't quite sound right here. I think you mean something like glaring down at Claude. ? "A voice could be heard in the intercom." On instead of in. "Kinky huh?" smiled Sam with a wink. :mwuah Love it! "His saliva filled the left half of his closed mouth." Gross! Fantastic detail. I really shows he's under great physical pressure. "His stomach was like compressed in his flat belly, menacing to reject its content." Stomach and belly are basically two words for the same thing. Also menacing doesn't quite sound right. Perhaps you chould change this sentence to His stomach was compressed, fighting (or 'struggli to reject it's contents.[/i] "...propulsing the shuttle at some insane speed..." I don't think propulsing is a word. I think you mean propelling. "...they were sentenced to stare at each other for the time of their travel." I love the use of the word sentenced here. "...and good angels to cover our six." Fantastic use of colloquial language! "...did run into a cold shiver on his skin..." Try ran into a cold shiver... "The low pulse engines did hesitate..." Perhaps hestitated would sound better than did hesitate? "Some space marines did whisper, with some relief in their voice." Here too all you need to say is whispered and remove the word did. Also put an 's' on the end of voice to make it plural. "He knew that, in despite of the appearances..." Once again you could say in spite or just despite. "...those efforts put pressurie on the weaker points of the ship..." pressure "And when the pressure on walls and rivets became too important, the rivets were simply ejected like champagne tops." Rather than important I think you need much. I love the comparison with champagne corks. "...the vibrations were letting them defenselesses against rivet hoppers..." leaving rather than letting. 'Rivet hoppers' is a GREAT idea! "When would it make its way to Claude s head, piercing his forehead, breaking his skull, clearing a way through his tender brain?" Very powerful stuff! I'm on the edge of my seat! "The shuttle was talking to itself, while the men remain quiet." remained "He felt the vibration shaking his spine bone, his muscles, his flesh and the few liters of fluids into it." You don't need to say bone. I'm not sure which fluids you're refering to here. "Claude couldn t hear anything from his right ear." "Someone puked, maybe the same guy than before." as instead of than. "...that weren t worn during travel to allow the harnesses doing their work correctly." to do rather than doing. "They only survived to this travel to fulfill their duty. Sergeant four leaves was right." I think you should delete the word 'to' which I've put in italics. Also put talking marks around "four leaves" or a capital letter on those two words to indicate they're part of his nic name. "Claude stared at the sergeant. There was no more harness, he could have avoided it. But he stared at the sergeant." Very nice. This is a great story! I love that it's about the rivets and how people can die unnecessarily before they even get to the killing fields (not that war is necessary either, but you know what I mean! :p). Also the space theme is cool! You've built suspense really well in this piece. I was so afraid he was going to die! At one point I even thought the sergeant was dead and I was so sad! I love the relationship between Claude and the sergeant. Both come across as interesting characters. As far as stories go I thoroughly enjoyed this! A great comeback after your writers block! The only thing I've got to say though (because I've said it about a couple of other people's submissions too), is that I'm not sure this qualifies as a 'setting description'. But since others have written complete stories as well I don't suppose it matters anymore! :p As a story it flows really nicely and is well developed. Well done!  P.S. Sorry my comment is sooooo long! I can't help it! Bleh. It's like an obsessive compulsive disorder!  _________________________________________________________________  |
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Shangri Stormwind (GoTA) Mistress of the Nutty Dough Posts: 706 (10/21/04 2:41 pm) Reply |
Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version Well in fact this "setting description" isn t very clear to me.... I dunno if it s about ambience, place, after the battle, before the battle, during the battle.... French translation about "setting description" could be "description of preparatives".... But other submissions didn t match this definition so I was quite confused. So I chose to perform some exercise of style: While a battle is rageing outside, the space marines are safe in the shell of their boarding ship. Safe? Not so much after all.... I focused on characters, on a rivet, on the uneasiness of Claude, and then it s easy to forget that outside, some men are fighting each other, some probably die to cover the boarding ship. The single artillery shot that shook the Destrega at the beginning of the story did probably kill many people. But mentionning a single of those facts would have been like describing the battle, and I absolutely wanted to avoid it. Just like the space marines, the reader can t know what is going on outside. Nothing exists except the boarding ship itself, a confined place filled with men in armour. My goal was to place the reader in this boarding shuttle. He doesn t see what is going on, he doesn t know if he ll survive the travel, he can only suffer what happens, defenseless, motionless, while an invisible battle is rageing around the boarding ship. I thank you for your review Tal, I ll do the necessary changes tonight or tomorrow
Edited by: Shangri Stormwind at: 10/22/04 3:06 am |
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Talyl Donut Pirate of Tael'Aen Posts: 862 (10/21/04 8:49 pm) Reply
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Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version My pleasure my darlin'. I'm not really sure I can explain 'setting description' well, but I'll give it a go. It's about place. In terms of this competition it's fine to describe the preparation for battle rather than the actual battle. 'Setting description' means you describe the environment and the actions that people take within that environment. It helps readers to see details in their minds and get a feeling for what it would be like to be there. You know? Sorry this is a hopeless answer, but there ya go! Make of it what you will.
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 SaravePlot Master Posts: 54 (10/22/04 7:39 pm) Reply ezSupporter 
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Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version That is awesome stuff! I must know more lol  |
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Shangri Stormwind (GoTA) Mistress of the Nutty Dough Posts: 712 (10/23/04 7:16 am) Reply |
Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version Thanks Sarave, I did edit to apply Talyl s change thanks for your help.
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Talyl Donut Pirate of Tael'Aen GoTA Posts: 1318 (12/25/04 11:25 pm) Reply
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Re: Where the battle begins. (Setting contest, final version Pleasure!
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