Editing HEAVY OBJECT:EX Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 9===

After they suggested their plan, Frolaytia created a map of the maintenance base zone using the tools and cans in the storage building. Normally that would not be something to show the Faith Organization POWs, but the base zone was made of vehicles and could thus be freely rearranged. If they did things right, this would not reveal any critical information.

“It’s nearby. The control tower and radar facility are only fifty meters west of here. Head there and we can send out high power radar waves just as Quenser suggested.”

They knew what they had to do.

Then something strange happened.

No one had been moving in the slightest, but as soon as Quenser raised his hand, Skuld did as well. And she was not the only one. Eric and Elfily did too.

“If Saint Skuld is heading out there, of course I am too.”

“The people suffering out there are Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers. We have to do something.”

Finally, more and more hands were raised by Faith Organization soldiers who Quenser did not know or recognize. He realized this was never going to end if he did not put a stop to it himself.

“Okay, okay!! We’ll be going, so the rest of you wait here. We wouldn’t get the work done any faster even if we all went!”

They once more covered their mouth and nose with towels and used duct tape to close up any part of their clothing the bugs could get in through. That did not take much for Skuld whose skintight special suit already covered her entire body.

“Then let’s go. Close the door behind us as soon as we’re out.”

Their march through hell began anew.

Everywhere they looked, they only saw bugs, bugs, bugs!! The sea of flames was still burning just as strong, so the bell crickets were flying around like sparks as they themselves burned. They nearly lost track of distance and direction when faced with the overwhelming sight, but they desperately put up with the pain and supported each other’s bodies as they relied on their compasses to take one step at a time.

A mere fifty meters felt like it took years off their lives.

Quenser was gasping for breath by the time he placed his hands on the control tower’s wall. Technically, it was the giant tire of the vehicle at its base. He felt along to circle around it in search of the stairs up into the control tower.

And then…

“?”

Suddenly, the reliable feeling of the tire vanished.

The visibility was almost down to zero, but when he strained his eyes, he saw the tire floating upwards, despite being taller than he was.

No, it was not floating.

“Waaah!? I-it’s falling! It’s falling over!!”

“Move away, Quenser!!”

An arm that likely belonged to Eric pulled him back just as the air was stirred up. A gust of wind caused by great pressure briefly blew away the black smoke and crickets. The screen blocking their view was split apart as if by a giant’s sword.

What had caused this was obvious.

It was the same as the detention barracks they had come from. A few of the tires had been eaten through and the weight distribution had collapsed, causing a chain reaction of bursting tires. Then the building had been unable to maintain its balance. And since this was a control tower rising toward the sky, its center of gravity was higher up, making it easier to lose balance.
It fell over all at once.

A deafening roar and tons of dust scattered out, blowing away the flying insects.

“Ahh.” Elfily cried out in despair. “The control tower! The radar! Now we can’t give it our commands. They machinery inside must have been smashed to pieces!!”

The swarm of crickets filled the empty space and the world became hopelessly closed off once more.

“…!!”

Even so, Quenser clenched his teeth and walked over to the collapsed control tower. He felt the sharp pain of the insects tackling him and they covered his body, but he could not give up now. He had no idea how many soldiers were collapsed across the base. He could not calculate how many lives were depending on his decision here. He could not just give up and head back.

“Dammit…”

A cricket flew into one of his eyes, narrowing his vision. A dull pain stabbed deep into his brain.

“Goddammiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!”

He managed to climb inside through a broken window. There were already tons of bugs inside. The bloody soldiers groaning in pain had likely been the ones working inside when the tower collapsed. There were countless bugs covering their bodies, but pulling them off one at a time would be meaningless now.

Quenser looked around the smashed-up room and approached what looked like a radar screen.

“Ahh…”

He reached for it, but Skuld, who had to know more about radars than him, shook her head.

“The display isn’t right. In fact, it’s completely dead. I don’t know if it was the impact of the fall or the crickets chewing through the wiring, but this radar is useless.”

That was the last thing he had wanted to hear.

As the world grew dark before his eyes, he grabbed a nearby microphone. He was almost drowning in a sea of bugs, but he managed to force out a voice.

“Control to Baby Magnum, control to Baby Magnum …Can you hear me, Princess? If you can, then help us!!”

“What will this accomplish?” groaned Eric who was similarly buried in bugs. “No one can help us even if we do get an SOS out. Firing an Object’s cannons will just turn us to mincemeat.”

But Quenser viewed things differently.

This was not just a desperate shot in the dark.

He gave his answer as Skuld looked puzzled next to him.

“It never had to be ''this'' radar that we used. As long as I had communications equipment powerful enough to break through this swarm, I could ask the Princess for help. Isn’t that right?”

He looked to Skuld as if he were confirming a perfectly normal fact.

“Objects are covered in weapons, so their radars have to be even more powerful than the base’s!!”