Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 9===

Quenser’s warning and the support of the maintenance base zone’s large Doppler radar were both unnecessary.

The Pilot Elite Princess was on standby inside the Baby Magnum’s cockpit and she had already detected the change through the monitor.

Enemies were quickly approaching on the surface or at extremely low altitude.

The first wave was eight craft and the second was ten.

“This is a little earlier than expected, but it’s time to get down to business. Based on their movements, I’m guessing they’re missiles. Please shoot down all of the enemy craft directly targeting us.”

“Understood. I will intercept them without leaving the base zone.”

It was a simple job.

The First Generation Objects had been originally designed to endure an attack by nuclear missiles. Even if they were moving at Mach 5, at Mach 10, or even faster, being able to perfectly intercept dozens of ballistic missiles scattered throughout the air was the bare minimum of what the Baby Magnum was designed to accomplish. These craft were only moving at the speed of a passenger plane and their numbers were low enough to count on her fingers, so this was hardly going to be a problem.

Anti-air laser beam cannons stuck outward from all across the spherical main body, making it look something like a sea urchin or a chestnut bur, and they began sending out massive amounts of silent destruction.

The five kilometers to the horizon became an absolute barrier.

That caused her to let down her guard.

And that proved to be a catastrophic mistake.

(Is this all? That’s a bit of a letdown.)

As she accurately shot down the approaching weapons, she opened a small window to analyze what it was she was destroying. It was a lot like staring at the dust at the back of a shelf while cleaning. She did not particularly want to do this, but it did bother her somewhat.

And then she learned the truth.

“…Eh?”

These were not unmanned weapons following the zeroes and ones written into their guidance chips.

They were not missiles simply following the terrain based on a GPS signal.

They were hovercraft with a certain level of weaponry attached. They were only maintaining their ridiculous speed thanks to the rockets forcibly attached to the back.

The normally exposed top had a makeshift canopy added on to protect the human body from the overwhelming winds.

Yes.

There were people riding them.

Based on the scale of the explosion, these were more than mere weapons. They would charge into the maintenance base zone’s barrier or even inside the base zone itself and then detonate the rocket motors on their bellies to cause the most damage possible.

They were used just like missiles.

The heavy machineguns and multiple rocket launchers were not the main weapons. Those armaments were only meant to eliminate anyone attempting to interfere with their course and thus raise the odds of the hovercraft itself reaching its target.

And that revealed the true form of these weapons.

“Manned…missiles?”



“Dammit!!”

The old maintenance lady cursed loudly while staring at a thin tablet computer in the Object maintenance bay.

She had lowered the device’s voice communication volume to zero.

The Princess’s voice coming in directly from the cockpit had exceeded the level of a mere voice. An earsplitting scream continued without end and she was not responding to anything the old lady said.

The old lady then contacted Frolaytia who was in the center of the maintenance base zone.

“Are you checking her vitals, too!? She’s clearly rattled on the psychological front. Frankly, it’s a miracle she hasn’t vomited yet. If this keeps up, it’ll affect her interception accuracy. They’ll be able to push through!!”

“We’ve located the cause. The factory is most likely using handmade manned missiles. This wasn’t accounted for on the Princess’s chart.”

Some people might call her soft.

After all, war was war, Objects were the symbols of war, and a single movement by an Object could kill countless people. So what was the difference if the gun-wielding infantry were now piloting manned missiles?

But that was not how it worked.

Not in the slightest.

“When people kill on the battlefield, they always have a reason or excuse ready for it. Some do it consciously while others do it unconsciously.”

The old lady spoke with a bitter look on her face.

In older wars, soldiers ordered to kill had often aimed their rifles and only pretended to pull the trigger. Go back far enough in time and there were wars where over half the soldiers refused to kill. That was how difficult it was for a human to kill another human.

“That girl is used to the modern clean wars. She has a detailed flowchart used to accept all of the killing she does. We made her that way. But that means she’ll stall if she comes across some code not in the script. Just like carrying a weapon in the city streets, the guilt of killing will stop her from acting! These people were aware of that flowchart, so they chose to throw away their own lives to bring about an invisible effect!!”

Precision machinery could not handle an unexpected situation, even if it was only a minute discrepancy.

She could understand a desperate enemy that continued fighting even after knowing they could not win.

But she could not process a battle fought to die and not to live. One where the enemy was prepared to lose their lives in vain and where mutual destruction was the best possible result they could hope for.

And so she would stop.

It was really only a difference in perception and both scenarios involved people betting their lives on their fight.

Something had driven these people to think this one-way trip strategy was their best option. That fact stabbed deep into the softest part of the human heart like a fish hook and the sharp barb kept it from being removed so it could continue causing pain.

If the enemy had simply entrusted their fates to outdated weapons and charged in with no thought to the difference in firepower, she would only have pitied them.

If they had the control system’s remodeled to make unmanned hovercraft, she could have cursed them for being cowards.

But this was different.

It left a much larger and more definitive scar on her heart than any of the actual damage.

(Where did they dig up the plans for something like this? I hope it wasn’t my country again.)

Physically, they could not win.

The difference in military power was overwhelming and the technologies the two sides were using were on completely different levels. No amount of equipment would get them through to their opponent.

And so they pleaded to the human heart.

They would win this war through the heart.

That alone may have sounded like a strategy born from the good of mankind, but they had rearranged it into this bloodstained method.

By highlighting the sin of killing and placing human death before her eyes, they would crush the girl’s psyche.

“If she stops now, we’ll be wiped out,” warned Frolaytia. “Do you have any good ideas? I want some advice from the one person the Princess has opened her heart to.”

“We have tanks and armored trucks for guarding the surrounding area, right? Send them all out!”

“Those can’t replace the laser beams! If we use them to intercept those hovercraft charging in like cruise missiles, plenty of them will slip through!”

“What matters is that we show her we’re fighting alongside her! It’s just like pairing a spotter with a sniper. If we distribute responsibility, we can lessen the weight of killing that’s bearing down on her. Our part of the fight doesn’t have to be particularly effective! We just have to stabilize her vitals!!”

It was only an illusion.

It was a lot like a formless placebo effect.

It was an untested last resort of unknown effectiveness that they could only keep up for an unknown amount of time.

But if it failed, there would be definite sacrifices.

If the hovercraft made into manned missiles were allowed through, the maintenance base zone would be destroyed.



“This is all that’s left.”

Newsmaker wiped sweat from his brow with a tool in one hand.

He had destroyed all of the computers filled with dangerous data and he had burned all of the paper documents hidden in the ceiling. That only left the data remaining in the large machine tool. That mass of steel filled most of the factory, so he did not have time to carry it to the blast furnace by crane. He used a screwdriver to open the cover and pulled out only the pieces of the circuit board needed for the important memory. He knew the factory better than anyone, so only he could have done this job. He could not afford to leave it to a subordinate and have something missed.

He broke the circuit board in two like a chocolate bar.

He now had no reason to stay here, so he brought his radio to his mouth.

“Are any of the Flying Fish left? I’ll head out too. These finishing touches are absolutely necessary.”

What truly mattered was not whether they destroyed the Legitimacy Kingdom maintenance base zone or not.

In fact, the odds were good they would fail there.

And even if they did cause some damage, it would not be enough to make the Object retreat.

Their objective lay elsewhere.

“I won’t let it end here. We will have our form of victory. The defeat of the Crown of the Northern Lights will lead to the Sixth Branch.”