Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 12===

After ending the transmission, Quenser spoke to his awful friend.

“Let’s go, Heivia. It’s time to blow away the Mobius Infinity.”

“Are you serious? I mean, ''are you serious''!? This is officially a joint military exercise and the Band Station is providing a live broadcast. Obsolete infantry aren’t going to be slaughtered by cutting-edge weaponry here, so if we stay quiet and leave the battlefield, we can escape safely!!”

“But the Baby Magnum can’t. I won’t let the Princess be disgraced while people watch from their living rooms. We’ve already worked up a sweat helping her out, so what’s wrong with sticking with that to the end?”

“Oh, goddammit!! Why couldn’t it be a filthy old man on there!? Then we could just abandon him!!”

Quenser and Heivia motivated each other while traveling across the battlefield. The Mobius Infinity had moved away from them in order to take up the optimal firing spot.

They hid behind scattered pieces of armor wreckage bigger than cars and ran through the tall grass.

“What exactly are we going to do!?”

“That’s part of what we need to look into, but I have a general idea.”

“You what?”

“Remember that first saturation attack? That colossal weapon can withstand a nuke, but it still shot down all of our missiles to avoid a direct hit.”

“The other ones did that too. Remember when the Capitalist Corporations mechanized combat engineers had all their multiple rocket launchers shot down while we were on our way to the Mobius Infinity?”

They spoke back and forth while moving from wreckage to wreckage in quick bursts of speed.

“Then what about my musical-style false report? The Mobius Infinity immediately started firing its prized main cannons. Yet saving that secret weapon until later would have been better.”

“Wasn’t that because everyone was starting to gang up on it!? It probably just wanted some big fireworks to scare everyone away!”

“Yes. It ‘just’ wanted to do that.”

Quenser’s comment made no sense, but he was not done yet.

“Have you forgotten what Frolaytia said in the pre-mission briefing? With the Band Station’s analysis and worldwide broadcast, it wouldn’t want to fire its precious weapons in front of the cameras. …It needed to scare everyone away and it had a reason worth using its main cannons despite the risk.”

“Are you saying that peashooter might have been able to destroy its main cannons?”

“I doubt it’s that simple, but it feared something. We need to hunt it down and crush it with pinpoint accuracy. That has to be the shortest route to catching the last train out of here.”

That was when they heard a rustling of grass and Heivia held up his assault rifle.

“!! Why now!?”

“Wait, Heivia, it’s the Faith Organization Valkyries!!”

“So what!? Do you not want to kill them because it’s a women-only unit!?”

Even as he shouted back, Heivia was confused by the lack of bullets flying their way.

“Their Objects were the Self Deception and the Sand Cluster, so they don’t have anything left. They won’t want to attack another army’s unit right now. If we asked for supporting fire, they’d be blown to bits.”

Most likely, Quenser and Heivia had only heard the rustling grass because the Valkyries had intentionally given away their position. If they seemed too powerful, an enemy might feel the need to kill them.

Heivia clicked his tongue and aimed his assault rifle a little further upwards.

“Sorry, but I’ve got somewhere I have to be, so I don’t have time for you ladies! …I’ll overlook you for now, so make sure to give me your email addresses later.”

He was answered with a warning shot over his head.

The two idiots and the Valkyries passed each other by and continued toward their respective destinations.

“There it is. It’s the Mobius Infinity. …Hey, Quenser, let’s spy on it from behind that leg-like wreckage over there.”

The other Objects were not going to start attacking the Mobius Infinity and it did not want to leave its optimal firing position, so it only made quick movements here and there instead of rushing all throughout the forty square kilometer battlefield. If it had done that, Quenser and Heivia could never have kept up.

“Let’s check out those main cannons.”

Quenser used binoculars to view the back of the Object.

“They’re supported at one point. The giant cylinder is just attached horizontally to the back.”

“That’s the standard method used on tanks and battleships, right? Is there really a weakness there?”

“…No.”

Quenser tilted his head back without removing the binoculars.

He seemed to be focused on the very top of the three main cannons towering above them.

“That’s exactly it. Tank and battleship guns are both attached at one point, but their concepts are entirely different. Do you know why, Heivia?”

“What? Because the battleship guns are way bigger?”

“Close, but no cigar.” Quenser looked entirely serious as he answered Heivia’s joking reply. “The answer is that tank guns are much thinner. When positioned horizontally, the end of the barrel bends under its own weight. …Check out the end of the Mobius Infinity’s main cannons, Heivia. Isn’t it a little curved like it’s made from glass fiber?”

“What? Can you even use a bent cannon!? The shell wouldn’t go where you aimed it and it might even blow up inside the barrel!”

“Long ago, they apparently used to intentionally shift their aim a little for the first shot. The heat of the shot would straighten the barrel afterwards, so they would fine-tune their aim based on that.”

“I’ve never heard of that. Do the Princess and the Oh ho ho do that too?”

“No, this technology is probably unique to the Mobius Infinity.”

“I seriously doubt it. That thing fires it shells to extreme high altitude and drops them back down to create destruction on the level of a meteor strike. They wouldn’t use such an analog method to determine the exact bend of the barrel.”

“Tanks have advanced since those times, so let’s follow those advances to their conclusion.”

Quenser focused his mind on the nearly vertical cannon barrels as if stroking his fingertips along the kilometer long metal towers.

“Basically, they have to make sure the metal cannon doesn’t bend under its own weight or heat. The easiest method is to cool the entire cannon. One method is to use a thermal jacket. That’s a system that places a container of water over the barrel to constantly cool it with the power of water.”

“Then is that what’s going on here?”

“No, the thermal jacket itself was a failure. This has either overcome its weaknesses or is using a system from a later age.”

“Like?”

“Attaching small mirrors to the barrel and sending infrared lasers out from the base. The reflected light can be used to determine the bend, so the targeting information can be corrected before firing. I believe that’s the method our tanks use.”

But from a distance, it was difficult to determine what method was being used here.

Quenser waved the flat monitor to the shoulder-fired missile set.

“Heivia, can we use this to access the military database? The intelligence division has to have been investigating the Mobius Infinity.”

“Do you really think their report is going to have a big red circle labelled ‘there’s a weakness here’? If so, we would have been given a different plan.”

“…”

Quenser fell silent for a moment.

“Then it doesn’t have to be the military database. What about the normal internet?”

“Hey, wait. Don’t tell me you just want to check on your favorite swimsuit model’s blog!”

“No, that isn’t it. The Information Alliance’s Second Generation Band Station broadcasts a TV show which gives out tons of prize money to any normal people who come up with an Object’s weakness, right? Don’t you feel like taking a peek at that show’s official site?”

The two of them fiddled with the monitor’s settings until they somehow managed to access the normal internet.

The site’s address was easily found: it was painted in giant letters on the side of the Band Station.

In order to gather information from as many people around the world as possible, the site did not require an ID or password.

However…

“Are you serious? There’s a ton of posts here. Do we really have to look through all of this?”

“That’s what happens when you get billions of people fighting over a ton of prize money. The scariest thing out there is human greed.”

“Not that we’re any better. …Anyway, will this really help? It all looks like posts from safe country amateurs.”

“Well, I’m not one to talk since I’m only a student.”

Fortunately, the high-priority posts (i.e. the ones closest to the prize money) were ranked and marked with different colors. Rookies were meant to use the top opinions as a starting point to further pursue the truth. That structure intentionally fostered a dead heat situation.

The two idiots read through only the posts marked with the highest priority.

''“The heat distribution over the barrels is incredibly low. They probably use a thermal jacket that surrounds the cannon in a giant water tank.”

''“The cannons have several protrusions surrounding the barrel at about two-thirds out from the base. They might be mirrors for infrared lasers, but I doubt they would use something that would break from the shockwaves.”

''“If they’re using a thermal jacket, there would be a deviation in the heat distribution just like the surface of bathwater growing hotter than the rest. Maybe they’re using propellers or jets to continually stir up the liquid inside.”

Heivia looked up from the screen in disgust and looked to the true monster on the other end of the scenery.

“So which is it? Don’t tell me it uses both a thermal jacket ''and'' lasers.”

“I don’t mind if it does,” replied Quenser. “As far as I’m concerned, it can use both or it can use some magical new technology that uses the heat distribution of the thermal jacket to freely bend the barrel and increase its accuracy. Either way, they still have to rely on lasers to get the information needed to adjust their aim, so we just have to destroy those. If we destroy the laser oscillators or the reflectors, it won’t be able to use its main cannons. Who cares how powerful it is if it can’t hit?”

“Come to think of it, the false report we let the enemy intercept mentioned ‘ebony soot’, didn’t it? If that’s what got it so worked up…”

“Did it not want anyone to know dirtying its reflectors would create an opening?”

“But even the amateurs online were saying its weakness couldn’t just be the mirrors. It won’t be that simple.”

“And that’s why we still have work to do here on the scene. There has to be something there that made it panic, so let’s go, Heivia.”

“Go where!?”

“If we can’t see the answer from here, we just have to get closer until we can.”

Quenser moved out from their cover and started approaching the Mobius Infinity.

Heivia groaned but ultimately followed.

“I really think it’s about time to abandon you for once.”

“You make it sound like you’ve been saving me from myself each time, but without me, you’d have died long ago.”

Just as they started arguing, they heard a dull sound and the main cannon on one side tilted forward. The giant railgun had resembled a vertical tower before, but it now took a horizontal angle like a tank’s gun.

“Wait, what’s going on? It’s collapsing, Quenser! What the hell is going on!?”

“It’s not collapsing. It’s aiming?”

It was not aiming at them, but still…

“Uh, oh.”

With a deafening roar, a metal shell was fired at terrifying speed. The side effects of it splitting the air were enough to throw the two idiots forcefully to the ground.

At the moment, the Legitimacy Kingdom’s two Objects were fighting. The Baby Magnum was being exposed to concentrated fire and the Royal Residence was fighting a defensive battle to shield the other since it was large enough to take a fair bit of damage without issue.

The shell flew horizontally into the middle of that.

And it did so in the shape of a figure eight tilted on its side, an infinity sign, or a Mobius strip.

The shell passed right by the Royal Residence, flew in a large arc in the distance, and shot back in to hit the Baby Magnum from behind.

The sound of destruction rang throughout the battlefield.

The shell had struck the structure containing the attachments for the arms supporting the seven main cannons.

“Shit!! Sparks just flew from the back!”

“I can’t believe that bastard. …Did it just fire that giant shell like a boomerang!?”

Quenser and Heivia shouted their surprise despite having their breath knocked from them after landing on their back.

The series of events had occurred too quickly to see with the naked eye, but they had managed to see a tremendous shower of sparks flying from the Baby Magnum’s rear attachment joints. The Object was still moving, but it had taken quite a bit of damage. It was possible all of its main cannons had been taken out.

Quenser got up on top of the flattened grass and spoke aloud to reassure himself.

“It’s fine. The reactor wasn’t hit and it didn’t add on the force of gravity like normal, so it wasn’t as powerful. So this is fine.”

“How about you worry about us before anyone else!? …Hm? What’s this?”

Heivia stopped complaining and wiped something cold from his cheek.

He had thought it was rain, but it was not.

The substance he had wiped onto the back of his hand was melting, but it seemed to have been a snow crystal.

“Really, what is this? Aren’t we in Southern Africa during the summer?”

“Wait. Could the contents of the thermal jacket be leaking? …No, probably not. But if this isn’t a special coolant, then where’d the ice come from?”

Quenser once more observed the scenery cautiously ruled by the Mobius Infinity and spotted quite a few white, cotton-like objects falling from the sky. It did indeed look a lot more like snow than water or ice.

He spotted one that fell on a blade of grass and, without touching it, pulled out a loupe like a jeweler would use.

It was a personal possession he had brought along in case he could steal some technology from a destroyed Object. Carrying it with him was of course against military regulations, so he was prepared to have Frolaytia kick his ass if she found out.

“It really is ice with bonds at 120 degrees, so it’s definitely a snow crystal. Although each and every one of them has the exact same shape.”

“That doesn’t sound natural then. Where’s it coming from? What part of the Mobius Infinity is frozen!?”

“It started falling when it fired, so is it related to the main cannons? Are the shells coated in ice? Or the inside of the barrel?”

“Hey, wait!”

Heivia raised his voice when Quenser licked the mystery ice crystal.

“It has no flavor… That means I’m wrong. Those main cannons are railguns. If the inside of the barrels or the shells were coated in ice, they’d definitely use salt to raise the conductivity. But then what could it-…?”

Quenser trailed off, frantically grabbed his binoculars, and stared up at the Mobius Infinity’s main cannons again.

“...There it is.”

“There what is?”

“There are small protrusions on the side of the cannon barrels. They’re reflectors for detecting the bend with lasers. It’s blowing in ice crystals to make the reflectors instead of using normal glass!!”