Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 14===

After a few quiet beeps, the maps on Quenser, Heivia, and the other soldiers’ devices were updated. The amount of available information increased in the blink of an eye. The many dots charging toward the maintenance base zone were the manned missile hovercraft and each individual dot included information from a more thorough scan.

It did not go to the level of facial recognition, but locating the leader was simple enough by checking the amount of equipped weaponry and determining which hovercraft was most defended by their formation.

“Quensie!? What was that just now? D-don’t tell me you’re really working on winning over the Princess!”

“Kyah! I only said I was interested! That’s all!! Besides, this really isn’t the time to be getting into that!!”

If Newsmaker completed his attack while they descended into what amounted to the late-night gossip of a school trip, it would all be for naught.

They all looked like they wanted to say something, but they focused on the antiaircraft gun on the back of the truck.

“I don’t think we have time for a test firing with a normal warhead. Shove the electromagnetic pulse weapon in there!!”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait! Are we seriously turning those wheels to manually aim? We might only have to launch the thing up into those thick clouds, but still!”

“He’s at the very back… Even with a rocket motor, it takes time to get up to speed. He’s between five and six thousand meters away. Thirty-five degrees is as low as we can go, so we can still make it now!!”

“You set the timed fuse based on the distance and initial speed. This would be meaningless if the shell detonates after breaking through the clouds!!”

“The shell has been loaded!!”

“Distance: 3200. Angle of elevation: 41. Let’s shove this thing up the ass of the goddess napping on those clouds. Open your mouth and plug your ears! Fire!!”

With an explosive blast, the shockwave knocked Quenser over as he tried to get away from the gun.

The firing powder making up most of the shell was entirely burned up inside the gun and the rugby ball-sized bullet shot toward the thick clouds in the distance. Or they assumed it did. It was not a tracer round that emitted its own light, so Quenser and Heivia could not see it with their naked eyes.

“Did it…work?”

Just as Quenser asked that of no one in particular, the clouds exploded quite spectacularly.

It became an overwhelming vortex of electricity that could never exist in nature.



Meanwhile, Newsmaker heard the fierce explosion overhead. The earsplitting roar sounded like the staticky noise of salt water poured into a neon tube amplified more than one hundred times over. The roar of the rocket motor should have ruled the world of sound outside the thick canopy, but even that was torn apart as the strange vortex of noise assaulted Newsmaker.

There was no lightning strike.

The electrical discharge remained in the clouds, but it was powerful enough to nearly scatter the clouds themselves. As if a meteor had exploded in midair, the flash of light overhead was so intense that his vision was dyed white.

And a moment later…

“Wha-?”

It was like a switch had been thrown.

All of the electronic systems inside his Flying Fish manned missile hovercraft malfunctioned.

He detected the unpleasant odor of melting plastic coming from somewhere, but he soon realized that was the least of his worries.

The uncontrollable hovercraft did not come to an immediate stop. The rocket motor continued spewing flames, but the hovercraft floating on the mud was taken out first. It sank into the mud and gradually lost speed, but it had no way of avoiding any obstacles. It soon crashed into the turret of one of the tanks his group had placed there. The thick canopy broke, he heard the sound of his seatbelt buckle breaking, and he was thrown out. The bonds of useless seatbelt had already broken bones across his body by the time he was tossed into the air.

And then he rolled again and again across the mud.

Unable to sink, he skipped across the surface like a stone on a river.

He did not even have the strength to scream.

Finally, he came to a stop on top of the thick swamp. He tried to breath in some air, but he had trouble. He had stopped at an extremely shallow area, his arms and legs refused to move, and he may have broken his back or hip. The most he could manage was slowly move one arm.

Would he let himself sink into the swamp and die?

Or would he pull his handgun from its holster and use it?

(Either way, I’m not allowed to die in battle.)

He hesitated only for an instant.

Newsmaker pulled the gun from its holster and pressed it to his temple while ignoring his sinking body.

(Still, I will end this on the battlefield. I won’t let this end with an accidental death after coming this far!!)

He was no longer focused on the actions of an individual.

His focus was on ensuring the group known as the Crown of the Northern Lights achieved a certain result against the Pilot Elite. Part of that was for him to die in battle. That alone would be an effective message and it would set the creation of the Sixth Branch in motion.

And so…

But that was when he heard the repeated gunfire of a rifle.

His arm was utterly destroyed as if by a giant sewing machine. Not only did he drop the gun, he lost everything past the elbow. As he groaned, he finally realized it had been gunfire from a soldier leaning out from a transport helicopter.

Synthetic fiber ropes were dropped from either side of the hovering helicopter and fully-equipped soldiers descended.

A female soldier’s voice came from the speaker attached to the helicopter.

“I have a message from the All-Knowing.”

They showed little concern for him.

As long as they captured him alive in some fashion, they assumed they could keep the switch for the turning point from being thrown.

“She says she sympathizes with your ideology, but she cannot turn a blind eye to your methods. She says there is meaning in spreading that ideology through peaceful means.”