Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 15===

Back on the battlefield, Quenser and Heivia were incredibly busy.

“Will this really defeat that Object!?”

“Weapons are a type of system, so they’re weak against unpredicted situations, just like with a computer error. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is!”

What they had done was simple.

They gathered all the artificial snow they could find scattered around the Mobius Infinity. At first, Quenser had made sure to check its shape with his loupe, but he quickly gave up on that. If they melted that snow, they would have a large number of identically-sized materials, so they poured it all into the stainless steel cup from a survival kit and placed it over a fire to get rid of all the moisture.

“Always carry a metal cup you can put oil in, huh? We need to thank that cricket chef.”

“The scary thing about survival skills is how you never know when they’ll come in handy.”

Once only the tiny cores remained, it looked like a pile of pepper almost too small to see at the bottom of the cup. Quenser stuck a spoon inside and mixed it all around as if scraping at the bottom of the cup. He was intentionally destroying the microscopic cores to change their shape.

“We’re using homemade techniques against cutting-edge nanotech. It’s too bad we can’t check to see what shape they are now.”

“All that matters is that we know the shape has changed. Once the incorrect snow crystal is made, the laser will be reflected all wrong. …More importantly, Heivia, are the missiles ready?”

“The Slingshot’s ready when you are. I’ve got a special seat reserved inside the magic warheads that can hold anything from explosives to glue. I just have to shove these in there, right?

“We have two shots, but only one chance. We need to aim at the reflector creation points located a little over halfway up the barrels. We’re assuming the anti-air lasers will shoot it down, but we only need for the core dust to be dumped down on the reflectors. From there, its own supercooled water will create the artificial snow crystals for us.”

“Oh, damn. If that one cannon wasn’t aimed horizontally, I could’ve aimed at them all along the same line.”

“That’s my point. You have to fire one shot at the horizontal one and then another at the two vertical ones. If either misses, it’s all over. If you have any good luck charms, now would be the time.”

“Sure, sure! So what are we gonna do with the prize money once it’s in that net bank account? That prize rivals the world’s biggest lottery jackpot, so we could build a villa on the moon and live surrounded by topless girls.”

“Thinking about using it all up like that is why lottery winners tend to go broke. How about we do some day trading until someday we can buy an entire Object and fund some wars?”

“You’re the type that dumps it all into investing or gambling and ends up broke in a night, aren’t you? C’mon, let’s get started!”

Heivia rested the launcher on his shoulder and Quenser used the flat monitor for targeting support.

A long trail of smoke cut straight up through the blue sky. It reached the height of the three main cannons extending from the back of the Mobius Infinity.

A flash of light as if from welding immediately followed.

The missile’s fuel was roasted by the anti-air laser and it violently exploded in midair.

Quenser and Heivia ignored that as they loaded the next shot and fired it into the sky as well. It too was shot down.

It looked like a perfect defense system at first and its accuracy was so great they could almost see the smirk on the Pilot Elite’s face.

But Quenser and Heivia exchanged a high five.

“All right! Just like we wanted!!”

“Hey, then we need to get out of here. If that worked, it’ll probably get pissed and attack us. And if it didn’t work, this battlefield is going straight to hell. Either way, running away sounds like a great idea to me!!”

The two idiots exchanged a glance and turned their back on the Mobius Infinity as fast as they could. They no longer worried about leaving a trail in the tall grass and they focused on putting as much distance between themselves and the Object as possible.

An explosive sound burst from one of the tower-like main cannons.

The shockwave struck their backs and they tumbled forward. They choked as they got up and continued running on wobbly legs.

The giant metal shell had flown up into the stratosphere where it added on the gravitational acceleration as it fell back toward earth.

However, there was no Object there. One had not even taken hasty evasive action; it simply tore into already empty ground. The green plain was blown apart and a giant crater was born.

“Talk about luck! It actually worked. Ha ha. Now the Princess’s life and the prize money are ours!”

“Hey, but what about the second shot? If it keeps firing, won’t the snow crystals be destroyed by the shock? And won’t the new ones blown in actual work?”

“The ‘wrong’ cores will hang around and stick to the area around the reflectors for a while, so it won’t be a problem! It might have a system that uses static electricity to deflect dust and other unwanted substances, but it would be difficult to tell apart powder of the exact same size and material. It might be like giving someone a transfusion of the wrong kind of blood!”

It test fired a few more times and must have concluded that all of the shells landed in the wrong spot.

A deafening creaking came from the Mobius Infinity.

The two idiots were sent tumbling to the ground with each shockwave, but now the many cannons attached to the spherical body turned their way.

They could feel clear anger on their backs that could not have come from a mere machine.

“This doesn’t look good.”

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Heivia looked back and almost froze in place.

“This really doesn’t look good!! Any one of an Object’s cannons can turn us to mincemeat! And I doubt we can escape its sensors at this point!!”

They immediately changed direction and leaped behind the wreckage of an Object’s armor lying nearby, but they had no clue how effective it would be.

However, something else happened before that defense had to be tested.

A low-stability plasma cannon blast punched through the Mobius Infinity as if stabbing it in the side.

“What…!?”

“It was the Princess… She finished it off in the very, very end!!”

In a way, hiding behind the armor wreckage may have been the right decision.

The overwhelming surge that followed completely overturned the definitions of sound and light. They felt like even the backs of their eyeballs were scorched white and they lost all sense of up or down. Quenser thought the ground was shaking like a small boat rocking in the waves, but after more than half a minute, he realized it was actually his own limbs convulsing unnaturally. It took him another half minute to remember how to stop his body from moving.