Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume4 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 16===

A Capitalist Corporations commander named Lieutenant Colonel Rockbelt Deansgate clicked his tongue.

When the Shadow Code arrived at the gate, specified soldiers were instructed to inform him. However, it had not been that long since the last Shadow Code delivery. This had made him suspicious and the fact that the items had still not arrived furthered his suspicions. After a quick patrol, he had found the handcart abandoned behind the barracks.

Rockbelt grabbed one of the bottles and brought it close to his face. That was all it took to tell him they were fakes. He did not even need to test the taste or smell. He threw the bottle to the ground and switched on his radio.



The bright lights turned to face inside the maintenance base rather than outside.

As he pressed his back against the storage building’s wall, drops of liquid that were clearly not from the squall appeared all over Heivia’s body.

“Damn, they’ve caught on!! The entire area’s lit up brighter than midday!!”

“Just as expected. When the diet drinks failed to show up and the soldiers delivering them completely disappeared, anyone would realize something was up. Once they checked the contents of the bottles, they would know for sure.”

“Was it really worth heading out to this storage building?” said Heivia as he looked at the building with an expression showing he did not think so. “It’s true that almost no one heads out to this end of the base, so we could head straight here without a yellow armband. But as I said before, there’s nothing related to the Deep Optical here! No matter what sabotage we carry out, none of it will reach the Object!!”

“We’re not targeting the Deep Optical.”

“What?”

“We may not be able to directly destroy that Second Generation Object, but we can stop the maintenance.”



Some intruders had gotten in.

Rockbelt Deansgate immediately thought of the maintenance building for the Deep Optical…or as they called it, Charbetty. As he ran through the irritating rain, he contacted the soldiers inside the maintenance building over his radio.

“No, everything is normal here! There are no records of any suspicious people entering and Charbetty’s readings are completely normal.”

(I suppose it would be impossible to get within those thick walls using normal methods…)

However, the same could be said about the maintenance base itself and the intruders had already made it inside the base.

Rockbelt himself was part of the reason for that, but that fact never crossed his mind.

Suddenly…

“Wah!?” said the soldier on the other end of the radio.

“What is it?”

“Charbetty’s defragmentation speed suddenly dropped. This is strange. We’re using quite a large computer for just this task!!”



“We don’t target the Deep Optical itself. Who knows if we could even destroy it with every ounce of explosives we have. To stop the maintenance, we have to target the large computer helping with the defragmentation,” said Quenser. “As long as we know how the Deep Optical and the computer are connected, we have various methods we can use. If it’s located away from the maintenance building, we just have to dig up the underground cable or jam the wireless signal.”

“But they’ll make sure there is as little opening for sabotage as possible, right? After surrounding the building with such thick walls, it would be safest to keep everything necessary inside.”


“Why has the processing speed dropped!? Is it hardware trouble or could this be a cyber attack!?”

“The hardware used for the defragmentation is not connected to the network! And it has no external media attached!! It is most likely a hardware problem!!”

(This is bad.)

They could not stop the defragmentation of the main cannon’s electronic control program. Doing so would require redoing everything from the initial settings which would take days to complete. If the other world powers caught wind of it, other Objects might very well attack.

“Should we continue the process?”

“Of course.”

“The only possibilities I can think of are overheating, external interference from powerful electromagnetic waves, severed wires within the machine, or simply an unexpected breakdown of the machine.”

“An electromagnetic attack sounds the most like something intruders would do, but it can’t be that. If that was happening, we would hear some kind of horrible static over the radio.”

“To prevent damage to the data being defragmented, I can distribute the work over several processing systems. We don’t have anything else on the level of the large computer being used now, but I can think of some pieces of hardware we could use.”

“Can you do so while continuing the current task without interrupting it?”

“It will take a fair bit of acrobatics, but yes.”

“Then…”

Rockbelt almost continued with “do it”, but he felt a chill run down his spine.

“…Are the subsystem machines inside the maintenance building?”

“N-no.” The soldier sounded less confident now. “These other machines are not currently being used, so they are being stored in one of the storage buildings.”

(So that’s it!!)

“Listen, second lieutenant. Do not go ahead with your subsystem idea. Continue the defragging with the current system.”

“B-but…!?”

“No matter what happens, do not open the door to the maintenance building!! Even if it’s me asking you to! That is what the intruders are after. They are causing this problem so that equipment and personnel are brought into the maintenance building!!”

“!?”

“Anyone coming in could be spies carrying bombs and any computer you bring in could have explosives hidden in it!! So do not open that door no matter what!! As long as that door remains closed, the intruders cannot do anything to Charbetty! Do you understand, second lieutenant!?”

“I do, lieutenant colonel!!”

Upon hearing his subordinate’s response, Rockbelt laughed quietly in the rain.

He had been planning to head into the maintenance building himself, but remaining outside was safest for the unit as a whole.

The maintenance base zone was large. However, it was still a limited space.

The intruders could not hide forever.

Once the defenses of the maintenance building were fortified, they just had to carry out a thorough search.

Then it would be checkmate.



“But can we really get into the maintenance building so easily?” Heivia was skeptical. “They know that’s the most important spot on the base. Once something goes wrong, won’t fortifying its entrance be the first thing they do? We won’t be able to sneak in during the confusion or send in a bomb-laden piece of equipment.”

“True, sending in someone or something would be difficult,” said Quenser as he dug through the items in the storage building. “But that just means we have to use something that can pass through the building’s thick walls.”

“Ahn? You mean we’ll use some kind of electromagnetic weapon?”

“No, nothing as over-the-top as that,” said Quenser as he left the storage building.

In his hand, he held…

“A gas burner to burn away vegetation?”

“Quick-drying concrete meant to withstand explosions and compressed ceramic cubes will resist heat. …However, the heat will pass straight through the wall if enough is accumulated.” Quenser lightly waved around the device that was made up of numerous connected tanks and pipes. “That is why I wanted to know where the computer is. Even if it’s in the thick walls of the maintenance building, it will be kept against the wall so it doesn’t get in the way of their work, don’t you think?”



And their invasion began.

Quenser and Heivia were behind the maintenance building.

Rockbelt and the others fortifying the entrance would not think to look there. Even if an Object cannon could destroy the sturdy walls, they could not be destroyed by the amount of military explosives a combat engineer could carry around. Once you were sure no one could blow a hole in the walls, your focus naturally stayed with the existing entrance.

“How did you figure out where the computer is?”

“From the vapor coming out of that pipe on the wall. That’s likely from the cooling system,” replied Quenser. “As I said before, heat will pass through the wall. The same goes for cooling. Basically, the coolest spot will be where the equipment they want to keep the coolest is. That means we just have to check the temperature with our hands. Using the burner there will be perfect.”

Bluish-white flames spewed from the pipe-shaped opening of the device Quenser was carrying.

When it first touched the thick concrete wall, the moisture on the surface audibly evaporated. Afterwards, the surface of the concrete turned white…and then to the orange of heated stone.

This was the cause of the fall in the large computer’s defrag speed that Rockbelt and the soldier had discussed.

The correct answer was overheating.

Quenser and Heivia had been heating the wall with the burner the entire time.



Quenser and Heivia did not get to see the change firsthand.

The first people to notice were naturally the maintenance soldiers working on the Deep Optical on the other side of the wall.

“What? Why is there black smoke over there…?”

“Shit! The computer’s outer casing is melting!!”

“Stop, don’t get near it! Wah!?”

A maintenance soldier who frantically attempted to approach the large computer convulsed as if he had been struck by lightning and then a roar as if the air were being split reverberated throughout the maintenance building.

There was an electric leak.

As soon as the maintenance soldiers realized that, the monitors they were focused on became wrapped in darkness.

Yes.

The monitors displaying the progress of their Object’s defragmentation.



And naturally, determining the cause was not difficult once that result was seen.

Lieutenant Colonel Rockbelt Deansgate hurried to the back of the maintenance building accompanied by several soldiers.

“Freeze!!”

The intruders continued to fire the flames of the burner into the concrete wall up to the instant he let out that shout.

The one intruder finally switched off the burner and casually tossed it aside.

He then said, “If you’re in that much of a hurry, I assume we managed to stop the defrag. You must be pretty worried about how much the cluster damage spread to the Object.”

“Do you understand your situation here?”

“Do you?” asked the other intruder. “If this is a true clean and safe battlefield, you are the ones in trouble.”

“This is the age of Objects. Victory is decided by the Objects, so soldiers do not die needlessly,” said the first intruder, sounding as if he was enjoying himself. “But when those rules are broken, it all breaks down into total war. That means we throw every military force we have at each other. And which side is in trouble if that happens? Your precious Deep Optical can likely destroy most weapons without using its main cannon…but that does not include other Objects. Not even a nuke can destroy an Object’s armor. The firepower of another Object’s main cannon is needed.”

“…”

Rockbelt understood what the intruders were trying to say.

[[Image:HO_v04_08.jpg|thumb]]

They seemed to belong to a unit of one of the other world powers.

(From recent developments, my guess would be the Legitimacy Kingdom unit that crushed Hyena.)

“Are you telling me to let you go?”

“If you’re fine with a deadly battle breaking out, you don’t have to, but keep in mind that we have the upper hand. After all, we have a usable Object and you do not. Surely you can see that your entire base will be slaughtered if you don’t go along with our demands no matter how unreasonable they may be.”

“If you like, we can call in our cute princess. Oh, and if you kill us here, the footage will reach the Object. Are you willing to fight a pissed-off monstrous weapon?”

“It would only take one shot.” The first intruder made a gun sign with his hand and held the index finger up to his temple. “The decision is yours. Take the shot if you like. But if all-out war begins, you won’t be able to use the white flag.”

If both of their Objects had been in working order, Rockbelt could have ignored everything the intruders had to say.

But that was not the case.

It had been clear from the moment he had shouted “freeze”.

Once their Object had been rendered unusable, the battle was over.

He could hardly admit it, but he had been looking for a point of compromise.

(Fortunately, Charbetty was not completely taken out. If we redo the main cannon’s defragmentation, she can head back to the battlefield. It is crucial that I keep the damages here to a minimum.)

Rockbelt forcibly clenched his back teeth as he forced down his anger as he said, “Fine then. We will go along with your proposal.”

“But!!” shouted the second lieutenant who worked as Rockbelt’s aide.

When the Charbetty’s defragmentation had been forcibly stopped, the second lieutenant had opened the door to the maintenance building and joined Rockbelt.

“They say this is a safe and clean battlefield, but they are the ones that broke the rules first! They have no right to force their demands on us!!”

“Second lieutenant.”

“Just do it! No, I will do it!! If our information is accurate, our enemy will likely be the Legitimacy Kingdom’s First Generation Object. Even when not at full capacity, Charbetty’s odds of winning are greater than 0%!! We need to remain resolute and-…!!”

Rockbelt clicked his tongue.

He pulled a handgun from the holster at his waist and unhesitatingly fired a bullet between the second lieutenant’s eyes.

Rockbelt did not even hear a scream.

The man was dead before the gunshot had faded. Afterwards, a silence that made one forget about the squall filled the area.

“You do not stand up to them because the odds are not 0%, second lieutenant. You quickly fall back because the odds are not 100%.”

Rockbelt sounded like he was spitting out the words because the second lieutenant’s actions could easily have put the lives of the entire unit at risk.

Rockbelt had quickly dealt with the threat, but that had not quelled his personal feelings.

It was the intruders who had created the situation in which he had to do so.

“I will give in this time,” said Rockbelt in a frighteningly chilly voice. “But just this once. This alone has created enough of a reason for our unit and the Second Generation Charbetty to attack you. Once you leave here and find some safe place, you can curl up in the corner and think about what that means. But it would be best to assume there is nowhere safe.”