Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume5 Chapter 5 (section)

===Part 2===

Mariydi and the others arrived at the storehouse they had previously secured.

Lucas Westernrose of Catwalk TV held his smartphone out towards different parts of the storehouse to record it. The item they were looking for was there.

It was a Faith Organization Harpuiai with the exterior altered to look like a Legitimacy Kingdom S/G-31. It was likely one of the weapons prepared to attack the Ocean Substations.

It was already fueled and armed.

Mariydi used the movable ladder to climb up onto the nose and peered into the cockpit.

“The inside controls are a Faith Organization system.”

“Can you fly it?” asked the bodyguard as he looked up the ladder towards Mariydi.

Mariydi’s small butt made slight restless movements back and forth.

“I flew one around once after stealing it in the Northern European Restricted Zone.”

“…Just what kind of conditions do you normally work in?”

She gave no response to that. For Mariydi Whitewitch, bloody fights to the death were the norm.

Mariydi climbed into the cockpit and turned the key to activate the system. She flicked the switch for each meter in turn and made small adjustments by using her index finger to directly touch the various monitors that came to life.

After checking on the flaps and rudder, she put on the goggles that let her use eye movements as a means of control and attached the equipment that supplied her with oxygen. These did not take the standard form of a helmet and mask. A tube that emitted oxygen into the mouth extended from a headset-like part. She attached a small microphone to her throat and set the values so it would emit oxygen according to the movements of her windpipe.

The helmet and mask was much simpler and more effective.

The reason they avoided it was…

(The situation must be similar in the Faith Organization. Technology is no longer developed specifically for the supposedly useless fighters. It only gets some of the defense budget when it doubles as development for Objects.)

The Elites that piloted Objects did not cover their faces with helmets.

As the representatives of their nations, they would fight with their gallant faces exposed. Cameras in the cockpit would film it, and the scenes considered most useful would be edited together to show to the people on a grand scale. It was a simple example of strategic public relations.

“The main wings and tail check out. I will now test the jet engine and radar.”

“Wait, let us get away first. I’d rather not get roasted as if by a microwave oven.”

The bodyguard frantically gestured to his men to move away.

After making sure they were gone, Mariydi closed the cockpit’s clear canopy and ignited the jet engine. With a tremendous roar, the equipment prepared in the storehouse was blown backwards.

With the canopy closed, she could no longer hear any outside voices.

Mariydi used the radio to speak with the bodyguard.

“The output checks out. The three dimensional paddle for the vector thrust nozzle is working normally. The divergence of the thrust for vertical takeoff checks out. Radar output checks out. I’ll be going now.”

“We’ll be playing the role of control. Let us make a bit of extra money, okay?”

“How? Does Olympia Dome rent out airport control towers and radar equipment?”

[[Image:HO_v05_14.jpg|thumb]]

“We have a Doppler radar,” said the bodyguard to Mariydi’s surprise. “We bought a truck equipped with a spherical weather Doppler radar a university was using to examine tornados. We can use it as an early warning device. We originally bought it in the case of a cruise missile attack. We would immediately throw you into a bomb-resistant armored vehicle if it picked up on anything.”

“…I don’t recall having a bomb-resistant armored vehicle.”

“We weren’t given permission to use that. As a result, we would have been stuck counting down until impact if a cruise missile had been approaching.”

“Pathetic,” said Mariydi while holding her head in her hands.

While looking up at her from the ground, the bodyguard gave a bitter smile and said, “But it lets us perform the bare minimum of control duty. We can’t do much, but we will do what we can to support you.”

“I’ll be using Capitalist Corporations air force abbreviated signs, is that okay? Just use my standard call sign, Ice Girl 1. I was the leader of the Ice Squadron, so I was Ice Girl 1.”

“Understood. We’ll just go by CT to keep it simple, Ice Girl 1.”

While listening to the bodyguard’s words, Mariydi carefully controlled the jet engine’s thrust. A fighter was not like a car. It could not directly rotate its wheels or stop by applying brakes to those wheels. The only options were to move forward with the jet engine or stop by stopping the jet engine. When a fighter was moved around in an air force base, it would normally be towed by a specialized tractor.

Mariydi moved the fighter out of the storehouse by forcing it forward with thrust from the jet engine. She then diverged the thrust of the jet engine so that it pointed straight down.

The craft shook unsteadily.

No matter how many times she did it, the VTOL was always bad for her heart. Even a slight crosswind could flip the fighter over. Even an experienced ace like Mariydi could not understand what pilots were thinking when they used it to land on aircraft carriers that were rocking in the waves.

After rising about 20 meters, she moved the direction of thrust back to directly behind her. Back in its normal configuration, the Harpuiai tore through the atmosphere at tremendous speed.

Even though the power being sent directly downwards was gone, it felt much more stable like this.

Airplanes truly were only at home when their main wings were slicing through the air.

As she breathed a sigh of relief, a transmission reached Mariydi’s ears.

To her surprise it was not from the bodyguard or Alicia. It was from Lucas Westernrose of Catwalk TV.

“Hello? Yes, yes, CT to Ice Girl 1…that’s right, isn’t it? Yes, yes, my smartphone should be in the cockpit.”

“…”

She checked and, sure enough, there it was.

Had he thrown it in while the cockpit canopy was open?

“Yes, yes, the video app should already be active, yes, yes. If you could just point the lens forward and fix it in place, I would be grateful.”

“I have no obligation to do that.”

“Hello? Well, you can throw it away if you like, yes, yes, but I’m sure you know what would happen if you opened the canopy at that speed.”

Mariydi lightly clicked her tongue and carelessly grabbed the smartphone.

But instead of simply following Lucas’s instructions, she touched the small screen with her index finger and called up a music player app.

“Hmm.” She called up a list of songs and spotted the titles of some hard rock songs. “You’re a horrible bastard, but I guess you are a part of the mass media. You do have good taste in music.”

With the video app and music player app both active, Mariydi fixed the smartphone in place using tape. It may sound silly, but that type of item was brought along to perform emergency repairs if a problem with the jacket’s anti-G ability was noticed after takeoff.

But the bodyguard and his men acting as the controllers spoke up once that veritable explosion of noise suddenly began.

“CT to Ice Girl 1! What the hell is that!?”

“Boy Racer’s End Off. It’s a famous song released back when the geniuses of hard rock were still sane. Is it really necessary that I explain this?”

“It’s so loud we can’t hear you!”

“If you have any complaints, take it up with the journalist who gave me the smartphone.”

“Um…Yes, if you have that music playing, yes, yes, it will add an unnecessary expense to broadcasting it, yes…”

“Oh, shut up. This is going to be footage you could never air anyway,” replied Mariydi.

Alicia then cut in, “CT to Ice Girl 1. The Ocean Substation is currently 35 kilometers away at sea and is cruising away from Olympia Dome. That is likely both an attempt to restrict any possible counterattack from us and to move into a better position to fire the first shot on the Object.”

“That’s nowhere to a fighter that can travel at Mach 2.”

“They know that. Two crafts are coming from the north, three from north-northeast, and 3 from northeast. They are probably all Harpuiai!!”

“Roger that! Attack Alpha!! Let the battle begin!!”

Attack Alpha was the code for sending out a targeting signal.

“They’re going for you, too!! Defense Alpha confirmed!! Be careful! You’re going to cross paths in no time at all!!”

Defense Alpha was the code for a targeting signal coming from an enemy.

A few rectangular containers appeared on the goggles that combined the actual scenery with information from the radar. They were still the size of grains of sand when seen with the naked eye, but the electronic eye had already captured the location of the enemy crafts.

The enemy craft directly in front of her was the first to fire an air-to-air missile.

“Defense Charlie!! Cancel it, Ice Girl 1!!”

Defense Charlie was the code for a missile lock and “cancel” simply meant to evade it.

(I didn’t detect the targeting signal for long. It didn’t take time for aiming in Defense Bravo. This is probably a bluff. It doesn’t actually have a lock! When I panic and make a sudden turn, they’ll probably fire their machinegun along my corrected course. Even in the open sky, inertia limits the courses I can take!!)

Mariydi made an immediate decision and continued on forward without evading. The Harpuiai had the ability to supercruise, but she activated the afterburners to bring out the fighter’s maximum speed.

Trailing a narrow line of smoke, the air-to-air missile shot past a few meters from the cockpit.

But it did not detonate.

Mariydi adjusted her grip on the control column and lightly stroked a trigger with the bottom of her index finger.

It was the switch for the machinegun.

“AAM has been cancelled!!” reported the bodyguard.

“I already know that! Attack Gun!!”

It turned out to be the Athletica pilot who panicked because he had expected Mariydi to make a sharp turn. And Mariydi had no obligation to wait for him to recover. She fired machinegun bullets at the fighter at a rate of 4000 per minute.

It only took an instant for them to pass each other.

The two masses of composite materials continued on for a bit before turning around for another pass.

However, one of them was trailing a line of black smoke.

“Attack Delta! Active!!” came the report.

Attack Delta referred to a hit and Active meant the enemy could still fight.

“I guess they’re good enough to last more than one head-on pass.”

“Don’t chase the wounded too much, Ice Girl 1. Another one is coming up from behind. When you head after that juicy target, it will get behind you. It’s a stereotypical skewer!!”

“Then it’s time for a little prank.”

Mariydi flipped one of the many switches with her index finger.

Immediately afterwards, a new ID signal used to distinguish friend from foe was displayed on radar.

It was the exact same signal used by the Athletica fighters surrounding Mariydi.

“Wh-what!?”

“We took this fighter from them, remember?” she said. “They can’t tell friend from enemy. A close-quarters dogfight needs a bit of confusion.”

Not only did the Harpuiai approaching her from behind obviously show it was shaken by this, but all 7 fighters pursuing her did. Hers was the same model of fighter and it was emitting the same signal. It was now impossible for them to distinguish between friend and foe. And from the beginning, Mariydi had simply seen every fighter but her own as an enemy. The signals did not matter to her.

Mariydi rotated the craft while heading forward, flying in a coil shape. This was a special maneuver called a barrel roll that was used to both confuse the enemy fighter coming from behind and to rapidly decelerate her own fighter.

And the intentional deceleration caused the fighter behind her to overtake her.

And of course, in a dogfight between fighters, everything depended on who was behind whom.

“Attack Alpha, Attack Bravo, Attack Charlie,” muttered Mariydi as if she was singing a counting song.

While stating the proper attack code-phrases, she fired an air-to-air missile with the thumb on the control column.

After being thrown into confusion by the ID signal and losing sight of its target thanks to the barrel roll, the Athletica Harpuiai was unable to do anything about the attack.

Mariydi then added two new phrases to her song.

[[Image:HO_v05_15.jpg|thumb]]

“Attack Delta, Strike.”

With an explosive noise, orange flames and fragments of composite materials scattered everywhere. Even a fighter flying at supersonic speeds could hear an explosion occurring in front of it even if it sounded distorted. As soon as Mariydi confirmed the explosion, she used the control column to send her fighter into a wide turn. Even so, she could hear a sound like fingernails clawing at the outside of the fighter.

(Some of the fragments hit.)

“CT to Ice Girl 1!! We can’t tell where you are like this!!”

“You can use the source of the transmissions I send to you! Use your head. Even the other side will come up with the same idea in just a few minutes!! That’s why I need to take out as many of them as I can until then!!”

She had shot down one of the Harpuiai, but it was still 1 against 7.

Since all of the fighters had the exact same ability, it was honestly not a situation she could hope to win in. This went beyond the level of what a pilot’s individual skill could make up for. And Mariydi’s objective was not to ensure air superiority in the area by shooting down all of the enemies.

“At the very least, I need to lessen the barrage enough to force my way through this! Taking out half of them should be enough. If I can fire a few AAMs at the Ocean Substation, we win!!”

“Ice Girl 1, they have your location. The enemy fighters are heading for you from all four directions! Cancel them! Cancel their Defense Alpha, Ice Girl 1!!”

“A total of 7 coming from four directions. That means one direction has only one fighter. I just have to start there.”

Orange lines of machinegun fire erupted from multiple directions at once and Mariydi just barely managed to avoid it. She tilted the control column, made as tight a turn as she could manage, and circled around behind the Harpuiai working on its own.

(And of course, they will have predicted this.)

Mariydi thought while gritting her teeth at the inertial Gs affecting her small body.

(To make up for this weakness, they will try to stick to my tail and skewer me.)

And if she could predict that, she could use it to her advantage.

In other words…

Mariydi suddenly stood her fighter up vertically by 80 degrees.

The massive air resistance this caused made her Harpuiai rapidly decelerate.

This was a special maneuver known as Pugachev’s Cobra. The air resistance caused was vastly greater than a normal air brake, so a fighter on the pilot’s tail would overshoot them. But practically standing the craft up vertically naturally created a balance issue. The fighter itself had to be very stable, the pilot had to be very accurate on the controls, and most importantly, the pilot needed the endurance to not pass out due to the tremendous Gs of the rapid deceleration.

And Mariydi Whitewitch had all those things.

But there was one thing she did not take into account.

She had competed in the shootathlon three days in a row and taken part in or been the target of various attacks in between.

All that left her with great fatigue.

“…!!!???”

Her vision wavered more than she had expected. She felt as if the stake stabbing into the center of her head to hold her consciousness in place was coming loose. She felt a bizarre floating feeling and it felt like the contents of her stomach had lost their way and were rampaging around within her body.

But she suppressed it all.

She focused on the hard feeling of the control column in her hand and the desire to fight returned all at once.

She once more had control of the fighter.

The five Harpuiai chasing her were all brought before her. Including the one she had been originally chasing, six enemy fighters were now in range for attack.

Mariydi did not hesitate.

In this situation, the machinegun was faster than the air-to-air missiles.

“Attack Gun!!”

Instead of carefully targeting each individual target, she more or less swept her sights along horizontally, scattering bullets as she went. This was the fate of a different version of herself. As the sight of the black smoke, fragments, and orange flames flew towards her retinas, she could not get rid of that parallel feeling.

“Attack Delta!! Strike, Strike, Strike! …Two Active!! You can keep after them!!” reported the bodyguard.

“Don’t joke. Getting greedy in the skies will only get you killed. The remaining fighters are still trying to get on my tail. I need to deal with my real objective before they get lucky!!”

She had shot down three fighters and two had survived but had black smoke pouring from their main wings and bodies. Those two could no longer function normally.

Only two of Athletica’s fighters could still put up a fight.

To make absolutely sure, she would have liked to damage those two as well, but Ocean Substation’s weaponized laser could be fired at any moment. She had no choice but to make a run at it now even if it was risky.

She was confident she could attack the ship while keeping two enemy fighters off her tail.

That confidence was the most deadly enemy for dogfight veterans, but Mariydi needed to force her thoughts in a positive direction to keep her fingertips from trembling.

This was not a peaceful situation where she could allow fear of death to affect her decisions.

(Well, the ship’s defense system was probably updated by Athletica. I might have tons of anti-air guns and missiles flying my way.)

Ignoring the other Harpuiai flying through the air, Mariydi made a large movement with the control column. She pointed the nose of her fighter toward the Ocean Substation. She used the goggles that read her eye movements to set the program such that the parabolic antennae would be tracked and locked on to via visual recognition.

“Attack Bravo.”

The most annoying issue with attacking a ship was that the ship was motionless. It may seem that would make it easier to target, but fighters moved so quickly that they would pass by the ship in a blink of an eye. Mariydi was more used to the midair battles with opponents that appeared motionless due to moving at relatively the same speed.

“Attack Charlie!!” she shouted while firing three air-to-air missiles.

She was aiming for the parabolic antennae lined up on the ship’s deck rather than at the ship itself. If she was attacking the ship, the standard method would have been to attack the belly of the ship. However, that was usually done with specialized anti-ship missiles. It was difficult to get air-to-air missiles to skim just above the ocean surface. A poor job at aiming would send them stabbing straight into the water. Also, she had no idea how strong the Ocean Substation’s armor was. The air-to-air missiles were designed to shoot down fighters that could be taken out by even slight damage. She was not confident the air-to-air missiles could blow a hole in the thick belly of the ship. Since she was flying in a complicated trajectory to keep the enemy fighters off her tail, Mariydi could not use the free fall bombs that required a level flight.

(That would be like aiming for a turtle’s shell with a rubber band gun meant to shoot down butterflies. The only logical choice is to shoot out the fluttering wings attached to the turtle’s back.)

She was certain her missiles were enough to destroy those parabolic antennae.

And if she managed to destroy the antennae, the ship could no longer receive the microwaves being sent from the generator satellite.

There was no way the 500-meter-long ship could evade the missiles by frantically turning its helm.

But…

Sudden stroboscopic flashes of light came from the three missiles headed for the large ship.

In the next instant, the air-to-air missiles were blown to smithereens.

“Cancel. Cancel. But what was that!?” came the report from CT.

“!!”

Without listening to the bodyguard, Mariydi twisted the control column with all her strength.

She understood exactly what it was she had seen, so she hurriedly dropped her fighter down to just above the ocean surface.

(They intercepted the missiles with the laser!? It can’t have been fully weaponized yet, but they must have intentionally lowered the output to fire it in quick succession!!)

Laser light was invisible to the naked eye when viewed from the side. The only reason the high output lasers used on Objects were visible to the naked eye was due to the dust and moisture in the air being roasted.

This laser had not been powerful enough to leave behind such a flashy trail.

But each blast had been enough to shoot down the air-to-air missiles.

Her odds of hitting with non-propelled bombs would be even lower.

And that laser could of course be used to shoot down Mariydi’s Harpuiai fighter as well as any missiles or bombs.

“Can you do anything about that!?” asked the bodyguard.

“If I can’t, I’ll be shot down!!”

Mariydi had lowered her fighter down to just above the ocean surface because the lower altitude had more dust to attenuate and refract the laser. Plus any heat rising from the ground or ocean surface had a chance of creating a mirage. And the odds were not all that low since they were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and just below the equator.

Even so, it was no guarantee that she could avoid the laser.

And one other problem presented itself.

(Shit!! The Ocean Substation’s wall is coming up fast!!)

The giant ship was 30 meters tall and about 20 meters of that was above water. Mariydi would crash into the belly of the ship if she continued flying just above the ocean surface.

Mariydi adjusted her grip on the control column.

(I’d really rather not have to perform these acrobatics!!)

Mariydi turned the fighter vertical as if stakes had been stabbed into the front and back of the craft which were used to rotate it 90 degrees. With the fighter standing on its side like that, she made a tight turn. The edge of the main wing was only about 50 cm from the surface of the water. This was very precise work that you did not want to be experiencing tremendous Gs while performing.

Mariydi completed her turn after approaching within 10 meters of the Ocean Substation.

She also used her index finger to send machinegun fire flying without really aiming.

Following the direction of the turning nose of the fighter, bullets slammed into the Ocean Substation’s belly like perforation.

(No good. And even if I could blow holes into it, no water would get in when it’s above water.)

The autocannons and ship-to-air missiles on deck targeted Mariydi, but the close proximity actually helped her. The defense system missed its target and only created pillars of water in the ocean.

(I’m more worried about when I leave. I’ll be showing them my tail.)

With the turn complete, she leveled out the fighter, raised her altitude a bit, and zigzagged some in an attempt to escape the sights of the autocannons.

They had autocannons, ship-to-air missiles, and a low output anti-air laser to top it all off.

“They certainly have a lot of options.”

“It’s also possible the microwaves can be used to mess with your communications and targeting. This isn’t going to be easy,” said the bodyguard.

But she had to do it.

Mariydi evaded the surviving Harpuiais that were belatedly trying to surround her and began preparations for her next attack.

(That woman on the deck.)

While frowning at the warning buzzer, Mariydi divided her focus by thinking about something else.

(She’s a Faith Organization ace pilot. I’ve seen her picture in their government reports. Is she Ramil Scofflaw aka Rocket Icarus!?)