Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume8 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 3===

'''Mission Report A-02

'''March 17 – 1300 Hours

'''Ocean of the Far West Pacific District – Lifeboat



The weather was perfect.

Unfortunately, it was mid-March, so it only felt a little warm even with the sun high in the clear sky. The wind felt chilly on the two idiots’ cheeks.

“Um, is this called the Far West Pacific District because it’s the farthest west portion of the Far East’s part of the Pacific? So does this count as west or east!?”

“This is when you spin the globe. Everywhere is connected and we’re all friends. If we could only think like that, the world would be a happier place.”

“When did you become a creepy hippie? You aren’t smoking something funny-smelling are you?”

“We’ll never be done with war if you assume anyone against it is a crazy junkie.”

“Come to think of it, aren’t you using war to profit? I’m trying to gain the valiant deeds needed to inherit my family and you’re trying to get richer than a lower-level noble as an Object designer. We should be giving a toast to these clean wars.”

A single small lifeboat floated on the cold sea that Pacific tuna fishing boats travelled through.

But this was not because the Scarlet Princess had been sunk.

Quenser and Heivia wore solid, metal diving suits that were much thicker than the rubber ones they had used when attacking the Ame-no-Darin. While the others had looked like formfitting wetsuits, these looked more like huge robots. The upside-down bucket helmets were placed next to them.

“This feels like round and awkward armor. You’d never see anything like this in an action movie or a robot anime.”

“These convenient things let us dive as much as we want without worrying about decompression,” said Quenser. “I will admit this design would never sell as a toy, though. This is a good example of what happens when you only focus on functionality.”

“I can’t believe this,” said Heivia in annoyance. “Are they seriously sending flesh-and-blood humans up against an opponent the princess can’t beat in a straight fight? Maybe I should take out a life insurance policy.”

“We can’t beat it in a straight fight, so we’re trying to find a weak point,” spat out Quenser. “But that’s difficult when it’s staying 1500 meters below the surface. We need to sneak up to it and sabotage it in some way.”

“Isn’t it a bit reckless to try destroying this deep sea fish’s gills to make it come to the surface?”

“Object cannons and nuclear torpedoes won’t work on this thing, so if we don’t destroy it here, this New Model’s empire will cover 70% of the planet. And I can’t think of any other way of doing this.”

“This isn’t a job for a student studying design or a sexy noble radar analyst. We’re not a panacea or a Swiss army knife. If they’re giving this job to us like some kind of punishment, it means the actual frogmen all refused, doesn’t it!? This has got to be dangerous!!”

“Frolaytia really likes using us as her final trump card, so our only option is to accept this with a positive attitude. She is our commanding officer, after all.”

With that offhand command, Quenser picked up his helmet that looked like a metal bucket with a round window on it. Unfortunately, he could not put it on himself. He put it on his head and Heivia spun eight screw-like devices to completely fasten it to the neck.

Once that was complete, Quenser fastened Heivia’s helmet.

From this point on, they spoke over the radio.

“This system circulates the air I breathe out after purifying it with caustic soda, right? I can’t believe it. They’ve filled a diving suit with a chemical that produces a toxic gas on contact with water.”

“It can’t be helped. With a normal oxygen tank, your exhaled air leaks out as air bubbles. The New Model supposedly tells friend from foe by acoustic signature. If it detected a diver of unknown affiliation, it’d shoot its lasers.”

“I understand the reasoning, but caustic soda is treated as a hazardous substance!”

“It’s used in the Baby Magnum’s closed circulation system, so we’ll be fine.”

“You need to stop trusting that Object so damn much! Plus, that thing is protected by armor that can withstand a nuke. For us, the unit is completely exposed! It could rupture from a wave knocking us into a reef!!”

While Heivia held an underwater rifle and Quenser held a bag filled with tools, they sat on the edge of the lifeboat with their backs to the ocean.

Quenser then asked an elementary question.

“What do we do now?”

“You don’t need to think about anything. Just let yourself fall backwards to dive in head-first. Make a nice tumble like this is a slapstick skit. You are always the one in charge of comedy.”

“Eh? Eh? Backwards? Upside down!? That’s too scary! I can’t do it! I can only see forward with this helmet!!”

“Horizontal chop!!”

Fed up of waiting, Heivia hit Quenser near the neck.

After Quenser flipped backwards in surprise and sank into the water with a splash, Heivia tumbled backwards to dive in as well.

Quenser flailed his arms and legs as he began sinking down.

“I’m sinking! I’m sinking like crazy! I’m not floating at all!!”

“The New Model is 1500 meters down!! And you’re wearing a metal suit. You aren’t going to float unless you fill it with air like a balloon, but that’s our ticket home. And you’re the one that said we’d get laser beamed if we dived down while making bubbles everywhere!!”

On the way there, they had to dive in complete silence and then they had to damage the New Model in some way. After causing it to malfunction and make an emergency trip to the surface, they would use the power of air to float up to the surface themselves. That was the general plan.

Simply put, if they failed to damage it, they would lose their chance to float back up.

If it was fully functioning and they tried to escape to the surface using air, it would detect them and fire its laser beams.

This was why the frogmen in charge of underwater combat had all refused.

Just because they were ocean specialists did not mean they wanted to slowly die on the dark and cold ocean floor.

“We can somewhat adjust our descent speed by reducing the number of weights wrapped around our waists. If we sink too fast, the seawater passing through the grooves at our joints could create air bubbles. It couldn’t hurt to lighten up a bit.”

“Wh-what if we want to descend faster?”

“Weren’t you listening during training!? You find a rock or something else to act as a weight and you tie it to your waist!!”

In the shallower portion of the ocean, they saw the mysterious scenery of schools of fish swimming around like a single large creature. It looked like something from a TV documentary. The thick diving suits kept the cold of the ocean out, but Quenser could not enjoy the scene because the feeling of sinking no matter what he did brought instinctual fear. He felt like he had fallen victim to mafia justice and had been thrown off a pier with concrete solidified around his feet.

On the other hand, Heivia seemed perfectly calm.

He tended to be skilled at everything but left little impression, so he could be called a jack of all trades.

“You can panic if you want, but you’ll just make yourself suffer later. Piss yourself now and you’ll be in for a self-made hell. And you’ll probably be forced to purchase the diving suit. It’s military, so it’ll be stupidly expensive.”

“I don’t like anything I’ve heard about this! And this air has an unhealthy chemical smell!”

“I told you it uses hazardous caustic soda for the circulation, didn’t I!? We’re doing the exact opposite of being health freaks! Open your eyes, you idiot!!”

After diving 100 meters, the surface was no longer visible up above.

After diving 200 meters, the area was only dimly lit as if by a dialed-down lamp.

This brought confusion to Quenser’s mind independent of the fear of sinking.

“The sunlight isn’t reaching us anymore. I feel like we’re being closed inside a giant sarcophagus.”

“We kind of are. The weight pressing down from above is way heavier than those desert pyramids. And it’s darker and colder here than in an ancient burial ground.”

This was a different world.

And that world seemed to take clear form and open its giant maw to swallow them whole.

Their diving suits had powerful lights on the heads, but that was not enough to wipe away the darkness. The thick darkness always lurked just outside the circle of light.

“We’ve still got a ways to go. Once the deep sea fish start floating around us, we’ll be getting close. I hate this. If only we could fast-forward or take a meal break.”

“I don’t even feel like complaining anymore.”

“What’s this? Are you actually claustrophobic?”

“I think I might be after this!”

That boring but taxing work continued on and on.

The New Model searched for its targets using acoustic signatures. They had already confirmed that using a few unmanned submarines using different propulsion methods. They had all been destroyed in the end, but there had been large differences in how long until they were detected.

To be completely clear, an acoustic signature was something like a fingerprint of sound.

The sounds ships made cutting through the water or propellers and water jets made whipping up the water was subtly different from one ship to another. If that pattern was recorded, enemy could be distinguished from ally just by listening.

The New Model had recorded all its allied acoustic signatures.

It gathered all the sounds around it and anything not in its database was attacked as an enemy. It did not distinguish between military vessels and merchant ships. It created a devilish region of ocean to ensure its safety.

It had no eyes, but its ears were frighteningly sharp.

Quenser and Heivia did not need to worry about any light sources, so they kept their lights on as they descended into the dark ocean.

“All the unmanned subs were taken out, so will we really be okay? We’re wearing these robot-like diving suits, after all.”

“The joints are covered in artificial cartilage and silencing rubber, so they shouldn’t make any clacking noises unless we force the arms and legs past the limits of their movement range.”

“Yeah, but only in theory! The air circulation using caustic soda and the joint silencing are both improvised and handmade alterations made to our existing diving suits. None of this has been tested!!”

Their lights illuminated something that looked like white snow. They were clumps of dead plankton that had not fully decomposed. In the extreme long run, they would become the source of oil, so they were resources rather than garbage.

“There’s not much life here. Is this an ocean of death that has no oxygen?”

“There’s a submarine volcano here, right? It might be related to that something-or-other sulfide. Y’know, the stuff people in safe countries mix with cleaners to commit suicide.”

“Hey, wait a second. Are we being washed away?”

“You don’t even know about currents? That’s from elementary school science.”

“But what do we do if we’re washed away!? 1500 meters is on the level of a world record. If we fall into a valley, the water pressure will crush us!!”

“Would you rather land on top of the Object or the volcano? Either one would kill us right away.”

Their chatting gradually faded away as they continued diving.

Quenser felt like his very existence was being slowly buried. He had been placed in a coffin while still alive and dirt was being placed over it, bit by bit. Before long, the hole had been completely filled and no one on the surface would know where the boy named Quenser was.

It felt like he was sinking for all eternity.

As the weight bearing down from above increased, he could feel the soft emotions inside him slowly being carved away.

The wavering in his eyes vanished.

He stared at a single point and continued descending.

His sense of time had been warped, so he could not tell if half an hour or hours upon hours had passed once he finally saw some vague light flashing directly below.

The light was pure white.

Their own lights were being reflected off of the ocean bottom which was covered in fine sand.

“I can see the bottom of the ocean.”

“Are you sure it’s not the bottom of hell?”

Heivia gently landed on both feet and Quenser landed on his back.

“Ugh. Stop watching and help me up.”

“Our joints may be covered in silencing rubber, but we’d be in trouble if we hit any other parts together. The manmade noise would call the New Model over right away.”

After some struggling, Quenser somehow managed to stand up on his own. He had tossed up an unnecessary amount of sand.

“So where is the New Model?”

“It looks like we were swept five or six hundred meters west, so it’s not too far to walk.”

Their vision was limited to their lights as they walked slowly along the dark ocean bottom.

They felt the same floating sensation as someone walking on the moon.

A large shadow passed by overhead. Quenser assumed the twisting motion came from a deep sea fish, but he was left speechless when he looked up.

“What is that?” asked Heivia in confusion. “It’s a fish robot. Is it a new kind of torpedo?”

The fish’s body was divided into twenty or thirty pieces and each one used wave-like motions to simulate the movement of a fish. It had no propulsion devices such as a propeller or water jet.

But that was not the most interesting thing.

“It has something like a blade instead of a head. It’s a piece of metal that looks like a long U.”

“That’s a tuning fork. It must resonate with the tiny sounds traveling through the ocean and send the information to the New Model’s ears. The Object must scatter these tuning fork torpedoes over a wide area to distinguish sounds from multiple angles.”

Once they knew what it was, an unpleasant sweat and heat seemed to fill their thick diving suits.

It was the same as walking confidently along supposedly safe ground and later learning it was actually filled with landmines.

Even so, they had to continue on.

If the enemy’s detection outdid their countermeasures, they would have been shot by laser beams long ago, so there was no point in frantically stopping now. Their survival meant they could continue walking along the ocean surface.

While telling themselves that as an optimistic self-suggestion, they continued walking.

After a while, they saw some faint light.

This was clearly different from the previous reflections. It was on a much larger scale and the light was less uniform. The level of brightness changed with time.

“Look. You can see some orange light.”

“That isn’t the New Model, is it?”

“That’d be the volcano, but if our intel is correct, that means the New Model is lurking nearby.”

This volcano did not have the same tall triangular silhouette as one on land. It looked more like orange magma was showing from deep down in cracks on the ocean floor.

They had seen a ton of dead plankton while diving, but down here, they could see crabs and deep sea fish floating about.

“These might be special species that live off of sulfur instead of oxygen. It’s said they might be able to function on the moon or Mars.”

As they relied on their lights and continued on, they finally saw the real threat.

A black form rose up like a giant mountain.

They saw its silhouette with the orange light behind it.

“There it is.”

“Yeah.” Quenser gulped. “That’s the New Model.”