Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 4===

“Our mission today is to eliminate a negative campaign being run by the Information Alliance.”

In the briefing room, Frolaytia began her briefing (having changed into her usual uniform).

A map of Africa was displayed on the white wall behind her and a red dot had been added to the cape at the southern tip.

“As you know, the Cape of Good Hope is a crucial marine transportation point. With instability in the Mediterranean and Suez due to a conflict between the Legitimacy Kingdom and the Faith Organization, tankers are using the safer but longer route around Africa and through the Cape of Good Hope. That means having an Object sitting there is a major problem.”

“And some idiot’s done that?” asked Heivia.

Frolaytia hit a button on the remote, the projector emitted a mechanical whir, and the map zoomed in on the Cape of Good Hope.

“It’s an Information Alliance Second Generation named Spectre Q&A. It’s an amphibious air cushion model with a laser beam main cannon that uses a dye laser. But the specs can come later.”

She used the remote again and a completely different map appeared.

It was of the Arctic at the very top of the Northern Hemisphere.

“Since the Arctic ice has begun to melt due to global warming, a new sea route is appearing: the Arctic route. The Information Alliance is actively pushing for the opening of that route, so they must want to force everyone to rely on it by blocking the Suez and Cape of Good Hope routes.”

“So they want to harass everyone at the Cape of Good Hope and stop all the tankers and cruise ships to gather attention?” Quenser sounded disgusted. “Are they grade schoolers?”

“But this is no laughing matter.”

Frolaytia hit another button and a few photographs appeared.

They were of the ocean around the Cape of Good Hope.

“The south” brought warm images to Quenser’s mind, but this was the extreme south of the continent. It was also midwinter due to the reversed seasons of this hemisphere, so there was drift ice everywhere. In fact, some areas were completely covered with thick white ice.

However…

“No matter how bizarre the weather here, the formation of the ice is apparently meteorologically impossible. The odds are good the Information Alliance is using some kind of meteorological weapon. So without a truly large icebreaker, no one can cross this thick layer of ice. To be blunt, even this aircraft carrier fleet we borrowed won’t cut it. Our makeshift icebreaking blade can only do so much, so we can only get so close. I’d rather not meet the same fate as the Titanic out here.”

“Hey, wait. Then…”

“That’s right, Quenser. This battle is mostly a naval one, but there are also several layers of thick ice all around here. The Princess uses static electricity which requires attaching or removing a float when switching between land and sea. But I don’t want the Spectre Q&A noticing that and targeting the ground below her. I don’t even want to think about that two hundred thousand ton mass sinking to the bottom of the ocean.”

“Then the Princess will be doing this with the naval float attached?”

“Precisely. But that makes things difficult for us. Footwork is everything in battles between Objects. Particularly in the Spectre Q&A’s case since it’s laser beam main cannon will require quick movement. And yet the Princess will be restricted by the need to break the ice. That will increase the resistance and slow her down. If she gets careless, she could play right into their hands.”

The Spectre Q&A was an amphibious air cushion model. They had not been shown the specs yet, but it may have been able to freely move between the ocean and the ice. If it did not need to break the ice, it would have nimbler footwork.

“As a side note, as the name Spectre Q&A suggests, it is a Second Generation that specializes in optical sample analysis. Quenser, as a battlefield student, I assume you’re familiar with femtosecond optics, the world of one quadrillionth of a second.”

“Well, yes. But…you can’t possibly mean…!!”

“That’s just one of its Swiss army knife of options. An atom’s oscillation lasts from a few dozen to a few hundred femtoseconds, but a pulse laser of only a few femtoseconds is even shorter. That special light can isolate and record the movements of atoms like movie film and then analyze the footage frame by frame. Simply put, the chemical changes are stripped bare in their microscopic states. Even if you mix yourself an original drink at the soda fountain, it can probably break down each of the components and list them in order. And even more accurately than the person who mixed it.”

Quenser gulped, but Heivia had not understood any of that. The difference was so stark it was almost sad, but Frolaytia continued regardless.

“This Swiss army knife was probably originally designed to extract and analyze the makeup of fragments of the enemy Object’s armor, the static electricity repellant floating in the air, or the special gas for low-stability plasma cannons. That way they can find an effective means of attack.”

“Originally?”

“We’re getting back to that drug war. The various ‘products’ may seem the same, but there are differences depending on where they were made. You could call it the drug’s ‘fingerprint’. A detailed examination of the impurities introduced in the refinement process would show slightly differing signatures even in the same sort of drug. For example, the impurities will differ depending on whether a certain ingredient was obtained by soaking commercial cold medicine in alcohol or if it was grown as a plant. By combining all those differences, a unique signature for a manufacturer will appear. Colorful Vanilla has a cloyingly sweet smell from the vanillin-like impurity it gains during creation, so it’s worth looking into a little more.”

Frolaytia spun the remote in her hand.

“We found the ergots used to make Colorful Vanilla in that crashed plane in the Rio Grande District. Out of the seventy-five drugs circulating through the Capitalist Corporations, the intelligence division has acquired samples of the Colorful Vanilla that has increased so dramatically recently. If we could use the Spectre Q&A’s optical sample analysis, we could determine just how it’s made. By the way, the Spectre Q&A’s Pilot Elite has a PhD in pharmaceutics and physiology and is suspected to have created a few different designer drugs in the past. A designer drug is one with the original chemical structure changed slightly to slip past drug tests like a variation of a computer virus. But it doesn’t seem they’re targeting safe countries in a drug war. Their MO seems to be using the internet to send the recipe to the worn-down soldiers in the enemy maintenance base zone and triggering a moral hazard there. But either way, nothing good can come from the spread of funny-smelling cigarettes or sodas that make you feel a little too happy.”

In other words, the ergots made in the Legitimacy Kingdom were being made into drugs in the Information Alliance and the completed Colorful Vanilla was being sent to their common enemy, the Capitalist Corporations. It was a little confusing and it made one wonder how much any single part of the process knew about the whole.

“It looks like the drug war run by Black Uniform Special Platoon 15 was just one gear in the giant contraption that is the Legitimacy Kingdom. In other words, there is still a mastermind behind all this. It hurts that Meena Stinger was killed before she could say who, but we’ve found another line back to them here. If we can get to the Spectre Q&A’s Pilot Elite or get the necessary data out of the Object itself which doubles as an optical sample analysis lab, we might be able to uncover the mastermind hiding in the Legitimacy Kingdom. We can’t ignore someone who seems to think they’re a chess master as they infect both battlefield countries and safe countries. We will find the clue we need here and settle this. That is all.”