Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 6===

Oh Ho Ho laughed mockingly as she maintained her blockade.

First her Gatling 033 then an indiscriminate attack on Second Venice. It was all so boringly predictable.

She had been a little surprised when the Coilgun 052 survived being shot through the center, but that was unimportant. Its important “innards” were likely made so they could be lifted up to change their position. That kind of cheap trick only worked the first time and would be useless once word got out. All that remained was for the battle to reveal the fragility introduced by the unnecessary design element.

As proof, it had fired on the stationary Legitimacy Kingdom First Generation and yet had not destroyed it. There appeared to have been some kind of accident, but getting pierced through the center by a stationary gun platform on the very first shot was unthinkable for a footwork-focused Object.

And if it had intentionally allowed the hit, it made no sense for that First Generation to have survived the main cannon blast afterwards. The risks outweighed the returns.

“You’ve evolved in an odd direction like an ancient extinct creature that walked on its nose, haven’t you? Oh ho ho.”

It was said that very little personal playfulness could remain in an Object because so many people’s desires were involved in a construction plan costing 5 billion dollars.

But at the same time, projects worth so very much were hard to stop once the ball got rolling. Everyone might have a bad feeling and know they had been wrong, but canceling the project would mean shouldering a massive loss, so they would end up continuing on.

Objects as a whole had evolved in an unnecessary direction in order to defeat the nuclear age.

And at the Second Generation, they had grown even more sharply specialized and tricky. That was how Objects with somewhat mistaken designs ended up strutting across the world.

Stories in which weapons always hit on the optimum answer as time passed and as technology evolved were only found in the fictional wars of paperbacks and electronic books written to take advantage of the war boom. No matter how old they got and no matter what position they held, the actual adults were nothing but imbeciles. No one ever truly matured.

Oh Ho Ho felt pity.

Even if the adults could let the stone roll away for their own benefit, the Pilot Elite could not leave the Object. If they had been “adjusted” for an Object with a flawed design philosophy, they would be forced to accept contradictory strategic theories and use every trick they could to face the cutting-edge wars. It was like being given a loincloth to wear and told guts and willpower were the key to victory while all your marathon opponents had been trained based on sports science in a clean laboratory.

She faced the Zombie Object as it hovered out onto the ocean.

She showed no respect.

The Information Alliance Idol Elite gave a proclamation of death while continuing to look down on it from a position of pity.

“It’s time for a test to see if you can still move around after being sliced into tiny pieces. Oh ho ho.”

The two great masses moved.

The Coilgun 052’s main cannon had failed to defeat a motionless First Generation at long distance. That naturally meant it was meant for close-range.

But that was the Gatling 033’s specialty.

The large caliber, short barrel coilgun’s only advantage was a simple design that made it hard to break. Just as Oh Ho Ho had announced, the power of twin rapid-fire beam Gatling cannons could slice even a nuke-resistant Object in two if it scored a clean hit.

And Oh Ho Ho also had the greater skill in close-range footwork.

The Gatling 033 worked best on the ground where its chainsaw-like treads could work along with its air cushion for high-speed dashes, but the Coilgun 052 had already been shot through the center and its center of gravity and air resistance would be a mess. Her enemy had the greater handicap, so Oh Ho Ho had no reason not to outdo them.

She swung her right main cannon around.

It fired thousands of shots a minute. They blurred together into a single bluish-white beam of light that instantly burned horizontally through the world.

Oh Ho Ho knew the damaged Coilgun 052 could never dodge that. In fact, it would have been impossible even without the damage.

With a direct hit to the spherical main body, the onion armor peeled away and orange sparks flew as if she were welding a wall.

But…

“…!? It isn’t…burning through!?”

The Idol Elite gasped when she saw the result of the “sword” strike.

And then she realized something.

“It isn’t the damage that’s making the onion armor peel away. Is it a type of reactive armor!?”

Reactive armor had been developed to protect tanks from chemical energy weapons such as rockets. The thin armor panels kept in a case as thick as a phonebook would be lifted up by an explosion to randomly scatter the rocket’s blast and stop the flames and impact from piercing the armor like a spear.

This Object carved away its own armor in the same way.

When designing a car, it was important to intentionally make the frame soft. That was to absorb the impact of an accident that would otherwise reach the driver. The idea of building in areas intended to be destroyed was also seen in earthquake-proof buildings and water barriers that prevented the propagation of coal mine explosions. …And if it was used in cars, buildings, and mines, it would of course be used for military purposes as well.

This was the truth of the Zombie Object that could continue moving even after falling to earth with no parachute and only an asteroid for cushioning. It did not deflect things with its solid armor or receive them with its soft shell. It was broken, crushed, and diverted. This self-harming weapon was the polar opposite of the standard image of an Object as the most powerful presence on the battlefield.

“How unique an evolution have you gone through!?”

Rather than its main cannon’s power or its propulsion method, this Second Generation had specialized in its defense. But since it intentionally let the enemy shells hit to use them up while damaging itself, that could hardly be called a specialty in defense.

Or so she thought.

This went beyond even that.

“!?”

A deafening blast came from the Coilgun 052.

But it did not come from the main cannon. It came from the surrounding secondary cannons. They were relatively meaningless in a battle between Objects, but the Zombie Object’s secondary cannons were the same as the main coilgun, just shorter. That shorter length caused the power to drop, but they still caused plenty of damage compared to an anti-personnel or anti-vehicle cannon.

A few of the Gatling 033’s secondary cannons were torn from its spherical main body.

But that did not qualify as any real damage. As already stated, only the main cannon was important in a battle between Objects. It was not easy breaking through the onion armor that not even a nuke could destroy. Even if a few of the secondary cannons were torn away, it could still fight just fine with the armor, main cannons, reactor, cockpit, and propulsion device intact.

But that was not the Zombie Object’s intent.

Its main cannon finally gave a roar.

For some reason, an unpleasant sensation raced down Oh Ho Ho’s back.

A moment later, a great number of needles were released from the main cannon.

It was a needle gun. The main cannon had clearly changed mode since it used a normal shell to attack the Legitimacy Kingdom. Each of these shells was only about the size of a ballpoint pen. A total of 45,000 scattered in a fan-like shape to cover the entire area.

They were small antennae and the electrode on the end had a tank of instant glue attached. And they were targeting the spots where the Gatling 033’s secondary cannons had been torn off. Specifically, they targeted the printed circuit board data network that sent electronic signals from the cockpit. In other words, electrodes.

More and more needles rained down.

Most of them attached to the armor panels and accomplished nothing, but only one of them had to attach to the exposed pure gold of the data network.

That created an opening for a cyber-attack, just like sticking a USB drive into a computer to infect it with a virus even though it was disconnected from the network.

Wireless signals began an attack through the small antennae.

“You…!!!???”

[[Image:HO_v12_255.jpg|thumb]]

Oh Ho Ho frantically grabbed the Gatling 033’s reins and quickly had Strategic AI Juliet focus on the cyber battle. The special Information Alliance Object had an entire supercomputer onboard, but a cyber-attack was not determined just by the pure machine specs.

And zombies did more than not die.

They were frightening because they bit people, ate them, infected them, and increased in number.

It was the despair of finding your neighbor was now baring their fangs and attacking you.

The Gatling 033 came to a quick stop. The Idol Elite choked as the belt squeezed her body.

“You mean it broke through the Information Alliance system!?”

The Gatling 033 was no longer accepting its master’s instructions.

The two Objects lined up alongside each other as they raced across the ocean like an acrobatic military exercise…