Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 6===

“A Second Generation built for use in space?” groaned Frolaytia Capistrano in the civilian space base in the distant Amazon District of South America.

Their Object was in Africa. Their First Generation could intercept ballistic missiles, but the Baby Magnum could not hit the Capitalist Corporations Second Generation from the ground.

(All seven 7th Core companies paid obscene amounts of money to build that thing up in space, but what do they hope to use it against? The killer satellites are sufficient if they only want to take down enemy satellites and control the wireless data network. Are they hoping to attack the lunar villas, or do they think they need to fight space aliens???)

The busty silver-haired commander reminded herself of the forces available to her while she stared at her laptop. She had sent a request for emergency support from their home country, but (as expected) that was not looking promising. Every minute and every second counted, but after spending 10 minutes trying to get through, she had only received a single sentence in response: “The Federation of Elevator Industries’ new Object has been given the enemy codename of World’s End.”

(World’s End, huh? They do love their dark humor, giving that name to an oxygen-controlling Object. If we define the “end” of the world as the farthest territory filled with breathable air, then that thing’s location is indeed the world’s end.)

[[Image:HO_v18_BW6.jpg|thumb]]

Of course, humanity was observing more than just the planet they had been born and raised on. They were observing outer space in several ways, including radar and radio telescopes. If a 50m mass had been floating out there, it would have led to a number of UFO sightings.

So…

(There was apparently another station located higher up the space elevator than the main one in geostationary orbit. The Object was probably constructed in there.)

“What should we do?”

“Sit tight, Princess. You need to wait. We can’t launch the Baby Magnum into space even with that elevator.”

“That isn’t what I meant. Is there anything we can do from the ground base?”

“Hm,” thought Frolaytia while holding the long, skinny kiseru in her mouth.

Mother Lady was controlled by the Capitalist Corporations out in space, not the Legitimacy Kingdom on the surface, but did that meant there was nothing at all they could do?

“Okay, I have an idea you can try out, Princess. The elevator’s wires are carbon nanotubes, so they’re made from carbon. We can use that to-”

Just as the capable woman was sending out a command to help regain control of the situation, her laptop screen unnaturally froze up.

“Hm!?”

Her lit kiseru nearly fell from her mouth, so she had to quickly grab it in both hands. But nothing else changed. It was hard to tell with the Princess’s constantly blank expression, but the communication window had completely frozen.

The connection icon on the edge of the screen had zero bars, so no signal.

Military lines had multiple communication methods set up in parallel and it was set to automatically switch over if one of them went down, yet she had nothing at all now.

With modern information technology, it was perfectly possible to command a team in Africa and a team in space from the Amazon District, but there was nothing she could do if communication trouble cut off all of her data.

But would the officers whose hearts were more sensitive than a rabbit’s take those circumstances into account? Those people who never left their home country desks tended to ignore the risks they were demanding and then shoved all responsibility onto the local commander once something went wrong. And after setting up that kind of insurance, they would never allow any damage to their own reputations. So even if they understood the circumstances, they would pretend not to.

Frolaytia knew she was in serious trouble.

She messed with the settings, held her head in her hands, and then placed the laptop on the floor, touched the edge of it with one hand, and stretched her other arm and her legs horizontally with her hips still bent within her tight skirt.

Was this a rhythmic gymnastics stretch, or was it a dancing sunflower toy of an older age?

At any rate, she wiggled her body in that mystery pose.

Since she was alone, she did not bother worrying about her short tight skirt.

“Nh, nhhhhhhhh? Please! Come back, signal! Save my career!! Please! I don’t want to be demoted and sent to some godforsaken part of the world for something as dumb as thiiiis!!”

Was it less pathetic to pray to god or to try becoming a human antenna? Since there was no one else around, spoiled Frolaytia tearfully went for the ultimate answer of both. However…

“Excuse me, Major Capistrano.”

“Bwahhhh!!!??? Cough, cough, ahem!? …Do you need something?”

After clearing her throat in a “speak a word about this and you’re dead meat” sort of way, she turned around in a composed fashion.

The intellectual girl (age 12) who had skipped so many grades she had ended up in the electronic simulation division was still tilting her head in confusion.

“We have detected high-power wide-range jamming from ultra-high altitude. The Federation of Elevator Industries is likely responsible. The jamming signal is being blindly sent down from space, so it is unlikely they have located us here. But just in case they do begin an orbital bombardment, you should hurry to the tank base’s heavily-armored operation command vehicle.”

“Curse the Capitalist Corporations. This was a cheap shot!!”

It made sense. Why else would she not have received a single bar of signal after selling off her pride and stretching her arms and legs out like that? All that embarrassment for nothing!

“It defeats the purpose of a laptop, but you can attach a wire to recover communications. Using the undersea fiber optic cable network, you can contact the team in Africa. And the Baby Magnum’s powerful communication equipment can break through the jamming to communicate with those in space. In other words, no good luck rituals are necessary in this case.”

“Then get communications back up pronto. And I wasn’t doing anything!!”

Unable to restrain the heat rising from within her body, Frolaytia shouted (in a display of childishness greater than the 12-year-old).

The Legitimacy Kingdom response to being shamed was to retaliate 100-fold, so the major renewed her resolve toward this harsh and dangerous war: ''Don’t think you’re getting off with just having to dance in the nude.

“Hee hee. I sometimes rely on good luck rituals too. Like when I’m baking something in the oven while off duty and the tablet displaying the recipe site freezes.”

“Please stop. I don’t want to hit a 12-year-old, so use that genius brain of yours to figure out when to hold your tongue!!”