Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume4 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 6===

“Damn. Is it using diffractive waves to create 3D images!? The principle is used in commercial 3D projectors, but they’ve altered the naked eye 3D image to work on an Object’s lenses!! As it is creating diffractive wave image data to match the number of lenses used by the Object, you might be able to cause a flaw in the image by cutting off a portion of your lenses, but they can simply detect which lenses are active from their subtle movements and immediately recreate the image accordingly!!”

Merely listening to the military radio frequency was enough to grasp the complexity and depth of the problem.

“My infrared and ultraviolet locks are being fooled as well!!”

“Use a radio lock! Do not rely on optical data!! Determine the truth using radar!”

“The radar is not functioning right either!! The number of blips is increasing!!”

“Dammit. In a broad sense, both light and radar are electromagnetic waves, so are they dealing with them all at once!? And your directional microphone and sonar will be obstructed by the wall of air that explosively expands whenever they fire their main cannon!!”

As he listened to the transmissions on a small boat stopped in the sea to the south of the operation area, Heivia naturally looked over toward where the Baby Magnum was fighting…and then he started to feel dizzy.

He brought his hand to the handrail and said, “Ugh…dammit. Does that really look like a realistic 3D image to her? From here, it looks like some twisted aura you would expect to have coming from Cthulhu.”

“Just like the normal 3D images which are created using diffractive waves with an image for both the right eye and the left eye, the various images simply become chaos when not seen from the princess’s vantage point. Also, that is not meant for the naked eye. It’s creating images for all the many lenses on the Object, so it just looks like a mess to humans like us.”

“The Information Alliance idol Elite I saw in Oceania was a hell of lot nicer than this.”

“I kind of want to see a strip show displayed on this scale.”

However, Quenser and Heivia had more important business to take care of.

They were part of the separate group that had changed out of their normal military uniforms and into black diving suits. The rest of the group was jumping out of the small boat and into the sea one after another.

They would dive down below the area in which the two Objects were fighting and pursue Oldnick.

“Dammit. I know bringing a large submarine this close would get noticed by the Deep Optical, but Oldnick’s boat is over 20 kilometers from here. That isn’t a distance flesh-and-blood humans should have to swim.”

“Yeah, and there’s nothing pretty about a bunch of filthy guys swimming through the ocean.”

Quenser and Heivia had oxygen tanks on their backs and plastic fins on their feet. However, that was clearly not enough for them to reach Oldnick. For propulsion, they had aqua scooters. Simply put, they were something like kickboards with giant motors attached.

Supported by that electric power, the group of about ten including Quenser and Heivia travelled through the sea.

During peaceful times, that clear blue ocean water with tropical fish poking their heads out from the gaps in the coral would have been a wonderful sight to see, but they had no time to focus on such things.

Even with the electric propulsion, the long period of time spent underwater seemed to rob them of their sense of time.

They could not actually see their target and they had nothing but their compasses to tell them they were even headed in the right direction.

Also, this was no calm rest in a cradle. The clear risk of death was pressing against their backs the entire time. They felt a silence that seemed like it would drive them mad if it continued for too long.

All the while, giant shadows would occasionally pass over them and block out the light of the sun.

Needless to say, those were the Objects. As the Deep Optical used air cushions for its propulsion device and had no shark anchors, it did little to disturb anything but the very surface of the water, but a sharp trembling still wrapped itself all around their bodies. The bombardments above the water also caused slight vibrations to spread throughout the ocean water.

And…

“Shit!! The princess has those naval battle floats and shark anchor attached, doesn’t she!? She’s agitating the water like crazy!!”

“Continue on! If we turn back, our fate will be no different from a plastic doll that gets swept into the drain!!”

Quenser and the others continued their desperate pursuit of Oldnick even as their ally seemed more likely to kill them than their enemy.

The Deep Optical could not capture humans under the water because it was a Second Generation Object specialized for fighting other Objects.

“I beg you. Don’t fire any stray shots this way. If all the water around us suddenly boils, we’ll have no way to escape.”

“These vibrations in the water aren’t going to destroy the oxygen tanks’ valves or the aqua scooters’ motors, are they?”

Suddenly, the Deep Optical fired its main cannon while moving above them at high speed.

Laser light could not actually be seen by the naked eye when viewed from the side. However, it roasted the dust and moisture in the air which was not something one wanted to look directly at.

For that reason, Quenser and the others kept their heads down and looked toward the depths of the ocean like someone in a swimming race.

And yet the brilliant white light stabbed into their eyes nevertheless.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Quenser let out a meaningless cry as he felt an intense pain as if his eyes and even his skull had been pierced.

He lost his sense of up and down.

It did not matter if he looked at it directly or not. Even the light that could find its way around was enough to rob a flesh-and-blood human of his senses.

“Quenser…Don’t let go of your aqua scooter!! Focus on that feeling!!” shouted Heivia.

Quenser grabbed the aqua scooter tighter as if he was clinging to it and his numbed head finally began to feel gravity once more.

“Damn. We’re only 100 meters away. That is way too close to a monster with that much laser technology.”

“If you can see, help me with the others. Some unlucky idiots were looking straight up at the surface. They have their oxygen tanks, so they won’t drown right away, but we still need to give them support.”

At Heivia’s urging, Quenser grabbed the arm of a middle-aged woman who had started to sink towards the bottom of the ocean. She must have been in pain because she was screaming, but Quenser had already shut off the personal channel on his radio. Listening to it would do no one any good.

And the Baby Magnum and Deep Optical’s battle continued on above the surface

“I’d rather not have the side effects of their battle crush me any further. If we can just get away from them, the negative effects of the optical weapons will lessen. We need to get away from this area of sea as quickly as we can.”

Quenser and the rest of the group somehow managed to escape the area of intense fighting as they trembled in fear.

However, they did not head up to the surface even then. They were not about to underestimate an Object’s sensors. At the very least, they had to get far enough away that the enemy Object’s focus on the princess would take precedence.

“Look, Heivia. Isn’t that Oldnick’s boat!”

“Tch. He’s gotten pretty close to the sub!!”

The two decided they were far enough away and rose to the ocean surface.

They removed their goggles and took the oxygen hose out of their mouths, but the submarine’s hatch had already been opened and a crew member had just stuck his head out. An old white man jumped down from an expensive-looking charter boat, but messed up his landing. However, he managed to climb up onto the submarine just as it looked like he would be swept away by the waves.

“The end is finally in sight!”

“Let’s finish this with a hole in one.”

But the distance was too great.

The submarine was about 1500 meters away.

“Damn, I can’t shoot him with my rifle at this range!!”

“Heivia, what about an anti-tank missile!?”

“I thought it might come to that. A hole in one might be tough, but I can try for an albatross.”

“Aren’t albatrosses actually harder?”

“Yeah, but people get more excited about a hole in one.”

As they spoke, Heivia pulled out a large tube that was inside a clear plastic bag that had been sealed with duct tape. He tore apart the packaging and threw it away. That sort of weapon was not too affected by a bit of water, but that could change if water got into the targeting computer or the path for the combustible gas. At the very least, it did not hurt to keep the water out.

Heivia rested the missile launcher tube on his shoulder as he treaded water.

“Shit! I can’t aim right with these waves!! Quenser, hold me in place!!”

“No!! I don’t want to embrace a guy in this blue sea!!”

“I don’t want you to do it either!! But if that troublesome cardinal reaches the submarine’s hatch, we’ll be getting a bogey rather than an albatross! That’ll just get us another lecture from our huge-breasted commander! If you don’t want that, then help me!!”

Quenser seriously thought he would much rather have that beauty’s boots digging into him, but the situation required some sacrifice. Since a position behind Heivia would get him blasted by the missile’s blowback, he supported Heivia from the side.

“Here goes! Hold on tight to make sure I don’t get knocked over!!”

“Just get it over with!! …Oh, god. I need to find a way to invite the princess out swimming so I can blot out these memories.”

With the roar of compressed air searching for a path out, the explosive shot towards the submarine.

The submarine was designed to withstand extreme water pressure, so something like that was not about to sink it.

However, they had made a mistake in opening the hatch to let Oldnick in.

When the crewmember saw the projectile, he frantically attempted to close the hatch, but the missile struck the wall just below the hatch before he could. A shockwave burst out along with an explosive roar, but the metal hatch survived the blast. However, the intense force pushed the hatch closed even though the crewmember still had his upper body leaning out of it.

Heivia winced slightly when he saw that human body being “eaten” through the sight. However, he did not have enough of a conscience to regret his actions.

“I got lucky!! I hit with the first shot! Heivia, the genius, beautiful, and rich noble, is just too amazing!! It looks like that bastard Oldnick was knocked off. He fell into the ocean.”

“The sub is leaving.”

“They must have decided it isn’t worth sticking around. …Damn that old man!! The lucky bastard is still moving!! Quit finding fault with Heivia, the genius, beautiful, and rich noble!!”

“I guess an albatross was too much to hope for. I hope we can at least make par.”

Oldnick waved at the submarine in hopes that it would save him, but the black ship showed no sign of responding.

The cardinal continued waving for a bit, but he finally gave up. He then desperately moved his arms and legs to take him in a different direction.

“What now? Is he just swimming off in desperation?”

“No, isn’t there a precious metal ocean mining plant financed by the Legitimacy Kingdom just north of here? It uses various filters to draw out and condense the tungsten dissolved in the ocean water.”

“Not good… Not good! That place is like a bunker!! And if it gets caught up in the battle, that huge-breasted commander is going to completely erupt!!”

“Heivia, can you directly target that old man with a missile?”

“I can’t reload in the ocean like this.” Heivia reequipped his goggles and oxygen tank, and then grabbed his aqua scooter. “Life isn’t always that easy. Our only option is to get close and shoot him with a normal bullet.”

“I suppose this is still better than having the enemy Object head this way. Getting out of the bunker isn’t going to be easy, but we may still be able to get an eagle.”