Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume15 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 9===

The dry gunshots reached the busty silver-haired commander and Heivia’s ears.

“Don’t tell me they were given liquor before the mission is even over. What idiot switched off their safety like it’s some kind of festival!?”

“No. Everyone, be on full alert. Don’t assume it was an accident. Assume a rat and hit them with everything we’ve got.”

After all, sneaking aboard a maintenance fleet and attacking from within was the exact strategy they had used against Piranirie Martini Smoky. If they could do it, so could someone else.

The Baby Magnum had already left now that its armor had been quickly replaced.

Even if the Princess knew the Information Alliance Oh Ho Ho’s small idiosyncrasies, that was not enough to call an absolute trump card. Without logistical support, she would be quickly defeated and that would be that.

“Skuld! Something has come up on our ship. We’ll give you some time to act freely, but we might not be able to provide immediate support. Locate the target ASAP.”

“Sure thing. This place is so boring with everyone frozen. There’s no life in them. So if hers is the only soft flesh on Manhattan anymore, I’ll just go search her out.”

“…I already have a really bad feeling about this,” said Heivia. “So what should we do?”

“Data processing,” replied Frolaytia. “The Princess might be able to see through to Oh Ho Ho’s individual idiosyncrasies, but she needs data on the surrounding environment to act on that knowledge. We will act as her eyes and ears by analyzing all the data from the radars and sensors, rewriting it in an understandable format, and sending it to her. In other words, the standard.”

(Even her orders are decent when Quenser isn’t here.)

A fairly inappropriate comment passed through Heivia Winchell’s mind, but unsurprisingly, the word “decent” did not apply for long. As he stared at the LCD display like the radar analyst he was, he saw an unbelievable reading.

“Wahh, wah, gyahh!? Warning, warning!! Something like a wall is approaching. It’s probably a wave produced by the Manhattan!!”

“Grab onto something!!”

The busty commander’s instructions arrived too late.

The wave slammed into the side of the giant warship and Heivia was tossed all the way to the wall. And the shaking did not end there. Their vision rose and fell over and over while the entire ship tilted diagonally. The high and low points of the waves differed by more than 10 meters. It was like being repeatedly dropped from a mountain into a valley.

The desks and LCD monitors were bolted in place, but they flew into the air with the sound of snapping metal. They could easily be crushed by their own machinery in the closed room, like a ball mill that ground up materials with stones.

And it did not end there.

“Report: the waves have knocked the fleet out of formation! At this rate, we will collide with the Cesare positioned alongside us!!”

“Tch!! Can we recov-…no, you wouldn’t have reported it like that if so. Heivia, gather a small group of the more nimble soldiers!!”

Frolaytia shouted that while tossing over a few large backpacks located nearby. They were stuffed full of computers for communication soldiers.

“This won’t end with just the one ship. There’s going to be a chain-reaction of collisions, but we can’t lose our connection to the Princess. We could easily lose the relay equipment on the ships, so make sure you survive and continue supporting the Princess!!”

“Are you serious…? Hey, Myonri, you’re coming with me!! I’m not suffering through this alone!!”

“Thanks for the worst invitation in the history of the world!!”

With another powerful impact, Heivia and Myonri were torn from gravity’s grasp and had their backs slammed into the ceiling. But this was something other than a wave. It was accompanied by the disconcerting sound of thick steel being crushed.

“…Ugh, cough. We really did hit our own ally. This ship is going to sink. The rest of you need to prepare boats for yourselves!!”

“We can take care of ourselves,” said Frolaytia. “Hurry up and get that communication equipment out of here!!”

Heivia and Myonri entered the corridor with the giant backpacks on and made their way to the deck. The impact must have broken some pipes and started some fires because some areas were smoky.

“What exactly are we going to do?”

“Jump over to a surviving ship. Give this your all. If we fall into the ocean wearing these, it’s over. C’mon!!”

After pressing his shoulder against the metal door to push it open, a powerful gust of wind pushed back at them.

The sky had been perfectly clear before, but it was now filled with thick storm clouds. It felt as oppressive as being buried alive below the bedrock.

“Dammit, is this because of that electromagnetically-launched reactor cannon!?”

In the blowing rain, the giant gray ship was as misshapen as a crushed candy box. A destroyer that was meant to protect them from external threats had collided with their small aircraft carrier.

While focusing on the wind, Heivia and Myonri jumped over the bent surface of contact to board the other ship. There was of course no guarantee of safety. If their leg was caught between the two ships, it would be bitten off by those steel teeth.

“Is this really the right thing to do!?” asked Myonri. “I feel like all those missiles are about to explode!!”

“Look ahead. See that burning supply ship approaching!?”

“Gyah!!”

“Just jump to the next one, idiot!!”

There was no hope of putting out that fire, so the crew would be jumping into the ocean. Just as Heivia and Myonri jumped onto a radar ship that approached at just the right time, the flaming supply ship collided with the destroyer that had more missiles than guns.

What followed was like an accident at a fireworks festival. Countless missiles and torpedoes were blown away inside their metal tubes in a chain reaction of explosions. Some were anti-air, some were anti-surface, some were anti-ship, and some were anti-sub, but they would all blow a flesh-and-blood human to smithereens.

“This is the worst!!”

Despite what Heivia shouted, they had yet to see how bad it could get.

Myonri was the first to notice. Radars were attached to the front wall like tiles or a bug’s compound eye and the light next to them had changed from green to red.

“Ah, the radars are activating!!”

“Are you kidd-…aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!?”

They could only scream.

Just before they were hit by microwaves far more harmful than a microwave oven, they pushed open a metal door and dove into the protected ship. Their soaked uniforms were heavy. It was no longer just the communication equipment on their backs. They felt like they had weights hanging from every part of their body.

“Damn, is my big magnum all right!? That didn’t fry humanity’s greatest treasure, did it!?”

“I think it fried your brain first! You can stick the contents of a balled-up tissue under the microscope later! We aren’t safe here either, so we need to get out of here!!”

The next impact was more of an explosion.

With lots of sparks, the ship’s lights went out, but they did not have time to worry about that. One of the destroyer’s shells or missiles must have hit because a nearby wall was torn away, leaving a gaping hole.

“Ah.”

Just as they felt the floor shaking below them, Heivia and Myonri tumbled toward that large hole.

And right before they fell, a giant dark submarine parted the water and surfaced like a whale.

Heivia and Myonri just barely managed to avoid falling into the water with so much extra weight, but they could not exactly rejoice. That spectacular emergency surfacing was shown off in military exercises, but it was generally only done in a crisis when the submarine needed air.

“It’s not just on the surface. Are they colliding with each other like billiards balls below the water too!?”

This would not last forever.

The gray ocean was full of debris: a ship’s armor panel, a large tank, a pin-up poster, etc. Even without the heavy communication equipment, if they fell into the water, they would probably be crushed between the jagged metal floating in the waves.

“Eek, eek…”

“Myonri, brace yourself!! Roll off and I’ll have to give you the mouth-to-mouth punishment!!”

“No, thank you! And how much do you hate yourself to acknowledge it would be a punishment!?”

At this rate, Heivia and Myonri would be killed by their allies before the Princess was killed by the Manhattan.

But then a familiar voice reached them over the giant communication equipment they wore on their backs.

“Report, report. Target located.”

“Skuld?”

“One, three, cypher, alpha, lima, bravo. I repeat: one, three, cypher, alpha, lima, bravo. You can look that up on the grid, right? Then hurry up and finish her off with that laser!!”