Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume20 Chapter 6 (section)

===Part 12===

Shredded armor panels, leaking fuel, and bent pipes floated in the filthy ocean. Not even the lifeboats were spared on this immoral battlefield.

The ocean had grown eerily quiet.

Nothing remained to suggest anyone was alive out there.

Driftwood would gather near the mouth of a river after a typhoon. A similar phenomenon was happening here but with the wreckage of weapons. You could call it the graveyard of an army.

And …

“Shit…shit!”

Something floated among it all.

It may have only avoided notice due to all the other wreckage clogging the sea.

It was an amphibious armored truck.

And the two idiots clung to it while shivering from the cold February seawater soaking them.

“This is goddamn insane! Thank god we were using a landing craft, thank god there was another vehicle inside it, and thank all the Faith Organization’s gods it was amphibious!!!!!”

“Heivia, are you angry or happy? Are you the kind of person who gets a boner when you’re exhausted?”

The sea swelled up nearby and a large black shape surfaced. Fortunately, it wasn’t a shark drawn by the scent of blood to feast upon the poor survivors.

“Whoa!? I-I think that’s a sub.”

Myonri clung for dear life to the armored truck as it nearly capsized.

The submarine hatch popped open and a princess’s voice called out to them.

“In here, everyone.”

But this wasn’t the Baby Magnum’s Pilot Elite. This was a real princess: Staivia Nikolaschka, heir to the Legitimacy Kingdom’s Nikolaschka Royal Family.

“Hurry. We don’t know when the Manhattan will detect this submarine. If that happens, we will lose our final sanctuary.”

“Come to think of it, I did see a few submarines in the fleet. I see. So this was our flagship,” said Azureyfear Winchell, equal parts exasperated and impressed.

No one on the ocean remained alive.

That much was true.

But the depths of the ocean were a different matter. Quenser, Heivia, Myonri, and Azureyfear boarded the submarine and the large metal craft slowly and silently sank back below the waves.

Quenser came across the Princess in the narrow corridor.

Their eyes met and then the short girl hugged him.

“Whoa!? U-um, Princess? This is a, uh, wonderful gift, but today isn’t my birthday!”

He was about to say more but fell silent when he noticed she was trembling.

She may have been sobbing and crying in his arms.

He sighed and placed a hand on the back of her head to gently hold her close. That way he could prove he really was alive and not just a phantom created by the Ghost Changer.

For once, Heivia didn’t tease him.

Princess Staivia must not have witnessed scenes like this much because she was blushing and unsure how to react.

Red lights illuminated the submarine’s interior. The entire place was filled with an air of caution, like they had to tread lightly or the enemy would hear their footsteps.

Once at the combat information center, they found a small girl with ringlets and a grumpy look.

She was the Information Alliance’s Oh Ho Ho.

Heivia’s eyes widened when he noticed how short she was.

“Wait, what? Eh? You’re the G-cup idol? No, wait, is this what it feels like to have your dreams come crashing down around you!? In what world is that G!? Does the alphabet go in a different order in the Information Alliance!?”

“Oh ho ho. This is top secret.”

“She’s not kidding, by the way. Tell anyone about this and I will send an assassination team after you. You could hide on the dark side of the moon and they would track you down and kill you.”

Oh Ho Ho threatened him like a puppy having its food bowl snatched away before its eyes, but Heivia was much more terrified by the comment from Lendy Farolito who dried Oh Ho Ho’s hair with a towel and then hugged her from behind while nuzzling her cheek against her. Picking a fight with someone who spoke of killing in such a systemized way was never a good idea.

Quenser breathed an exasperated sigh.

“Are you trying to get us killed, Heivia? This is a submarine. If you want to say anything more than three lines long, then do it in writing.”

Everyone was soaking wet and wrapped in bandages, but Quenser noted many familiar faces. Putana and Myonri were there, a girl who was apparently a Capitalist Corporations ace pilot and Burning Alpha, aka Staccato Raylong, were sharing some Island Nation cup noodles, the Martini Series was represented by Wraithy and the triplets, and the Battlefield Cleanup Service and Karen ensured a strong maid presence. Princess Staivia was surrounded by the Unicorns and her servant Mikfa.

Alfonso Zoom, captain of the disguised cruiser, trembled while hugging his twin Black Uniform daughters.

“You’re overreacting, dad. What example does it set when you’re in here crying?”

“Did you really think your daughters would die that easily?”

“I am not overreacting. If…if something were to happen to either of you – ha ha – your mother would kill me!!”

The busty silver-haired commander called over to Quenser while smoking her kiseru inside the enclosed submarine (which earned her a pair of nasty looks from Sarasa and Charlotte).

“I see you missed out on a hero’s death too, Quenser.”

“This isn’t over yet, is it? We can’t let the Manhattan have its way.”

Elise Montana was staring at a clipboard while performing some kind of paperwork. Quenser regretted the casual glance he stole at the document. The military instructor was making a list of everyone who had died.

How many submarines were there in all?

He also doubted they had managed to rescue everyone who had been stranded out in the ocean. Plus, with a collection of people from different militaries, they didn’t have a unified dog tag format to confirm people’s status. That meant the list was only an estimate, but it looked like over half of Together By Chance had lost their lives.

Melly Martini Extradry had said anyone captured alive would be displayed in a gelatin pool at the aquarium and anyone killed would be dried and displayed in a museum. But in the end, that choice was mostly meaningless. A lot of the soldiers would have been vaporized, leaving less than a hair behind.

There was no morality here. They were being killed as no more than a demonstration.

The old maintenance lady operated an instrument to display an image of the Manhattan on the LCD table in the center of the combat information center. Mariydi Whitewitch then tossed a few aerial photographs on top of that.

“I don’t think it uses ordinary high-voltage lines for its primary power conduits. It uses dream pipes. Basically, liquid is passed through metal pipes given a special vibration to convey the reactor’s heat at 100 times the conductivity of copper. The heat is then converted to steam, electricity, or whatever form of energy is most convenient by the terminal sector or weapon.”

“So you could see the heat distribution? Come to think of it, Melly said ''last time'' that an ordinary machine or animal couldn’t support something as big as the Manhattan, so it was better to base the design on plants, since their design can support some crazy big trees. And plant cells can move too, like with a Venus flytrap. I’ve heard they use the turgor pressure of a special solution for that.”

“It’s using NMR, the same method as a quantum computer that uses a special liquid,” added young Wraith. “That cowardly exhibitionist once told me the stuff is inside the Manhattan, her swim ring, and her own blood. I believe it doubles as a countermeasure against the Anastasia Processor, which is a giant DNA computer. I see. Sending the heat through a liquid would be a better fit than using light or electrons.”

That was fascinating information for a prospective engineer, but that wasn’t what they needed to know right now.

“Does this pipe layout tell us where the reactors are?” cautiously asked Quenser.

“Sir, this lets us estimate they have more than 20 in regular use,” responded Wydine Uptown, the fake maid from the Battlefield Cleanup Service. “But the total amount is unknown. It does use them as projectiles, after all. It may be able to connect and disconnect them at will based on energy consumption rates.”

“In other words.” Lendy Farolito shrugged. “We might not cause any real damage if we blow one up. With that many spares, we need to assume it can replace any damaged reactors.”

A short but heavy silence fell over the combat information center.

Destroying the reactor was the simplest and most effective way to destroy an Object, but not even that was a sure thing against the Manhattan 000. If they played their cards wrong, they would be the ones destroyed by that thing’s powerful cannons. It was unlikely they could survive that a second or third time. Their next failure would mean their deaths.

“Let’s assume destroying the reactors isn’t realistic.” Lendy paused to think. “Where in the world is the Capulet AI Network that controls the Manhattan 000? Our girl can’t make a cyber attack thanks to Melly’s interference, but what if we used physical jamming to cut off communications?”

“If that was enough to stop it, it wouldn’t be remotely controlled. It has more than ten million antennas in all. And remember, that only counts the antennas we can see. It can also use IR and ultrasound, so I seriously doubt we could cut off all forms of communication. It might also break through our jamming with brute force. A special short-wave transmitter can reach more than 3000km, so we can’t physically jam everything even if we did take out all of the Information Alliance’s military and civilian satellites.”

Just as Frolaytia carefully laid out the problems with that plan, they heard a low rumbling sound.

It was a bubbling sound similar to a fizzy drink or something dissolving in acid.

(Air bubbles? Is that the Manhattan!?)

Quenser felt a great force pushing to the right as the submarine itself was swept sideways. His feet nearly left the floor, slamming him against the wall, but he managed to grab onto a nearby table for support.

“Ah.”

“Princess!”

He reflexively let go of the table to catch the Princess when she flew toward him, so his own feet left the floor in violation of earth’s gravity. Both of them hit the nearby wall.

The chill down his spine was greater than the pain.

Everyone held their breath and looked to the ceiling…but there was no response.

“What?” Heivia said nervously. “Was that the Manhattan? I don’t see what else could have missed all the noise we made.”

“It does make a lot of noise itself with all the small air bubbles surrounding it,” said the old maintenance lady. “Any underwater sounds are probably impossible to make out over its own.”

The submarine had only lost control because the Manhattan had stirred up the ocean water so much it created an unnatural current. Submarines were supposed to be easier to control since things were calmer underwater than on the wavy surface, but that didn’t apply here. This cold and violent sea was ruled by irregular currents and whirlpools, so it was more difficult to navigate than traveling on land during a typhoon. The interference with the currents might even be digging up the sand on the ocean floor.

None of them dared look away from the ceiling.

“I-I think it passed us by,” said Myonri, pale in the face.

The Manhattan had no specialized listening devices. Quenser understood that, but he still had to gulp and force down the instinctual fear making him hold the Princess like a small child holding a stuffed animal.

“Could we learn anything from viewing it from the rear? For one thing, how does it move all that weight through the ocean?”

“With waterjets larger than the Hoover Dam’s water release ports,” calmly explained Frolaytia. “We can see 32 of them from here. Impossible to know if it has anything else up its sleeve there, but each of those provides enough water pressure to slice through this submarine like a sausage.”

“…”

Quenser finally paled.

How many tons of water did that monster output every second?

Coolheaded Mariydi sighed.

“Targeting those water release ports with torpedoes isn’t realistic. There’s a better chance of getting some mines sucked into the water intake, but it’s still extremely unlikely to do any good. I doubt we can even scratch that thing unless this sub is loaded with at least a 3megaton nuke and no one told me.”

The Manhattan 000 was 20km long.

But it wasn’t using magic to move around. Science was science. It operated on a logic anyone could understand. And if it obeyed the laws of physics, it had to be possible for the laws of physics to take it down. For that matter, its absurd size would place an equally absurd burden on it.

It was a purely naval Object.

It had no way of traveling on land, but that meant it had some reason to fear a collision with land.

Lendy placed a hand on her chin.

“Could we find some way of sliding the entire Manhattan 000 so it hits the land?”

“We could also have it pass over a reef it failed to notice,” said Mariydi.

Quenser didn’t think either option was realistic. But the line of discussion made him realize something odd.

Yes…

“The Manhattan 000 stopped at the south end of Tokyo Bay to cut off our escape.”

“What about it, Quenser?”

The Princess tilted her head in his arms.

He chose his words carefully.

“Why did it stay in the south?”

That was it.

Once he said it out loud, he felt like he had gained a solid grasp of what felt wrong to him.

“It didn’t need to cut off our escape if it was just going to slaughter us all. This would have ended more quickly if it had continued north and attacked us further inside Tokyo Bay.”

“Why would it bother?” asked Heivia. “Tokyo Bay is closed off in a C-shape, so whether it continues north to Tokyo or stays out there at Kanagawa, we still can’t escape.”

“Are you sure about that? At the time, we had made it all the way to Shinjuku. And the Rush is an amphibious air cushion Object that doesn’t need to change floats, so it could have escaped over the land. If its goal was slaughtering us all, then staying down south was a risky move. Frolaytia and the others could have abandoned their ship and fled onto land to save their skins. Not to mention Ice Girl 1, Burning Alpha, and the other pilots in the air. Tokyo Bay isn’t a dead end. Chiba and Kanagawa are right there and we could have continued along the land to Chubu or even Kansai. We could have acquired more ships or planes later. We had the entire Island Nation to escape to. And if we hid in the urban areas or underground, we might have been able to escape its sensors.”

“And yet…Melly stayed put?” said Wraith, a fellow Martini Series, with a frown.

Quenser nodded.

“Let’s not forget it decided to stay in the Kanagawa area near Yokosuka. That’s on the southern end of the Uraga Channel. That thing’s a naval Object, so it can’t afford to bump into land.”

“Yet it decided to approach land while it waited?” asked Mariydi Whitewitch.

“It’s big, but not too big to fit through the Uraga Channel. If it had continued north, Tokyo Bay would have widened around it, yet it decided to stay put instead. That’s a dangerous area of ocean with those artillery islands and everything, but we don’t have the kind of firepower needed to concern the Manhattan.”

There had to be something to the terrain there.

Quenser pressed his palm against the LCD table to display a map of Kantou. They didn’t know all of the Island Nation’s secrets, but they did know where all the mountains, rivers, and other basic terrain features were.

Yes.

Something about that caught his attention.

“It’s the rivers.”

“Explain what you mean, Quenser.”

Encouraged by his commander’s wonderful command, Quenser continued with his thoughts.

“Several rivers exit into the northern end of Tokyo Bay. Far more than the southern end in the Kanagawa area.”

“You aren’t going to tell me this naval Object can’t handle freshwater, are you? Even salmon and eels have figured that one out,” joked Heivia.

“Close but not quite.”

Heivia seemed taken aback his joke had received such a serious response.

“The area where seawater and freshwater mix is known as brackish water. The Edo, Tama, Ara, Kanda, and a lot more rivers join at the far end of Tokyo Bay. Do you get what that means, Heivia? Near the river mouths, all their waters mix together, creating an invisible marble pattern of salinity. That’s what the Manhattan 000 is afraid of. Not seawater and not freshwater, but the labyrinthine mixture of the two.”

The old maintenance lady gave a gasp of realization.

“The seawater must create an unbelievable amount of resistance against something so big,” she said. “Never underestimate the power of water and waves. Almost any ship is exposed to wave making resistance, frictional resistance, and viscous pressure resistance and the struggle between buoyancy and gravity creates a shear force capable of slicing right through the ship. It’s enough that a faulty design or an unbalanced cargo load can lead to a large warship or transport ship being sliced in two.”

“Right. And at 20km, the viscosity, roughness, and other conditions of the seawater hitting it have to be quite different. It can’t afford to have freshwater hitting it at one point and seawater at another. If too much pressure grows at one point with higher viscosity, the Manhattan 000 could tear itself apart with its own power. Spreading air bubbles through the ocean to reduce the pressure isn’t enough to fully prevent that. Really, it’s crazy to ignore all the laws of shipbuilding by moving something that big so quickly.”

“B-but.” Heivia was being unusually hesitant, perhaps because they were talking about the world’s largest Object. “There’s basically a giant storm up on the surface thanks to the Manhattan moving around so much. If it’s afraid of freshwater, would it really send rain pouring down into the ocean?”

“It’s not an issue if it’s evenly distributed. And a small amount isn’t enough to cause problems. What matters is when the difference in salinity is so great it creates a clear fault line. So the problem is permanent river mouths, not temporary rainfall.”

“Are you saying it’s staying near the entrance to Tokyo Bay to reduce the risk of the many rivers tearing it apart?” asked Lendy Farolito.

“Oh ho ho. Then if we could somehow lure it into brackish waters…” continued Oh Ho Ho with a towel over her head.

“It doesn’t need to be salt. Anything that creates a fault line in the ocean will work.”

Everyone’s head sprang up.

Something had occurred to them.

Tokyo Bay was filthy. Very filthy at the moment thanks to all the Together By Chance ships, weapons, fuel, and more strewn about.

There had to be a lot of their fellow soldiers who they hadn’t been able to collect.

But that ocean of death was also their final opportunity.

“That said, salinity alone might not be enough to deal a deadly blow to the Manhattan 000.”

Quenser kept a cautious tone and Myonri nodded quietly.

“Yes, because its original location in New York was situated between the Hudson and East rivers.”

“My guess is it can move slowly without issue. And it has those air bubbles. So to do enough damage that it destroys itself, we need to make it move at full speed.”

Quenser paused for a beat.

They had an effective plan.

This should have been heroic and moving, but the actual strategy was something out of a nightmare.

“That means we need someone to head back up onto that dangerous ocean and create a diversion. Since we have no effective means of striking back at it, we’re talking about a suicide mission. I need to be in the lead waving the tiny flag to guide it, so I’m in. But what about the rest of you? If you can think of anyone you don’t want to leave behind – a family member, a lover, a parent, a teacher, your favorite girl down at the brothel, or even your pet cat – then don’t feel any shame about backing out.”

No one even glanced toward the exit.

They all raised their hand without a second thought.

Not just the foot soldiers, but the Pilot Elites like the Princess and Oh Ho Ho, the commanders like Frolaytia, Wraith, and Lendy, the pilots without planes like Mariydi and Staccato, and even the old maintenance lady. Princess Staivia was mostly here for political reasons, but even she started to hesitantly raise her hand until her maid Mikfa reached over and stopped her. The Unicorns tried to suppress their inappropriate laughter.

This was Together By Chance.

These were the people who had decided to ignore affiliation and rank to work together toward ending the world war as quickly as possible and bring back their ridiculous everyday lives. None of them was going to get cold feet now that they finally had a real chance against the Manhattan 000. They had all dreamed of this moment and the look in their eyes said they weren’t going to have it taken from them now.

“Heh. Does no one here have any sense?” muttered Quenser under his breath.

“Don’t forget you’re one of us,” replied Heivia.