Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume1 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 13===

However, Quenser and Heivia were not superhuman enough to charge straight at the Object like comic book heroes.

“(I’d feel like an idiot if we got shot just trying to get near it. Heivia, let’s take a shortcut through this building to get closer to the Generation 0.5.)”

“(You can get as close as you want, but how are you going to blow it away?)”

Quenser and Heivia moved along the back wall so the Object would not see them. They finally found the back entrance and it was unlocked. In fact, the door itself had been blown away. It must have been due to the explosion within.

They entered and found a wide, open area.

They were within the Generation 0.5 Object’s maintenance facility.

Everything needed to maintain the giant Object was there, but it was all bent up. Cranes lay collapsed on the ground and meters larger than industrial refrigerators had been discolored by the intense heat. Corpses lay here and there. Lots of corpses. Around 40 people wearing military or work uniforms had been almost completely cooked.

Quenser’s feet almost stopped as he entered, but he had no choice but to head on. If he turned back there, the Generation 0.5 Object would create even more tragic corpses.

“(What are you looking around for, Quenser? Let’s go. Or are you that interested in those horrid corpses?)”

“(No, it’s just that this is the Generation 0.5’s maintenance facility, so…)”

“(So you’re looking for a spare of its main gun or something? Even if we found one, we’d need an energy source to run it with. If a convenient prototype reactor was lying around here somewhere we might manage, but…)”

“(No, I was wondering if the Object’s plans might be lying around here somewhere. We might be able to find a weakness if we had those.)”

The two split up and searched through the large maintenance facility.

When they had snuck into the enemy base in Alaska, they had found mountains of static electricity-producing turbines that had turned out to be the Water Strider’s weakness. Similarly, they might be able to find a special weakness of the Generation 0.5 from its spare parts or its plans.

“(Hey, what’s the Object doing? It didn’t go off to attack a nearby village because it lost sight of us, did it?)”

“(Of course not. I think it’s cleaning the mud off its cameras. It seems to be letting it dry and then deflecting the powdered mud away with a negative electric charge. I think it’s a similar technique to those masks that don’t let pollen near.)”

Heivia peered out through the large open shutter the Object had exited from. A cutting edge Object would have been able to find people in a building with its sensors, but the Generation 0.5 did not seem to have that functionality.

Most likely, the Oceanians had mostly wanted an Object to show off to the international community as soon as possible, and having it function well in an actual war had been a secondary priority.

“(Hey, do you think this might be what blew up?)” asked Quenser. 

Heivia returned from peering outside and found Quenser pointing at some large container-like objects lining one wall of the building. The containers were connected together with thick cables.

“(What are those? Batteries?)”

“(I think they might be giant capacitors. They’re probably the external power source they used to interfere with the Generation 0.5’s reactor. They used diesel generators to gather energy, amplified it, and then sent it to the Object.)”

One of the containers had exploded from within. The blast had filled every nook and cranny of the sealed maintenance facility. The people within had had nowhere to run.

However…

“(Hey, does that mean it was this amplifier that exploded and not the Object? In that case, the Object might not actually be damaged at all!!)”

“(Come to think of it, if the blast had originated from the center of the Object, its thick armor should have been buckled outward. Well, we know it isn’t going to be easy to take it out, so let’s look for the plans in the maintenance computer.)”

“(Damn, I hope the computer wasn’t destroyed in the blast.)”

They glanced around the area, but did not see the computer at first.

However, they then noticed the large computer on a second floor passageway hugging the outside wall. To reach it, they would have to climb a flight of stairs that had been almost broken in the blast. Luckily, the computer was located in an area the Generation 0.5 could not see.

“(This LCD screen has melted. It’s useless.)”

“(Here’s a usable monitor. Hook up the cable.)”

The computer itself still seemed to be functioning and the Generation 0.5’s maintenance information appeared on the replacement monitor once they hooked it up.

Then Quenser frowned.

“(Huh? This key layout is weird. This isn’t shift?)”

“(Tch. They’re using a different OS than we use. I think this is an old Information Alliance OS.)”

Quenser had some difficulty operating the computer, but he managed well enough once he realized the major differences. The keyboard was a bit discolored from the heat, but it functioned well enough.

“(Hey, Quenser. We targeted the legs and such on the Water Strider in Alaska and the Tri-Core in Gibraltar, right? Should we try that again?)”

“(From what I can see, the Generation 0.5 uses steel wheels like a train. The structure is simple enough that there are no real weaknesses to target.)”

“(Wheels? So it doesn’t use an air cushion at all? Can that really support a giant Object? Even with giant steel wheels, wouldn’t the wheels warp or the axle break?)” asked Heivia.

“(To distribute the weight of the Generation 0.5, it has around 500 wheels. It’s like those torture chairs covered in spikes. If you calmly sit on it, your weight will be distributed enough to avoid getting skewered.)”

“(Yeah, but no one’s actually volunteered to prove that, right? I thought it was just an urban legend.)”

“(It was just an example. I’m not telling you to try it out. I have no idea what would happen to you if you did.)”

Theoretically, if they could destroy two thirds of the steel wheels, the rest of them would be crushed under its weight. However, flesh and blood soldiers could not carry that out.

“(We could probably melt the armor with a direct hit from a nuke, but we don’t have any of those handy.)”

“(Even with it only being Generation 0.5, it’s still suicide to try to take it on with a frontal assault. We need to find some kind of hole in its defenses we can attack through. Oh…?)”

Quenser’s hands suddenly stopped on the keyboard.

The screen was displaying the inner workings of the device that quickly activated the Object’s reactor using an external power supply. It was a new technique that not even the Legitimacy Kingdom military had developed before, but a proper Object kept its reactor running at all times, so it was unnecessary.

“(This is it. Using this is how the Oceanians here were killed by their moronic leader.)”

“(Hey, while its primary use is to start up the reactor with an external battery, it looks like it also emits excess energy to protect the reactor. A device to emit the energy as electrical power has been attached.)”

“(That may have been what failed. Raising the rotation speed is one thing, but it must have gotten too high to control.)”

“(Meaning?)”

“(Meaning control of the reactor may be lost again if another massive dose of electricity is sent into that plug.)”

As he spoke, Quenser moved away from the computer. He looked down from the second story passageway and at the container-shaped capacitors.

Suddenly, the wall right next to the two boys was blown away in a stream of fire.

It was likely from the Generation 0.5’s coilgun.

The holes in the wall moved from right to left…toward Quenser and Heivia. The angle the shells were coming from was odd. The Object must have slowly circled around the building as part of its warm up exercises.

“Get down, Quenser!!”

“You idiot, we’d be killed by the fragments of the wall! Jump down!!”

The two jumped over the railing and down to the first floor. The very next instant, the wall up at the second floor was blow away in a horizontal line. Sparks flew from the large computer and it exploded.

“Shit! I guess we can’t look anything else up!”

“We can only try out what we know. Let’s get those capacitors up and running!!”

However, they did not have time to do so.

With the wall completely destroyed at the second floor level, the maintenance facility itself had tilted some. However, the Generation 0.5 seemed dissatisfied with the lack of blood. It fired some more at the building.

Railguns, laser beam cannons, coilguns, and rapid fire beam cannons.

All of its various types of weapons turned the giant maintenance facility to Swiss cheese in no time at all. Quenser and Heivia were unable to move. If they lifted their heads, they would likely be blown away by a giant shell.

Luckily, they were not hit directly by any of the blasts.

However, they heard a dull roar.

The walls had been utterly destroyed and the roof no longer had much support. The giant ceiling came crumbling down, crushing what was left of the walls. It came crashing down straight for Quenser and Heivia who were inside.

“You have got to be kidding me!!”

They had no time to even think about avoiding it.

With a great roar, Quenser’s consciousness was mercilessly blown away.