Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume9 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 13===

This was different from a simple fire or explosion in the ammunition storage.

They could hear the short, dry bursts even from the conference room.

“You’re kidding me. Did they directly board the ship to eliminate anyone who knows about the Nataraja’s secret!?”

Heivia was utterly shocked, but he still caught the submachinegun Frolaytia threw his way. He smoothly loaded the first round while Millia and Putana pulled out their own handguns.

Frolaytia tore the internal phone line receiver from the wall.

“Where are they coming from!?”

“A huge hole was blown in the port side near the waterline! It was probably one of the Faith Organization’s Spear Squids. To avoid an Object’s anti-air lasers, they remain in the water to the very last second and hop up only twenty meters in front of their target!”

“Who got in through the hole?”

“There’s a single midsized transport submersible sticking in through the hole. But, major, be careful what route you choose to evacuate. This thing has a ton of amphibious powered suits inside it!!”

Heivia looked up at the ceiling when he heard that.

This was a military warship, but it only had rockets and shoulder-fired missiles for handheld self-defense. If the soldiers were given too much firepower, they could easily blow away a fuel pipe or the ammunition storage if they panicked. People often thought of a military ship as a hunk of steel, but they were filled with flammable materials. That was why they generally let the ship itself or a fighter take care of things when the situation called for a missile.

However, the enemy had made it onboard.

Gathering all the handguns and submachineguns in the ship would not help when their opponent had powered suits.

There were hundreds of people onboard, but they would be tormented to death at this rate.

“Heivia and Putana, help me out here.”

But Quenser quickly spoke up.

Heivia was dumbfounded as the mere student elaborated.

“Let’s drive out those amphibious powered suits! Frolaytia, please tell us the shortest route to the hangar. We can get one of the missiles loaded on the fighters there. If I swap out the fuse, I can use it like a normal bomb to blow away the powered suits!”

“Yeah, that’s right. No matter the situation, the army has to make do with what’s available to them. Let’s go with that.”

Quenser’s handheld device received a transmission. Frolaytia had sent him a map of the aircraft carrier.

“Sorry, but I’ll be headed to the bridge. Whatever they’re after, we need to prepare for the worst and set the emergency lock on the classified information. That should require my authorization. Lieutenant Newburg, can I borrow some bodyguards from your intelligence division?”

“Yes, I suppose. Although I’m little confused why a base commander would want to stick around at a time like this.”

“That’s simple: because this battalion was left in my care.”

That could not be as simple as she claimed. With all the high-level classified information she had, she could not afford to be captured. She most likely had a “special bullet” in her breast pocket just in case.

They all left the conference room and turned in different directions.

Frolaytia spoke without looking back.

“Make sure you survive this.”

“Of course.”

They hurried on their separate ways. Quenser’s group was on the way to the hangar to obtain the missile they needed to use against the amphibious powered suits while Frolaytia’s group was on the way to the bridge to protect the classified information.

The ship was intermittently filled with disconcerting shaking.

“Who are these people anyway?”

“What? They’ve got to be the people working with the artificial planet…no, the ocean shelter called the Nataraja.”

“Not that. The Nataraja intends to abandon the human race living on the old planet. They want to hide their position at all costs, so I doubt they’ll be collecting these people. So why are they obeying the Nataraja?”

“They probably don’t want to be saved themselves,” said Millia Newburg. “They don’t care as long as they can save whatever it is they call ‘the world’. They think they’re too filthy for that perfect world. They can say that with a smile on their lips and a gun in their hands, so the Nataraja is using them as disposable soldiers.”

“Guilt might be at the root of it all,” added Putana.

Guilt.

At the very least, the Nataraja had the Oriental Magic helping it. And maybe the Flyaway from the northern mountains as well. The powered suits attacking the aircraft carrier clearly were not amateurs.

They were all highly-trained professional soldiers.

Perhaps only the ones who had grown disgusted with their jobs had been recruited.

“I’m not gonna get caught in the middle of their burnout syndrome. It sounds to me like they’re afraid of dying alone, so they want us to all die together.”

Heivia and Putana took the lead, Millia stayed back as the rear guard, and Quenser walked between them as the only one without a gun. They made their way down the corridor, but the going was tough. The corridor was tilted diagonally, one steel wall was split because the ship itself had twisted from the initial blast, and shrapnel had skewered into the opposite wall. The pipes running through the ceiling must have broken in places because white steam was blowing down here and there.

Also…

“Those bastards.”

Heivia could not help but groan when they arrived near the hangar.

He had heard intense gunfire coming from their destination.

“Were the powered suits targeting the hangar, too!? It’s starting to look like they’re just going to sink the entire ship to silence us!!”

There were a few highly flammable areas of the aircraft carrier that were especially dangerous. For example, the engine room and the ammunition storage. The aircraft hangar was just as dangerous and important. The fighters naturally had missiles hanging from their wings and jet fuel filling their tanks. Any kind of fire was completely off limits there. If it was set on fire, the damage could quickly surpass what the ship was designed to endure and it could erupt from within.

However…

“That’s even more reason we can’t ignore this. If we don’t drive them out, we’ll all be fish food.”

“I get that, but I’m not about to play the hero and get roasted like a turkey. I’ve already decided I’m going to die on top of a woman.”

With sweat covering his face, Heivia pressed in next to the small door for maintenance soldiers to enter the hangar. Putana moved to the other side and they lowered the watertight door’s lever to open it.

Immediately, a scorching wave of heat stopped them in their tracks. Orange light swept horizontally across the room they were just about to step inside.

“Gyah!?”

Heivia frantically grabbed Putana by the back of the neck and pulled her back.

Flames continued to rage on the other side of the half-opened door. This was not an accidental blaze. Someone was clearly switching it on and off.

“That’s a flamethrower,” groaned Millia.

They were in trouble if the amphibious powered suits had brought weaponry like that. The heat of flamethrowers was frightening, but their greatest threat was the lack of oxygen they created in closed spaces. In older wars, that had been used to take care of enemy soldiers hidden in trenches or tunnels, but it would be just as cruelly effective in the corridors and cabins of an aircraft carrier.

But a moment later, Quenser saw something unexpected.

The ones wrapped in flames and running around in a panic were masses of exposed metal. It was the amphibious powered suits.

He also heard an overpowering shout coming from the hangar.

“You fools!! Did you think we couldn’t fight without any rockets!? Did you forget an aircraft carrier is in no short supply of jet fuel!?”

The two idiots exchanged a glance.

“Hey, that sounded a lot like the old maintenance lady’s voice to me.”

“What a coincidence, Quenser. But we might be hearing the same hallucination in a case of mass hysteria. Let’s do this carefully.”

The two of them hesitantly peered inside the hangar.

It was a complete disaster.

Several blackened powered suits lay on the ground while tongues of flame still burned here and there. They were covered in thick armor, but if the external heat reached their internal processors, it was no different from burning the motherboard with a lighter. The silicon circuits would be fried and the suits would be brought to a stop.

The one ruling over it all was a veteran old woman carrying a jet nozzle that seemed to have a refueling hose jury-rigged onto it.

“Wahh!! That’s clearly her!”

“Hm? Yeah, I tend to get really fired up when it comes to an outmatched force resorting to guerrilla warfare. I am from the country Nobunaga conquered, after all.”

“Are you insane!? How can you use a flamethrower in the hangar!? Aren’t you afraid of setting something off!?”

“If I let them in, they would’ve blown up the entire ship, so I didn’t have a choice. And I did put together a countermeasure. I took the missiles, the fuel tanks, and anything else that’s really dangerous and covered them in the electrified fire-resistant coating of a dust collector. It may not be much, but it’s the silicon powder used in weapon paint. And nothing blew up, so there’s that.”

“That’s just scary. In fact, now I’m curious what this old lady was like when she was younger.”

The old maintenance lady ignored Heivia’s annoyed comment and turned her eyes in a new direction.

She looked to the brown girl named Putana Highball.

“Are you the pilot of the Collective Farming I’ve heard so much about?”

“No, I am the Elite of the Sarasvati.”

Putana’s unnecessary correction only elicited an “I see” from the old lady.

She then said one more thing.

“Sorry.”

She did not explain what that was in reference to.

And then…

“Ksshh!! This is the engine room. The powered suits have arrived right in front of our door. We’re returning fire, but we don’t have enough firepower. Anyone who can, please come help!!”

“Did those fools send troops to all of the fuel-related facilities? Are they trying to split the entire ship in two!?”

The old maintenance lady clicked her tongue and Heivia spoke up.

“What should we do? Remain here or head to the engine room!?”

“Neither. There’s something you all need to do. And something else that Elite needs to do.”

“?”

Putana frowned and the old lady grabbed a notebook-sized tablet from a nearby wooden box before tossing it to Quenser.

“What’s this?”

“The monitoring data related to the Baby Magnum. It’s incomplete due to those killer radar waves, but it’s enough to know things aren’t going well. The Princess is being worn down pretty bad. At this rate, she’ll be crushed before we can find a way out of this.”

“Dammit!!” swore Quenser as he looked to the screen.

The Baby Magnum’s mobility was its main selling point, so it would continually evade the enemy’s cannon fire, block the enemy’s escape with its seven main cannons, focus those main cannons once the enemy was stopped, and fire them all into the enemy. That was the ideal strategy.

But the data on the screen showed it all falling apart.

First and foremost, the Baby Magnum’s cannon fire was not reaching the Oriental Magic. The enemy was being careful and never approaching within five kilometers, so the Baby Magnum had to use a much more dangerous strategy of forcing its way in close and trying to get the enemy to fall back on its own.

And because of that…

“What is this? Is she sacrificing the outermost main cannons?”

“For the attacks she can’t completely avoid. But it’s a double-edged sword. They can’t take hits like that forever. And if they explode, it’ll throw off the Object’s balance. If the Oriental Magic uses its main laser cannon in that moment, it’s all over.”

The Princess would understand that, but she could not protect the fleet behind her any other way.

The disturbance in the monitoring data showed just how much she was struggling and suffering.

And even after all of that, the Baby Magnum was slowly being pushed back. The maximum range of the Oriental Magic’s killer radar waves was pushing in on the maintenance fleet.

But…

Even if Quenser and the others could search out a weakness in the countless “spears” standing up from the ocean, they saw no way that would actually help. There was no guarantee it would speed up the process.

The old lady did not expect that either.

She said something else instead.

“I have only one idea of how to escape this situation, but it requires disobeying military regulations. Are you still willing to hear me out?”

“What exactly is it?”

“The Collective Farming is moored here for analysis and we have the one and only Pilot Elite who can use it in battle. The reactor is still running for analysis of the system. As long as she has the unlock key we added on, Putana Highball can bring it back to life.”

Everyone turned toward the brown girl.

She responded with a self-deprecating smile.

“You want me to save this fleet and end up in a court martial? And all to save the enemy fleet that stole my Sarasvati and essentially stripped me bare!?”

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it. Either way, we don’t have the authority to force a POW to fight.” The old lady explained the facts with a grim look on her face. “If that happens, we’ll either sink with the ship or be roasted by the killer radar waves. In a way, you’ll be getting your revenge.”

“…”

It was now Putana’s turn to look at everyone else.

Unable to bear the silence, Heivia let a comment slip out.

“W-will everyone really let that happen? What about our huge-breasted commander?”

“Hmph. I’m sure she expected us to do this. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have let a former enemy soldier keep her gun in front of an officer. It’s just that her position prevents her from directly ordering us to do this.”

“Even if that’s true, where would we find the unlock key the Legitimacy Kingdom added?”

“That boy has it right there.”

The old lady’s comment almost made Quenser drop the tablet.

They had everything they needed.

Putana narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth.

“What’s in it for me?”

“Will an argument from emotion work?”

“Your idea of justice is not the same as mine.”

“How about you sink the Collective Farming in the sea afterwards and make it look like a malfunction? If you detonate the reactor while you’re at it, it won’t be possible for us to continue analyzing it. You can make an offering of your Object.”

Putana’s eyelids twitched a bit.

It was clear the old lady had found a weak point.

“Fine then. The word ‘offering’ has a nice ring to it. I need to offer it up to heaven myself.”

“We’re in your debt.”

A moment later, a heavy impact shook the entire hangar.

In fact, it might have shaken the entire aircraft carrier.

Millia stared toward one of the waterproof doors.

“That was close by!!”

“Go, boy! The Collective Farming’s help and the analysis of those spears are both necessary for our survival. Get that Elite in her Object before she’s killed!!”

They heard another explosion.

The entire floor tilted like a slide. Heivia and Millia immediately grabbed on the sides of containers held down with wires, but Quenser and Putana were too slow. They could only slide down with the tilt and were quickly carried seventy meters away.

There was no way to regroup due to the tilt, so Millia shouted down at them.

“Getting shot while waiting around would be too boring, so we’ll meet up in the ocean!!”

“Understood!!”

Quenser yelled back, grabbed Putana’s hand, and made his way to the nearest steel door.

All of the corridors were in an awful state. The entire ship must have bent because the walls and ceiling were split. White steam and bluish-white sparks were falling down like a weeping cherry tree. Fortunately, there was no noisy gunfire or explosions.

“What route do we take!?”

“We need to climb to the deck up top. The Object is held between two aircraft carriers with countless wires, so it would be fastest to get there that way.”

They ran up some narrow metal stairs.

Once they reached the flat flight deck, they found several impromptu research rooms that looked like armored metal containers. They would probably get in the way of jets taking off or landing, but analyzing the Object was more important than normal weaponry.

Quenser used the tablet the old lady had given him to check on the numbers and roles of the different research rooms. He entered one that was filled with computers and cables, but he ignored all that and grabbed a mannequin in one corner.

“Putana, this is your special suit, right? You can change into it later, but you’ll definitely need it.”

“Currently, I have close to zero chance of defeating this enemy. I can buy some time, but do not expect too much.”

“I understand that. We’ll do something in the ocean before you’re sunk.”

As soon as they left the container research room, they heard a great roar.

The door of the elevator that carried fighters down below shot up like a manhole during a sudden downpour.

A scorched metal arm grew from the door.

A monster was crawling up from the hangar below.

“A powered suit!?”

Quenser frantically pushed Putana’s slender form.

That was all he managed.

A multiple-launch rocket launcher blew away the container research room.