Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume6 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 14===

Meanwhile, the two idiots Quenser and Heivia were lying collapsed on the floor.

They had just learned the general situation thanks to the open radio exchange between Unicorn and Staivia and some additional information provided by the maid Mikfa (who it seemed had only just learned what was going on).

And after finishing her explanations, Mikfa let out a frantic voice.

“Wh-why are you suddenly lying stricken on the ground!? It is too early to be experiencing burnout!!”

“I can’t believe this!!”

“We were beaten!! We were completely outdone!! Vah! There’s nothing we can do!! I want to jump on them and beat the shit out of them, but I can’t find fault in them after they settled everything so nicely! Okay, that was a wonderful story! Thank you very much! The more we try to cut in, the worse we look!!”

“What are we supposed to do? The more we dig, the more damage is done to us… I’m sure they would have no problem acting all cool and saying they’re prepared to be court martialed!! No!! I don’t want to be a jobber!!”

It seemed they had guessed fairly accurately what Unicorn’s catch phrase was.

But Mikfa did not care about the pride of some pathetic idiots.

Even if the situation had changed, Princess Staivia had still been forced aboard the Assault Signal as a target.

“I-I assume Unicorn is in the central control room trying to acquire the emergency shutdown code for the Object. It is a lifeline used to prevent the pilot Elite from going on a rampage.”

“And what does that leave for us!? What is Quenser the meaningless side character supposed to do!?”

“I doubt there is any assurance they will be able to acquire the emergency shutdown code and if Dimiksy’s Object fires its main cannon before it can be shut down, it is all over! We need to buy time to save Lady Staivia!!”

“…”

“…”

Quenser and Heivia fell silent.

While Mikfa was panicking a good bit internally, those two idiots stood up once more.

“…We can save Princess Staivia?”

“Yes, that is what I have been saying!”

“…It couldn’t happen without us?”

“We are the only ones here!!”

The two boys exchanged a glance.

And then they let out some dark laughter.

“…Heh heh heh. Hey, Heivia. How about we take it all for ourselves at the very, very end? Let’s put our own wonderful story on top of theirs to make theirs completely useless.”

“While we’re at it, how about we carry the princess out in our arms right in front of those knights who have been working at this for 5 long years.”

“We still have one important job left: Kicking those self-important Unicorn bastards right in the nuts.”

“Kicking a corpse in the balls is boring. We need to make sure those heroes have tears in their eyes.”

Mikfa began to seriously wonder if shooting those two in the back right there would be the best way to protect Staivia’s chastity, but she had to worry about protecting the princess’s life first.

Quenser and Heivia were not stupid enough to plan on simply standing in front of a cutting edge Object. They would not agree to such a proposal and they would simply end up crushed even if they did. Their enemy would have no reason to stop.

“Hey, let’s start by doing something about that pain-in-the-ass jamming. Just like we already planned to. Let’s cut the airport’s emergency power.”

“Then what?”

“We ask for help from the Legitimacy Kingdom military of course. What can we do on our own? Only an Object can stand up to an Object. So it would be fastest just to ask for help.”

“If an Object would come if we called for help, Lady Staivia would not be having so much trouble in the first place!!”

“We can do it now,” immediately corrected Quenser. “After all, the Royal Duel can no longer be considered fair thanks to Unicorn’s rampage. We won’t take sides. We will call for help for both Prince Dimiksy and Princess Staivia. Then they don’t need to worry about whose side they’re on. We can get help to protect both of them from Unicorn’s interference.”

“Only Dimiksy’s faction wants this conflict over succession to result in killing. Even if someone wants Dimiksy to inherit the throne, it’s only natural to want a spare in the bloodline in case of a sudden illness, accident, or assassination. In that case, a soldier would want to save both of them if the outcome of the situation is unclear.”

“…”

Mikfa stared at the two of them dumbfounded.

To save one of them, the other had to be killed.

Dimiksy’s faction had spent many long years manipulating information to set up that condition. Mikfa had tried to resist it all, but that line of thinking had become entrenched in her mind without her even realizing it.

Had Unicorn…no, the White Bears of the 115th Private Royal Guard Company thought of that way out?

Quenser and Heivia would prepare several means of interference to buy enough time for the emergency shutdown code to be entered.

“Hey, Quenser! Where’s the emergency power supply? We need to hurry up and blow it up!”

“It’s a diesel engine larger than a school swimming pool! If the gas catches fire, the entire float will be split in two!!”

As they walked through the underground (or internal?) portion of the float, the two idiots moved towards the central portion of the emergency power supply. The area beyond the door was like a sauna. Countless metal boxes and pipes were crammed inside and each one had a panel and handle attached.

“…I don’t like this arrangement. I doubt there are, but there had better not be any soldiers hiding in here.”

“I’m more worried about traps. This steam limits our vision and all the noise masks any small sounds.”

“Come to think of it, we’ve basically opened up the hood of a giant car engine and jumped in. This is not an environment for a human being.”

They slowly and cautiously continued inside.

Quenser and Heivia read through the thick manual on the wall and operated a few handles and levers. After a hard struggle, the readings finally began to drop before their eyes.

“Oh, that’s right. The guys from the naval base are up above. This will stop the defense system shooting up that Latin guy and the other honor students, right?”

“Oh, I’d completely forgotten. It makes me feel like Urashima Tarou. How much time has passed since then?”

They felt no tension over the issue because they were not entirely sure those people were even worth protecting. The situation might have been quite different had they met even a single beautiful woman on that base.

With the emergency power down, Quenser and Heivia headed for the top of the float. Since it was too dangerous for the maid Mikfa to stand on the front lines otherwise, they had made her put on one of the powered suits left by Dimiksy’s faction. Quenser himself had destroyed an identical model, so they knew it was not a perfect defense. However, it did lower the odds of her being killed by a stray bullet.

“We’re headed up top, but don’t stand on the edge of the float. If you do fall into the ocean, don’t panic and perform an emergency eject. If you pull the huge levers in the right and left wrists at the same time, you’ll be ejected. If you escape before sinking 10 meters down, the water pressure won’t be an issue. If you fall further than that, decompression sickness will make it dangerous.”

“With this, I can fight too!” announced Mikfa.

“Fight what? Surely you don’t mean the Object.”

“Dragon breath has a horrible stench to it. If it so much as scratches you, the armor will melt.”

They climbed up the stairs and onto the top of the float. On a ship, it would have been called the deck.

The Assault Signal that Princess Staivia was aboard had already made its way out from beneath the float. It was now heading up to the surface thanks to its giant floats. Princess Staivia had not been trained as a pilot Elite, so it was doubtful she could perform even that basic a maneuver. A program may have been sending it to a set starting point based on the rules of the Royal Duel.

The surface of the float was several kilometers across and the Object was over 50 meters across. It was a sight that threw one’s sense of distance out of order. The tiltrotor crafts deployed around the area and the surface-to-air missile units that had been shooting them down a moment before all looked like toys.

“I see three large transport planes. Each one can probably hold around 100 people. Looks like more survived than didn’t, don’t you think? I guess those old models aren’t all that useful since they’re too easily tricked by chaff and flares. If this place had been equipped with the anti-air lasers Objects use, it would’ve all been over instantly.”

“The problem is that none of them will think too much about why they survived. In fact, they’ll probably hold a grudge against us.”

“How can you two be so cruel?” asked Mikfa. “A-and more importantly, how is Lady Staivia!?”

“More importantly? You’re just as cruel as us.”

“More importantly? You’re just as cruel as us.”

The two idiots gave that simultaneous comment, but it seemed maidens came with a function that let them shut out any inconvenient voices.

Staivia’s Assault Signal had no obvious signs of damage. Unless those who had procured it for the royal family had hidden a cup of poison for suicide, Staivia would be safe within the cockpit.

But that was no relief.

Something gigantic was moving on the distant sea.

“Here it comes, Quenser. It’s here!! That’s an Object!!”

“Which one!? Dimiksy’s? Or reinforcements from the Amazon district!?”

Those two extreme options were like a coin toss deciding life or death, but fate always had a way of sneering at those two idiots.

It might have been due to the powered suit’s digital magnifying ability or it may have been due to her experience from her long years serving the Nikolaschka family. Whatever the reason, it was the maid Mikfa who answered.

“The Object has the Nikolaschka family coat of arms on it. As well as decorative ribbons to indicate the individual. The ribbons are blue and gold. That is Dimiksy’s!!”

“Not good. So not good!! Is help not going to arrive in time!?”

“Dimiksy probably intercepted the request for help. He’s going to be on guard for a shot from extreme long distance or a surprise attack from the bottom of the ocean. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be approaching so slowly. After all, this is the main dish he’s spent 5 years preparing for. He has to want to charge in and devour it.”

Quenser used binoculars to get as many details about the Object as he could.

Below the spherical main body it had two long floats extending from front to back. It also had three leg-like parts extending from both the right and left.

“It primarily uses an air cushion. It can operate on both sea and land without swapping out parts. But those insect-like legs are different. Does it also use the laser method…? No, those are…”

“What is it, Quenser?”

“The legs on either side are forced brakes. They might work like pile bunkers. It’s the type to make tight turns by slightly altering the resistance between the two sides. In a close quarters fight, it can fly around like lightning.”

“That seems like a needless fear since Lady Staivia cannot move at all.”

“I want to give any hint I can to the Object that comes to help. It would leave a bad taste in my mouth if I watched on doing nothing.”

Its main cannons were likely the six large cannons sticking out of the front of the spherical main body. They were bound together like a Gatling gun, but Quenser could not spot any mechanism for rotating them.

“…They’re laser beams.”

“Wait, wait. It has six ridiculously huge cannons strapped together? Isn’t that really, really bad? How much firepower does that have?”

“No, Heivia. Do you know why the battleships from an older era lined up two or three main cannons together?”

“What? Wasn’t it to double or triple their power?”

“No. They did not have the accuracy for long distance shots back then. They did it to raise their accuracy. They fired multiple shots at once, but it was a great success if even one of them hit. Which means…”

“This bastard has six cannons strapped together because he couldn’t hit if he didn’t?”

“The actual tech used may not be that high level. If we have a usable Object on our side, this might be over surprisingly quickly.”

Dimiksy’s faction had spent years preparing for this day. They had made sure Staivia could not fight back no matter what. The actual ability of the Object was of no consequence. They knew no counterattack was coming, so they might have just needed to prepare any old Object as long as its main cannon could fire.

The average construction cost of an Object was 5 billion dollars.

When maintenance and operation costs were added in, the price shot even further up.

Even if Dimiksy was a member of the royal Nikolaschka family, it had to have been difficult to prepare two of them.

“…Is that really so?” muttered the maid Mikfa.

While still peering through his binoculars, Quenser asked, “Is what really so?”

“Dimiksy is both a member of the royal Nikolaschka family and an officially registered Object pilot Elite. Although it was almost entirely to increase his authority, so he has never been sent to the front lines before. …But this is an Object created for a royal to use. Would the technology used really be so crude?”

“…Do you know what system genealogy Dimiksy uses?”

“It was a second generation Object focused on laser beams. However, this one is different. Also, I have heard some disturbing rumors concerning Dimiksy. It may have been nothing more than propaganda to increase his influence further, but…”

“?”

Quenser looked puzzled and Mikfa continued.

“It is said the cutting edge Broad Sky Saber developed for Dimiksy Nikolaschka has exceeded the boundaries of the second generation and approached the third generation.”

An unpleasant pause continued for a short while.

“Heh,” laughed Heivia scornfully.

He seemed to be trying desperately to force down the fear that had welled up somewhere in his chest.

“That’s probably just the special hope of the influential. It was the same in that Oceanian military nation. They went on and on about how they had developed an Object, but it was just a piece of junk that only reached generation 0.5.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that we almost died.”

At that point, a small electronic tone sounded from Quenser’s radio.

“This is the standing defense unit of the Amazon district military. We have accepted your request for assistance. The second generation Forest Roller will be dispatched to the combat area. We wish to use the source of your transmission as a marker to distinguish friend from foe. Is that okay?”

“No! We are being targeted by an Object! An Object from the Legitimacy Kingdom. If we used such an obvious marker, Dimiksy would just blow us away!!”

“Then what should we do!?”

“We’ll take care of the flesh-and-blood enemies. The Forest Roller should focus on Dimiksy! Your objective is to keep the Objects from fighting. Silence any Object that tries to resist but try not to kill the Elite! Everyone here needs to be protected. Simple, right!?”

“Understood. Give my regards to the rumored princess. We’ll be putting on quite the show for her, but tell her to try not to fall in love with me. If this does get her wet, it’s only the suspension bridge effect.”

“I cannot ignore that vulgar comment! Does that operator want to be arrested for lese-majesty!?” shouted the maid in a shrill voice, but Quenser and Heivia were relieved that she was back to her normal self.

Yes.

They were relieved.

Even though the enemy had yet to fire. No, even though they knew there was no such thing as “going easy on you” or a “safe zone” when it came to the weapons known as Objects.

(Come to think of it, what is that thing?)

A sudden question entered Quenser’s mind as he waited for the Forest Roller to arrive.

It was on the back of Dimiksy’s Broad Sky Saber. A unit similar to a steel tower was attached there as if it was carrying a giant sword on its back.

(Is it a large-scale antenna for information warfare? No, it’s too big for that. It has to be something important enough to risk putting its center of gravity off balance.)

It felt like a rough sweater scratching at his neck.

He converted that strange feeling that something was out of place into words.

(That isn’t a steel tower attached to an Object. With that relative weight, it’s more like they attached an Object to a steel tower…)

He soon found the answer to his question.

The enemy gave it to him.

A brilliant white flash of light as if from welding burst from the base of the steel tower.

Quenser quickly recalled his fear of Objects and immediately got down on the float’s surface. Heivia tried to knock the maid Mikfa to the ground because she was standing there blankly, but the thick powered suit would not budge. The hard impact knocked the boy back onto the ground.

“Ow, dammit! What the hell was that!? Did Dimiksy fire something!?”

“Wait…this is odd. What is that!?” shouted Quenser as he lay dumbfounded on his back.

Something had shot at high speed through the steel tower on the back of the Broad Sky Saber. The pure white light shot up along the vertical tower and fired some mass with it. The mass was about the size of a small truck.

Quenser assumed it was a shell flying in an arc like a long throw in baseball.

But he was wrong.

“Wait, wait, wait!! What is that…? That isn’t a long throw. It shot that thing up into the sky!!”

“It resembled a container,” said Mikfa. “The kind of container used in laser space elevators.”

“It didn’t just resemble one. …That is a space elevator!!”

Two different standards were in conflict when it came to modern space development. The mass driver that used railgun technology and laser space elevators that created a “cable of light” by firing a powerful laser beneath a container and stimulating diffuse reflections to explosively expand the air which launched the container upwards.

Quenser and the others had just witnessed a mass of cutting edge military technology of the sort innocently broadcast into people’s living rooms to show the peaceful usage of space technology. In other words, it was exactly the type of thing seen on bright and cheerful news broadcasts.

“…Heivia. Do you remember when we were on the Cook Addition Islands and I was invited into that top secret facility by the designer named Claire?”

“What about it!? I don’t want to remember anything about the Night Edge Platoon!!”

“When I was there, Claire said something about the third generation of Objects possibly carrying on the genes of the Tri-Core.”

“The Tri-Core?” said Mikfa. “I remember hearing a commentator on a talk show making fun of it because its ability to drill for and transport oil left it overbalanced.”

“That’s the problem with the people who didn’t actually fight the thing! Do you have any idea how many times we almost died back then!?”

“And I didn’t know maids watched talk shows,” said Quenser with an odd sense of fascination. “The military does more than send weapons at each other. The Tri-Core built the lifeline of oil into the Object itself. It was an ambitious design that built a valuable facility into itself. To break free of the current need to protect the drilling and refinement facilities, they gave the facilities themselves the power to fight and freely move around.”

Even with three Objects protecting an oil refinement facility, an enemy Object could still destroy it on a suicide mission and a stray shell could always blow it away. But if the important facility that was as delicate as an egg was given the toughness of an Object, the risk lessened.

Or at the very least, someone had forced through a large-scale public project using that thinking.

That was why the Tri-Core had been allowed three reactors. The makers had believed it would provide far more benefit than three separate Objects.

“So is Dimiksy’s Broad Sky Saber similar to that?”

“Space development bases are another type of important facility that is difficult to move. A facility that provides great benefits will be a prime target. Usually, a large-scale defensive line is needed to prevent an enemy Object from attacking a space development base. Even if no one ever attacks, just sustaining that defensive line costs massive amounts of money…”

“So you’re saying they can break free of that problem by turning the Object itself into a space development base? And the JPlevelMHD reactor provides the large power output needed.”

It went beyond the simple battles.

This was an Object that had a source of massive amounts of money built into it.

This was the third generation.

This was a great flow that would affect everyone from the highest officer to the lowest soldier and – if viewed in a broader sense – would affect every one of the billions of people that were affected by war. When viewed that way, Dimiksy’s Broad Sky Saber did indeed dig deeper into the idea of war than the second generation that focused solely on combat.

“But what did Dimiksy fire into space?” asked Mikfa.

“I dunno. Maybe the bastard chickened out and fled.”

The three of them naturally looked up into the sky.

The eerily blue sky blocked their view so they could not see what was happening in space.

But…

In the next moment…

An orange light fell from the heavens and Quenser finally realized what the true value of the enemy Object was.

It happened beyond the horizon.

Due to the earth being round, Quenser and the others could not see where the beam of light landed. Or so it should have been. Nevertheless, they saw it. Something exploded beyond the horizon. The ground had been blown to pieces and rubble from the manmade structures atop the ground was blown into the air. It was all blown dozens…no, hundreds of meters into the air.

“…What?” muttered Heivia as if trying to deny the nightmare he imagined was happening dozens of kilometers away.

His voice quickly turned to a shout.

“What the hell happened!? Did the container fall back down!?”

“This isn’t right. The orange beam of light isn’t going away. That must be an afterimage left by the dust and moisture in the air being roasted.”

As Quenser watched on dumbfounded, he heard a voice come from his radio.

It was from that same operator, but he gave a completely different impression from before.

“…Kssshhhhh. Kkkssshhhhhhhhh!! This is the standing defense unit of the Amazon district military! Calling all units!! The Forest Roller was heavily damaged on the way to the combat area. I repeat! The Forest Roller was heavily damaged!! It can no longer move!!”

“What the hell…” Heivia had his own radio, but he snatched Quenser’s away. “What the hell!? That was our final trump card!! What the hell happened!?”

“We do not know! From the damage report we received, it was likely hit by a laser weapon from directly above. Do you have any idea what could have done it!?”

They had of course heard nothing about a bomber flying around. Then again, the laser weapons equipped on a bomber could not damage an Object.

Which meant it had to have come from above the sky.

From space.

“…There’s something there. It isn’t just the Broad Sky Saber. No, some weapon that works in conjunction with it is in orbit!!”

“You mean the Broad Sky Saber’s true main cannon separates off into space!?”

The idea of an Object’s cannon separating from it and still being used had been around for a long time.

The cannons could be equipped onto tanks or bombers. Or they could be staked deeply into the ground around the battlefield. Then lasers or microwaves could be used to send power to the cannons so they could fire on a target from multiple directions at once.

But…

“None of the past methods worked. The radiant heat and recoil from a main cannon is enough to destroy a tank or a bomber. And if their armor is forcibly thickened, they crush themselves under their own weight. And if they are attached directly to the ground, the target can just leave the area once they notice it. But…”

“They can ignore the weight of armor in the weightlessness of space. That way they can increase the armor as much as needed. And even if the target catches on, the main cannon’s range is an entire third of the planet. There’s no way to escape a sword that rains down from the heavens!! This is completely insane!! What happened to the space treaties!? This violates international law! Can they really do this? This destroys the distinction between safe countries and battlefield countries!! With that one Object, they can freely choose 6 or 7 billion people to slaughter!!”

[[Image:HO_v06_14.jpg|thumb]]

If he wanted to, Dimiksy could destroy Staivia’s Assault Signal from the other side of the planet. In all likelihood, the only reason he had showed himself was because the rules of the Royal Duel required for him to be in the same combat area.

“The materials were probably launched into orbit in the name of moon development and then it was constructed up there. His main cannon is growing like a rolling snowball. Who knows how many hundreds of meters it’s reached.”

“But if it is set up in space,” said Mikfa inside her powered suit, “can’t it be shot down with anti-ballistic missile armaments? I had heard 98% of ballistic missiles can be neutralized in this day and age using a combination of Object anti-air lasers and interception satellites.”

“Did you hear that on a talk show too?” asked Heivia in annoyance. “Modern ballistic missile countermeasures do not blow the weapons to pieces. They cause small but definite scratches that cause them to fall apart due to the friction of the air or atmosphere. I doubt this sky saber of unknown size can be destroyed with a simple scratch.”

“But what if we prepare some large-scale firepower?” suggested the maid. “We could use ballistic missiles of our own to destroy the enemy main cannon in orbit. If I recall, the original method to defend against missiles was to have the enemy ballistic missile swallowed up in the explosion of your own ballistic missile.”

Her reckless idea was that they need not hesitate to use enough firepower to wipe out a large portion of the map because it was in space.

But…

“That main cannon uses Object tech. If the energy running the large-scale main cannon can also be used to run smaller anti-air lasers, it can shoot down every ballistic missile we send its way.”

“Meaning?”

“The situation is hopeless!! He can wipe a location off the map as easily as a normal person can look up a delicious restaurant on their GPS!! It just takes a tap of his finger!!”

Of course, a GPS alone was unreliable against an Object that was constantly moving unpredictably at high speeds. Normally, the six cannons on the front would be used to hold the enemy Object in place. During that time, it could take aim from the orbiting cannon.

[[Image:HO_v06_15.jpg|thumb]]

As Quenser and the others watched on with no hope, the Broad Sky Saber used the laser space elevator on its back once more.

With a bright light as if from welding, another container was taken to orbit.

“What was that!?”

“I don’t know for sure, but my guess would be a giant battery filled with power from the Object’s reactor. I doubt that’s enough to use that main canon, so that sky saber probably also generates power via megasolar or chemical oxygen iodine!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me… So what do we do? At this rate, he’s gonna repeatedly slap that delicate princess’s teary face with that giant, rock-hard cannon he’s so proud of!!”

“Please do not say such vulgar things about Lady Staivia even as a joke!!”

“Okay, Heivia. Let’s fight back before he can shoot his white stuff all over that innocent girl’s hair!!”

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The two idiots ignored the screaming maid and continued their conversation.

“But how? He isn’t even coming this way! Staivia will be killed before we can even travel the several kilometers to him. And more importantly, I don’t want to stand up to that monster!!”

“Heivia, how do you think that sky saber aims?”

“What? It’s a collection of space development tech, right? Dimiksy’s giant thing probably has GPS functionality. He can look down at the women’s bath from above the barrier and take careful aim!”

“In that case, we can take it out with jamming.” 

Quenser pointed into the distance with his thumb.

He pointed at the numerous large-scale ECM devices that had been installed here and there on the float to interfere with Staivia and Mikfa’s communications.

“Let’s cut the power cables for the defense system and then reactivate the airport’s emergency power. If we alter the direction of the ECM antennae, we should be able to interfere with his GPS!!”