Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume6 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 18===

Sogia and the others from Unicorn ran through the remains of the 5 square kilometers of Flightburg Air Force Base that had been almost entirely destroyed. Almost all of the buildings had crumbled and it was no longer immediately obvious what each facility had been. They travelled across the rubble while keeping the layout in their heads.

The Achilles’ heel to Dimiksy Nikolaschka and his Broad Sky Saber was somewhere there.

They had no idea what it was or what role it played, but there was definitely something there.

It may have seemed they had no hint whatsoever, but they had a rough guess.

“The royal Nikolaschka family was heavily involved in the construction of the Object, but what unit handled its maintenance and operation? Is there some other maintenance battalion with around 1000 members? No, that would have shown up in our information network somewhere. They can’t completely hide a unit that large.”

“So you’re saying they took personnel and equipment directly from Flightburg?”

“If so, there should still be spare parts and maintenance information for the Broad Sky Saber here!!”

“So Dimiksy bombarded the air force base because he determined we could find a weakness from that, hm?”

Dimiksy had to have been able to make a decent guess as to where the weakness of his lay hidden.

And yet he had fired his sky saber at the runway in the very center of the base.

He may have been trying to show off his ability to blow away the entire base with just that one shot, but Sogia guessed there was some other reason behind it.

If he had fired directly at his target, there was a slight risk they could have searched that area and found a hint in some melted equipment.

Dimiksy had caused more general destruction of the base because he was afraid of that possibility.

He did not want to tell anyone what he was specifically targeting.

People who plotted out detailed conspiracies were bold yet cowardly at the same time. And so he had imagined many different possibilities and acted to crush them all ahead of time.

“Let’s approach this third generation Object from both the information and material angles. We need to split up. One group will search for information from the server in the control and communications facility and the other will dig up any materials they can find in the row of giant hangers.”

Sogia and Sanya went for the information while Mars and Flat went for the materials.

Both groups ran through the rubble along with the Unicorn subordinates who had survived the large-scale bombardment.

The resistance from Flightburg Air Force Base had completely stopped. It had either been wiped out by the bombardment or the destruction of the base by their supposed ally led the men to realize there was no escape for them even if they won.

Unicorn naturally intended to neutralize any soldiers that could move, but it appeared they need not continue the meaningless battle for the meantime.

The burning power had disappeared from the surrounding air, but it was still absurdly hot. It was worse than crossing a desert. An open outdoor area should never have been that hot.

Sogia drank some saline that was originally meant as a substitute for a blood transfusion. Normal water lacked electrolytes, so he would have definitely come down with heatstroke otherwise.

“Damn, this place is a sauna. I’ve made my way through plenty of battlefields, but it isn’t normal for the act of walking to feel like it’s wearing down your lifespan.”

“This heat makes me want some coffee milk. And did you notice the clouds that have started to cover the sky around here? They’re moving in really fast.”

“Did the sudden change in temperature mess up the atmospheric pressure or something? Well, I could go for a gift from god right about now. I want something to cool everything down.”

“This might be a meteorological weapon that ignores the normal weather patterns. This could be an attempt to wash away our precious hint in a concentrated downpour.”

The control and communications facility was supposed to be a giant tower, but Sogia and the others only saw a flat pile of rubble spread out before their eyes. It was impossible to tell where anything had been.

“This is too much to dig up by hand. It would be faster to check for any usable heavy machinery or powered suits.”

One section of the defense industry created sturdier versions of existing construction equipment such as tractors and cranes. There was more to war than just the spectacular firefights seen in movies. And even 4WD off-road vehicles often had small winches or cranes on them despite not being specialized for those uses.

“There’s a tank with a blade like a bulldozer. It’s probably meant for clearing anti-personnel mines.”

That had been constructed based on the extremely rough idea of clearing a path through a dangerous minefield by blowing up the mines. Sanya got into the front driver’s seat and Sogia sat in the commander’s seat on the turret.

They managed to clear the surrounding rubble away despite some trouble due to the blade’s low range of motion.

Finally, an area spewing orange sparks was uncovered.

“There we go. The main power cable is making quite the commotion.”

“…Let’s get this over with before it starts raining. If this area gets wet, I doubt we will be able to do anything.”

After getting out of the tank and clearing some smaller rubble, they found a mass of plastic that looked like it had melted and then re-solidified. They saw a circuit board sticking out through a gap. It was unclear if the board had any power running to it, but the capacitors would have power stored for a set amount of time. Touching it still held the risk of blowing off a finger.

“I don’t see how this could still run. Not to mention that every single monitor has been destroyed.”

“I don’t care if it’s partial or corrupted data; we need to get everything out of this we can. It’s the same Legitimacy Kingdom format, so it should be easier than if this was an enemy nation’s system.”

Sanya connected a cable from her handheld device and began extracting data, but then Sogia and the others heard the rumbling of thunder overhead.

They looked up to find the sky already covered by dark storm clouds.

It could start pouring at any moment.

“Are you done yet!?”

“This is a huge amount of information! This isn’t some hard disk recorder bought at an extreme discount!!”

“If it starts to rain, an electric current on the level of a train’s overhead line will be scattered all over this area. Hurry!”

“Unfortunately, my handheld device didn’t come with the option that makes it work faster when you yell at it!”

That was when a Sogia felt something lukewarm land on his head.

It was the “gift from god” that he had been hoping for within that scorching hell.

And yet he grimaced and grabbed Sanya’s shoulder.

“Time’s up!”

“Just a bit longer!!”

“Do you want to be burned to a crisp like you’re being cooked on an iron plate by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing!? We’re getting out of here!!”

Sogia forcibly dragged Sanya away from the remains of the server. The cable from her handheld device stretched to its limit and then popped out of the connector. They moved away as quickly as they could manage.

And in the next instant, the rain came down like someone had overturned a bucket.

A bluish-white explosion erupted with the melted remains of the server in the center.

“That was close!!”

“Oh, come on. I’m not sure I even got 1% of it!”

The area had grown dark due to the storm clouds that had appeared and Sogia could see a pale bluish-white light at the peaks of the piles of rubble.

(St. Elmo’s fire…a coronal discharge. Shit. The weather worsened so quickly the entire area has begun to electrify.)

Lightning could strike at any moment, but he did not have time to be constantly worrying about the weather.

“It would have been impossible to take in all of the data from such a large server in the first place. More importantly, Sanya, can you read any of the data you did get?”

“It’s mostly destroyed. I can’t even open the files. It’s at a level where the software doesn’t even recognize it.”

“Convert it to binary data and then run some recovery software to try to fill in the holes. We might at least get a broad outline of the data pattern.”

Sanya did as instructed and the data was finally converted into something readable.

About half the text was corrupted, the images were in complete disarray, and the color scheme was a psychedelic mess of primary colors, but they could at least guess what kind of file it was from the portions that were just barely readable.

“This is a maintenance file for the Broad Sky Saber.”

“What a shame. There had to be some schematics in that server…”

“If this is a file for maintenance rather than a schematic, it would only have data on the main Object on the land. It wouldn’t need data on the main cannon unit up in orbit.”

“Is this what Dimiksy wanted to eliminate?”

“I don’t know. But we have no choice but to read through it.”

But then Sogia’s radio let out an electronic tone.

He received a transmission from Mars who had gone to look for the physical equipment.

“We found a few spares for the cannons and armor. They are parts for an Object, so even burying them under rubble wasn’t enough to completely destroy them!”

“Have you found anything that could be Dimiksy’s weakness?”

“Nothing yet. But we did find a sturdy container in the hangar rubble. It looks more like a gigantic mobile safe than it does a container. Flat is trying to overheat the electronic lock to get inside, but it’s possible some emergency lock will activate if the security notices his attempts. Have you found any data on what might be inside!?”

Sanya shook her head.

It was not that she had not found anything special.

It was quite the opposite.

“This is a cutting edge Object that is said to be part of the third generation. Everything about it is filled with classified information and is therefore highly valuable. It could be almost anything.”

“Mars, how big is the container? Let’s make a list of all the parts that could fit inside.”

“Um…It’s a cube with about 5 meter sides. It’s probably the kind of container meant to be carried on a cargo plane instead of a ship.”

“5 meters. What could be in there?”

“Just a quick glance shows over 200 possibilities,” replied Sanya.

“Oh, he did it! It’s open! It’s open! Nice job, Flat! The contents are…the hell is this?”

“Mars, report! If you really don’t know, use your handheld device’s camera to send an image!”

“It’s an ultraviolet signal.” Mars must have grabbed some kind of equipment because a hard clanking sound could be heard over the radio. “It’s a powerful ultraviolet signal that uses a program to send out a blinking pattern like Morse code! My guess is it’s a safety device to prevent allies from being hit by the orbital bombardment!”