Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 4===

Things could hardly be worse.

The cargo tank must have been loaded with something like tank shells with their fuses swapped out. With those van-sized containers packed full, this reached the level of a small aerial bombing. The blasts and shockwaves covered a radius of 200m.

The only reason Quenser and Heivia were not turned to mincemeat was due to falling into a thick trench in the dry ground. There were traces of concrete mixed in with the scorching sand. This must have originally been an agricultural irrigation ditch, but it had completely dried up.

“We’re dead. We are so dead. That big mama’s ass exploded in our faces. That ultra-heavyweight mama has no tact at all. Don’t just fart in people’s faces.”

“More importantly, what happened with the real cargo tanks? The guerillas didn’t collect them, did they!?”

The smoke would not cover the battlefield forever. The wind had grown stronger, so Quenser and Heivia made certain they did not stick their heads above the former irrigation ditch. They watched as the cotton candy cleared away overhead, revealing the brutal near-equator sun overhead once more.

With the pink smokescreen gone, they switched from ultrasound to ordinary encrypted radio for their transmissions.

Their 18-year-old leader, Frolaytia Capistrano, had this to say:

“A9 failed to reach their target. I repeat, failed to reach their target. The guerillas have entered the cargo tank. The threat level just increased, so be on your guard!!”

“Shut up! If you don’t like it, get out here and do it yourself!! Oh, this isn’t good! The adrenaline is hitting me in all the wrong ways!”

They were not going to fix anything by saying unwise things much like someone in a sleep-deprived high after trying and failing to get to sleep. It would only get them in trouble later on, so wise Quenser asked about something else.

“Frolaytia, what weapon did the guerillas obtain?”

“Hm, hmmm.”

“Look at the screen and stop covering your eyes!! I’ll record any more of those naughty-sounding groans, so please just tell us the bad news already!!”

He really wanted their beautiful and capable adult of a commander to understand the simple fact that they were the ones who wanted to cry. Please.

Finally, the silver-haired and busty commander responded.

“They managed to acquire some of the UGV22 Lunchboxes used by the Capitalist Corporations. They now have around 20 of those unmanned ground vehicles.”

“Unmanned!?”

“The enemy must like packing things in tight to fit 20 of those in a single cargo tank. What are they, a Class Rep or a young housewife? Each one is 3m long, weighs 2 tons, and has 50cm-thick armor on the front. Their primary weapons are a heavy machinegun and a grenade launcher. They’ve made those small things as tough as an armored truck and they can charge right into a barrage since they’re unmanned. Do not let them near you because they will ignite their remaining ammo to self-destruct if they’re immobilized. I don’t want to waste our human primates on those masses of metal and silicon, so prepare for electronic warfare!!”

Armored trucks had thin armor compared to tanks, but they were still too much for an assault rifle or grenade to handle. These unmanned vehicles were apparently only 3m long, but since they did not need any space for anyone inside, they could be packed in tight to reduce the size of the entire weapon.

They might as well have had 3m hunks of metal coming for them.

That was a problem.

No one wanted to try punching or kicking something like that and throwing rocks from afar would do nothing to slow them. They would always move at a constant speed and attack with deadly accuracy. They did not even care if they stepped in dog doo.

“What do we do? We left our machinegun in that crater and the others in this area will have already retrieved it. We only have its spring! This thing won’t not even satisfy a bored housewife!!”

“Quit flopping that thing around, Heivia. Argh, why’d the smokescreen have to clear up now? If we don’t find another way to stop those things, they’ll turn us to Swiss cheese from a safe distance.”

They only had so many shoulder-fired missiles and it would be foolish for the humans to raise a war cry and go charging in against remote-controlled toys. They were fighting with their one and only life which could not be repaired or replaced if something happened to it. Their best bet was to find some way to cut off the guerillas’ line of communication, cause a malfunction in the unmanned weapons’ circuitry, or otherwise avoid fighting them altogether.

“Hey, what do we do?” asked Heivia. “Unmanned weapons were supposed to be our thing. I don’t wanna fight a war with inferior tech, so I vote we go home.”

“How in the world did you look at that enormous elevator and conclude we had the superior tech here? Besides, the guerillas are only borrowing those things from the Capitalist Corporations. Come with me, Heivia, this has turned into a battle of engineering. Those guerillas haven’t read the manual and just assume they know what they’re doing, just like pretty much everyone with their phones, so let’s show them how wrong they are.”