Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume7 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 5===

Quenser had passed out, so he did not know how much time had passed.

“Gh…”

[[Image:HO_v07_205.png|thumb]]

He groaned and brought a hand to his forehead. He did not know how far he had fallen. He was lying on some kind of floor, but he still did not feel stable. It felt like being on a small rocking boat. He had a strong urge to vomit.

He had no intention of suffocating on his own vomit, so he ignored his aching head and forced himself to sit up.

Lisa Deauville had the top of her uniform removed and was wiping her underarm with a wet towel.

“…Hm?”

“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!? Why am I the one screaming and why are you the one staring in confusiooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!?”

“Is your mind still muddled? You still have your memories, I hope. I do not want to explain everything from the beginning.”

Lisa did not seem to care that Quenser had seen her. She finished wiping the sweat and sand from her upper body and put her uniform back on.

Quenser began to back away from her as he did not know who she truly was, but he stopped when an intense urge to vomit rose up from his stomach.

He could not suppress it, so he turned his head aside and vomited profusely.

“It looks like you hit your head. If you have the rations to spare, you should wait until you finish vomiting and then consume the nutrients your body needs to stabilize itself. You should also make sure there is no blood in your vomit, just to be safe.”

“Wh-who…”

Quenser reflexively reached for his plastic explosives and realized how odd it was his weapons had not been taken from him.

“Who are you? Why did you save me back there?”

“I am Lisa Deauville, a second lieutenant in the Legitimacy Kingdom military. Those two facts remain unchanged. In which case, do I need a special reason to save a fellow soldier? I think abandoning you would cause more problems later on.”

She referred to him as a soldier, so she did not know that he was a battlefield student.

There were at least a thousand people in the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion, so not everyone knew about Quenser. There were a lot of soldiers Quenser had never seen and did not know the name of. It was too soon to jump to any conclusions.

“But I am from a different type of unit than yours,” she continued. “It is not registered in the standard military database. Without access privileges above a certain level, there is no way for me to prove my identity right now.”

“Only the people who believe in the UFO development unit would believe such a suspicious story.”

“I hear that a lot.”

Lisa shrugged and leaned her back against a broken pillar. Quenser looked around once more and found they were in some kind of giant warehouse that had completely lost its roof due to the sand.

“July: western Indian Ocean. October: the underground resource extraction plants in the Greenland Sea. November: the Alaska region. January: the Southern Atlantic Ocean region.”

“?”

“You’re a soldier, right? Haven’t you memorized the battlefields where we have lost?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That is where I work.”

Lisa picked up a water bottle she had likely used to wet the towel from earlier and took a gulp.

“My mission was to bring paint into Oceania.”

Quenser had heard of peaceful missions to bring teaching materials, art supplies, and picture books into battlefields to provide humanitarian aid.

But Lisa was talking about something completely different.

“I was part of the Stalk Killer Unit. You could say I was an expert in withdrawing from the battlefield. Once a battle was deemed lost, someone like me would be secretly sent in. My objective was to keep the enemy army from capturing high-ranking officers, pilot Elites, or important technology related to Objects. In other words, it was a disgusting dirty job of choosing my allies and helping them escape,” she spat out.

Quenser frowned.

“Withdrawing from the battlefield? But this is the age of clean wars fought with Objects. The wars are fought between Objects and once the result has been reached, you send out the white flag signal and leave. We shouldn’t need a unit specialized in withdrawing from the battlefield.”

“If you seriously believe that, you are quite a naïve boy. Real wars are made so they will occasionally destroy all rationality. It’s no different than the certain percentage of defective electronics created in factories.”

“…”

When he thought about it, Quenser realized that had been the case when the Water Strider had pursued them in the Alaska region. The white flag signal only worked if there was mutual trust between both sides. And what Quenser and the others were fighting was a war.

“The military has to lose their pursuers. Simply hiding your tracks is not necessarily enough. You lay countless traps to crush the pursuing hunters. For example, we might set up one or two thousand bombs while cutting across an abandoned city. And they are not set up so anyone can see them. That is where the ‘paint’ comes in.”

“You camouflage them?”

Quenser pulled out the hand axe plastic explosives that he normally used.

If it was shaped with a spatula and colored with paint, it could be made to look like a stone on the road, a piece of broken asphalt, or a piece of styrofoam. If it was made to match the situation and had shadows and stains added on, it could blend into the landscape even for high-quality cameras. That made them no different from the props used for TV and movies. Just like a beer bottle made from candy or a wound made from red food coloring and bandages, no one would notice the bomb set up right next to them.

They would not suspect a thing until it actually detonated.

Lisa let out a heavy sigh.

“A foolish noble decided to make a quick visit to Oceania to gain popularity. The information got out and a group of local guerrillas or possibly disguised Information Alliance soldiers surrounded them. The Stalk Killer Unit was sent into a hellish battlefield as usual. It would have been difficult to escape with any normal means, so our leader said we would pass through a complicated urban area and escape to the nearest Object maintenance base. …And we would of course be laying tons of traps and bombs to lose our pursuers.”

“You don’t mean…”

“I advised him to reconsider.” Lisa placed a hand on her head as if grabbing at her blonde bangs. “The traps are effective, but they do not choose who falls for them. Even if the area was still going through war recovery, life had returned to the city. The people living there were forced to gather anything rare or valuable so they could sell it. It was obvious what would happen if we set up one or two thousands bombs that perfectly blended into the scenery. The city that was finally recovering its smile would be filled with blood and screams. Our real enemy would step over the writhing victims and safely pursue us through the path that was now free of bombs. I told our leader it was meaningless.”

Had they settled on that inhumane means of withdrawal and succeeded?

That thought entered Quenser’s mind for an instant, but he denied it himself.

If so, Lisa would not be here.

“I do not remember what exactly pushed it over the edge, but our argument crossed a certain line. I swear to you, it was our leader who pulled his gun first.”

But it was Lisa who was alive here now.

Quenser did not know how hopeless her situation was and how many “allies” she had been surrounded by, but if what she said was true, she must have won that nightmarish firefight.

That action had not had an obvious merit.

It had not even been based around the honor that was so popular in the Legitimacy Kingdom.

Lisa had simply stopped her unit from going too far and protected the many civilians who would normally have not been in any danger of being lost.

And to do so, she had shot and killed many allies who had trusted her.

“Then why had you infiltrated the Capitalist Corporations’ mobile barricade facility? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I was not trying to infiltrate it. As I travelled through the desert to reach a Legitimacy Kingdom base, they set up their unit in my path. …In fact, your maintenance battalion is pretty much the same.”

“?”

“As you said, this is the age of clean wars. There are people who do not want it to get out that there are constant inhumane missions that ignore the white flag. There are high-ranking members of the military who do not want it to get out that they have been sending out a unit like mine while also claiming to be fighting a clean war. That would be admitting that they have been lying about the clean wars. In the end, I have become an inconvenience to both my enemies and my allies.”

Her enemies were the Information Alliance and the Capitalist Corporations.

Her allies were the Legitimacy Kingdom.

“There is a contradiction in the structure of the wars and I am a symbol of that contradiction. By taking actions that show I have left the military’s control, I have made those high-ranking officials scared, so it seems they will do anything to kill me. By killing me, they can avoid having my information get out.”

Quenser thought about what Lisa was saying.

“You mean the Ex. Wall barricades here and the battle beginning tonight are nothing more than preparations for a single goal?” muttered Quenser blankly. “You mean it’s all to assassinate you? Not just the Baby Magnum, but the Simple Is Best and Hornet Storm, too? This entire battle including three Objects was set up to make sure a single runaway soldier is killed!?”

Three Objects was a large enough force to start a large-scale war.

What she was saying was similar to attacking a country with a nuclear weapon in order to kill a single individual.

“That isn’t something a base commander could do. Only someone directly involved in a much larger power balance could bring together multiple world powers like that. The local commanders are unaware that I, the true target, am on the battlefield. They will simply carry out the camouflage mission given to them. So do not doubt any of the superior officers that you have actually met. That would be meaningless.”

She was implicitly covering for the princess and Froleytia.

But Quenser had never thought either of them were the type to be involved in that kind of conspiracy.

“What are we supposed to do?” groaned Quenser. “You say you’re a survivor of a withdrawal unit not in the military database. And this battle between three Objects is all to kill you and you alone? That’s crazy. Is there any way for a flesh-and-blood soldier to survive that?”

“Are you actually willing to believe me now?”

“I have no objective proof,” immediately spat out Quenser. “But that was not an act when you tried to help me from the collapse earlier. Even Heivia was abandoning me in that situation. If you were from the Capitalist Corporations or Information Alliance and pretending to be an ally, you wouldn’t need to do that.”

“I see,” muttered Lisa under her breath.

That was when the underground structure rumbled ominously.

The deadly Object battle was continuing up above.

“We can take our time to see if you’re telling the truth once we get back to the maintenance base zone. The problem right now is how to survive this battle!! The Baby Magnum is still battling the Hornet Storm. To take advantage of that situation, the Simple Is Best will charge in faster than the speed of sound! If that happens, it’s all over. I doubt our princess can withstand an attack from two sides at once and everything will be blown away if she’s defeated! I will, you will, and everyone in the maintenance base will!!”

“…”

Lisa remained silent for a moment as she thought.

But she soon raised her head.

“No, it isn’t over yet. I won’t let it end like this.”

“What?”

“Come with me. Whatever happens, we need to get out of this underground structure first.”

Lisa led the way and Quenser followed her through the strange abandoned building.

It was a giant space that was over three hundred meters long.

“It looks like some kind of storage base. It may have belonged to the old military government,” said Lisa as they cut across the sand-filled structure without a light.

After a while, they found a rectangular corridor that led to a rusty staircase leading up.

They carefully climbed the stairs while making sure they did not break through them.

Once they reached the surface, Quenser finally realized where they were.

“This belongs to the pipeline cutting across the desert.”

“I think this was originally a terminal facility for drawing up water from unused water veins and sending it to food supply bases. You could call it an extremely forceful and large-scale well. Even if this is a desert, weren’t they afraid of the ground sinking down?”

This facility was rusted and falling apart and the ceiling had caved in. Heivia had joked about ghosts, but that building could easily collapse on its own at any time. Heivia had not been entirely wrong because it could be called a “mass producer of ghosts”.

Once they left the abandoned facility, they saw a large cloud of sand rising into the air.

It was 500 to 700 meters away.

“That’s them. That’s the Baby Magnum and Hornet Storm!!”

“You said another one was coming, right? Was it called the Simple Is Best?”

Suddenly, static came from Quenser’s radio.

Froleytia’s shouting voice followed.

“The Simple Is Best has begun to move! It is travelling south from Route 09 to 37!! If our calculations are correct, it will reach the princess in less than three minutes!! All soldiers in between, make sure you are not caught in the middle!!”

“It’s begun,” muttered Quenser. “Once the Hornet Storm and Simple Is Best are both attacking her, it’s all over! Dammit. I want to support the princess, but we don’t even have any information on a weakness!!”

“…”

Lisa then took an odd action.

She crouched down and pulled something from the ankle of her uniform’s pants.

What she now held in her palm was not a small handgun or knife.

Neither of those would be any help when an Object was attacking.

She held a cylinder about as thick as a coin and as long as a ballpoint pen.

“Boy, you do not need a sign. Just run as quickly as you can from here right this instant. Get as far from me as you can.”

“What are you-…?”

“Weren’t you listening?”

Lisa’s voice grew firm as she removed something like a lid from the cylinder. But the cylinder was not a container and so it was not accurate to call it a lid.

It was an abrasive surface.

Or perhaps it could be called a means of ignition.

“This entire battle was set up to kill me and prevent my information from getting out. The people actually fighting here do not know that, but the schemers behind the scenes should give some clever instructions once they see their true target. …And if they target me, it will cease to be a two-on-one battle!!”

A solid sound rang out.

At the same time, an unnaturally red flame as if from a firework burst from the end of the cylinder. It was hard to tell because it was night, but a lot of chemically colored smoke had likely burst out as well.

“A flare!? You idiot! If you use that here-…!!”

“You’re the idiot!! It’s not too late, so get as far from me as you can!! Right now!! Save yourself!!”

As she shouted, Lisa ran toward the intensely fighting Objects.

There was nothing Quenser could do.

The military satellites, the Objects’ sensors, and the sensors on the guns of the soldiers that might be lurking in the darkness would all have picked up the heat and light from the flare.

Through some route or another, that information reached someone.

A moment later, the state of the battle rapidly changed.

It was like watching an obvious farce or a fixed match.

The Hornet Storm fired countless laser beams chaotically into the desert night. Those attacks were little threat to the Baby Magnum, but it still moved slightly to evade them. Once the orange beams of light missed their target, they struck the desert. With a flash of light as if from welding, the air explosively expanded and a frightening shockwave spread throughout the entire area.

Quenser’s human eyes were not enough to view everything that happened.

But he saw one thing for sure: a puny blonde human was tossed into the air like a poorly made paper airplane in the wind.

“Goddammit!”

The color white filled Quenser’s mind.

The Baby Magnum had been placed in a situation formulated to be difficult, but Quenser threw away the situation that gave her a way out. He also threw away what Lisa herself had just said. The next thing he knew, he was running.

“Goddammiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttt!!”

He ran toward the battlefield.

He ran toward the intense fighting.

He ran toward Lisa as she was slammed into the sand like a broken toy.

He felt a stinging pain in his throat. The air was oddly dry. All the sand in the area was glittering as it reflected the moonlight. That was due to the laser beams the Hornet Storm had fired into the ground. Their overwhelmingly high temperature and not only explosively expanded the air; they had also melted the silicon in the sand. Exposure to the night air had re-cooled the silicone, forming a thin glass coating.

Quenser half-slid up to Lisa and crouched down.

He frantically picked her up and found she was oddly light. This was not due to his mental state. A physical change had come over her.

“Run…”

The smoke and flames from the flare had vanished.

But not because its effective time had ended.

“The ones behind this have lost control of themselves…after seeing the prey…they want so badly. This irregularity…will be quickly fixed. Once their rotten rationality recovers…systematic destruction will cover…this entire area.”

It was gone.

It had been destroyed.

Both the flare and the entire arm that had been holding it were gone. The point from which the arm had been torn had twisted around like a rag being wrung. For better or for worse, this had prevented too much blood loss.

“Is there any meaning to this?”

Quenser frantically pulled out his survival kit. He could not close up the wound with a needle and thread, much less with a bandage. He rethought his plan and realized his only choice was to wrap the bandage under her arm and around her entire body. By tying it tightly, he could constrict the thick artery.

“Is there any meaning to this!? This won’t even buy 20 seconds. The slight wave will quickly be smoothed out! The princess is struggling against the Hornet Storm and the Simple Is Best is charging in at faster than the speed of sound!! That situation isn’t going to change. Throwing a float to someone out in a storm isn’t going to save them, so why did you throw your own life out into the water! Do you want to drown that badly!?”

“The Stalk Killer Unit said the same thing.”

Lisa smiled weakly with blood splattered on her cheek.

It was unclear if she could even see Quenser in front of her.

“But it seems this is my nature. There are times…when I suddenly hate that kind of logical thought. Ahh, maybe I’m not suited…to being a soldier.”

Lisa had not done anything wrong.

She had simply been the single person to give the correct answer among the majority who agreed to the wrong answer.

“And there ''was'' meaning.”

“What meaning?”

“I was able to speak with you. I told you that the Stalk Killer Unit brought a lot of paint into this country… I may not have escaped the ones behind all this, but I was able to tell the truth to one person. That makes this…my victory. This was enough.”

This was the result.

She had tried to protect the civilians from being indiscriminately slaughtered by countless booby traps and she had tried to protect Quenser and Heivia’s unit after running across them on the battlefield. She had always been the only one to reach the correct answer and she was going to breathe her final breath while all alone like this.

Was that okay?

Could Quenser accept a world like that?

“Promise me.”

“…?”

“Once this battle is over and you somehow – it doesn’t matter how right now – managed to survive, promise me you will appear at a court martial. Use that official stage to reveal everything that you’ve seen!! Tell everyone about the special unit for withdrawing, tell them everything the Stalk Killer Unit has done, and tell them about the people working to hide that truth!! Tell them everything. Can you promise me that!?”

“What difference will it make…?”

“I’ll make a promise, too. I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to get you to that courtroom!!”

Lisa’s mind was muddled by the intense pain, but her eyes opened slightly.

Quenser placed her back on the sand and slowly stood up.

He had made up his mind.

In the current situation, he could not save Lisa.

Forcibly cutting off the artery under her arm to stop the bleeding would only last for fifteen minutes. If she was not brought to the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion in that time, she would die. There would be no miracles or coincidences; she would simply die. But the base could not send a helicopter for her due to the Object loaded with the absolute anti-air weapons that were lasers. Given the distance, there was not enough time for a military vehicle to drive out to them. There was a huge difference between a helicopter that could move at 300-400 kph and a vehicle that could only travel at 150 kph. And the vehicle’s speed would be cut in half or even more in the desert.

In other words, the situation had to be resolved in only a few minutes.

The Baby Magnum and the Hornet Storm were close by and the Simple Is Best was approaching from afar. He had to end that nightmarish battle between three Objects.

“Can you hear me, princess?” As he spoke quietly into his radio, his blond hair blew in the cold wind of the desert night. “Don’t think about the Simple Is Best. Do everything you can to defeat the Hornet Storm in a one-on-one battle. If you’re fearing an attack from two fronts, you can’t use your full potential and you can’t defeat the Hornet Storm. That’s an irregular Object designed to attack large cities. It can be used against other Objects, but that isn’t its main purpose. It should be easier than battling a second generation Object.”

“Of course I will win. What is your point?”

“I’m saying we can distribute the work,” he stated as if spitting out the words. ”You handle the Hornet Storm and I’ll destroy the Simple Is Best that’s at the root of all our problems here.”