Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume3 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 7===

Heivia and his team conveniently realized that things were not advancing according to plan.

“…Shit, this is bad,” groaned Heivia.

All four people there understood the situation without being told.

Danger was approaching before their eyes.

Its form was a giant shadow noticeable even in the darkness.

The countless points of light they could see must have been light waves emitted by the sensors on the ends of the cannons that changed wavelength periodically. Trying to hide in the darkness was not even considered in that weapon’s plan and the word “weapon” was all you needed to describe it.

It was…

“Dammit!! Why is the Wing Balancer coming this way!?”

It was a strange-looking machine.

In the center was the 50 meter spherical main body. The propulsion device at the bottom was made up of two giant concentric circles. Around 20 “legs” connected the sphere to the two concentric circles. The propulsion device was an air cushion that kept the craft afloat with air, so it was unclear what the purpose of the many “legs” was.

For a main cannon, a large coilgun was installed at the front center of the craft. However, its caliber was relatively small. It was likely made to be “small, sharp, and fast” by adding as much acceleration as possible.

In addition to the main cannon powerful enough to pierce through another Object, lasers, rapid fire beam cannons, and other secondary weapons were placed here and there around the sphere. However, with the many “legs” on the lower portion of the sphere, the upper half had a higher concentration of weapons.

Four wing-like objects could be seen on the back of the sphere.

They must have acted as weights to lessen the burden caused during rapid turns.

This was of course not an opponent flesh-and-blood soldiers could hope to defeat.

And the Wing Balancer seemed to realize that. Its many different types of sensors would have located them in an instant, but the Object was not firing on them. It was simply heading straight for them. It was either planning to pass right by them or to crush them as it passed over.

He knew it was pointless, but Heivia leapt behind a nearby rock and then called out to his fellow soldiers.

“Hey, why do you think the Wing Balancer is coming this way!?”

“H-how should I know? Th-the Baby Magnum’s maintenance base zone is behind us. …I-it doesn’t seem concerned with normal soldiers like us, so what if…what if it’s headed for…”

That response had come from the large black man named Cookman. He was hiding behind a different rock.

Myonri had been pulled down to the ground by Westy and she asked a question in a trembling voice

“But wasn’t the Faith Organization Object held in place by our Indigo Plasma!? Could it really leave so easily!?”

“Our allies may have already retreated. They may have seen the operation coming apart, so they left. Their excuse will be that they wanted to reduce the losses as much as possible.”

(…Dammit, Quenser. Did you fuck it up!?)

Heivia tried to use his radio to complain to the other boy, but he received no reply. It was possible they were having to deal with their own trouble on the other side.

But he did not have time to think about it too deeply. The enemy was not going to wait. The Object had approached within 100 meters of them.

“…What do we do?” muttered Cookman, the oldest one there, with his eyes darting about aimlessly. “Where do we run!? Will running even help!? Its range is just too great, not to mention its power. And those sensors won’t let us escape just by hiding behind cover!!”

“Stop it, you idiot!! Don’t panic! This may be an enemy that we can’t fight normally, but panicking will just lose us precious time! It just makes us more likely to die!!” shouted back Heivia in an attempt to hold Cookman’s panic in check.

That large black man was the pillar holding the team together.

If he broke, Myonri and Westy would fall too.

“Think. Let’s think. The enemy isn’t going to overlook us if we tie a white handkerchief to our rifle barrel and wave it around, so we need to think.”

It took a few seconds before Heivia’s words really sunk into Cookman’s head.

Finally, he nodded.

Heivia breathed a sigh of relief.

(God dammit. Encouraging my teammates and bringing back harmony is not the role I was meant to play.)

“That’s right. Let’s go over everything we know.” Cookman leaned his back up against the rock and pointed forward with one of his thick fingers. “We know that cliff is there.”

“What about it? The Object can fire from that distance with perfect accuracy if it tries. Even its smallest cannon can reach us,” replied Heivia.

“It clearly isn’t trying to target foot soldiers. Since it is still headed this way, it must be planning to directly attack the maintenance base zone behind us.”

“Meaning?”

“It can’t target the base from here. That means the Object has to get across that cliff to approach the target.”

“Get across…?” Heivia repeated in shock, but then a thought entered his mind. “You don’t mean the idea of the Wing Balancer having a bridge building device built in, do you?”

“By bridge building device,” said Myonri, “do you mean something like those large work vehicles that have a retractable bridge that can be used to allow the convoy to cross a river? I heard they are something like priceless treasures for mobile maintenance base zones like ours.”

“Cookman is suggesting that the Wing Balancer has one of those retractable bridges built in. But he has no real proof.”

“Well, I doubt it’s coming straight this way just to fall off the cliff.” Cookman moved his fingers to indicate that Myonri and Westy should get even lower to the ground. “But if it does have a bridge building device, then we just might be able to win.”

“You mean interfere during the bridge building process and knock the Object off the cliff?”

“It seems odd for all those ‘legs’ to be in there so complexly. It’s possible those ‘legs’ themselves are what extend to create the bridge. The bridge building devices we’re familiar with are about 60 meters long and take about 5 minutes to complete their work. And during that time, they are completely defenseless.”

“But I doubt our puny little guns will do much to an Object,” said Westy.

Heivia gave a resigned sigh and said, “While it is extending the bridge building device, its balance will be as bad as someone standing on their tiptoes. He’s suggesting we knock it off balance with concentrated fire during that time.”

“It isn’t viewing us as a threat right now, so this is our last chance. If it finds any reason to be cautious of us, just one shot back at us will finish it.”

Hearing Cookman’s comment, Heivia put the rifle that used a sling belt over his shoulder and grabbed his handheld antitank missile launcher instead.

Myonri was equipped with a similar missile, but she must not have been used to using it. Myonri’s small hands were moving too slowly, so Westy grabbed the missile from her and tossed it to Cookman.

“Pay attention to where its center of gravity is. We both fire on my signal.”

“Dammit. No matter who in this unit I get teamed up with, I end up in this kind of danger.”

The Wing Balancer approached in order to cross the 20 meter long gap between cliffs with a 10 meter drop to the water. A creaking noise came from the legs joining the main body to the floats.

While still hiding behind the rock, Cookman made a quiet countdown by lightly tapping the body of his missile launcher with his finger. 

''Three, two, one. 

Heivia held his breath and stood up from behind his rock just as Cookman did the same.

But…

They never fired their missiles.

Something unexpected happened first.

The Faith Organization Object did not possess a bridge building device

It had the ability to cross the gap using a simpler method.

With the sound of compressed air being expelled, the giant mass of steel jumped about 150 meters into the air.

What Heivia felt first in that instant was an intense blast of wind. A portion of the compressed air expelled at the Object’s feet as it jumped across the gap between cliffs and reached them. Heivia then grimaced as he felt an intense pain like his ear drums were about to burst. It was not just the strength of the wind. He felt like the air pressure itself had greatly changed.

And…

[[Image:HO_v03_12.png|thumb]]

With his mouth hanging open, Heivia removed his head from the missile’s targeting device and simply stared blankly up at the sight. He looked like an outfielder following the path of a ball flying so high it would clearly be a home run.

The 200,000 ton mass flew through a large arc.

The scene was so unrealistic that his thoughts completely stopped.

A change occurred to the airborne Object before his eyes. The propulsion device had looked like two concentric circles, but it was not. The circles were split into about 20 smaller fan-shaped portions similar to pieces of canned pineapple. This truly did split it apart into many different “legs” and each of the countless joints was making slight corrections to match the small ups and downs of the ground.

Cookman was the first to come to his senses.

“Get down!!”

“…Uh…Eh?”

“Its propulsion device is an air cushion! It uses the power of air!! How much compressed air do you think it needs to use to support something that huge!?”

They did not have time to respond.

Cookman pressed his back against the rock, and Westy and Myonri pressed themselves against the ground. Heivia rolled into a nearby entrance to the coal mine.

Immediately afterwards, the Wing Balancer landed on the other side of the gap…and quite near Heivia and the other three.

Even so, the 200,000 ton mass did not touch the ground. An artificial cushion of air forcibly held it up. However, unlike with a balloon, this air had no walls to contain it. The massive amount of air used in the cushion was crushed down and scattered in every direction.

As a result…

A roaring shockwave-like wind swept away the powerless foot soldiers.

Westy was pressed against the ground, but her body was ripped up and blown 20 meters horizontally. Cookman was hiding behind a rock, but he and the entire rock were dropped off the cliff. Due to hiding in the coal mine, Heivia escaped the main brunt of the violent wind, but a large mass flew into the entrance and struck him, slamming him against the wall. He thought some rock had been torn from the ground, but it turned out to be Myonri.

The Object had not even needed to fire.

The Object was so huge that no offensive weapons had been necessary to kill flesh-and-blood foot soldiers.

(Cookman!! Westy!!)

Heivia clenched his teeth, but he had no intention of leaving the mine. Those two had taken the violent wind full on and had been blown away. They would have been scraped across the ground and covered all over in scratches. Heivia very much doubted they were alive.

Heivia looked around the area.

He was in the entrance of the coal mine, but he saw no sign of a camera.

After checking to make sure the Wing Balancer was not focused on them, Heivia placed his hand on Myonri’s limp shoulder.

“Myonri, can you move!? Myonri!!”

“Uuh…uuh…”

Myonri shook her head. At first, Heivia assumed she was feeling woozy, but she was actually crying. Even when Heivia helped her stand, she tried to use her unsteady arms and legs to head for the mine’s exit.

She was completely refusing to look at reality.

It was not that she could not understand what was going on. This was not the clean war that the governments of the various countries claimed it to be. Heivia understood the desire to simply cast everything aside and give up out of spite.

But they could not do that.

If they did, only certain death awaited them.

“Please, c’mon. Pull yourself together!! We’re still alive! If we flee deeper into the mine, we might survive!!”

“No…I’ve had enough… We need to go. We need to save everyone.”

Myonri’s still-unfocused eyes were pointed toward the mine’s exit, so Heivia took a bottle of ammonia out of his survival kit. He removed the cap and brought it beneath Myonri’s nose. She coughed and finally turned her now-intelligent eyes toward Heivia.

“What about…What about the other two?”

“Please understand, Myonri. They’re already…”

“I know that!!” shouted Myonri. “I know that. I am not arguing against something as obvious as that. I am asking about their bodies. We need to at least recover their dog tags.”

“If we could, I already would have,” said Heivia like he was spitting out the words. He was surprised at how quiet his own voice was. “They still have belongings back at the base. We can likely find some hairs of theirs in the barracks. We don’t have time to worry about the dead right now. We need to survive ourselves. Cookman was the center of our communications ability, but he’s gone. Our small radios aren’t enough to contact that huge-breasted commander of ours.”

“You said we could flee deeper into the mine, but this is a Faith Organization military facility. Even if they primarily use UAVs, there are sure to be human soldiers in the facility.”

“Yes.”

Heivia tried to force his dried lips into the shape of a smile.

He failed spectacularly.

“But that’s 100 times better than heading out to face that Object.”