Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 8===

Heaven and earth seemed to swap places, but Quenser immediately resisted the urge to get up.

The smell of smoke filled his chest.

He checked around and saw a wall of fire behind him. He could not tell how far it spread. The wall of fire stretched from horizon to horizon like a strike from a giant’s flaming sword.

“Cough, cough… What was it this time?”

“It was almost like a pipeline detonating. There’s probably a ten meter deep valley over there. Plus, we have no easy way of crossing that wall of fire.”

They were truly cut off now.

They were about four hundred meters from the wall of fire, but scorched hunks of metal were raining down on the desert.

“Here they come,” said Heivia as he stared through his rifle scope that was supported by a variety of sensors. “They’re apparently going around to mop up the groups that had their escape cut off by the wall of fire. They’re actually coming out from the oasis now!”

Quenser could see them too.

They were not human. Instead, they were bull-like silver robots made of military stainless steel. They had likely been developed to provide cover from bullets and to carry heavy weaponry like a golf caddy, but they now had cameras and heavy machineguns attached to their backs. The guns were bestsellers that could blast through a human heart from two thousand meters away and through a cement wall.

“Shit. Even if they can’t use thermo or radar, they’ll find us if they check behind every dune. I’m not about to die in a spray of 12.7mm bullets. They’d only have a popped water balloon to put in my coffin.”

“…”

Quenser fell silent and began checking through the burned metal scattered about. He grabbed a large radio that a communications soldier had likely been carrying on their back.

“Help me out, Heivia. Let’s destroy them with a quick research project.”

“How!? They’re robots, so they don’t have brains or hearts. Do you have any idea how many bullets we have to put in them before they’ll stop? And they can move freely through all the smart mines. They can move at 60 kph, so it’s all over once they spot us! Making any kind of move will either mean being blown apart by machinegun fire or a landmine!!”

“Listen.” Quenser tapped the large radio with the back of his hand. “Smart mines have a safety that distinguishes between enemy and ally using IC tags and radio signals, right? If we jam them, they won’t be able to tell who’s with the Capitalist Corporations. They assume the safety is working, so their own mines will blow up their robots. Let’s focus the signal on a single point like a parabolic antenna. Then we can reach them.”