Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume8 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 13===

It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

That was the honest opinion of the ace pilot girl of Sky Blue Inc., a Capitalist Corporations aerial PMC. She surrendered herself to the hard rock loudly playing from the smartphone she had brought into the cockpit.

The blue sky beyond the clear canopy was interrupted by several streams of black smoke, but the losses were not from her side. The Legitimacy Kingdom warships were being set ablaze one after another.

It would not have been this easy in the Northern Restricted Zone where she normally fought. The powerful long-time fighters of those never-ending death-filled battlefields did not rely on Objects. They would have seen right through this disturbance tactic and used manual targeting to swat down the bothersome flies. Destroying a heavy cruiser with just a handful of aircraft was worth a hero’s medal, so the girl found it almost disturbing that they were about to reach double digits so easily.

(The company ordered me to score some points here, but I guess this is what it’s like in the outside world. The only way to die on this battlefield is falling asleep because it’s so boring.)

She gave instructions to her colleagues over the radio.

She could see their next target.

It was a small aircraft carrier used as a flagship. To distribute the risk, there were a few identical ships in the fleet, but the thickness of the defensive barrages made it immediately obvious which was the flagship.

“Ice Girl 1 to Ice Unit. On my signal, perform a unified attack on the aircraft carrier’s bridge. Attack from the top to throw the bottom into chaos. And if I’m correct, that ship is connected to the Object. Hopefully the panic will spread to the star of the battlefield.”

The ship’s Gatling gun close-in weapon system began firing once they arrived within 100 meters, but a few thousand shots a minute was not enough to eat into their fighters. The bullets simply travelled across the ocean and tore into the neighboring ship.

Ice Girl 1 flew on through.

She even looked through the thick bulletproof glass and saw a silver-haired woman who appeared to be the commander. The woman was staring quietly at her.

But Ice Girl 1 did not care.

Her thumb gently stroked the button on top of the stick that fired a missile.

The pack of wolves would crush the head of the fattened herbivore.

But something happened just before that.

“CT to Ice Unit! Defense Charlie detected at nine o’clock. I repeat, an AAM Defense Charlie detected at nine o’clock!! Cancel it ASAP!!”

(…!?)

There had been no missile alert.

Or rather, there were so many meaningless targeting signals coming from the surrounding ships that she had not noticed this sudden intruder.

After Ice Girl 1 gave instructions to the others, they stopped attacking and took scattered evasive actions. The four fighters split into groups of two and flew past either side of the bridge at tremendous speed. The supposedly bulletproof windows shattered, but the aces did not have time to check on that.

“Ice Girl 1 to CT! Cancel confirmed! #4 was hit by some fragments, but it’s still active!!”

“There was no targeting signal just before it fired. The enemy is likely using visual identification. It’s using semi-active targeting and the pilot seems to be directly targeting you by sight!!”

In that instant, Ice Girl 1 felt a chill run along her spine.

It did not come from fear.

It did not come from unease.

It did not come from terror.

The vector of this emotion was in the exact opposite direction.

“Here it comes.”

The girl named Mariydi Whitewitch smiled fiercely.

“Something’s coming and it lives in the same world as us! Ice Unit, remember the real battlefield. The practice run ends here!!”

A moment later, someone sent out a transmission on an open and unencrypted band.

“Don’t grin like that with a job this boring. I’m sure you’re getting tired of tripping up those who have grown rusty thanks to the Objects. How about you let another ace pilot join you in this outdated sky, Ice Girl of the Capitalist Corporations.”

The man’s pretentious manner of speech reminded Ice Girl 1 of a certain fact.

The Legitimacy Kingdom had their own ace. While she and her colleagues stuffed everything necessary to fly into a human shell, this pilot flew a delta-wing fighter that looked like a beautiful sword and was created by removing all but the absolute necessities from the flying machine. He was a steel grim reaper who supposedly preferred using inconvenient semi-active targeting and would occasionally toy with the enemy fighters by “redoing the targeting” of missiles that flew off in the wrong direction.

[[Image:HO_v08_082.jpg|thumb]]

When she recalled his name, she licked her lips.

“Burning Alpha. I never thought I would run across the Legitimacy Kingdom’s scarlet evil eye!!”

“Stop it. That’s embarrassing. Unlike you, I’m much too old for those childish nicknames. Now I’m just itching to shoot you down.”

Even as they spoke, the fight to the death had already begun.

They weaved between the warships, chased and were pursued, and performed countless combat maneuvers as they attempted to take up position behind the other.

The line of ships momentarily got between them.

“By the way, hard rock during a dogfight? You have terrible taste. It’s just too cliché. Did you get it from a Hollywood movie? Or maybe a video game? Just so you know, classic is best no matter what you’re doing. You need to grow out of that childish stuff and maybe grow some breasts too.”

“You might think you’re being intellectual, but you’re just polishing a fossil. I can’t stand how the Legitimacy Kingdom thinks anything’s good as long as it’s old and musty. It’s disgusting. You might as well be praising cheese that smells like wet socks.”

“…”

“…”

Silence fell.

A slight gap in the line of ships appeared and the wall dividing the two fighter units disappeared.

The masses of metal crossed paths as they weaved through the slight gap.

The ace pilots began their battle as they worked to rule the sky.