Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume2 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 10===

Heivia arrived at the Iguazu Dam.

The foliage was much thicker there than at the coast where they landed. It seemed more of the trees were natural than not. The solid plants with large leaves that were characteristic of tropical countries grew thickly around the area. Heivia had the feeling the area was crawling with giant rhinoceros beetles.

However, that noble heir had not come there to catch bugs.

He looked at the dam.

It was 40 meters tall, about 30-40 meters across, and slightly curved out from the reservoir lake. Supposedly, it could store over 800 million tons of water. That water that had been blocked from its natural flow would cause great damage to the natural world if it was let loose.

(Dammit. There are already off-road vehicles parked here!!)

Heivia carefully looked around the area as he ran while crouched down.

The Baby Magnum and the princess were not there. He had asked her to go help Quenser and Froleytia. He had had two reasons for that. First, the Object could easily destroy the dam on its own, so she would be dangerous help when it came to protecting the dam. Second, he had made a joke about Quenser getting along well with Froleytia and the princess had fallen into a very bad mood.

(…Oh, god. It doesn’t matter how many lives you have, fighting alongside an Object piloted by a distracted Elite is just too dangerous. It’s 100 times better to just do it on my own.)

Heivia held up his rifle and ran so as not to shake his upper body. When he arrived, he pressed up against the wall next to the door into the dam. Other than the dam itself, there was a facility that opened and closed the flood gates, a facility that checked on the water quality, a facility that held the hydroelectric turbines, and more. Heivia was approaching the flood gates facility.

The door was unlocked.

That actually made him uneasy, but he still slowly opened the door and cautiously entered. Just inside, he spotted two workers tied up. The fact that they had not been killed must have been a way of showing that killing was not their intention. However, the massive amount of water released when the dam was blown up would likely kill them anyway.

Heivia concisely told them that a group was trying to blow up the dam, that he had to stop it, and that they shouldn’t panic. He then cut their ropes with his military knife. He told them to evacuate to the mountainous region. Just to be extra safe, he told them to climb up higher than 100 meters.

(…This sure is selfish of us. I’m working with Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers to fight Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers.)

He very nearly spat out that comment, but instead headed for the stairs leading to the higher levels of the dam. On the way, he munched on a cookie the old coffee plantation couple had given him.

(Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers fighting each other is ridiculous, but I at least have to pay them back for these cookies.)

As he moved, he contacted Quenser via radio.

“Hey, Quenser. I sent the princess your way. I made sure she was in a wonderful mood, so could I ask you some things?”

“The Object might be able to detect our location from the radio signal, so keep it short.”

Heivia did not know much about explosives, so he wanted to get some advice from Quenser.

“In movies, blowing a small hole in a dam is enough to have the entire thing crumble from the water pressure. How do things work in reality? Is one of those clay-like bombs enough to destroy the dam?”

“It is true that the water pressure might destroy it once a hole is opened, but putting a crack in walls thick enough to hold all that water would take quite a blast. There’s an easier way.”

“?”

“Dams deteriorate and they will be scrapped if the repairs can’t keep up. They’re made to later be demolished. They create several bypasses, use several small dams to hold back the water, and blow away a few premade checkpoints in the empty dam to demolish it. A few dozen years ago, the issue of dam deterioration came to the forefront and they started being made like that,” explained Quenser.

Heivia frowned.

“How many checkpoints are there and where are they?”

“It depends on the design of the dam. If you check the control room or find some documents…no, wait. If they kept that information where someone could easily find it, it could make a terrorist attack easier. It’s probably hidden deep down in the construction company’s offline database. And there won’t be any obvious signs.”

“You’re useless!! How am I supposed to protect an unknown number of points at unknown locations!?”

“Whether there are 20 or 30 of these checkpoints, I think all of them have to be destroyed to demolish the dam. For safety reasons and to help with repairs, the checkpoints will be in the places where any single one can support the dam. That way the dam won’t collapse if one is destroyed. In other words, you just have to find one bomb and cut the cord so it won’t detonate. Then you just need to defend that point to stop Bilany Saronno’s plan.”

“This bomb isn’t going to be some complex monstrosity like in the movies, is it?” Heivia clicked his tongue. “So I have to search at random. I can’t do a single thing if the bombs are detonated before I find one. I just wish I knew exactly how many there were.”

“How about you jam them?”

“You mean use a jamming signal? What for?”

“A massive amount of water will be released when the dam is blown up. I doubt Bilany and the others are opting for a noble death, so they’ll get far away and high up before blowing up the dam. In that case, they’ll be using a radio signal to detonate the bombs, right?”

“I see.” A powerful smile appeared on Heivia’s face. “In that case, I can buy time without knowing how many there are.”

The top portion of the dam making a gentle curve along the reservoir lake was like a giant castle wall. When Heivia grabbed the railing and leaned over, he spotted something like clay attached to the center of the thick wall.

It was a bomb.

Perhaps to regulate the destructive force, a number of bombs were set up in some kind of pattern. Something like a metal sheet was set up on one side of the bombs to focus the blast on the dam.

The area of the wall looked no different from the rest of the wall, but since the plastic explosives were set there, that had to be one of the checkpoints.

How had Bilany and the others known where the checkpoints were?

They must have had some kind of data on the dam. Or perhaps they had gotten someone who knew to talk.

(Shit, how did they get those there!? Did they tie a rope and jump down like in some action movie!?)

However, he could jam the detonation signal to the bomb, so it would not explode. That just left confronting Bilany’s unit…

“Wait a second,” muttered Heivia all of a sudden.

A thin bundle of cords extended from the bombs attached to the side of the dam. It was not just a meter or two long. The long cord hung down to the bottom of the dam and then continued on into the thick forest.

“Shit!! They’re doing a wired detonation!! Now I can’t jam it!!”

Heivia frantically held up his rifle, but then he stopped. There were two types of cords for wired detonations. One was a normal cable that sent an electric signal. The other was like an old-fashioned fuse. A fire was set that caused a small explosion in the plastic explosives fuse which detonated the explosive itself.

The cable type would be no problem, but the old-fashioned fuse type held a risk of catching fire if he severed the cable with his rifle.

But at the same time, the bomb could be detonated at any time with the cord connected. He did not have time to sit around thinking.

Suddenly, Quenser’s voice came in over the radio.

“Fire!! Don’t worry. That’s a cable for an electric fuse!!”

“How can you tell? It isn’t something you can tell just by looking!”

“The old-fashioned fuse type is used like a timer. It’s just like dynamite. The plan here relies on perfect timing between the flood caused by the dam and the Baby Magnum firing, right? They need to be able to blow up the dam at any time in order to get the perfect timing. Why would they use a fuse that can’t be changed once it’s lit!? This has to be a cable for an electric fuse!!”

“!!”

Heivia brought his rifle back up, aimed it straight down, and pulled the trigger.

Multiple bullets flew and one of them severed the bundle of cables. The bombs did not explode. Quenser had been right.

Now that the cables had been severed, the detonation signal could not be sent to the bombs.

However, there was someone who was not pleased with that.

A female Legitimacy Kingdom soldier had come back up to the top of the dam to set bombs on another checkpoint.

(…Is that Saronno from the front lines scouting unit!?)

“!!”

“!?”

At that moment, Heivia and Bilany Saronno were at the entrances near opposite ends of the gently curving dam. The two leapt into the doors at almost the exact same moment and stuck only their rifle barrels back out.

Multiple streams of gunfire rang out.

(Dammit, she’s actually pretty good looking!! I don’t want pretty girls turning their guns on me! Why couldn’t she have been so hideous she was hard to look at!? Although while I’m at it, I might as well wish she was downgraded to a guy or even a Martian.)

Meanwhile, he could hear multiple voices coming from his radio. Since Bilany’s unit was from the Legitimacy Kingdom too, he was picking up their transmissions.

“Corporal Saronno, we’re headed your way. Do we need a rocket launcher?”

“We need to get the signal in to detonate the bomb. After taking out Private Heivia Winchell, we just need to reconnect that cable.”

“Circle around from the other side. Meet up with another group and head up the stairs. We’ll catch him in a pincer attack.”

“If necessary, we can treat Private Heivia Winchell as a traitor for getting in the way of our operation, so do not hesitate to shoot him. Continuing the operation takes top priority.”

“Dammit!! Why does everything have to be such a pain in the ass!!” shouted Heivia.

Heivia leaned just a bit out from the door and aimed at a soldier at the bottom of the dam who was aiming a rocket launcher at him. The rifle bullets struck the ground near the soldier. He had not shot him in the head or chest, but that may have been due to the fact that he was a fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldier was affecting him more than he thought. The soldier’s aim was thrown off in shock and the rocket flew off harmlessly.

When Bilany and the others saw that, they increased the intensity of their firing. Heivia frantically hid behind the building, but then he heard footsteps coming from below the stairs.

(We’ve all received the same training, so is this a case where the winner is decided by numbers!?)

Meanwhile, the female soldier who was likely Bilany called out.

“Private Heivia Winchell!! Lay down your weapon and surrender!! It is not right for fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers to be fighting each other!!”

“(Liar!! She was clearly fully intending to kill me!! Does she not know I can hear their transmissions!? Dammit, she’s both clumsy and a tsundere. This is making it harder and harder to kill her!!)”

“What will you do!? If you do not respond, I will take that silence as your answer!!”

A temporary calm from the gunfire accompanied Bilany’s voice. She may have been giving him his last chance to announce his intentions. Heivia had a feeling he might end up full of bullet holes depending on his answer.

Whatever the case, he was cornered.

If he was attacked from more than one direction simultaneously, he would have no way of dealing with it. If more than one explosive weapon like a rocket launcher or grenade were used against him, he could do nothing about it.

Heivia gave the issue serious thought.

(I only have one chance at victory.)

“Corporal Bilany Saronno!!” He shouted back. “The Baby Magnum has already gone to help the battlefield student named Quenser who is studying with the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion! She has not gone to the remains of that abandoned alpine vegetation mass production plant as you suggested!! If you blow up the dam now, it will accomplish nothing!!”

“Is that your final answer!? If you do not prove you no longer intend to fight, we will be forced to shoot you!!”

“That’s not what I mean!!” Heivia shouted forcefully. “Your plan is to destroy the Mass Driver conglomerate Object with one of the Baby Magnum’s main cannons, right!? Then what about this? If Quenser and the others destroy the Object before you blow up the dam, you will no longer have a justifiable reason to cause that flood!!”

“That’s…!?” Bilany trailed off, but she gathered her thoughts soon thereafter. “How are we supposed to trust you!? That monstrous weapon destroyed the cutting edge Bright Hopper in a single blast from 500 kilometers away!! Are you saying a mere student will take out something like that!?”

“…Yeah. I am!!” Heivia replied without hesitation.

He abandoned the option of giving up peaceably and pulled the trigger to a deadly battle once more.

“So I need to buy him enough time to do it!! I’m gonna be firing like crazy, so don’t mess up and get yourselves killed!!”