Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume2 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 5===

And so they headed to Antarctica.

The terrorists were supposed to be hiding at Mount Erebus which was near the sea, but Quenser and the others used a boat to land on the coast rather than fly directly there. From there, they and about 100 fellow soldiers slowly approached in a circle around the area. The soldiers taking part in the operation usually acted as guards around the base. As they were also using tanks and attack helicopters, they seemed like a force from an earlier age.

“Are you serious?” muttered Heivia as he walked alongside Quenser. “This is Antarctica. Let me say that again: Antarctica. What am I doing? I was supposed to work in a base for 3 years in order to become the next head of my family. What am I doing here? Has that giant-breasted commander of ours forgotten that I’m a radar analyst?”

“Come to think of it, I came to the base as a battlefield student in order to study the Object, so why am I on this ice continent that doesn’t have the first thing to do with Objects?”

“God dammit. We’re just human antennae. They could just use drones for this.”

“With this gusting wind, UAVs would be hard to use. Also, the radio signal is easy to intercept, so they probably aren’t a good idea for dealing with terrorists.”

“What kind of serious response is that? Did you awaken to your masochist side under that beauty of a commander?”

“I just want to finish this so we can leave. I really don’t care about a job that has no connection to Object designs. Heivia, you need to learn how to just get things over with like an adult,” said Quenser in a bored tone of voice, but it did not seem Heivia was listening.

Heivia looked up into the white sky and said, “By the way, this is Antarctica, right? There’s one thing I’ve been wondering for a bit now. Mind if I ask it?”

“The wonders of nature are outside my area of expertise. If you want an explanation, ask one of the environmental protection organizations.”

“Oh, it’s nothing tricky.”

Antarctica was an ice continent. In some places, the temperature was as low as 50 below zero, making it a true area of frozen earth. In that white land, water spent more time of the year as a solid than as a liquid. The same went for humans. If a flesh and blood body was thrown out into that extreme environment, it would be frozen solid more often than not.

Or so it should have been.

“Why is it so damn hot in Antarctica?” groaned Heivia as he removed the hood of his cold weather coat.

He awkwardly wiped the sweat from his brow and looked around. In the animal documentaries he had seen, the area had been a flat land of pure white, but they were currently standing on a ground made of black stone. Also, white steam could be seen coming up from the ground in places. A powerful crosswind was blowing through and white snow continued to fall from the clouds above, but the steam kept them from feeling cold and the snow melted just before it touched the ground, so it did not accumulate. Nothing matched the image he had had in his head.

Meanwhile, Quenser looked down at the reading from a digital thermometer.

“The seasons in the southern hemisphere are reversed, right? It’s almost summer here. Even so, the air temperature is -3.9 degrees. You’d get cold in no time if you took off your coat.”

“No way. This is below zero? I feel like I’m in a sauna.”

“This is a volcanic area, so a strange heat does temporarily come from the ground. I remember a major eruption 2 years ago that made news by majorly changing the crater. You’re just feeling hot because of that. If you stay still, you’ll start to get cold, so you should put your hood back up.”

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!” laughed Heivia without warning.

Quenser looked over with a confused look and Heivia pointed in a certain direction.

“Look, Quenser!! It’s a hot spring. We’re in Antarctica and yet there’s a hot spring coming up from the ground!!”

“…I already told you this was a volcanic area.”

“But it’s a hot spring! In Antarctica!! This place is destroying everything I thought I knew about it!!”

As he spoke, Heivia removed his thick gloves. He crouched down at the edge of the pool of water that had white steam rising from it and stuck his hand in.

“Oh…wow. It feels like it’s a perfect 40 degrees.”

“Stop it, Heivia. If we got in a hot spring, we would just stop caring about this war.”

They were reluctant to leave, but Froleytia was sure to yell at them if they fell into the trap of that hot spring. So the two headed onwards.

The 100+ other soldiers were heading along too, but the circle was so wide Quenser and Heivia could not see any of the others.

They walked across the land of hard, black stone based on the map displayed on their handheld devices. After travelling some distance, the dark ground became covered in white snow and ice. The ground seemed flat, but it was actually sloped gently down to the extent that a ball would roll slowly forward if it was placed on the ground. The temperature seemed to be slowly falling as well. The white land continued as far as they could see in every direction and they could see no obvious landmarks. Merely looking away from the map was enough to make them feel lost.

Quenser looked down at the small pieces of ice that crunched under their feet as they walked.

“Oh, now this is more like what I expected of Antarctica.”

“Ow!? This isn’t just cold; it hurts! Hey, Quenser. There’s something weird about my face, can you see anything odd there!?”

“The sweat on your face is freezing. I’m guessing it hurts because it’s pulling at your skin.”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!!” shouted Heivia as he frantically brushed the tiny bits of ice off his face and pulled up his hood. “Dammit! If it’s suddenly going to get Antarctica-like, why can’t it just be something cute with penguins!?”

“This much ice is quite a sight. You’d probably get sick of it after a few days, though.”

“Why are you taking this so well, Quenser? Are you from some cold country?”

“No. I’m more fed up with ice than anything,” said Quenser with a shrug. “When I was in my safe country school, we did all sorts of experiments with breaking rectangular sheets of ice to teach us the basics of Object armor. We would see how the cracks would run through it by striking it in different places.”

“Why ice? Object armor is made of steel.”

“With water, it’s easy to reuse. With a freezer, the experiment can be repeated as many times as you want. Also, we just needed to learn the basics of how the cracks worked, so there was no reason to use steel plates fine-tuned with highly flame resistant reactive material that requires an expensive artisan. By mixing in some chemicals to increase the viscosity before freezing it, it cracks the same way. We also performed experiments where we found more efficient means of absorbing impacts by destroying the balance of the viscosity,” said Quenser with a sigh.

It was due to how boring he found those school lessons that he had actually headed out to the battlefield.

Quenser then changed the subject.

“Come to think of it, what are the terrorists doing in the middle of nowhere like this? Did they get a surface to air missile just for some sightseeing?”

“You know nothing, Quenser,” responded Froleytia over the radio. “Antarctica has been an area of intense competition between many nations over who has rights to what areas even before the UN was destroyed.”

“…? I thought Antarctica had no national borders?”

“Because it has none, various forces have tried to claim it for themselves and have gotten in fights over it. Antarctica has iron and coal mines after all. The ocean also has plentiful areas to fish. It has plenty to compete over,” explained Froleytia offhand. “Currently, the powers claiming rights to Antarctica are the Oceanian military nation that was destroyed before, Western America’s Central Valley area of the Capitalist Corporations, the Chonos Archipelago area of the Information Alliance, and the southern Great Britain area of the Legitimacy Kingdom.” 

Quenser frowned at that. 

“Oceania and the Chonos Archipelago are in the southern hemisphere, but West America’s Central Valley is around Los Angeles, right? And southern Great Britain is where London is… Those areas have no connection with Antarctica.”

“They are bringing out their pioneering spirit and insisting the people who first discovered the continent have a claim. If it went in the order the expeditions were sent out, they would have the best claim, but that thought process does not take the concerned parties into account just like during the Age of Exploration.”

That meant the terrorists (or so they were officially being called whoever they might actually be) must have targeted the Legitimacy Kingdom survey plane with a surface-to-air missile due to trouble related to either Antarctica’s territories or resources.

(But that is not the real issue. In this age of Objects, the soldiers like us being forced to run around with a gun have it worst…)

“Do you have something you would like to say, Quenser?” asked Froleytia.

“N-no!! Nothing at all!!”

“I have one piece of good news for you. You need not get into a firefight with the terrorists once you find them. Our wonderful Object is on standby at the Ross Sea, so our cute waitress can blow them away with a long distance barrage once you get us their location.”

“Then,” said Heivia with his breathe showing up white in the cold air. “Couldn’t you have just used a military satellite instead of having us walk all the way there? In this day and age, you can get a villa on the moon and shuttles are 
either launched by laser space elevators or mass drivers. Satellites are as plentiful as empty cans on the side of the street. But I suppose I can’t expect a commander giving orders while sipping hot cocoa on the bridge of an assault landing aircraft carrier to understand how we feel shivering in the cold.”

“Things get a bit tricky when it comes to the Arctic or Antarctic,” Froleytia replied smoothly while completely ignoring that last disagreeable comment. “A geosynchronous satellite using the centrifugal force of the earth to hang near the equator can’t see this far. Some satellites do orbit perpendicular to the equator, but they can only monitor an area during a specific time of the day.”

“Don’t they have satellites that stay exactly over the earth’s axis outside the atmosphere?”

“Yes, but that is right in the middle of an area of disputed ownership. ‘Exactly over the earth’s axis’ is practically a pinpoint, so only so many satellites can be there. The Legitimacy Kingdom has a powerful advantage over the North Pole, but that also means we do not have a single satellite over the South Pole.”

“And so you are making up for that lack of equipment by shoving this insanely inefficient workload onto us human soldiers,” said Heivia with a sigh and a frown. “This isn’t something a civilized human should be doing.”

“Heivia, civilized humans have something known as manners. Do you get my meaning?” replied Froleytia.

Heivia was about to give a light reply, but before he could…

A rifle bullet struck the ground between Quenser and Heivia.

(An enemy attack!?)

The two immediately tried to take cover, but they realized the snowy plain gave them nothing to hide behind. Heivia grabbed Quenser’s shoulders and forcibly pulled him backwards. Even on that flat plain, the ground has slight ups and downs. They retraced their steps a few meters to a protrusion in the snowy plain and hid behind that cover created by the icy ground.

“(What, what, what!? Is this those terrorists!?)”

“(Who else would it be!? We almost died out here in Antarctica. If it hadn’t been for this strong crosswind, one of us would definitely have been killed by that initial shot!!)”

“(This area is both volcanic and ridiculously cold, so it has major temperature differences. They’ve been here longer than us, so the metal of their gun barrels or sights may have altered somewhat.)”

As they spoke back and forth in hushed voices, rifle bullets intermittently struck the white ground and sent ice crystals up into the air. The impact points were scattered. It may have been due to the crosswind that they could not hit their targets as Heivia had said, or it may have been due to numerous other smaller reasons piled on top of each other. 

Still lying on the ground, Heivia held up his rifle with the sight attached that could pick up data from various sources such as the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums.

“(Their distance is 200 meters. There are 7…maybe 8 of them. The rifles they are using are those ones with the wooden stocks. They have forcibly attached grenade launchers with electrical tape.)”

“(Can you take them out?)” asked Quenser.

“(Why do you make it sound like you’re just a spectator? You should be pulling out your handgun or PDW!!)”

“(Sorry, but I don’t have any guns. I only have the usual explosives.)”

“(What are you even here for!?)”

Heivia was about ready to strangle Quenser, but then a rifle bullet struck the ground nearby. He frantically lowered his head and fired his own rifle back to hold the enemy in check.

“(Shit, shit, shit!! I’ll strangle you later, but I still need to ask! Why did you head off to fight terrorists without a single bullet!?)”

“(To be honest, I really did want to bring some!)”

“You can’t, Quenser,” cut in Froleytia. “A student who has not finished training cannot be authorized to carry a soldier’s firearm.”

“(Yeah, but doesn’t it take even more delicacy to handle explosives?)”

“You used explosives in your anti-shock experiments related to the shape of Objects back in your safe country school, didn’t you? That is why you have authorization for those. Also, that line of thinking is the sign of a boy who does not know how frightening an accidental discharge is.”

“(I see…)” responded Quenser faintly just as a terrorist bullet shot chunks of snow into the air right next to him.

At that point, Heivia snapped.

“Quit sitting around and do somethiiiinnnngggg!! Why am I the only one risking his life to fight back!? We know where the enemy is, so have the princess use her Object to blow them awaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

“Oh, that’s right, that’s right,” said Quenser as he set his radio’s frequency to contact the Object.

The response he received was brief and clear.

“At that location, the shockwave and radiant heat would blow you two away as well. Are you okay with that? Over.”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck!!” shouted Heivia as he gave repeated quick bursts of 2 or 3 shots with his rifle.

Meanwhile, Quenser contacted their allies in the area, but none of them were in a position to arrive any time soon.

“Dammit. They aren’t lying about their position to avoid getting caught up in this, are they?”

He wanted to throw his weapon down and leave, but with the bullets flowing above, carelessly lifting his head would likely get him killed. Two hundred meters was relatively close range for rifles, so it was only due to the powerful crosswind and the plain white area affecting their visual comprehension that kept either side from hitting the other.

The enemy soldiers must have been more used to it because they were gradually spreading out. Only a few meters had opened up between the enemy soldiers, but they were clearly trying to circle around via different routes.

Quenser almost lifted his head up in shock, but Heivia held him down. Immediately afterwards, a bullet flew directly over his head.

Still covered in snow, Quenser said, “This is bad, Heivia!!”

“You mean that the enemy is splitting up to circle around on either side!? I already know! The problem is that there is nothing we can do about it!!”

“No, not that!! A penguin!!”

“Hah!? Who cares about a penguin right n-…A penguin!?”

“It’s a baby! A baby penguin!!”

With a shocked look, Heivia looked over in the direction Quenser was pointing. A small gray baby penguin was waddling awkwardly across right in the middle of the area between the soldiers firing rifles at each other.

It was going to be caught up in the firefight, but they could not exactly stop either.

Just as the veins in Heivia’s temple were bulging out in anguish, something odd occurred.

Just as he was about to remove his finger from the trigger, the terrorists stopped firing as well.

The only motion left on that white land was the baby penguin continuing to waddle along while paying no heed to the soldiers on the front line of a battlefield.

With sweaty palms, Quenser and Heivia watched its progress.

“(C’mon!! You can do it, baby penguin!!)”

“(Wait, why is it just the baby!? Doesn’t the parent need to be watching over it!?)”

And then the baby penguin tripped.

“Waahh!!”

“No, Heivia!! No human intervention is the rule of nature!!”

Heivia very nearly rushed out to help, but Quenser frantically stopped him. Meanwhile, the baby penguin used its small wings to force itself back on its feet.

“Gyah!” came a new avian cry.

“An albatross!?”

“It isn’t going to eat it, is it? It isn’t going to attack from the sky, is it!?”

Yet the rule of nature came into play again.

While Heivia was trying to aim his rifle at the sea bird and Quenser was trying to stop him, the albatross spread its wings wide and readied its aim from up in the heavens. The baby penguin that’s silhouette looked like a fluffy ball had no idea that it was being targeted.

And then the albatross attacked.

The penguin’s natural enemy soared down from the sky like a spear. Its deadly beak was accurately targeting the baby penguin.

Everyone envisioned the color and scent of blood.

Quenser and Heivia forget about fighting over the rifle and brought their hands up to cover their eyes.

But the tragedy they expected did not occur.

“Kmyaaaaaaaahhhhh!!” came a new cry from the side.

“!? Wh-what was that, Quenser!?”

“I think the mother is here. It’s the penguin’s mother!!”

Frightened by the warning cry, the albatross’s aim was thrown slightly off. The beak just barely grazed the baby penguin and it gave a high pitched cry for its mother.

The albatross did not seem willing to give up. It soared back up into the white sky, flew in a wide arc, and then aimed for the baby penguin once more.

However, the baby was no longer alone.

The large mother rushed over to act as a shield.

There was no guarantee the mother could save the baby.

The sea bird’s sharp beak and talons were enough of a threat for an adult penguin.

Even so, the mother penguin’s gaze did not waver.

It spread its wings that were meant for paddling through water, opened its beak as wide as it could, and let out warning cry after warning cry as loudly as it could.

Quenser and Heivia both held their breath.

The terrorists across the snowy plain were also silently watching on.

And then…

[[Image:HO v02 056.jpg|thumb]]

The albatross circled above the two penguins’ heads a few times before giving up. It left its previous trajectory, gave a defiant cry, and flew off into the white sky.

The penguin mother had protected its child.

In that instant, a great cheer as if from a stadium erupted within Antarctica. It sounded as if all of humanity was letting out a cry of joy at the familial love of those penguins. Quenser and Heivia embraced each other and the enemy soldiers could be seen lifting their rifles up in both hands like barbells in a show of passion. The spiral of joy surrounding the penguins seemed to surprise them. The baby hid in the small space between its mother’s legs and the two animals quickly left the area. Normally the male would have been doing this, but for some reason it was the mother.

After about 10 minutes, the penguins had cut across the battlefield, headed down a slight slope, and completely disappeared from Quenser and Heivia’s view.

Before long, the penguin fever quietly came to an end.

Immediately afterwards, both sides began the firefight anew without hesitation.

Quenser and Heivia hid as best they could. As Heivia pulled the trigger, he cried out with bloodshot eyes.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!! Fire fire fire fire fire!!”

“Dahhh! Dammit! I guess we really can’t come to an understanding!!” yelled Quenser as he operated his handheld device.

In Antarctica, everything was white no matter where you went, so he zoomed in and out of the map repeatedly to double check everything.

Seeing that, Heivia cried out in an annoyed voice. “What good will checking the map do us!? We can’t get help from the princess! The enemy is just going to split up and circle around!!”

“Let’s take care of them before that happens.” Quenser pulled some Hand Axe plastic explosive out of his bag. He stabbed the radio-receiver-equipped electric fuse into it. “When I give you the sign, fire like crazy to hold them back. I’ll throw this during that time.”

“Do you know how far away they are? That’s 200 meters. Not even a long throw with a regulation baseball can go that far.”

“I don’t have time to explain! Do it now!!”

“Already! Shit!!”

Still complaining, Heivia held up his rifle. Instead of carefully aiming for one enemy, he fired across all the enemies while swinging the rifle barrel in a fan shape.

As a result, his accuracy dropped even further, so his bullets did not even come close to hitting. However, it frightened the enemy soldiers enough to send them behind cover.

Quenser lifted himself up and threw the plastic explosive with all his might. The Hand Axe flew through a long arc, but it did not reach the enemies just as Heivia had expected. Also, the wind prevented it from flying exactly straight forward. Given how powerful the crosswind was, it must have taken quite some effort to throw it over 50 meters as Quenser had done. It landed on a patch of thick ice, so the Hand Axe slid along even further like a curling stone. The gradual slope of the snowy plain in that direction also helped, so the plastic explosive gained even more distance as it slid across the ground.

Even with all those factors, 120 meters was its limit. It was nowhere near the 200 meter distance of the enemies.

Heivia clicked his tongue and shouted, “Dammit! I told you!!”

“This is fine! This is what I wanted!! Get down, Heivia!!” Quenser shouted back as he used his thumb to send the detonation signal via his radio.

Heivia was doubtful, but the result came immediately thereafter.

With a great roar, a 200 meter long portion of the white earth ahead of them caved in.

It was like a giant pitfall. The earth crumbled and collapsed down a few hundred meters. The snow, ice, and soldiers on top were all swallowed up.

There was nothing they could do about it.

The enemy soldiers who had been firing bullet after bullet fell into the pit with shouts of surprise.

“Good, that seems to have worked,” said Quenser with a sigh of relief as he took his thumb off of the radio he had used for the detonation. “All I want to know about is Object design, so why do I keep learning new ways to kill people?”

“…Um, what just happened?”

“The area they were standing on was really and truly ‘on top of the ice’. A thick sheet of ice was covering the gap in a V-shaped stone cliff and nothing but a giant gap existed below. Thanks to the volcanic activity in this area, the space below had become something like a river. It was thick enough that a diesel snowmobile could have passed over without it budging, but it was not enough to withstand military explosives.”

“Oh, so that’s why you were checking the map.”

“I can see why they won’t send the Object out here.”

Quenser looked into the depths of the ice cliff he had created. He could not see the bottom within the deep, deep darkness. If an Object broke through that ice, a crane that could lift 200,000 tons would be needed. And of course, humanity had no such thing.

“Come to think of it, you did mention performing experiments with breaking sheets of ice back in your safe country school.”

“It was nothing this rough,” said Quenser with a shrug. “But aren’t you glad I brought these explosives?”

“Either way, I still feel like strangling you.”