Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume2 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 6===

Quenser and Heivia trudged on through the snowy plain.

Before long, they arrived at their destination.

The ring of soldiers surrounding the area had tightened in enough at that point that they could catch glimpses of their fellow soldiers approaching via different routes. When an ally waved at him from across the white landscape, Quenser waved back.

“Y’know, it really is a relief to have so many familiar faces around.”

“You idiot! There are other ways of giving signals!! Waving your hand now is like using a smoke bomb to tell the enemy where we are!! We just killed some of them, so they’re probably on high alert!!”

The fellow soldier must have received a similar warning because he was struck over the head and dragged out of sight.

Heivia trembled and his breath was white in the air as he said, “I’ve had enough of Antarctica. It’s too damn cold!! I thought the southern hemisphere was supposed to be heading into summer!! I’m having a hard time believing global warming is actually happening right now! It’s plenty cold here!!”

“That’s only because you don’t know the average temperature here. At the very least, I certainly wouldn’t want to take a walk at night here.”

As they muttered to each other, a transmission came in over the radio. It was from the princess as she waited at the Ross Sea in the Baby Magnum.

“With all the heat produced in this airtight area, I am roasting. I want this over with as soon as possible. Quenser, did you mess up the maintenance on the air conditioner?”

“Dammit, the princess’s castle sounds as wonderful as ever.”

“Ahh, it is so hot. No one can see, so maybe I should strip off this special suit. I doubt I will have to deal with any high speed battles.”

“Are you trying to raise our body temperatures through our imaginations?”

“?”

As Quenser frowned, Heivia seemed to have truly lost all motivation.

“I would like to again point out that this is crazy,” he groaned. “We’re soldiers that are meant to protect the area around a safe base. We aren’t suited for special missions where we’re sent out to attack a terrorist stronghold.”

“Huh? Are there different kinds of foot soldiers?”

“Oh, c’mon. That isn’t something I want to hear from someone on the front lines! At the very least, you should know that the jobs you should get are very different from the ones I should get!!”

“You seem pretty full of yourself, Heivia. I may just be a student, but the others are soldiers in the same base as you.”

“We may call them all soldiers, but we became soldiers in different ways. Some go to a military academy and others go through a short-term training course. Depending on what area of the military you want to go into, your route changes. Most of those in the base went through a yearlong training school. Not many went through the 6 month training course like I did.”

“Wouldn’t the ones that trained for twice as long be stronger?”

“Quenser, do you think someone who sat in a desk for a year would be stronger than someone who crawled through the mud for 6 months? Also, most people have to repeat the short-term training course at least twice before passing. The ones like me who graduate in just the 6 months are quite rare.”

“Either way its something like an amusement park compared to back in my day when we had to run around with a rifle,” cut in Froleytia.

Her phrasing made it sound like she was some old woman, but she was really only 18. Quenser had to wonder just how long she had been on the battlefield.

“By the way, why did you choose that muddy course, Heivia?” asked Quenser.

“Ahn?”

It was either due to the sense of calm after ending one firefight and confirming no enemies nearby or due to their wanting to procrastinate having to head to the next battlefield, but Quenser and Heivia continued chatting.

“Well, you’re a noble, right? Surely there’s some special course for nobles. One where you get to be a 2nd lieutenant as soon as you graduate.”

“Oh, that would be the military academy. Even commoners can get into those. Once you get up to the generals, you find almost nothing but nobles, but a commoner can make it as far as brigadier general if they work hard.”

“So why are you at the very bottom as a private first class?”

“Various reasons. To have the rights to my family, I need to show off that I’m actually fighting to defend a base and aiding the country rather than watching on from some grand post.”

“But you just laze around the base regardless,” added Froleytia.

“Well, I don’t tell them that. It’s all about appearances. Also, it’s not like the actions of a single soldier on an Object-dominated battlefield is going to ‘aid the country’. I never expected to be kicked out into the middle of Antarctica like this.”

“Nobles sure have it tough. Whenever I hear about this kind of difficulty, it makes me glad I’m a commoner,” said Quenser.

“I’d be more worried if I was a commoner. Even if the parliament has been opened up somewhat recently, nobles still have control of the center of government. Doesn’t it worry you that you have so few opportunities to let your voice be heard by the government?”

“Politics is such a pain. As long as someone is taking care of it, I don’t really care.”

“Really? I guess that’s what they call the apathetic demographic.”

As they continued to speak quietly to each other, they suddenly stopped walking.

After a low hill was the base of Mount Erebus.

Quenser and Heivia naturally hid atop the snow and viewed the area through binoculars and a rifle scope respectively.

However, the base area was quite large. The snow being blown by the crosswind made the area hard to see. What they saw through their respective lenses was a sharp slope after a few kilometers of flat plain.

Similar to a gate leading to a road up the mountain, a single rectangular building sat at the point between the plain and the slope. It must have been the Legitimacy Kingdom unmanned observatory. On the snowy plain near it, cylinders 80 cm thick and about 9 meters long lay on their sides. It was not just two or three of them. At set intervals, about 50 of them were placed such that they spread across a few kilometers.

Quenser and Heivia looked puzzled.

“(Supposedly, the targeting laser for the surface-to-air missile that attacked the survey plane was around here.)”

“(Where are the rest of the terrorists? Don’t tell me they couldn’t stand the cold and left.)”

“If they’re keeping warm in the unmanned observatory, we can just attack them, but this could be a pain otherwise,” said their commander, Froleytia.

“Why?”

“We’ll be ordered to search for these terrorists even if they might not be here anymore. We’ll have to search for them in every nook and cranny of this freezing continent. Even if the terrorists are long gone from Antarctica, we might have to continue the search until we are absolutely sure.”

“Seriously? Hey, Quenser, let’s go check the unmanned observatory already. If we let them get away, we’ll end up freezing to death. Hurry, hurry. C’mon, let’s hurry this up so we can get back to some warm blankets and heaters.”

“No, Heivia. Rushing like that will get you shot in the head.”

As they argued in hushed voices, Quenser and Heivia crawled slowly along the snowy plain. They caught occasional glimpses of others moving along in the same way. They were other Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers and their reactions had been about the same. They wanted to get the job over with, but they were also wondering what those huge cylinders were.

As if to say what they were all thinking, Heivia said, “In this age where 50 meter Objects fight, flesh and blood soldiers running around shooting each other with guns is utter nonsense. Whatever strategy our enemy might have, they can’t win with the princess’s Object waiting in the Ross Sea. Really, they should just give up. Dying for something like this is just stupid.”

“Hey, Heivia. I’ve been wondering about something,” said Quenser as he looked around while still lying on his belly. They had crawled about a kilometer through the snow at that point. “What are those weird cylinders lying around the unmanned observatory?”

“Ahn? Aren’t they just antennae used for the observatory? They’re probably put down like that because of the strong crosswind,” said Heivia offhandedly, but he really had no confidence in his answer.

And then Quenser got his answer from a different source.

The 80 cm thick, 9 meter long cylinders all moved as one, centered on a single point.

A giant gun battery supported by a platform with a low center of gravity had suddenly turned its sights in Quenser and Heivia’s direction.

“…Hah?”

In that instant, Quenser and Heivia were unable to move their bodies as they wished. Even as they stared blankly, they were able to comprehend what the scene before them meant.

They had seen that scene before.

They knew what it was that was targeting them.

It was…

The spares for the giant cannons created to be put on a giant Object.

The 50 cannons that were lined up at even intervals all aimed at the snowy plain where Quenser and the other soldiers were.

“Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Quenser and Heivia realized what was happening, they shouted, and they rolled across the snowy plain as quickly as they could.

Immediately afterwards, the cannons roared.

It seemed the ones installed there were railguns.

Countless shockwaves erupted out and Quenser’s body floated up into the air. A few seconds later, he was slammed back down into the cold snow and started rolling but this time not because he wanted to. The cannons had not directly hit him. If any of them had, his body would have been blown to pieces. His puny body had merely been struck by the shockwaves created when they were fired.

However, it had been enough to stop his breathing.

“Gh…bh!?”

He bent his back like a bow and somehow managed to suck in some air. It was likely due to the cold freezing over the moving parts of the cannons that he had not been directly hit. However, the heat caused by the motors would soon eliminate that. Miracles like that would not continue forever.

(I’ll be killed!?)

Standing up would just get him shot, but that flat plain had no real place to hide either. The enemy had lured them out there for that very reason.

(Dammit. Why do they have railguns prepared!? They used an old fashioned surface-to-air missile when they targeted the Legitimacy Kingdom plane!!)

Quenser had no idea what to do.

As he panicked, he heard Heivia’s voice call out to him.

“Quenser!! Get down here!!”

He did not know what that meant, but figured it out once he looked around the area. The first wave of shockwaves had opened a huge crack in the earth. It was over a meter across. Heivia had climbed down into that naturally occurring trench and was sticking his head out to shout.

Quenser rolled across the snowy plain and entered the crack that passed nearby.

Just as he fell inside, the railguns began their second wave.

The after-effects alone created a noise like an aerial bombing and all oxygen was squeezed from Quenser’s lungs even inside that crack.

Heivia noticed and ran over to him.

“Damn, this is no joke. Those terrorists have prepared a ton of Object spares. Was this supposed to be like an anti-tank position from wars in the old days!?”

“What’s that?”

“We had boring lectures on various forms of classic warfare during the history lessons in training. Battle positions where they would lure in enemies and bombard them from both sides were used in wars in the old days. Back then, they used anti-tank guns, but they sure have changed that. Shit!! Isn’t this a bit much for foot soldiers!?”

Quenser wondered how many of their allies had crawled into cracks as well. He hoped all of them had gotten into some crack or another, as any that hadn’t had likely been killed.

Heivia leaned up against the wall of the crack and asked, “Do you know what the worst thing about this is, Quenser?”

“That those Object cannons can fire in any direction despite being spares?”

“No,” said Heivia with his brow covered in sweat. “If they’re using Object cannons, they must have a reactor capable of powering them.”

“Wait, you mean…”

“Like hell these are terrorists!! They have an Object!! They have one hidden somewhere and have some thick power cable connecting to these railguns. Even if we escape here, we might find an Object waiting for us!!”

Hearing confirmation from someone else sent a chill down Quenser’s spine.

The giant weapons known as Objects had thick armor on the level of a nuclear shelter and reactors with outputs that outdid even nuclear reactors. And they used that great electrical output to create a storm of lasers or low-stability plasma cannons. Only another Object could stand up to that. No matter how much a flesh and blood soldier struggled, it was exceedingly difficult to do any damage to one.

However…

“Heivia. Sorry, but we don’t have time to discuss what to do next.”

“Ahn?”

“Look down!! The shockwaves are spreading the crack! At this rate, we’ll fall down so far we can never crawl back out again!!”

Heivia looked down toward his boots in shock. The crack was indeed widening, and quickly. However, carelessly crawling out would only have them fall victim to the countless railguns. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. If they did not resolve the problem quickly, they would be killed.

“What do we do, Quenser? Those cannons are giant lumps of steel. A rifle isn’t enough to destroy them!!”

“Yeah, and I don’t have enough Hand Axe to blow up each and every one of those things. Not to mention that I can’t think of any safe way of approaching them.”

“Can we break the ice beneath them like with those terrorists?”

“Unfortunately, they’re on top of ground with proper bedrock. And even if we could, we would be caught up in the middle of it all as well.”

Having said that, Quenser altered the frequency of his radio.

He was contacting the princess who was waiting in the Object floating in the nearby Ross Sea.

“Calling Baby Magnum. Do you have our position? Can you take out some of the cannons from there?”

“The mountain is in the way, so I cannot target them directly. I could fire a coilgun in a large arc to avoid that, though.”

“What would your accuracy be?”

“About 50/50. I could blow them all away with a carpet bombing, but that would blow you away too.”

The Baby Magnum’s main cannons were intended to directly fire on enemy Objects rather than fire in long distance arcs. With the irregular winds at high altitudes, pinpoint accuracy would be very difficult.

Meanwhile, the railguns’ third and fourth waves shook the ground beneath Quenser and Heivia’s feet. The enemy likely knew they were hiding in the cracks and were trying to bomb them out.

Quenser grimaced as the vibrations hurt his eardrums, but then he suddenly raised his head.

“Baby Magnum! Even if you can’t target accurately, you can still reach this area, right!?”

“Y-yes. I can do that, but…”

“I’ll give you instructions on the grid!! Using Coordinate 000212 as the standard, target W-11, J-18, G-26, M-19, L-27, B-20, and R-12!! Even with the wind, that should avoid any allies with a margin of error of plus or minus 5! Send those huge coilgun shells raining down right away!!”

“I do not think that will hit the enemy either.”

“Just do it!! That will solve everything!!”

“?”

The princess still had no idea what he was after, but she seemed to realize it was an emergency situation where every second mattered. Even without an explanation, she followed those instructions.

A different loud noise from before reverberated throughout the area. Due to being between two mountain-like walls, it sounded a bit muffled to them.

The Baby Magnum’s coilguns were supposed to be fired at a speed much faster than the speed of sound, but these were being fired at a lower speed (and therefore lower power) so they could fall in an arc on a specific point. For once, the sound arrived before the shells.

However, it was no time to be impressed by something like that.

Quenser grabbed the edge of the crack with both hands and shouted to his fellow soldiers through the radio as he dangled down.

“Hang on!! The cracks are probably about to widen and collapse!!”

“Hey, what was the point of this!?”

Heivia did as instructed while utterly bewildered, but there was no time to explain.

The coilgun shells rained down from above.

The masses of steel mercilessly stabbed into the bedrock and shook the ground like an earthquake.

The shells weighed easily a ton and were just under a meter across. They were falling down from a height of 3800 meters, so they naturally had an unbelievable amount of kinetic energy.

With an explosive noise, snow and bits of ice were blown up into the air and poured down into the cracks like an avalanche. Quenser had been holding on tight, but his hands still almost slipped from the edge of the crack. However, he could no longer feel anything at his feet. The shock of impact had widened the cracks and the ground he had been standing on had disappeared. The very bedrock of Antarctica had split like broken glass.

“Shit!! Whether they’re from an enemy or an ally, Object cannons are insane!! You could probably see this crater from a satellite!” spat out Heivia as he desperately got his legs up on the edge of the crack and crawled out. “Hey, Quenser. I don’t like what your request did! Honestly, I can only hope the shockwave was enough to knock over those-…”

He suddenly trailed off.

He had seen it.

Giant shells that weighed in the tons had rained down from high altitude. The shells had cracked the bedrock of Antarctica, a great shockwave had blown out, and an avalanche had even occurred on the distant mountain.

However, the 50 cannons had not been directly hit.

They were covered in quite a bit of snow and pieces of ice, but it did not seem enough to keep them from functioning.

“Dammit!!”

Heivia’s throat dried up. Crawling up from the crack would result in nothing but getting them blown to pieces. However, they could not hide within the crack because the bombardment had widened it and turned the ground within into a cliff.

Quenser then climbed out from the crack and shouted, “Just climb up!!”

“Do you have any idea what you’re saying!?”

“If you don’t, you’ll die!!”

Quenser climbed fully above ground as he shouted what sounded like nonsense. He then used his radio to tell his other allies the same thing. Heivia was unsure what to do, but the wall of the crack that had become a cliff had no protrusions to put his feet on. If he lost strength in his fingers, he would certainly die. He decided to crawl up before he lost the upper body strength to do so and climbed up to the surface half out of desperation.

Of course, the countless railguns then targeted them.

They were not something a flesh and blood human could avoid.

“Shit!!”

Knowing it was useless, Heivia brought up his rifle.

But then Quenser said, “It’s okay.”

Heivia wanted to reply, “How is this even slightly okay?”, but the enemy made their move first.

The tremendous sound of the railguns being fired struck Heivia’s eardrums and squeezed at his heart.

A single shot from one of those could bend an Aegis ship in two.

Heivia almost squeezed his eyes shut, but the result came even before that reflex could kick in.

“…Hah?”

Heivia stared blankly at the scene before him.

He had indeed felt pain.

However, that had merely been from the shockwave. If a shell had hit him, he would have died instantly.

The railguns fired in their direction had not hit them. Instead, they had flown off in a completely different direction. And that was not all. Some of the cannons had lost to the recoil and rolled backwards, others had fallen over, and some had even launched backwards like rockets. The collection of railguns had collapsed like an incomplete layout of dominos.

Heivia’s head was filled with questions.

“Wh-what? What just happened?”

“I made sure the anchors stabbed into the ground to support the railguns aren’t working anymore.”

“?”

“Specifically, it was the bedrock itself that was destroyed rather than the anchors.” Quenser got up from his lying down position. “The railguns and lasers used for Objects are designed to be installed on those 200,000 ton bodies. When they’re fired, the shockwave and radiant heat is scattered about. They aren’t used to directly defend bases because, with them, allied attacks are just as dangerous as enemy attacks.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“When placed on the ground, the power of these things is so great that the shockwave will knock over the railgun itself. They had to have planted anchors that go over 10 meters down into the ground to ensure they don’t collapse. But…”

“The princess’s bombardment broke the bedrock itself…”

“The anchors are no longer functioning. The first shot didn’t hit either because it caused the cannons to tilt. After that, it was like having a child shoot a magnum one-handed. They took themselves out. While avoiding the line of fire of the collapsed cannons, we need to go sever that power cable. Some of them might still be functioning.”

“Then we just have to find the people who were controlling them.”

“I think I have an idea regarding that.”

Quenser used his chin to point toward the Legitimacy Kingdom unmanned observatory where things were getting rather lively. Apparently, the enemy had been remotely controlling the cannons while taking advantage of the heat there. Their last resort had now been utterly destroyed, so they were naturally panicking.

“Let’s find a better position before they start returning fire,” said Quenser as he tapped Heivia on the shoulder. “Once a real firefight breaks out, I won’t be of any use, so you take the lead, Heivia.”