Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume2 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 7===

After silencing the countless cannons, Quenser and Heivia joined with the other Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers. They had lost fewer allies than they had expected.

And the flow of battle afterwards was as clear as day.

The terrorists in the unmanned observatory were eliminated without much trouble. It seemed the anti-tank position using the spare Object cannons had been their primary focus and they had not given much thought to the possibility of an enemy making it past them. The terrorists were low in number, so they had little chance of winning in a straight fight. That may have been why they had relied so heavily on the remotely controlled cannons.

They also found the missile launcher thought to have targeted the Legitimacy Kingdom survey plane. The launcher itself was located atop an armored vehicle. Eight missiles were loaded atop a swiveling turret. Four firing tubes created a set and two such sets were lined up next to each other.

The missile launcher itself used a laser sight, but a separate specialized radar vehicle had been prepared. However, the angle at which the radar vehicle was set was odd. Most likely, the anti-aircraft setting had been forcibly altered to search for Quenser and the others on the ground.

“We ended up killing them all, so we still don’t know what they were after. I can already see Froleytia’s displeased expression,” said Heivia in annoyance.

In a situation where great damage could occur to either enemy or ally, capturing the enemy alive was exceedingly difficult. If the enemy soldiers managed to make preparations while they waited around, they would be in trouble. As such, Heivia and the others used their firearms to their fullest and ended up killing every single one of the enemy soldiers.

“Now we don’t even know if this was all of them or if there are more hiding somewhere else. Are we going to end up shivering in the cold as we search this white continent even though we won?”

“Mount Erebus is an active volcano, so this area seems to be warm like the area we disembarked at.”

Quenser pointed down at their feet. Instead of the white of snow and ice was hard, black rock.

Heivia looked at the white steam rising from the rock and said, “Dammit. This is no situation to be searching in. No matter how hard we work, our pay is the same. We took out the terrorist’s scouts and silenced their anti-tank position. Wouldn’t you say we’ve already done more than our fair share of work? It would be rude to steal the rest of the credit from the others.”

“What, you’re giving up already? Froleytia will give you an earful.”

“Look down, Quenser. That’s a hot spring. And it’s at a perfect 40 degrees. I’m not about to leap in naked, but I don’t see what’s wrong with taking off my boots and socks and soaking my feet.”

“Y’know, I don’t want to search through this white continent any more than you do. This has nothing to do with studying Object designs.”

The Legitimacy Kingdom forces were searching the area around the unmanned observatory. The existence of an Object that was powering the anti-tank position was still a mystery, but those two idiots no longer cared. They stuck their feet in the pool of hot water that was about a meter across and 30 cm deep, sat on the rock, and let a completely laidback mood overcome them.

“By the way, why did the terrorists use a surface-to-air missile?”

“Ahn? What do you mean?”

“They were using all those spare Object weapons, right? Couldn’t they have used them to shoot down the plane? And if they really have an Object that was powering those spares…”

“How should I know? They used that anti-tank position as a surprise attack, so maybe they purposefully used a worse weapon to keep us from knowing about their better weapons.”

“And how is this supposed Object not showing up on the princess’s radar? Objects are 50 meter monsters. It would be difficult to hide one.”

“Hey, Quenser. I highly doubt it, but we don’t have some Stealth Object on our hands here, do we?”

“Wow, that would suck. But how much would it cost to add advanced stealth functionality to something that big? And on top of the development costs, they would have to spend money like water on the maintenance.”

“Well, you’d have to ask the enemy about all that. All these 2nd generation designs just go to the extreme in some way or another. Of course, that’s only if this Stealth Object actually exists.”

They could not ask the enemy and they did not even know what the terrorists’ objective had been. What had they come to Antarctica to do?

“Well, that isn’t our job. Our huge-breasted commander can worry about that kind of thing,” said Heivia offhandedly. His entire body was relaxed as he absorbed the heat of the water through his soaking feet and the heat of the steam through the rest of his body. “Dahh…This feels so good that I’m about to fall asleep…”

“Hey, please let me tell you you’ll die if you fall asleep. I’ve been wanting to.”

Quenser did not intend to keep thinking about things unrelated to Object designs either. He turned his head around as he enjoyed the heat of the water on his feet.

And then he noticed a silver mass.

“?”

Quenser stopped moving and looked back that way again.

It was in the middle of the blizzard blowing in the crosswind. About 50 meters away was a rock about as tall as a person. Some large mass was half-hidden behind it. It seemed to be in the spot that protected it from the blizzard the best.

“Oh, I wish I hadn’t spotted that.”

“Why are you finding things, you idiot!? Now we have to actually do some work!!”

“I wish all the trouble was occurring on the opposite side of the globe.”

“We’re in Antarctica, so the opposite side of the globe would actually put the safe country in danger.”

Utterly annoyed at the turn of events, Quenser and Heivia pulled their feet from the hot water, and properly wiped the moisture from them before putting on their socks and boots.

“Hey, Quenser. There’s quite a bit of what looks like white steam rising from the other side. Is this really okay?”

“If we deal with this problem, we can get back to relaxing all the sooner. Think of it like that to work up some motivation.”

They muttered to each other as they headed for the large mass behind the rock.

It was a square box about 80 cm across.

…Or so it looked at first. It actually had crab-like mechanical legs attached to either side. It was a robot. Upon closer inspection, cameras and sensors could be seen attached to the top of the box. The metal cover had been removed and a waterproofed laptop was attached by cable.

Heivia frowned.

“What is this?”

“An observation robot. I remember making one of these back in my safe country school to learn about the fundamental structure of Objects or something like that,” said Quenser with great interest as he approached it and viewed it from various angles. “It looks like a robot used to get information from areas like the crater of an active volcano that a human can’t go to.”

“Developing UAVs and unmanned weapons has gotten pretty popular even in the military, but would they really leave their survey work to a handmade robot like this?”

“What’s needed for something like this is a lot less than the robots sent to Mars. Also, it’s easier to make a robot to enter a high temperature volcanic crater than a suit to do the same,” readily replied Quenser. “Since it also has to withstand the cold of Antarctica, it must be designed for both extremes. It has a parabolic antenna, so it’s probably radio controlled and sends the data it receives back to a laboratory or research boat via satellite.”

“I see. But that isn’t what bothered me.” Heivia circled around behind the robot and pointed at a certain spot. “The cover has been removed and a strange computer is attached by a cable.”

“Hm, it does have proper external connecters. I don’t see why the person who put together the robot would go out of their way to remove the cover to connect a computer.”

“Does that mean someone other than its designer forcibly connected it?”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance.

This may have been the terrorist’s objective.

“Hey, Quenser. Can you tell anything from the computer’s display?”

“Should we even be touching it?”

“What, do you want to ask Froleytia what to do? I don’t want to be like a newlywed wife attending a cooking class. Y’know, the ones that call the teacher over even if they’re just putting some oil in the frying pan.”

“Well, if anything goes wrong, you’ll be the one getting the lecture, Heivia.”

“Fine, fine. Dammit, Quenser. Are we a young wife who doesn’t even know how to put on an apron?”

With how quickly his response came, Heivia must have truly been afraid of that commander.

Quenser set the frequency on his radio and concisely explained the situation regarding the Antarctic probe robot and the laptop.

Froleytia’s answer was clear.

“I’ll send the staff from the electronic simulation division there. Don’t touch anything until they arrive.”

“Keh. So once again, our achievement is being taken by someone else,” said Heivia with a displeased look.

However, from his complaining not too long before, it was possible he was upset about having to wait around in the middle of Antarctica rather than about their “achievement”.

As Heivia emitted an aura of wanting to hurry up and leave, Froleytia spoke in a light tone lacking any worry.

“Oh, did you not think that some empty space in the robot could have been filled with plastic explosives? If you make a mistake, it could explode.”

“I want to leave!! I want to leave right now!!” shouted Heivia with tears in his eyes, but Froleytia indifferently ordered them to stay and ended the transmission.

Quenser and Heivia were left to nervously stare at the robot.

They both naturally distanced themselves from it bit by bit.

But…

“…Huh?”

“Hey, is it just me, or did it just start doing something?”

The two of them suddenly stopped moving.

Their eyes moved toward the laptop connected to the robot.

Specifically, to its screen.

New windows had started to appear at an alarming rate.

Heivia’s desire to flee was growing by the second.

“Did this just get very, very bad?”

“This goes beyond bad…”

Quenser was following the lines of text in the windows with a serious expression on his face. Unlike Heivia, he rushed over to the waterproofed laptop. He frantically brought his fingers to the keyboard.

He opened various windows himself and checked what they said.

“This probe robot is controlled from a remote laboratory via satellite and its data is sent back via the same route. It looks like something is interfering with the communications line that goes through the satellite.”

“You mean they’re stealing classified data through here?”

“No, not that! Shit!!” Quenser suddenly shouted as he stared at the windows. “They’re after the satellite!! The satellite it uses for communications is also equipped with various devices used for experiments in space. One of those experiments involves burning the surfaces of nearby asteroids with a laser and analyzing the data taken of the light emitted. The entire system for that experiment has been taken over!!”

“Sorry, Quenser, but you’re going to need to explain that in a way I can understand.”

“Simply put, they’ve hacked in so they can freely target whatever they want with an experimental laser!! It’s powerful enough to burn through a 30 mm metal plate!!”

“Wait, wait, wait!! They can do that? I thought satellite’s had strict security!!”

“They can. This isn’t a satellite made for national projects that was built using a massive budget. This is a small, cheap satellite made with personal funds at a university. The system it uses is only a slightly improved version of a commercial OS with some freeware added on. And that goes for the security as well!!”

“But this is a laser that burns the surface of asteroids in space. Even if it targets the earth, wouldn’t the atmosphere attenuate it and the ozone layer refract it before it reached a building or the surface?”

“Yes, but only if its target is the earth,” said Quenser as he pointed at the screen. “The terrorists are targeting an area on the moon’s surface filled with a special grade of villas.”

“The moon!?” shouted Heivia in a hysterical voice.

Quenser pointed at the data on the satellite laser’s targeting angle displayed on the monitor. It was clearly in the opposite direction of the earth’s atmosphere. It was targeting a different celestial body.

“The moon…? You shouldn’t joke like that, Quenser. This is a good opportunity to tell you there are some things you really shouldn’t joke about.”

“Stop denying reality! The satellite laser really is targeting the moon right this instant!! Specifically, it’s targeting the Blind Net set up as a terraforming experiment on the moon’s surface!!”

“? The Blind Net? That’s the thing known as an optical second atmosphere, right? They make two ridiculously huge hemisphere-shaped net-like structures out of semitransparent wires made of variable photonic crystal, one larger than the other, and use them to freely regulate the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface, right? I remember hearing a rumor that it would be used in the ReTerra Project to combat global warming.”

“The moon does not have a thick atmosphere like the earth, so there is no protection from the effects of sunlight! In a single day, it varies from freezing temperatures of dozens of degrees below zero to blazing temperatures of a few hundred degrees!! Do you have any idea what will happen if the terrorists use the laser to destroy the Blind Net!?”

Humanity had continued its development of the moon, but it still did not have an atmosphere like the earth’s. The villas were solid buildings surrounded by thick walls. Even so, the buildings had been built on the assumption that the Blind Net would be protecting them. They were not made to withstand the extreme extraterrestrial environment.

“Without the Blind Net, the buildings will receive those extreme variations in temperature. Who knows what this will do to those villas! And even a crack of a few millimeters is enough to leave the people inside to a death in the hell of a vacuum!!”

The radiation coming from the sun was another problem. The giant net-like Blind Net also polarized the radiation pouring down on the moon’s surface.

Sounding fed up with it all, Heivia shouted, “What the hell!? This the first large-scale attack on the moon in the history of mankind, isn’t it!? I think that has more to do with no one ever thinking about doing it than us not having a way, though!!”

“The plan is underway as we speak. We need to do something about the satellite and quickly!!”

The terrorists that had been in the unmanned observatory may have been planning to buy enough time for the attack on the moon to end before they fled. It had not been found yet, but there may have been a boat hidden somewhere which would have allowed them to get away.

“Not good!! From the orbit of the satellite, the direction the moon is facing, and their position related to the sun, we can tell about where the hole is going to be opened up. If we don’t get the celebs in that general area to evacuate, this will leave a really bad taste in my mouth!!”

“On our authority!? Can you give orders to people rich enough to have villas on the moon!?”

“Oh, I know. When in doubt, contact your commander. We need to get Froleytia’s help!!”

Quenser and Heivia went to their radio for further instructions.

Froleytia responded with a voice filled anger that seemed to blaze hotter than the flames of hell.

“I thought I told you not to touch anything until the electronic simulation division arrived…”

“Yeah, sorry about that. But this is hardly the time!!”

“You have guts to give an order of precedence to your commander’s orders, Quenser. But…villas on the moon, you say?”

Her tone was meditative, but a hint of impatience could be heard mixed in.

“Wait just a second,” Froleytia said and ended the transmission.

After a few minutes, she contacted them again and calm had returned to her voice. She may have had the electronic simulation division make some predictions for her.

“I’ll start with the conclusion: we don’t need to worry about the satellite. We have estimated the target of the laser, but the general area targeted by the hole in the Blind Net is called Rock Castle. An interesting VIP happens to be there.”

“?”

“A major general of the Capitalist Corporations, one of the world powers on par with the Legitimacy Kingdom. The Legitimacy Kingdom has tried to assassinate him a few times, but failed. If the terrorists are going to kill him, that actually solves a problem for us. The higher ups are of the opinion that we should let them do this. I agree. If the alternative is to have my subordinates killed on an assassination mission, I would rather turn a blind eye here.”

“…”

“…”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance. They began to feel foolish for having been so worried before. It would of course have been bad had there been Capitalist Corporations civilians in the villa, but they had no obligation to save the life of someone who gave orders to kill people and watched on from above.

“Anyway, you do not need to do anything regarding the satellite. You did touch the computer connected to the probe robot, though. Well, we can send it to the intelligence department afterwards and have them make it look like it naturally failed due to the extreme environment, so that won’t be a problem. If you understand, head back immediately.”

Having said that, Froleytia ended the transmission.

Heivia limply sat down on top of the ice.

“Sigh… I feel like all my energy is gone all of a sudden. What were we fighting for this whole time? How are the ones who fell prey to that anti-tank position supposed to rest in peace now?”

“…”

Quenser gave no response to Heivia’s offhand comment.

He seemed to be thinking about something.

“Hey? C’mon, let’s get going. Or are you still worried about what happened to that baby penguin from before?”

“Heivia, can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Before we came to Antarctica, you had that video chat in the maintenance base’s ammunition storage, right? Y’know, the one with that blonde girl in a dress from the Legitimacy Kingdom’s something-or-other family.” Quenser chose his words carefully as he spoke. “Do you remember when she said where she was going? Something about the place farthest in the world from this planet’s wars, right?”

“…Wait a second. Wait just a second!”

“I think she also mentioned the colors of national flags being irrelevant. That means it has to be somewhere outside the boundaries of any of the world powers.”

There were of course a few general areas that could be.

For example, international waters, the area 200 nautical miles from land. Or Antarctica where Quenser and Heivia currently were. There were a few different paradises that belonged to no one, but one of those was…

“H-Heivia. We don’t know this for sure. In fact, odds are good we’re worrying over nothing here, but can you at least contact her over the internet?”

“Y-yes. We have no proof. Wait, can we even use the internet here?”

Due to the flood of research stations from different world powers, the internet was surprisingly easy to come by on Antarctica and the Legitimacy Kingdom had the assault landing aircraft carrier waiting in the ocean.

Heivia pulled out his handheld device and switched on the wireless LAN.

“Quenser, we’re cut off from external access during missions, but can you hack your way through that?”

“If I could do that, I wouldn’t be here as a battlefield student. But the special access for that girl might still be active. If it is, you might at least be able to connect to her.”

“Oh! It worked, it worked! But I have a feeling it’s only a matter of time before Froleytia notices and gets really pissed!!”

After some simple operations, Heivia had connected to a familiar girl who was in an unknown location.

[[Image:HO v02 098.jpg|thumb]]

His first question was, “Where are you right now?”

It was a simple question and it received a simple reply.

“That should be obvious. I am in a villa on the moon named Rock Castle.”

Immediately afterwards, the son of the Legitimacy Kingdom’s well-known noble Winchell family, Heivia, let out a yell with the veins in his temple bulging out.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk!!”

“Th-that is quite the straightforward proposal! I-I do not particularly mind such proposals however,” said the girl.

Quenser almost cried out, “You don’t mind!?”, but he stopped himself at the last second because he did not want to anger the daughter of a noble family.

Heivia and Quenser started a whispered emergency strategy meeting so the young lady could not hear.

“(So what is going on, Quenser? Do the higher ups want to kill this Capitalist Corporations major general badly enough to kill the only daughter of a noble family in the process!?)”

“(If her family is influential and does not view the Capitalist Corporations as an enemy even while we are at war with them, some of the military higher ups may want to get rid of them. But I doubt Froleytia knows there are civilians there. If she did, she would not have given the order so calmly.)”

“(Either way, the result is the same. With a military order, we cannot mess with the satellite without being penalized. But if we do nothing…!!)”

“What are you two whispering about?”

Her voice made them both jump.

Quenser jabbed Heivia in the arm with his elbow.

“(Heivia. Hey, Heivia.)”

“(What is it!? This is kind of an emergency!!)”

“(We can say your hand slipped. Do it, do it!!)”

“Bfh!?” Heivia spat out in shock. “(Do you have any idea what you’re saying!? If we did that, you would be penalized along with me!)”

“(Hurry! The laser will fire in another 30 seconds!!)”

“(Fine, I’ll do it!! But I don’t want to hear you complaining afterwards!!)”

Heivia took a deep breath to focus himself and then turned toward the laptop connected to the probe robot.

“Whoops! My hand slipped!!”

“Heivia, you idiot! That’s the wrong way!!”

As they shouted at each other, they both turned toward the computer and desperately altered the satellite’s orbit.

“Just what have you two been doing? It is rather disturbing.”

“We’re playing the role of hero together!! And preparing ourselves for a rather unexciting danger to our lives to come!!”