Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume4 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 7===

Froleytia gritted her teeth in her officer’s room.

The higher ups had hoped to deal with Roybelz Oldnick in the same way they had fought Hyena, but things had ended up being completely different. She had no idea how the old man had arranged it, but now that the Capitalist Corporations’ Deep Optical was involved, the problem had turned into a war.

On top of that, the Deep Optical had a special blinding weapon that interfered with their ability to take evasive actions.

It had created a number of clones of itself.

It created images using diffractive waves and used optical interference to disturb the various locking sensors.

Froleytia and the others back at the base constantly received information from the Object, so they understood what the princess was seeing.

Froleytia opened a line to the electronic simulation department as she tried to think up a countermeasure.

“Do you know how that blinding weapon works!?”

“It can freely emit 70 types of light waves at once and it can change the wavelengths as needed!! By simultaneously sending several wavelengths at one point in space, the normal light waves and the diffractive waves come together to create the image that is viewed as three dimensional. At the same time, it interferes with the infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, and every other optical device used to make a lock and the electromagnetic data from radar and the like!!” explained the operator from the electronic simulation department. “The angle of emission and distance are unknown! But with enough distance, the diffusion of the light waves would interfere with each other, so it should be within a few kilometers!!” The operator was practically yelling. “Also, a normal 3D image brings together footage for the right eye and the left eye, but this is using enough images for the number of lenses equipped on the Baby Magnum and is regulated by the diffractive rays. Intentionally cutting off a portion of the lenses should cause a disturbance in the image. That could be used to determine where the real one is, but…”

“They can immediately determine which lenses are active from their subtle movements and recreate the image to match, right?”

“The time until that happens is getting shorter! If the parameters of the 3D image continue to be changed liked this, even that slight ‘out of place feeling’ could disappear!!”

For the moment, the princess was not fooled at all. It was partially due to the fact that she would never believe that a single Object had suddenly become 10 Objects. The princess was seeing through the false footage and continuing the battle.

But…

“With 1% of doubt, you lose the ability to trust the remaining 99%,” commented Froleytia.

“The false images are obviously false for the moment, but if a false image that is harder to tell apart from the real one is mixed in once she grows accustomed to these, the risk of the princess being caught off guard grows!!”

And the time spent with the false images continued to grow.

Being able to see through the false images was important, but looking at the false images for too long was a problem too.

“Right now, she is just barely managing to take action in advance because she knows her sensors are being interfered with, but if she does not make it in time, she will take a direct hit…”

The blinding weapon displayed its greatest effects within a range of a few kilometers. In that case, the princess could escape the threat by falling back further than that and beginning a bombardment from there.

But…

(No. The first shots from 10 kilometers were easily thrown off course. That 5 kilometer range is the best range for the princess to defeat the Deep Optical. Also, I doubt the Deep Optical would let her leave. If she tried to, it would do whatever it could to stop her.)

“What if we link the foot soldiers’ cameras and the satellite to the Object to provide different points of view!?” suggested the operator.

“Those would have a slight lag and some noise. She wouldn’t be able to keep up with the high speed of the battle while relying on those!!”

They had no options.

This was not an offensive cannon or defensive armor. The 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion’s predicament was caused by something else entirely.

But then…

“…?”

Froleytia frowned.

The Deep Optical should have been drawing in and attacking repeatedly, but it was merely sitting in place and only occasionally firing. It was clearly overlooking an opportunity. In fact, it was actively moving backwards away from the princess whenever it had a chance.

Its actions seemed completely meaningless.

(What? Why would it abandon its advantage here and begin to retreat…?)

What was behind the Deep Optical?

What was to the north?

What lay beyond the battlefield?