HEAVY OBJECT:Volume1 Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Tom Thumb Runs through the Oil Field >> Battle to Prevent Passage through Gibraltar

Part 1

A girl known as an Elite, who was nicknamed the princess (whether she liked it or not) by her own army and troops, was inside a giant naval port style of maintenance base zone.

The facility to maintain the Object she piloted had to be quite large to accommodate its over 50 meter size. If the ancient Greek designers who had built the Greek temples had seen the giant structure, they would likely have been utterly shocked. The princess’s Object, Baby Magnum, fit snugly inside the structure.

The Object was surrounded by maintenance walkways and the princess was sitting in the center of the Object itself.

In the center of its sphere-shaped main body was the Object’s cockpit.

To match the shape of the Object, the cockpit itself formed a sphere with a diameter of 2 meters. The seat was ergonomically streamlined, its shape had been calculated out by a computer to limit fatigue as much as possible, and it even had a massage functionality to avoid things such as bedsores.

The cockpit in the center of the Object had no windows or windshields with which to see outside with the naked eye. Her vision out was done solely through monitors working in unison with cameras and sensors. The monitors were curved to cleanly attach to the inside of the sphere and the Elite would constantly be viewing over 300 windows accurately but quickly.

It did not have just one means of control.

The princess used her index finger to lightly tap a device she was wearing that looked like sharp athletic sunglasses.

It was an example of an input device that used infrared rays to read the movements of her eyes, but she also had the more well-known fighter craft-type of control column and a large number of keyboard-like buttons. Any one of the control systems could function as the main system and any one could function as the subsystem.

With multiple main systems and countless derivations given the possible combinations of subsystems, it seemed as if just learning how to use it would be enough to confuse you. However, an Object itself was the military might of an entire nation. Not being able to fight due to a deficiency in the system was not acceptable, so the Elite pilots had to at the very least go through a piloting manual that was thicker than an encyclopedia and many more manuals on top of that in order to ensure they could use any of the derived patterns with no problems and would know what to do in any given situation.

“…”

The Elite princess gave a small sigh within the Object that was resting as it was serviced.

The sigh was not due to having just seen what her next mission was and thinking about the families of the people she was about to kill. Instead, she was holding a completely ordinary cell phone in her hand. To prevent hacking, the Object normally cut off all signals from the outside except for a few communications devices independent from the rest of the system, but the barrier walls through the long tunnel-like passageway leading from the cockpit to the outside were all open for maintenance purposes.

She was looking at the cell phone’s small screen.

A short email was displayed there.

It was from her true friend who she had met at a base in Alaska and who had come to save her when she had been in trouble.

“Heh heh.”

The actual content of the email was quite short and blunt, but the princess did not care. She had never before imagined that who had sent it could mean so much more than what it actually said.

“Heh heh heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh.“

She started humming and moving left and right in her seat in a little dance. And then she swung her hand around and accidentally hit a lever with the back of her hand.

One of the giant main cannons moved with a loud kachunk and was about to crush one of the walkways. The princess frantically pulled the lever back in place before the cannon could send the old maintenance lady flying for a homerun.

Part 2

“Quenser, the mission is about to start. Personal communications are restricted, so put your cell phone away until we enter free time again,” cautioned Floretia, Quenser’s beautiful superior officer.

Quenser frantically stuck his phone in his pocket.

“The mission is simple,” boasted Floretia within a large transport craft while shaking the long narrow kanzashi-style hairpin that held her silver hair. “The enemy’s Object is trying to break through the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the disaster that would occur if it made it through, we must stop the Object before it breaks through the strait but without blowing it up. That is all.”

“That is all!? Stop it without blowing it up? What, are we supposed to give a non-lethal blow to a monster like that?” complained Heivia.

Floretia must have been aware she was asking the ridiculous because she gave a light shrug.

“The higher ups are seriously ordering that. It seems this Object is transporting a large amount of crude oil it stole and they want to retrieve it. Granted that is a rather reckless order,” Floretia said simply. “But don’t worry. As the commander on the scene, I will be giving you more realistic orders. …The stolen oil doesn’t matter, so just stop the Object from breaking through the strait. If you need to blow it up, oil and all, that’s fine. That is all.”

“I’d say that’s a pretty reckless order in and of itself. That isn’t an opponent for flesh-and-blood soldiers…” grumbled Heivia, but it seemed Floretia was not willing to compromise any more than that.

Quenser felt slightly dizzy when he imagined the intense fight to come.

“…The Mediterranean Sea. I guess that’s why the color of the camouflage on the uniforms we were issued was changed to gray.”

“Look, Heivia. Students these days catch on quickly. As an actual soldier, can you let him leave you behind like that? Hmm?”

“Fine, fine. I just have to switch out the camouflage pattern for my rifle, right? God, it’s like switching out the cover of a cell phone.”

“Are you picking a fight with your superior officer, Heivia? If so, hurry up and come at me.”

“You probably don’t want to do that. I think I’d get a little more excited than you’d like if you stepped on my crotch with those slender legs of yours.”

With that response, Heivia started switching out the reinforced plastic parts. While glancing over at him, Quenser spoke to Floretia.

“Why are you even here, Floretia-san? Weren’t you assigned to Alaska?”

“I wasn’t transferred here because I wanted to be. It was those higher ups again. Since you two and the princess will be working on this mission together, they were probably thinking that it would be best to have the same person giving the commands as in Alaska. Really, I’d rather not have to stick around for your grandstanding.”

“What will happen if this Object breaks through the strait? You said it was transporting crude oil it had stolen, right?” asked Quenser in an attempt to change the subject.

Floretia shrugged.

“Our country has been cutting off provisions to the enemy base zone for six months now and that would make that half year a complete waste. Apparently, the enemy Object travelling across the sea can also mine for its own oil. Paying no heed to the divisions between international waters and other countries’ territorial waters, it has been drilling up the oil, storing it in itself, and going around distributing it to its allied countries.”

“So it’s something like a delivery service for state-sponsored terrorist groups and it would benefit the world if we sunk it here,” said Heivia as his lips curved slightly.

Quenser shook his head.

“Is oil even needed on a battlefield centered on Objects? Their reactors are JPlevelMHD types, right? I thought those functioned on some special mechanism.”

“That’s the ironic thing. The more advanced technology gets, the more efficient it is to use older things like coal.”

“Yes, but for the JPlevel, it is melted down to have its structure altered before it is re-solidified. Do you know how long it takes to burn through it? Once you put that fuel inside, you don’t have to swap it out for 5 years.”

As they were diverging onto a tangent, Floretia brought the conversation back on track.

“The oil is used by the maintenance base zone, not the Object itself. Just like with the base you attacked in Alaska, an Object cannot continue to function if it does not undergo maintenance.” As she would be unable to drink once they reached the base, she sipped at a strong shochu. “The goal tape is currently being put up between the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s a net with mines intertwined at even intervals. It’s supposed to prevent the giant steel form from entering, but who knows how effective it will be against that Object. That’s why the princess’s Object will engage it in battle and you two will act behind the scenes.”

“Sounds like a harsh area. I’ll probably be killed by stray bullets 100 times over,” muttered Heivia.

Quenser looked out the small window on the side of the transport craft. He could see the beautiful blue sea spreading out below the clouds. As he looked down at it, he muttered a few words.

“I’m back, you god damn battlefield.”

Part 8

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