HEAVY OBJECT:Volume4 Chapter 1

Status: Incomplete

Chapter 1: What Should Have Been a Pure Blue Ocean >> Unofficial Battle in the Loyauté District

Part 1

The air was oppressively hot.

Buckets of torrential rain poured down on his head.

The large leaves of the tropical trees growing thickly around him caused a rumbling similar to a percussion instrument being struck repeatedly.

In all seriousness, Heivia Winchell wanted to check to make sure his neck was working properly. That was how heavy the rain constantly falling on his head was.

“…Dammit. Everything stinks of mud. Whatever happened to the coral ocean?”

The time was just before midnight.

He was in complete darkness. No artificial lights were lit and the thick rain clouds above his head cut off any light from the moon or stars.

As Heivia crouched down below a thick palm tree, another boy dressed in the same uniform crouched next to him. The other boy was named Quenser Barbotage. Instead of a rifle, he carried a bag filled with explosives.

“I thought we were supposed to have a champagne party after the princess blew away the Faith Organization’s Generation 1 Object. Why are we going through this mental training out here in the rain?”

“Didn’t you hear the additional radio announcement?” asked Heivia in annoyance. “This is the Loyauté district, an archipelago right next to Oceania. Due to the multinational coalition attack, the dictatorship in Oceania was destroyed and the area is in the process of being restored. You know that much, right?”

“Well, we were the ones to blow up the dictator in question.”

Quenser recalled hearing something about Oceania having plenty of resources, so it could earn money so long as the facilities needed for mines and refineries were brought in.

Little by little, Oceanian coal, steel, and platinum was scheduled to be taken to the Legitimacy Kingdom, but that meant it was no longer just an area requiring protection. It was an area that could have business negotiations and enact trade.

“Well, the Loyauté district is being used as a midway Object resupply base. For that reason, the Oceanian resources are being brought through the Loyauté district where they are moved to different boats before heading out to the world.”

“What does that have to do with us being neglected out here?”

“There will always be idiots who start scheming over this kind of thing. For example, some might attack the transport ships to steal the valuable resources.”

“…What does that have to do with this?”

“The media is referring to them as Hyena. In this age of ‘clean wars’ that use Objects, the higher ups would lose face if they were done in by that analog method, so they sent these orders down to our unit.”

“What does that have to do with this!? I don’t know anything about Hyena! This isn’t a war; it’s a crime. They should send in uniformed police officers!!”

“These are our orders. And what clean freak police officer is going to come to an unstable area like this?”

“But we have Objects we could be using. Oceania is right there. The coalition is still intact, so we have plenty of Objects. I thought the Capitalist Corporations’ Deep Optical was dealing with cleanup on the sea. Isn’t it a brand-new Generation 2 that uses tons of laser technology?”

“Why are you grinning like that while thinking about enemy weapons?”

“At any rate, this isn’t our kind of job! It just doesn’t have the right sense of intelligence to it. We’re more suited for some kind of smarter mission!!”

“I would like to get to sleep, too,” cut in their commander Froleytia over the radio. “But this is the sad side of a Multi-Role Generation 1 Object that is seen as a convenient tool for any job. The Baby Magnum can fight people as well as vehicles, so the higher ups view it as more suitable for this kind of thing than the specialized Generation 2s. …So let’s just crush these island platinum thieves and get to bed. You two, get down and cover your eyes. It’s about to begin.”

“…Seriously? The ground is stickier than some chocolate out in the summer sun.”

“I think this much mud might make my skin a little too shiny and healthy…”

Without the tension of facing enemy troops, the two took a bit too long to take action.

They regretted this soon after.

The darkness was blown away by a flash of light as an Object bombardment roasted the earth.

It came from the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion’s Generation 1 Object known as the Baby Magnum.

The giant weapon had 7 main cannon arms stretching up from behind and over 100 other giant cannons covering its main body.

It had not just fired one of its main cannons. That had been a variety of the other cannons attached all over its spherical main body.

It fired laser beam cannons, rapid-fire beam cannons, coilguns, railguns, and low-stability plasma cannons.

They came roaring down like a shower of light, but Quenser and Heivia were unable to leisurely watch the sight as if it was a show in a concert hall.

“Ow!! Damn, the light is stabbing into my eyes!!”

“Rolling around on the ground isn’t going to make your sense of pain go away! Let’s just get our job over with, Heivia!!”

Quenser and Heivia headed on while meaninglessly rubbing at their eyes.

The Baby Magnum was bombarding an area about 5 kilometers away where Hyena had a beach bunker in which armored vehicles and high-speed patrol boats were hidden.

A thumb-sized piece of stone fell at Quenser’s feet amid the great squall.

It was a piece of the bunker/hangar made of quick-dry concrete.

(As usual, that is a level of firepower I do not want to have as an enemy!!)

They were afraid to get any closer, but they had a job they had to complete.

“Quenser, do you have that kit?”

“I can set it up in 7 places in 10 minutes.”

“Well, hurry. Hyena will be fleeing in this direction after being woken up by that horribly flashy alarm clock.”

And so Quenser pulled out a few devices known as Cursors. They were cylinders 5 cm across and 10 cm long mostly made of reinforced plastic.

He checked the Cursors’ frequency with his radio and then bound the cylinders to trees in the area using wires.

After setting up a few Cursors, he heard a few dull noises.

They were coming from palm trees that had been torn to pieces by the Baby Magnum’s bombardment.

“(Quenser, get down! They’re coming to show us their hospitality!!)”

“(Isn’t this sooner than expected? I’ve only set up half of them!!)”

“(You should know by now that this always happens. Just get down!!)”

The undergrowth in the area trembled from something other than the torrential rain.

(Is it Hyena?)

Quenser looked around as he hid behind some trees.

Their job was supposed to have been setting traps to take out Hyena when they ran off in confusion due to the Baby Magnum’s bombardment.

However, something else was happening.

Foot soldiers would not affect the undergrowth to such a great extent and the Baby Magnum was attacking a point over 5 kilometers away. Quenser doubted they could have made it that far so quickly.

Which meant…

“…Look, Heivia.”

“Wait, don’t raise your head. Do you want me to shoot you in the back of the head?”

“Is that thing noisily headed this way a tank?”

Heivia kicked the trunk of a palm tree without thinking and then curled up, holding his toes.

“(That damn large-breasted commandeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!)”

“I don’t think there is any job here where you can make a lot of money while remaining in complete comfort. We’d just give up if there was.”

“But pay is even across a rank!!”

“Heivia, what about an antitank missile?”

“That would be fine if a single shot could take care of it, but its sensors might detect the lock. Also, the missile would probably hit a tree before reaching the tank in this forest.”

Quenser clicked his tongue.

Naturally, a normal rifle could not pierce tank armor. And Quenser’s explosives would need to be brought close enough for the tank to be in range of the blast.

Of course, the odds were good the tank would notice him before he could get close enough to throw it and then he would end up being mowed down by a light machinegun.

“What do we do, Heivia?”

“I’d like to bring out some beer and have a round with them. This killing is wrong. The world should be at peace.”

“…Pacifistic ideals tend to come from the losers, don’t they?”

“Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t go along with that.” Heivia sighed as he scratched at his soaking-wet hair. “Then I guess we have no choice but to go through with this. Quenser, what about that kit?”

“Cursor?”

“Yes.” Heivia pointed at the device attached to a palm tree. “It’s an infrared trap that sends targeting information to the Object. Its sensors are directly linked to the Object’s lock data, so the target caught in the trap has an almost 100% chance of being hit. Let’s hurry up and set up that invisible net of lasers and blow them to pieces.”

Part 2

By midnight, Hyena had been successfully eliminated.

“Sounds like Baby Magnum has finally ended its bombardment.”

“I need some eye drops. There’s something wrong with my eyes. Hey, Quenser. Do you think they have Lasik surgery pamphlets at the base?”

A few armored vehicles had been sent out from the site of the bombardment, but most of them had been roasted by the Baby Magnum’s laser beams. The others had been destroyed by the mobile maintenance battalion infantry and armored divisions surrounding the base.

The tank Quenser and Heivia had blown away using a Cursor had been one of those.

“I’m more afraid of friendly fire than a tank. The armor fragments blown off very nearly killed us.”

“That explosive reactive armor is dangerous. Once it scatters around, the pieces are like land mines.”

In that age, foot soldiers who had an Object on their side did not play the traditional role of infantry.

The soldiers could indirectly use the firepower of those gigantic weapons by transmitting targeting data, so they could conquer the battlefield with overwhelming speed.

Even if it was borrowed power, it still led to almost assured victory so long as they were able to borrow it.

However, the inclusion of Objects in infantry and tank conflicts meant that nigh unstoppable power was lost if the gigantic weapon was no longer there.

As the two boys leaned against palm trees in the soaking rain, a transmission came in from Froleytia.

“Thank you for a job well done. We have lowered Hyena’s numbers enough that they should have difficulty taking further action or even reviving their numbers. Do a sweep of the area and then head back.”

“(Once we get back, it’ll probably be time for the debriefing and weapons maintenance, Quenser. And that includes the armored vehicles and fighters that people as low on the ladder as us never get to make use of.)”

“Hm? If you want to kill some time, Heivia, I recommend you search Hyena’s base,” said Froleytia. “You can join the intelligence team.”

“No, thank you!! I’m not gonna investigate an enemy base after an Object blew it to pieces! Those monsters are famous for taking even dignity from corpses!!”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a corpse that had dignity. Do you want them to be decorated with whipped cream and strawberries? But if you don’t want to, then come back. If you two hang around out there, I don’t get to rest either.”

“(I think that’s the real reason right there.)”

“Hurry up and come back,” said Froleytia resolutely. She may have heard that comment. “We were supposed to be off duty once the princess blew away that Faith Organization Generation 1 Object. I want to get the unit to Oceania’s coral ocean and white sand beach as soon as possible. Those damn old men keep forcing this extra work on us, but they refuse to push the final day of our leave back when they do. In other words, every second that passes is one second less we get off. So hurry up and get back!!”

Froleytia ended the transmission, but Quenser and Heivia did not look remotely upset.

They had learned something quite valuable.

“Did you hear that, Heivia?”

“It sounded to me like the entire unit is going on leave.”

“And in the southern hemisphere, December is midsummer swimsuit season.”

“…”

“…”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance.

“That means…That means this is what they call a swimsuit episode, Heivia!!”

“We get to see the wonderful collaboration of the princess’s plain but lovely swimsuit and our large-breasted commander’s almost unairable swimsuit, Quenser!!”

“I know. I know! I really like the idea of some time off. We’ve been working way too much lately!! What’s with this human vs. Object nonsense!? They should give more thought before putting together wrestling death matches!!”

“There’s nothing wrong with chatting in the classroom on occasion!!”

The two idiots began throwing their hands in the air and shouting “Hooray!!” repeatedly.

However, they suddenly heard metallic noises coming from all directions.

The noises were coming from rifles being aimed at them by numerous people who were oozing killer intent.

Quenser and Heivia froze in place at about the “hoo” part of “hooray”.

The leader of the local armed group said, “If you have free time, then come with us.”

Part 3

The Legitimacy Kingdom, the Information Alliance, the Capitalist Corporations, and the Faith Organization.

The clean wars of the modern era were skirmishes between those world powers that each owned several Objects. The core of these wars was the clash between Objects that possessed overwhelming firepower. All other forces were used to keep the Objects running smoothly.

The Legitimacy Kingdom was completely ruled by a monarchy.

The Information Alliance determined good and evil by the amount and quality of information.

The Capitalist Corporations let economic activity surpass even human life.

The Faith Organization controlled society with religious faith.

The conflict between these new collective organizations that appeared upon the collapse of the UN showed absolutely no sign of ending. It was unclear if this was due to no one knowing how to bring it to and end or if there were those who did not wish for it to end.

Now…

Since Hyena was active on the Loyauté islands which had been used as a foothold for the destruction of the Oceanian military nation it would be easy to assume otherwise, but they were not affiliated with any of the world powers that owned many Objects.

They belonged to an area that barely had a government. Such areas were commonly referred to as blank areas.

As the area was not dyed in any of the colors of the world powers, the coalition army had decided to use it as a foothold.

In other words, even though the area had cooperated with the destruction of the Oceanian military nation and was being used as a relay point for the resources being brought from Oceania as it was restored, the people living in the Loyauté district were hardly friends of Quenser and the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom.

With all of that in mind, Quenser and Heivia had their hands bound behind their backs and their heads stuck in burlap sacks as they were brought to some unknown place.

The bags were taken from their heads, but they could not tell where they were just by looking around.

“Bhah!? Dammit, these bags were originally used as sandbags, weren’t they!? My mouth was so full of dirt I couldn’t breathe!!”

“You have guts to put a bag over our heads when we aren’t the type to put a woman’s stockings over our heads!!”

The two immediately lashed out vocally, but they calmed down once they had rifle barrels jabbed into their chests.

“Why the hell do we have to be captured while we’re on leave of all times?”

“I think we should just be grateful this is some different organization from Hyena. If these were the remnants of Hyena, we would have been treated as outlets for their anger.”

Dawn had come.

As soon as the sun came up, they were wrapped in humid but cool air.

However, the rain had yet to stop, so they could still hear a percussive noise coming from the ceiling over their heads.

Quenser and Heivia were in a wooden house made of logs and large leaves that was different from a Western European log house. The two boys sat in the center with a ring of swarthy-skinned men encircling them. The men all possessed rifles of an outdated model.

“If I’m gonna be surrounded, couldn’t it be by girls in palm leaf bikinis?”

“Open your eyes to reality, Heivia. Also, wouldn’t those hard leaves tear some delicate areas to pieces?”

“Can we get down to business?” asked a quiet voice.

A man who seemed to be their leader sat down directly in front of the two idiots who had had all of their equipment confiscated, from their weapons to their disgusting rations.

It was possible the man was not their leader but instead the only one of them who could speak a language those of the Legitimacy Kingdom would likely understand.

“We hope you can see our sincerity in the fact that we have invited you here in one piece.”

“If you’re thinking of ransoming us, give it up now,” said Heivia immediately. “Unfortunately, I am a noble where bloodline and honor trump all else. If you try to ransom me, my family will certainly abandon me. They will simply say I died in the line of duty. So let’s not waste either of our time.”

“I’m a commoner. I don’t think I’m worth much more than a 3000 Euro a month salary.”

“We know very well who you are. And we know how impudent you can be,” said the leader smoothly. Their comments had not bothered him at all. “Quenser Barbotage. Heivia Winchell. You both belong to the Legitimacy Kingdom’s 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion and have destroyed several Objects without using an Object yourself.”

“…”

“…”

Quenser and Heivia sighed heavily because they had a good idea what the men likely wanted of them.

“Let me warn you: About 80% of what you read in the newspaper and on the gossip sites are utter lies.”

“If all of that was true, it would mean we had destroyed Second Generation Objects with nothing but our clenched fists.”

The leader continued nonetheless.

“We have one demand,” he said flatly. “The Capitalist Corporations have a Second Generation Object stationed here in the Loyauté district. I believe you call it the Deep Optical. We would like you to destroy it.”

Quenser’s lips twitched.

He had wanted to get a look at the Deep Optical once even if from afar, but he had not thought it would turn into something like this.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Heivia to cut off the man. “I don’t know what crazy rumors you people have heard, but we’re just flesh-and-blood humans!! If you just drop us in front of one of those monstrous weapons, no miracle is going to occur. You aren’t mistaking us for androids made out of some kind of special alloy, are you!?”

“…”

“Also, don’t just assume the enemy of your enemy is your friend!! And once you’re taking on an Object, you have a war on your hands! The two of us can’t just start a war between the Legitimacy Kingdom and the Capitalist Corporations!!”

The leader snapped his fingers.

One of the men surrounding them pressed his rifle barrel against Heivia’s cheek.

“The enemy of your enemy is…?”

“M-mwy fwiend! P-pwease wet us do thwis!! E-eh heh heh…”

Heivia was putting on the world’s ugliest fake smile and seemed to be completely useless, so Quenser tried not to look at him.

The leader said, “The Deep Optical is a Second Generation Object specialized for naval battles and will likely become active around Oceania for the Capitalist Corporations’ own interests once its current maintenance is complete. In other words, you have a reason to defeat it now.”

“…And what is your reason?” asked Quenser. “If you just can’t stand to have an Object stationed nearby, you would have the same complaint with our Baby Magnum. Why are you targeting the Deep Optical first?”

“Blank areas have their own issues to deal with,” said the man. “I do not care if you believe us or not, but we have no reason to attack the Legitimacy Kingdom or the Baby Magnum. That is why we are asking for help. You can see our good intentions in the fact that we are not simply ordering you.”

(Asking, hm?)

If anyone truly believed they were being asked while surrounded by a dozen men with rifles, they were either honest to a fault or they had some kind of fatal flaw in their personality.

“So has the Deep Optical done anything to make you want to attack it?”

“Explaining it would be simple enough.” The man looked away from Quenser for an instant. “But it would be even simpler to show you.”

Part 4

The horrid squall continued outside.

When they exited the wooden building, Quenser could tell they were in a cleared area of the forest with several similar buildings.

From the barbed wire surrounding the area and the wooden watchtowers, it was obvious at first glance that it was no normal facility.

Quenser and Heivia were led across the wet red clay and into a different building. They regretted looking inside the instant they did so.

The leader spoke from behind the two boys.

“The Deep Optical’s actions have certain side effects.”

The room was not exactly large and it was crowded with small beds.

They heard groans.

They saw bandages that looked anything but sanitary.

From the odd smell, self-grown medicinal herbs must have been used in place of disinfectant.

“The Capitalist Corporations has been carrying out missions within the Loyauté district in the name of eliminating armed forces and defending its maintenance base and infrastructure facilities. The Object goes to areas of the ocean around the islands and fires its cannons at the islands.”

“…”

“We have heard that it is nothing more than an act to give the illusion of tension so that their sponsor company will provide them with additional national defense funding. Unlike you, they are not working to eliminate a clear enemy. They are merely firing their lasers into empty areas to fulfill a quota,” said the leader plainly. “But it is firing lasers that belong to an Object, the weapon that is said to be more convenient and more powerful than a nuke. I hope I do not need to explain how much secondary damage is done by firing at a nonexistent enemy with such a weapon. As I said before, it is simplest to just show you.”

Lying in the small beds were children with the same light brown skin as the leader.

The youngest was around 10 and the oldest was around 15. They had other aspects in common.

This was not a simple case of the children having bandages wrapped around them.

They were not whole.

They clearly missed things that whole people like Quenser had.

“We would like for you to stop this,” said the man.

Perhaps because he could not resolve the situation on his own, there was a sadness in the man’s voice.

“Could you please help destroy the Capitalist Corporations’ Second Generation Object, the Deep Optical?”

Part 18

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