HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 1

Status: Incomplete

1/17 parts completed

   

Chapter 1: Overture >> Attack on the Turkana District Space Elevator – Gr. Base

Part 1

Mom, dad, how are you?

It’s your son, Quenser Barbotage.

I have been working hard out here. I came here as a battlefield student to study Objects, but they keep giving me work to do. And there’s always more no matter how much I do, so is there any way to escape this?

Please look after your health.

I would also appreciate it if you used your heads a little more when sending me gifts. Vacuum-packed roast beef? A ready-made white stew that’s supposed to taste just as good as a restaurant if you add hot water? Why stuff a box full of delicious safe country preserved food when the military has a cargo inspection gate it needs to pass, you stupid parents?

“Die, die, die, die!! Oh, shit! We’re gonna be overwhelmed by that guerilla charge!”

“We’re supposed to be celebrating a happy New Year, so what the hell are we doing all the way out in Africa!?”

The two idiots with sand coating their hair could not be blamed for yelling.

The shitty world was once again treating the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes to a violent potato washing. How violent, you ask? A local guerilla group was crossing a minefield by poking at the ground with sticks and, when someone carelessly blew up a mine, the rest of the group continued pushing onwards from behind. They apparently thought they would be safe if they were a long stick’s length away when it went off, but that was not enough to escape the landmine’s effective range. The rest was just pure desperation.

The machinegun fire could not keep up.

It was like a long horizontal wave of people pushing in from the horizon.

Student Quenser Barbotage and Noble Heivia Winchell withdrew to the back of their encampment while holding a heavy machinegun and a large radio.

“Let’s contact the Princess. We can’t win this without that kind of largescale support!”

“She’s so focused on that huge thing she can’t see us down on the ground. Or are you saying you’re gonna take care of that thing for her, skinny boy!?”

The two boys had not hidden behind a large boulder or a thick concrete wall. They were behind a tank that was kept low by staying in a large hole they had dug into the dried and cracked ground.

They were less than 2m away, but they received an encrypted transmission from the digital generation girl within.

“I know I should have asked this ages ago, but how stupid are you, Heivia!? Digging a hole to hide this cutie is meaningless if you lead the enemy right to her! And this sheltered girl is worth several million euros, I might add!!”

“Shut up, Myonri!! Give that fancy villainess a good slap on the ass!! Blow them away with those explosive rounds already, you idiot!!”

Africa was a vast continent, but it could generally be divided into 6 categories.

The dry desert, or the wet greenery.

The worthless barren land, or the valuable arable land.

The undisturbed nature, or the urbanized cities.

The Turkana District was located on the equator in eastern Africa and it was best known for its enormous lakes. It was supposed to be a nature park large enough to contain the entire Island Nation with nothing but verdant forests, grassy plains, and all sorts of life as far as the eye could see, but things had changed recently.

It was so bad you wanted to avoid breathing too deeply without a mask.

Scorched sand and dry, cracked land were the only things visible out to the horizon in every direction.

“Are you kidding me? Humanity is gonna wipe itself out from destroying the environment before our wars can do us in.”

“Then how about we make these tanks electric? Cough, it reeks of diesel back here!”

Then Myonri fired an explosive round.

It was like horizontally launching a firework made of metal and gunpowder.

With a loud boom, the 45ton tank slid a bit backwards. The new shells they had received in the latest version-up for the weaponry had way too much gunpowder inside, so Quenser and Heivia were nearly crushed by the steel continuous track while leaning against the thick armor.

The shell flew along a flattened arc that looked nearly straight.

The encampment the potatoes had abandoned still had ammo cases and soap-like rations left behind. Just as the guerillas’ charge slowed somewhat by their interest in that, the shell flew in. Its coating and 2000 metal balls were propelled in all directions by the explosive force in the center of the enemy group.

A very red and very liquid explosion splattered everywhere.

Quenser and Heivia did not even have it in them to complain about the ringing in their ears from the blast.

“Ew…”

“You’re the ones that requested support, so don’t act shocked by this,” said Myonri. “You’re not a pacifist back in a safe country watching talk shows with a snack in hand.”

“Underestimate an unsatisfied housewife and you will soon fall victim to one, Myonri.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You need to be careful. It’s the defenseless types like you that those experienced housewives will prey on first. And they don’t care about gender either.”

“Commander, please check the tank’s biological weapon alert. Everyone outside seems to be living in a fantasy world!”

Myonri was learning how to make better comebacks. Major Frolaytia Capistrano’s 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion could help a shy and nervous girl open up, but it might chip away at her prudence and refinement in the process.

At any rate, modern tanks could complete the automatic reload and smart targeting process in no time, so several more anti-personnel explosive rounds were launched to efficiently tear through the guerilla ranks.

The potatoes hiding behind the steel vehicle with nothing better to do began to cheerfully sing with their eyes shining bright.

“Guerillas, guerillas, kill the guerillas, kill them all now☆”

“One, two, three, two, two, three, four, kaboom, kaboom!!”

“Oh, god. What’s wrong with you two now? Is the gunfire rattling your heads so bad you forgot what morality is?”

The battle had become a slaughter similar to sweeping the eraser across the blackboard to eliminate all the chalk writing. But for some reason, this did nothing to stop the advance of the guerillas. The flesh-and-blood humans continued charging right at the purely industrial tank.

The two idiots finally returned to their senses.

“Why do they want to protect that big-ass thing so much!?” asked Heivia.

“It all comes down to money. Humans are the one animal willing to die for money, after all. I mean, the simple monetary value of that thing is dozens of times that of an oil field. And unlike petroleum, you don’t have to worry about this drying up. Africa has plenty of valuable resources – gold, diamonds, petroleum, rare earths – but they’ll all run out eventually. So anyone would be desperate to protect a permanent fortune that will never run out.”

“And that’s the space elevator, huh?”

Heivia groaned and leaned out from behind the tank to look far into the distance.

An ultra-tall structure stood around 2000m tall and looked as thin as a needle.

And several wires extended far, far above that like part of a string instrument.

That giant structure towered into the sky from beyond the horizon and its impossibly tall silhouette did not have a visible top because it eventually faded into the blue sky above. That was because it was so tall that the thick layer of air between blocked the light. That was the same reason high altitude spy planes could not be seen with the naked eye.

Objects were known as colossal weapons, but this thing dwarfed even them.

It was said the Tower of Babel was a symbol of humanity’s arrogance and that seemed appropriate after seeing this horrifically large structure.

That was the Space Elevator Mother Lady.

“We can see it so clearly, but we’re still 70km away, right? Not even the Island Nation’s Mt. Fuji can hold a candle to this. It’s insane.”

“And instead of the laser type that fires powerful beams into the cargo tanks’ asses, this is the wire type that was thought to be impossible. They said an SF director cried tears of joy after hearing about it.”

Since the 37th’s soldiers were here, their Object, the Baby Magnum, was as well. But there was an obvious reason why the Princess was hanging around behind the battleline instead of crushing the guerillas and driving up to Mother Lady.

A blinding lightning-like beam of light passed by them far above their heads.

But that was not the Object firing on the space elevator.

Quite the opposite.

“Goddamn that thing!!” shouted Heivia.

“It can do whatever the hell it wants with that ridiculous amount of power,” said Quenser.

“I thought we cut off its power source? It doesn’t have any power cables left intact.”

“There are several theories about that. It might have a web of power cables running underground and it might have a nuclear reactor hidden somewhere.”

“We’re talking about the world’s largest artificial structure here. They’ve essentially erected themselves an enormous silicone you-know-what out here. Y’know, starts with a ‘d’ and ends in ‘ildo’.”

“Way to show off your ignorance there, buddy. When it’s powered by a battery inside, it’s named after the vibrating it does.”

“You idiot!! Modern toys either use a USB cable or are wirelessly charged using microwaves. Now who’s showing off their ignorance!?”

“You dare question my knowledge on this subject!? How about I tell you about the latest tech that perverted safe country professors are researching in their labs? In a truly shocking turn of events, a mysterious new massager that has its own balls made from iPS cell sheets nearly impregnated the very curious housewife who volunteered to test it out!!”

“Ew, that’s just gross! What part of that is supposed to be sexy!?”

“What if I told you the perverted professor in question was single 20-year-old STEM blonde genius girl who skipped past several years of her schooling, looks amazing in glasses and high heels, and is way more into women than men?”

“Okay, you win this round. That changes everything.”

“Ah ha ha. She has an IQ of over 200, but when she got scared, she went pale and tried dumping cola down there.”

“I already said you win this round! Now you’re just showing off!!”

“What is wrong with you two!?” cut in Myonri. “Carbonated drinks don’t actually do a thing to help with that, so stop bragging about believing false information! Our entire battalion can hear your radio transmissions, you know!? Frolaytia, will you please do something to stop this ungodly stupid and disgusting conversation!?”

“Oh, now here’s a surprise. Myonri actually knew what we were talking about. And she even knows her fact from fiction on the subject.”

“Why’s that a surprise, Quenser? Anyone would get pent up stuck in a cramped tank like that. And she’s a gadget girl, so you just know she’s particular about what toys she uses.”

“Now that you mention it. I bet she’s spent some quality time with a massage chair or some VR goggles.”

“Do I need to shoot you?” warned Myonri.

The space elevator’s foundational structure extended like a spear up from the ground base. In fishing terms, that would be the rod instead of the line, but for some reason, it had an enormous laser beam cannon attached at the top.

And its power was on par with an Object.

That was why the Princess could not approach so easily. Dealing with the guerillas standing in the way would be easy enough, but if she was stopped for even a moment, Mother Lady’s laser beam would blast right through her. Quenser and the others wanted to get their Object to the elevator if at all possible. At close range, it apparently fired anti-tank coilguns down from its walls, so the infantry would be forced into a very bloody charge if they could not get the Princess to break through with her thick armor.

“What do we do? This entire mission is going to fail if we don’t hurry up.”

“Planning your moves in advance, Heivia? Since when were you so thoughtful?”

So the plan was for Quenser, Heivia, and the rest of the potatoes to clear out the surface and confirm things were safe before the Baby Magnum could charge in as quickly as possible and the Princess could use her graceful hands to tear down the base of the elevator.

The elevator was fixed in place and the Object could move.

It was obvious which one had an advantage there, yet the Princess was still unable to attack.

Quenser and the others should have been vaporized with nowhere to hide from that humongous long-range laser beam cannon, but for whatever reason, the space elevator never directly targeted the ground. Maybe it had to do with the angle of fire or the targeting system, but they could not truly rest easy without knowing the actual reason for it. When their lives were on the line, “for whatever reason” was not good enough.

“So how’d they build that thing anyway?” asked Heivia half in disgust. “It takes months to build a department store, so couldn’t we have come in here and stopped things mid-construction without having to mess with all this now?”

“They didn’t build it up from the ground. First, they secretly built the space station and then they let most of the rest drop down like a waterfall.”

“Like a waterfall?”

“The ground base looks like a huge spear sticking up into the sky, but more than 99.9% of its 100,000km length is actually carbona nanotube wires. So think of it like letting a fishing line drop down. Although the earth’s centrifugal force is apparently tugging on it.”

Conflicts were also fought in space using unmanned spacecraft and killer satellites, but there were still fewer watchful eyes up there than down on the surface. The world was a cramped place, but there was still enough room for large units to be launched into orbit as supposed radio telescopes or power generation satellites only to secretly join together into a giant robot. And nothing was as rude as attacking in the middle of a transformation sequence.

Of course, this project was much too big for the local guerillas to have done on their own.

Someone else was behind it.

“The Capitalist Corporations really do control space, don’t they?”

Specifically, the Federation of Elevator Industries.

That was a powerful space development agency started with joint funding from 7th Core, the seven major companies that controlled the home country of the Capitalist Corporations.

Online news had reported on the beginning of construction on the elevator a while back, but not much was known what had happened with it since.

“They’ve got so much tech they had time to choose between a mass driver or an elevator. They eventually did go with the elevator, though.”

“Thanks to the support of online stores, that is.” Quenser breathed an exasperated sigh. “Because an elevator that can cheaply launch large quantities of whatever into space will revolutionize distribution. Even high-altitude spy planes can’t fly any faster than Mach 6 or 7 since they have to move through the air, but in the vacuum of space, they can try to reach Mach 15 or even 20. And if they only have to drop the package ‘down’ in zero-g, they don’t even have to use up any fuel for a rocket or engine. Once the online payment goes through, a parachute-equipped container will use your location information to reach you with a margin of error of only 100cm. That gives them the ultimate delivery network that can reach anywhere on the planet and even the lunar villas in 60 minutes or less.”

“What’s the point of that? If you want to use the elevator to deliver a pizza, you’d have to take it to this desert first. And that’s true for anywhere in the world.”

“They’ve been giving it a ‘test run’ for about a year since the elevator was completed.”

It was the elevator that had turned the area into a parched desert.

That was not a change that happened overnight.

“There haven’t been any real problems with it and nothing during the test period counts as an industrial achievement. No matter how much they earn, they aren’t making any profit off of it. So no matter how many tons of deliveries they make around the world, it won’t show up in the sea of records. Or it shouldn’t have. But they got greedy. The unseen earnings grew too large and it stood out in the records.”

“Ugh.”

“The idea of ‘global coverage’ may have been too much of a draw for the 7th Core parent companies. Y’know how the ads for same day delivery always have fine print excluding certain regions or islands? They wanted to eliminate those exceptions no matter what it took. And if they’re dropping the deliveries from above, the cost of a delivery to the peak of Everest or the middle of Antarctica is no more expensive than anything else. They could even deliver to a cruise ship in international waters or to territories belonging to other world powers. The world would end flooded with even more empty delivery boxes than now, though.”

“So they wanted to fill in all the gaps, like how the number of convenience stores in a big city just keeps growing?”

“They are the Capitalist Corporations, after all. And this is funded by 7th Core that runs their home country.”

So the space elevator itself was incredibly convenient, but the biggest bottleneck was finding a place to construct it. First of all, it had to be near the equator. The carbon nanotubes used for the wires connecting the heavens with the earth were strong, but being made of carbon meant they were weak against high-voltage currents and they would easily break if thick thunderclouds moved through. So placing the elevator in the path of a hurricane would be a problem.

Since the wires had to stretch all the way up into space, they would constantly be exposed to the 2000+-degree thermosphere. That meant the material had to have some resistance to heat, but not even that was enough to endure the instantaneous temperature of 30,000 degrees caused by lightning. And the static electricity built up within a cloud’s moisture by friction could be enough to cause that.

That meant the first big question was where to locate the elevator.

The Capitalist Corporations’ Federation of Elevator Industries had apparently chosen to throw money around to win over the locals instead of slaughtering the residents of that blank zone that existed outside the four world powers. Hence why the guerillas were acting as their pawns. They were working to help, but they were not actual soldiers, so they were not counted amount the official war dead when they died. That was a valuable loophole, so the Capitalist Corporations was free to send them on reckless suicide missions like this.

The locals had given up their land for money, believing it would earn them even more money, and now they were fighting for money and dying before seeing a single dime.

“So all of this was worked into the plan? Man, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastards.”

“It’s not like the Legitimacy Kingdom is much better. We claim to be here to protect the precious natural resources, but we’re only interested in preserving the bugs and flowers here because they might just be useful for developing new drugs.” Quenser sighed while wiping off his sandy face. “I’m talking about you fancy nobles here, by the way. None of this matters at all to us commoners with common DNA. Your special genetic structures make you susceptible to fancy VIP genetic diseases, so you want to have as many possible drug ingredients as you can get just in case one of them comes in handy.”

Looking at the population alone, the commoners were an overwhelming majority, but it was the minority of royals and nobles packed full of rare DNA that decided what they would fight their wars over. That was just how the Legitimacy Kingdom did things.

“Isn’t anyone out there fighting to bring peace to the world?”

“If you don’t like it, then go do it yourself, Heivia.”

The space elevator was a colossal structure.

Just like mountain ranges and valleys altered the wind currents to produce unique forms of weather, that elevator sliced through the air currents like a giant blade, causing the wind to split out into a Y-shape. That had apparently distorted the natural winds of the region. And people suspected meteorological weapons were deployed in response to any irregular weather changes since the elevator could not have any thunderclouds passing through. Simply put, the area around the elevator was always sunny. Unnaturally so.

But anyway…

“Has the tank changed the battle’s momentum? Hey, Myonri! We’re gonna resume marching, but every round you fired detonated, right? I don’t want to be blown away by our own unexploded ordnance!!”

“How should I know? I only operated the gun as ordered. If you have any complaints with the product, direct them to the safe country defense contractor’s customer service desk.”

“I’d only get redirected around the globe twice over by automatic recordings if I tried that.”

Of course, the tank did not have unlimited ammo. Their unit did have dedicated supply vehicles that would transport new shells to them, but even with that, trying to suppress a large infantry force with only a tank’s explosive rounds was not a good plan. Sadly, the shells cost far more than unofficial soldiers did. If they did not want Major Frolaytia Capistrano to spank them with her lit kiseru after she read through the expense report later on, Quenser, Heivia, and the rest of the potatoes needed to put in a more budget-friendly effort here.

“Dammit, we’re left with two options here: avoid punishment at all costs or learn to accept the punishment as a reward,” complained Heivia.

“The problem is that Frolaytia always wears her uniform,” said Quenser. “If she would just change into black leather bondage gear, I’d let her whip me all day long.”

They wanted to change the battle’s momentum.

Now that the tank had stopped the advancing guerillas, it would be best if the infantry could resume marching while spraying machinegun fire.

“Keep in mind where the explosive rounds hit,” said Myonri. “There will be craters there and those will function as makeshift trenches. It would be best to make your attack while rushing from point to point.”

“Roger that, Myonri. That’s better than nothing on this flat desert.”

“Yeah, but if they chuck a grenade into one of those crater trenches, you can say goodbye to everyone inside it.”

The potatoes’ heavy machineguns gave a roar even louder than construction equipment demolishing a concrete building. Those were meant to be operated by a team of four, but when the soldiers emerged from behind the tank and moved across the cracked ground, they were carrying the assembled units with them in something like part of the cavalry battle game at an Island Nation sports festival.

When one of them was shooting it, the others would be running. Then they would swap positions. Of course, they would spurt blood and collapse if one of the enemy’s filthy and scratched-up bullets hit them.

There was no perfect tactic or safe ground here.

A special loophole was out of the question.

“Man, I wish I had a 5th or 6th generation powered suit right now. Tech really is the cheat code of the modern age. I wanna be the overpowered guy who doesn’t have to put any blood, sweat, or tears into winning.”

“If you want to run around in the nasty training wear someone else was using and never washed, be my guest. Keep in mind that thing covers you from head to toe. Now, I won’t kinkshame you, but don’t expect me to understand it.”

“The last person wearing it might have been an athlete schoolgirl whose sweat glitters like diamonds or a housewife who takes yoga lessons every weekday afternoon!!”

“Have you seen the people stuck working on the 37th’s front line!? It’s nothing but filthy potatoes. In what fantasy world are you finding anyone good looking out here!?”

“I heard that, Heivia,” cut in Myonri.

The 37th generally had the upper hand with only the occasional pushback from the guerillas who had become puppets of the Federation of Elevator Industries. When that happened, Myonri would fire explosive rounds from the tank to support them. The tank attempted to use as little ammo as possible by only firing on the problem areas, but seeing their own side’s shells flying by overhead was still a nerve-wracking experience. The 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion was a truly wonderful workplace, but you could never enjoy the thrill rides at an amusement park afterwards.

Quenser shouted wide-eyed in protest, but not for any humanitarian reasons.

“Hey, don’t rely on the tank too much! Those shells are expensive! We might win the battle, but we’ll end up buried in debt!!”

“You can worry about money once we’ve won.”

They had more than just the one heavy machinegun unit. While the other infantry were spraying bullets to push back the human wave, Quenser and Heivia’s group carried the 20kg mass of metal toward the next crater. There, they began spraying their own bullets to cover for the others.

“I won’t be able to eat grilled meat for a while. There’s more human gore lying around than empty cartridges.”

“Hey, that’s a lot of nutrients and moisture, so maybe it’ll bring green back to the desert. Oh, don’t get too near the corpses, Heivia.”

“What, you think they might be playing dead? None of them are in one piece anymore!”

“They aren’t, but some of their equipment is still intact. If the detonators or fuses are still live, the slightest bump could set them off. And I mean the ammo, the grenades, and…are those things the size of rugby balls rocket warheads? Y’know, the ones that cost 80 euros a pop but can blow up a tank that costs millions?”

Heivia decided to keep his distance from the chunks of meat full of unexploded ordnance.

“But that’s only when they score a surprise hit form the side, right? Myonri’s tank is way back there and shoved down in a hole we dug. They don’t have to worry about an attack from the side. Those cheap rockets and recoilless rifles don’t have homing functionality, so it’s not like they can curve around to hit the tank in the side from here.”

That was when they heard a quiet sound.

It sounded like the buzzing of a bug’s wings.

No, it was more like the motor of an electric razor.

Puzzled, the two idiots poked their heads out of the crater.

They saw a black spot in the blue sky.

No, it was a 70cm crane fly made from a lightweight aluminum frame. Or you could call it a multicopter drone supported by multiple rotors.

But instead of a delivery package, it was carrying something the size of a rugby ball.

That something was an anti-tank rocket pointed straight toward the ground.

“Really!?”

Heivia quickly turned around and prepared to shout into his radio, but he was too slow.

The rocket ignited and stabbed straight down like a lightning strike.

Right into the roof – the primary weak point – of the tank providing such powerful support from behind.