Editing HEAVY OBJECT:ShortStory1 (section)

===Part 3===

After securing the motorcycle, Quenser and Heivia drove through the desert. Heivia was driving. They were headed for the fishing area where the ‘floor heater’ was waiting to be set up. If they did not complete the preparations before the Strategic Antenna arrived, that large catch would escape.

If it had not been for the low rumbling of the two Objects firing shells in the distance, the desert landscape would have held a sense of spaciousness not present in the noise of a city. The horizon could be plainly seen dividing the land of fine sand from the blue cloudless sky.

“Honestly, this scenery almost makes me forget about the war,” said Heivia in annoyance. “I hope this pain-in-the-ass war ends soon so we can get some time to rest. If we get some leave around here, do you think we could stop by Roadshow City? That city was developed by the coalition forces during the Oceania war as a symbol of freedom. I want some time to just relax, y’know? I need a hell of a massage to heal my aching muscles and I need to jump into a pool that looks like a blue cocktail.”

“Isn’t the signing ceremony for Oceania’s declaration of peace scheduled to take place there? You know, that thing where the Legitimacy Kingdom, Information Alliance, Capitalist Corporations, and Faith Organization were all going to gather together. But it seems Roadshow City has a lot of sandstorms, so it isn’t very comfortable. They have information on sandstorms in their weather forecasts.”

“Those things are even worse than fog or a blizzard. You can’t see in any direction and you can’t move. Before, we almost got stranded when we strayed from the unit.”

“Yeah, but it turned out the maintenance base was only three meters ahead of us. …But the military has used the people’s tax money to install special weather sensors throughout the desert as well as wired internet lines, so it must be affecting the military a fair bit,” complained Quenser lightly. “Come to think of it, that city also functions as a giant relay station for the wired internet lines, doesn’t it?”

“Wouldn’t a satellite connection be better in such a huge desert?”

“They have their reasons. Those sandstorms, for example.”

“?”

Quenser and Heivia’s radios beeped at the same moment.

The girl known as the princess who piloted the Legitimacy Kingdom Object was calling them.

“Will you have that ‘floor heater’ ready in time?”

“Well, we should have it done right away if you strip naked and put on cat ears and a tail.”

“Heivia, don’t forget to have her end every sentence with ‘nyan’.”

“If you can make jokes, I will assume you can make it.”

“Make sure to buy us some time. And also make sure the Strategic Antenna doesn’t catch on.”

If they communicated by radio for too long, the information could be picked up by the Strategic Antenna. Also, distracting the princess in the middle of her high-speed battle could end up leading to their deaths. Quenser and Heivia quickly ended the conversation.

Heivia must have been fed up with it all because he started complaining again.

“Dahh. I really want to go on vacation somewhere. Got any recommendations? I want a world heritage kind of place that will cleanse the heart just to look at it.”

“Inside a beautiful woman’s skirt?”

“That would be the nicest to look at, I’ll give you that, but there is no way in hell I’m going there with you.”

The two chatted, but they could not avoid talking about the war forever. After all, this was a problem that would decide their fate.

“The Faith Organization sure went on the offensive here.”

“The dispute started over how the land would be divided up now that the military dictatorship has fallen. But they must be as low as the mafia if they’re willing to bring out their guns just because they feel displeased with how much they got.”

“What are we supposed to say to the people of Oceania? The coalition force was meant to end the violence of the military nation.”

“I am a noble who wants to earn the achievements needed to inherit my family. You are a student who wants to learn about Object design on the battlefield. We’re in no place to act all self-important. In the end, war is fought for people’s personal convenience.”

“I know that.” Quenser almost impulsively said something, but stopped and carefully chose his words first. “I know that. But even so…”

“Well, another soldier is one thing, but I don’t want to get an Oceanian civilian involved since they have no choice but to leave their future up to us.”

Meanwhile, they arrived at the “fishing spot”.

They stepped down from the bike and glanced around.

A giant V-shaped cliff jutted up in front of them. It was 20-30 meters tall. Those natural castle wall-like cliffs continued on and on to the left and right. The only path through was a 100 meter opening in front of them. That was where they were to set up the “floor heater”.

“If it wants to, the Strategic Antenna can use its cannons to change the landscape and make its way through the ‘castle wall’ without using the V-shaped ‘castle gate’.”

“Even when it’s running out of railgun shells and the chemicals needed for its lasers and low-stability plasma cannons and when it’s fighting another Object at an even level? Also, this ‘castle gate’ is the shortest route. Trying to break through anywhere else would be taking the long way around,” explained Heivia smoothly.

Then again, he had no actual proof.

Quenser ran toward the V-shaped “castle gate”.

“The tools and equipment needed for the ‘floor heater’ have already been dropped down, right?”

“Yes, they were slipped in outside the range of the Object’s anti-air lasers. The presents dropped by parachute from a transport plane should be around here somewhere.” Heivia pointed at some large cloths waving in the wind here and there. “But the wiring for activating it has been untouched. We need to hurry. An Object’s top speed is over 500 kph. It can travel 30 kilometers in just a few minutes if it wants to.”

Quenser gathered the explosives and equipment scattered around the area, removed the parachutes, untied the ropes, and pulled the contents from the bags. The “floor heater” was contained within a cylinder the size of a metal drum. He connected several cords and cables to it, spread it out like a scroll, and covered it with a thin layer of fine-grained sand.

After spreading out several metal drum-sized bundles, the “floor heater” covered an area of 50 meters square.

Heivia had passed through the V-shaped “castle gate” and circled to the back of the “castle wall”. He was connecting several cylinders 50 cm wide and a meter tall. They reached several dozen meters in length all together.

That was their power source.

However, it was not a battery.

Quenser stretched a reel-shaped cable from the “floor heater” and approached Heivia.

“How’s the explosion generator looking?”

“The explosives look fine.”

“I’d heard of magnetic cumulation and MHD generators, but this is a really rough mechanism. A giant magnet is placed in the center of a long coil, and a powerful high voltage current is created all at once by firing it at extremely high speed.”

“Don’t mess up the timing. An explosion generator can only create electricity once. Honestly, our missions are always gambles, aren’t they?”

“A normal battery won’t create enough energy to stop an Object, so we have no other choice. Froleytia dragged out this relatively impractical explosion generator because we need to create a massive amount of electricity in an instant.”

Quenser and Heivia connected the “floor heater” with the explosion generator.

But this was not enough to activate it.

The explosives in the explosion generator had to be detonated with an electric fuse. In other words, they needed another, smaller battery.

They had to prepare that.

“The detonation should be handled by cable, right?”

“Wireless would be more convenient, but that might not work if the Object jams us.”

As Quenser answered that question, he recalled how impressive the Faith Organization’s Object was.

The Strategic Antenna.

“It’s a second generation Object with tons of radars and sensors, right? It uses its many different location and targeting systems to make sure its attacks hit. And on top of that, it uses jamming and dummy targets to prevent its enemy from even getting a lock. Its radars and sensors outweigh its cannons, so it obviously has no normal layout.”

Objects were 50 meters tall and weighed 200,000 tons, but they could pull off the footwork of a mixed martial artist at speeds of over 500 kph.

When two Objects faced each other and fired their main cannons at each other, they would not always hit. The princess belonging to Quenser and Heivia’s Legitimacy Kingdom army specialized in detecting upcoming attacks from the slight movements of her opponent’s cannons and then quickly evading.

Nevertheless, the princess had been hit several times and a few holes had almost been opened in her armor.

Fortunately, the Strategic Antenna had added an excessive number of radars and sensors and sacrificed the firepower of its weapons. In exchange for its amazing accuracy, it could not finish off an enemy in a single strike. However, the princess could not let her guard down. If enough damage accumulated, she could be incapacitated or even destroyed.

Quenser checked on the connections of the various cables, pulled out his radio, and stuck a cable into the wired connection jack. He looked at the radio and the long, long cable extending from it.

“We’re going to hide all this under the sand, but the Strategic Antenna’s various sensors can’t detect things buried in the ground, can they? I’m worried about the explosion generator’s coil, too. Will the V-shaped ‘castle wall’ shield it enough?”

“Our objective is to activate the ‘floor heater’ below its feet.” Heivia was crouched down elsewhere carrying out his own work. “As long as it’s driven here, that’s enough. If the Strategic Antenna notices the trap and slows down even a little, the princess will use that chance to fire a main cannon into it. No matter how pathetic and disgraceful the result, we win as long as the Object is blown away in the end.”

“I’d actually prefer that to happen. If the Object blows up here, we might be turned to ash along with it. Even if we hide behind the V-shaped ‘castle wall’, it could still crumble on top of us.” Quenser stroked his thumb over his radio button. “But what about you, noble son? Don’t you want the honor of a victory?”

“There are different kinds of honor. I can’t exactly inherit my family with the posthumous variety, now can I?”

As Heivia replied, they heard an ominous sound similar to thunder clouds approaching in the distance. That was the sound of a giant Object floating with static electricity.

“Dammit! It’s already here! We don’t have much time left!!”

“Did the princess relax once she saw us go on ahead? It looks like she’s leaving fate up to us,” said Heivia while moving his hands. But then he clicked his tongue quite loudly. “Wait a second, Quenser! Get over here!!”

“What is it? I’m busy with the final test!!”

“The ‘floor heater’s’ activation battery is messed up!!”

Quenser looked over in shock. Heivia was lightly shaking a box-shaped battery similar to a car battery. It had a few thick cables connected to the terminals, but the “awaiting activation” notification had yet to appear on the LCD screen of Quenser’s radio. It had no power.

“It didn’t run out of power like a cell phone left alone for too long, did it!?”

“It’s the sand, dammit! Too much fine-grained sand got in the terminal area and now it won’t work!! It’s completely shorted out!!”

Without that power source, the electric fuse to detonate the explosion generator’s explosives could not be used and that meant the entire device would not work. Without the massive amount of electricity created by the device, they could not activate the “floor heater” to stop the Object.

If they could not stop the Strategic Antenna, the situation changed completely. The princess was on the losing side of the one-on-one battle. She was likely assuming that she could win if she only lured the Strategic Antenna into the V-shaped “castle gate”. She was going all out and forcing her way into disadvantageous situations because of that assumption.

If they failed here, it was all over.

It was like a runner reaching the end of a full marathon and being told he was at the halfway point and had to run the same distance again.

The thunder cloud-like sound of the static electricity grew louder.

The princess’s Baby Magnum and the Faith Organization’s Strategic Antenna could be seen approaching while continuing to fight.

They would arrive in less than three minutes.

“Hey, Heivia! Can we use a brush or something to get the sand off the battery!?”

“The inside of the battery has already been fried!! Even if you risk electrocuting yourself by cleaning it out, the battery isn’t gonna work!!”

“What do we do?” muttered Quenser under his breath.

At this rate, they could not activate the “floor heater”.

The Strategic Antenna could not be defeated by the princess’s Object alone. In fact, a mistake here could lead to her Object being destroyed.

Quenser stood silently, but he was not thinking. He was mostly staring blankly at a hopeless situation.

But he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye and slowly turned his head.

“…The motorcycle.”

“What?”

“Check the amperage and voltage of that battery!! If the motorcycle’s battery is the same, we can swap them out and activate the ‘floor heater’!!”

Heivia moved as if struck.

He used his tools to remove the motorcycle’s battery and checked the numbers written on it. Even from a distance, Quenser could tell the battery was about two sizes smaller, but Heivia did not stop moving. It seemed to have the same values. Heivia hurried back to the V-shaped ‘castle gate’, removed the cords from the broken battery, and attached them to the motorcycle’s battery.

An electronic tone sounded.

It came from Quenser’s radio. A simple character indicating it was awaiting input appeared on the small LCD screen. The system for activating the ‘floor heater’ using an explosion generator now had power.

But they had no time to celebrate.

“Shit! Here it comes!!” shouted Heivia as he hid on the edge of the V-shaped “castle gate”.

Quenser leaped toward the exact opposite edge. The two of them stuck their heads out from the left and right and watched the approaching Object.

The Strategic Antenna was five kilometers away.

It could now enter the “castle gate” in less than a minute.

Despite being several kilometers away, it had such a sense of intimidation that they felt their throats dry up. They sweated for a reason completely unrelated to the heat of the desert.

“This is where hell truly begins,” muttered Quenser under his breath.