novelObsessive Faith >> Ocean Battle of Lost Angels (2)
| ← Ch.073 | Ch.075 → |
"... ?"
"They built their star to take a centuries or millennia long trip through waterless and airless outer space, so the people inside would still be protected if it dove underwater. And what if no one back up on the surface knew they were there?"
The plans for the ship had contained hastily added notes on a low-temperature environment.
In other words, cold sleep.
That system froze a human at an extremely low temperature to store them for so long it could be called eternity.
"They're waiting for humanity to destroy itself."
"..."
"I don't know if they planned for one or two thousand years or even for just a month or a week, but they're waiting for the balance between the Legitimacy Kingdom, Information Alliance, Capitalist Corporations, and Faith Organization to fall apart, some truly hopeless problem to reach us, and for the human race to go extinct. And once that eliminates all the problems, they'll head back up to the surface. Like the old planet shedding its skin, the Nataraja itself can be seen as a small continent. They can move up next to a tropical desert island and create a biofuel resources base."
"Nataraja... that is, Lord Shiva is said to destroy the dark age of Kali Yuga himself and then create the new age. In that case..."
"Their escape from Earth isn't breaching the atmosphere, " declared Quenser."They're escaping into their artificial planet within the planet."
Supposedly, geniuses had vanished all over the world in all of the world powers.
Those geniuses' lives had likely been a constant fight against the ugly adults. Simply hearing about talent trafficking was enough to know just how unimaginable their hardships were. Plus, that had to only be the tip of the iceberg.
That was why the current planet had left them in despair and they had secretly built an artificial planet to escape it.
And after vanishing while disguising it as abductions and accidents, they had gathered at the Star.
They were the next human race.
Only the skilled and clean people who would not bring any of the current problems with them were allowed on that ark.
"But how much did they prepare for this? They would need energy to support the ten thousand meter structure, energy to support the life support infrastructure, and energy to keep it hidden."
"Wait a second. Are you saying they've opened a hole in the bottom of some storage base's tank!? I know the Capitalist Corporations' long-term civilian space flight plan was scrapped because it used up way too much energy for mere entertainment, but still!!"
"They don't care at all about the old earth, so why would they bother leaving anything for us? They're keeping the data for the World Clock or whatever looking normal while they're actually stealing all the fuel, food, and rare earths they need to survive! And they know the world will fall into chaos once that's found out and the data anesthesia runs out! What kind of future is waiting for us? Will all of the military vehicles stop running as we fight to grab what food we can all while we can't stop the world's food from rotting away at room temperature? You've gotta be kidding me!"
A new icon began flashing on the edge of the screen.
It indicated some data analysis had finished.
"That's not some swimsuit pinup photos, is it?"
"It's the data that was left on the hotel's IP phone. The router was built in, so it recorded all of the data sent out from the room. It's their data.... What is this? Energy storage filter list? Lure data and a comparison to the real values?"
According to Putana, all of the genius boys and girls except for Mulqueen Sonora had continued on to the Star.
The data on the supposed artificial planet had also come from that hotel.
Quenser had expected to find more detailed information, but he had accidentally reached for the lid of Pandora's Box.
"The real amount the world has stored?"
The numbers were different from the official reports.
They were far, far removed from the values everyone believed in.
What was it he found there?
"........................................................................................................................................................................"
"Hey, Quenser, what's the matter? Hey!"
"You're better off not knowing."
"Hm?"
"This is... this is just hopeless. The world would completely boil over!!"
Electricity and fuel truly would vanish from the world. The little bit brought by solar or wind power would be meaningless. They could try to use Object reactors for general power, but they did not yet have any way of setting them up like that. In other words, everything would rot away like trash. A single type of the saprophytic bacteria that consumed trash would prosper and all other microbes would have no place left. But that single type of saprophytic bacteria would be wiped out when exposed to its weakness of heat or ultraviolet light.
That would lead to a world without microbes.
In that world, the piles of trash would never rot. They would simply be eroded into dust and the rain or mist would turn it into sticky sludge. The sea of sludge covering the surface would become the enemy of bacteria, plants, animals, and all forms of life.
Quenser understood why the geniuses had hidden the existence of their artificial planet.
If something like that was "within reach", no one would allow it. Some would simply try to take back the stolen fuel and resources while others might arrive with a smile as they asked to be let onboard.
That ark of salvation would transform into a plank of Carneades that washed out blood with blood.
That was why they had to hide it at all costs.
Quenser looked back while clinging to Putana's waist.
"It's possible the Oriental Magic attacked the fleet so forcefully because they didn't want the fleet staying in this area of the ocean for so long. They attacked before we could discover them."
"Wait a minute. Are you saying that Nataraja thing is using this commotion to escape to some other part of the ocean!?"
"Yeah, and while wasting a bunch of the stolen resources that we all need to live. Hurry, Heivia. We can't head down to the bottom of the ocean with our current equipment. We need to get to the fleet and tell Frolaytia and the others about this!! With the killer radio waves and cannon vibrations, we can't search above or below the sea, so we're practically blind. We won't be able to track it whether it moves one hundred kilometers away or just one hundred centimeters away!!"
Part 12
Quenser and the others arrived at the Legitimacy Kingdom fleet.
They were nervous enough for their throats to dry up when they surfaced, but fortunately they did not become human torches.
A rope ladder was lowered for them to climb up onto a small aircraft carrier. They roughly secured the small submersibles with ropes and adhesive. They looked a lot like the magnet-attached human torpedoes seen in old war movies.
Frolaytia met the soaking-wet group in a conference room and she got down to business without bothering to greet them.
"Technically, it was the submersibles I wanted here, not you. As you should know, we can approach the battlefield from below using them. It gives us more options than waiting for the final moment as that killer radar approaches."
"If it's that bad, why not move the ships back?" asked Heivia.
"You're not serious, are you?" replied Quenser with a shrug."We're up against an Object here. If it wanted to, it could move at five hundred kph. If the Princess messes up holding it back, it'll chase us to the other side of the planet with its killer radar on at full blast."
"Exactly. The situation is hopeless. With this much interference, they can even pretend they didn't receive our White Flag signal. We need to make sure the Princess wins no matter what and that means breaking through the Oriental Magic's stronghold."
While speaking, Frolaytia connected the projector to her laptop with a cable.
She displayed some quickly thrown together documents on one wall.
"The biggest bottleneck is that the Princess's main cannons can't hit the enemy. We've done some scans, but the Oriental Magic's own movements aren't all that clever."
"You mean there's something diverting the Princess's shells or screwing with her ballistic calculations?" asked Quenser.
He looked to the projector and saw the many "spears" sticking vertically from the ocean surface.
"We can't perform any decent scans with all the electromagnetic waves, but we still have some partial information. They seem to be sporadically emitting extremely powerful magnetism, but it isn't all of the spears all the time. It's like a game of whack-a-mole. Which ones activate must be randomized, but there are always three of them emitting magnetism."
Quenser groaned quietly when he heard that.
Despite the approaching threat, his curiosity as a promising engineer reared its ugly head.
"The three-body problem? That does sound like something people obsessed with a 'Star' would come up with."
"What's that?"
"It can be the moon, the earth, or the sun. All celestial bodies have a gravitational pull and all of them are pulling on each other as they move around. Now, here's the question: how do you find what kind of influence is caused by three celestial bodies pulling on each other?"
"What? How should I know? The rotation of the earth and the revolution of the moon are probably explained by a chalkboard full of cryptic equations. That's not a very good riddle."
"No." Quenser shook his head."The answer isn't known. No one can reach an accurate answer."
"Wait. You're kidding, right?"
"I'm not. You can easily calculate out the influence of two, but there's nothing we can do when it gets to three or more. Lately, they can reach 'approximate values' using a supercomputer, but that's like saying pi is more or less three. The exact answer is still impossible to find."
"Yes, this is a control system that artificially creates that three-body problem." Frolaytia pointed at the projected document with her long, skinny kiseru."Powerful magnetism can bend the paths of plasma, electron beams, coilguns, or railguns, but if it's a simple pull in one direction, the post-interference trajectory can be calculated out and corrected for.... That's when they bring in this randomized three-body problem. Honestly, it's giving me a headache."
Still absolutely soaking wet, Millia frowned.
She seemed to be having trouble picturing the situation.
"Major Capistrano, didn't Quenser just say a supercomputer can produce an 'approximate value'? Can't you reassign the Object's electronic processing time to open up some space for that? For example, you could abandon control of the smaller anti-personnel cannons."
"We thought about that, but it was no use. The approximate value for a rocket's trajectory would take months to calculate. With the spears' magnetism constantly being turned on and off randomly, reaching an instant calculation is impossible. Not to mention that we wouldn't be able to correct for the error introduced by the approximate value. The shells are useless if they don't hit. We won't get a participation trophy just because we graze the Object two centimeters off the side."
"Um, what about laser beams?" asked Putana."Those are pure light, so I don't think the magnetism would affect them."
"They seem to have another defense system for that. They've made unbreakable bubbles by mixing a special rubber adhesive with water and scattered them around to bend any light that hits them. In any other situation, I'd want to take a video and pass it on to the technology division."
The low-stability plasma cannon, railgun, coilgun, rapid-fire beam cannon, and laser beams could not reach the Oriental Magic.
That meant the Princess could not win as long as that system existed.
"I want one of these."
Frolaytia used her kiseru to point at the spears on the screen.
"Dive down and collect one. How do they work, how do they coordinate with each other, and how can we break this system? If we can figure that out, we can find a way out of this. At the very least, we can place the Princess in the same ring."
In other words, their mission was as awful as ever.
Heivia and the others looked on the verge of tears. It almost seemed they were going to give up on it all, board a submersible, and run off on their own, but then they realized something.
The entire unit could not afford for them to reject this mission.
More importantly, running away here would not solve the Nataraja problem. It was using up all of the resources it had stolen to maintain its ten thousand meter form. If those resources were not retrieved soon, everyone would have to bear the debt. The entire world would become a waste dump which would leave the explosive expansion and extinction of the one kind of saprophytic bacteria. That would lead to a world of sludge with no microbes. Every continent would be covered in gray sludge and that would leave no escape.
So they had to do this whether they liked it or not.
They had no choice but to succeed.
(Fortunately, the two objectives are pointed in the same direction. If we can silence the Oriental Magic, we can search this area of ocean like normal. The Nataraja is huge and it wasn't originally designed to dive down like a submarine. They set up this situation because they were afraid of being heard as they moved through the ocean, so the Nataraja won't be able to escape. )
Quenser forcibly encouraged himself like that.
With doom only ten minutes away, he tried to give his heart a running start.
But he was being too naïve.
The next problem arrived only a moment later.
The entire small aircraft carrier shook and tilted as if an explosive blast had hit it.
Part 13
This was different from a simple fire or explosion in the ammunition storage.
They could hear the short, dry bursts even from the conference room.
"You're kidding me. Did they directly board the ship to eliminate anyone who knows about the Nataraja's secret!?"
Heivia was utterly shocked, but he still caught the submachinegun Frolaytia threw his way. He smoothly loaded the first round while Millia and Putana pulled out their own handguns.
Frolaytia tore the internal phone line receiver from the wall.
"Where are they coming from!?"
"A huge hole was blown in the port side near the waterline! It was probably one of the Faith Organization's Spear Squids. To avoid an Object's anti-air lasers, they remain in the water to the very last second and hop up only twenty meters in front of their target!"
"Who got in through the hole?"
"There's a single midsized transport submersible sticking in through the hole. But, major, be careful what route you choose to evacuate. This thing has a ton of amphibious powered suits inside it!!"
Heivia looked up at the ceiling when he heard that.
This was a military warship, but it only had rockets and shoulder-fired missiles for handheld self-defense. If the soldiers were given too much firepower, they could easily blow away a fuel pipe or the ammunition storage if they panicked. People often thought of a military ship as a hunk of steel, but they were filled with flammable materials. That was why they generally let the ship itself or a fighter take care of things when the situation called for a missile.
However, the enemy had made it onboard.
Gathering all the handguns and submachineguns in the ship would not help when their opponent had powered suits.
There were hundreds of people onboard, but they would be tormented to death at this rate.
"Heivia and Putana, help me out here."
But Quenser quickly spoke up.
Heivia was dumbfounded as the mere student elaborated.
"Let's drive out those amphibious powered suits! Frolaytia, please tell us the shortest route to the hangar. We can get one of the missiles loaded on the fighters there. If I swap out the fuse, I can use it like a normal bomb to blow away the powered suits!"
"Yeah, that's right. No matter the situation, the army has to make do with what's available to them. Let's go with that."
Quenser's handheld device received a transmission. Frolaytia had sent him a map of the aircraft carrier.
"Sorry, but I'll be headed to the bridge. Whatever they're after, we need to prepare for the worst and set the emergency lock on the classified information. That should require my authorization. Lieutenant Newburg, can I borrow some bodyguards from your intelligence division?"
"Yes, I suppose. Although I'm little confused why a base commander would want to stick around at a time like this."
"That's simple: because this battalion was left in my care."
That could not be as simple as she claimed. With all the high-level classified information she had, she could not afford to be captured. She most likely had a "special bullet" in her breast pocket just in case.
They all left the conference room and turned in different directions.
Frolaytia spoke without looking back.
"Make sure you survive this."
"Of course."
They hurried on their separate ways. Quenser's group was on the way to the hangar to obtain the missile they needed to use against the amphibious powered suits while Frolaytia's group was on the way to the bridge to protect the classified information.
The ship was intermittently filled with disconcerting shaking.
"Who are these people anyway?"
"What? They've got to be the people working with the artificial planet... no, the ocean shelter called the Nataraja."
"Not that. The Nataraja intends to abandon the human race living on the old planet. They want to hide their position at all costs, so I doubt they'll be collecting these people. So why are they obeying the Nataraja?"
"They probably don't want to be saved themselves, " said Millia Newburg."They don't care as long as they can save whatever it is they call 'the world'. They think they're too filthy for that perfect world. They can say that with a smile on their lips and a gun in their hands, so the Nataraja is using them as disposable soldiers."
"Guilt might be at the root of it all, " added Putana.
Guilt.
At the very least, the Nataraja had the Oriental Magic helping it. And maybe the Flyaway from the northern mountains as well. The powered suits attacking the aircraft carrier clearly were not amateurs.
They were all highly-trained professional soldiers.
Perhaps only the ones who had grown disgusted with their jobs had been recruited.
"I'm not gonna get caught in the middle of their burnout syndrome. It sounds to me like they're afraid of dying alone, so they want us to all die together."
Heivia and Putana took the lead, Millia stayed back as the rear guard, and Quenser walked between them as the only one without a gun. They made their way down the corridor, but the going was tough. The corridor was tilted diagonally, one steel wall was split because the ship itself had twisted from the initial blast, and shrapnel had skewered into the opposite wall. The pipes running through the ceiling must have broken in places because white steam was blowing down here and there.
Also...
"Those bastards."
Heivia could not help but groan when they arrived near the hangar.
He had heard intense gunfire coming from their destination.
"Were the powered suits targeting the hangar, too!? It's starting to look like they're just going to sink the entire ship to silence us!!"
There were a few highly flammable areas of the aircraft carrier that were especially dangerous. For example, the engine room and the ammunition storage. The aircraft hangar was just as dangerous and important. The fighters naturally had missiles hanging from their wings and jet fuel filling their tanks. Any kind of fire was completely off limits there. If it was set on fire, the damage could quickly surpass what the ship was designed to endure and it could erupt from within.
However...
"That's even more reason we can't ignore this. If we don't drive them out, we'll all be fish food."
"I get that, but I'm not about to play the hero and get roasted like a turkey. I've already decided I'm going to die on top of a woman."
With sweat covering his face, Heivia pressed in next to the small door for maintenance soldiers to enter the hangar. Putana moved to the other side and they lowered the watertight door's lever to open it.
Immediately, a scorching wave of heat stopped them in their tracks. Orange light swept horizontally across the room they were just about to step inside.
"Gyah!?"
Heivia frantically grabbed Putana by the back of the neck and pulled her back.
Flames continued to rage on the other side of the half-opened door. This was not an accidental blaze. Someone was clearly switching it on and off.
"That's a flamethrower, " groaned Millia.
They were in trouble if the amphibious powered suits had brought weaponry like that. The heat of flamethrowers was frightening, but their greatest threat was the lack of oxygen they created in closed spaces. In older wars, that had been used to take care of enemy soldiers hidden in trenches or tunnels, but it would be just as cruelly effective in the corridors and cabins of an aircraft carrier.
But a moment later, Quenser saw something unexpected.
The ones wrapped in flames and running around in a panic were masses of exposed metal. It was the amphibious powered suits.
He also heard an overpowering shout coming from the hangar.
"You fools!! Did you think we couldn't fight without any rockets!? Did you forget an aircraft carrier is in no short supply of jet fuel!?"
The two idiots exchanged a glance.
"Hey, that sounded a lot like the old maintenance lady's voice to me."
"What a coincidence, Quenser. But we might be hearing the same hallucination in a case of mass hysteria. Let's do this carefully."
The two of them hesitantly peered inside the hangar.
It was a complete disaster.
Several blackened powered suits lay on the ground while tongues of flame still burned here and there. They were covered in thick armor, but if the external heat reached their internal processors, it was no different from burning the motherboard with a lighter. The silicon circuits would be fried and the suits would be brought to a stop.
The one ruling over it all was a veteran old woman carrying a jet nozzle that seemed to have a refueling hose jury-rigged onto it.
"Wahh!! That's clearly her!"
"Hm? Yeah, I tend to get really fired up when it comes to an outmatched force resorting to guerrilla warfare. I am from the country Nobunaga conquered, after all."
"Are you insane!? How can you use a flamethrower in the hangar!? Aren't you afraid of setting something off!?"
"If I let them in, they would've blown up the entire ship, so I didn't have a choice. And I did put together a countermeasure. I took the missiles, the fuel tanks, and anything else that's really dangerous and covered them in the electrified fire-resistant coating of a dust collector. It may not be much, but it's the silicon powder used in weapon paint. And nothing blew up, so there's that."
"That's just scary. In fact, now I'm curious what this old lady was like when she was younger."
The old maintenance lady ignored Heivia's annoyed comment and turned her eyes in a new direction.
She looked to the brown girl named Putana Highball.
"Are you the pilot of the Collective Farming I've heard so much about?"
"No, I am the Elite of the Sarasvati."
Putana's unnecessary correction only elicited an "I see" from the old lady.
She then said one more thing.
"Sorry."
She did not explain what that was in reference to.
And then...
"Ksshh!! This is the engine room. The powered suits have arrived right in front of our door. We're returning fire, but we don't have enough firepower. Anyone who can, please come help!!"
"Did those fools send troops to all of the fuel-related facilities? Are they trying to split the entire ship in two!?"
The old maintenance lady clicked her tongue and Heivia spoke up.
"What should we do? Remain here or head to the engine room!?"
"Neither. There's something you all need to do. And something else that Elite needs to do."
"?"
Putana frowned and the old lady grabbed a notebook-sized tablet from a nearby wooden box before tossing it to Quenser.
"What's this?"
"The monitoring data related to the Baby Magnum. It's incomplete due to those killer radar waves, but it's enough to know things aren't going well. The Princess is being worn down pretty bad. At this rate, she'll be crushed before we can find a way out of this."
"Dammit!!" swore Quenser as he looked to the screen.
The Baby Magnum's mobility was its main selling point, so it would continually evade the enemy's cannon fire, block the enemy's escape with its seven main cannons, focus those main cannons once the enemy was stopped, and fire them all into the enemy. That was the ideal strategy.
But the data on the screen showed it all falling apart.
First and foremost, the Baby Magnum's cannon fire was not reaching the Oriental Magic. The enemy was being careful and never approaching within five kilometers, so the Baby Magnum had to use a much more dangerous strategy of forcing its way in close and trying to get the enemy to fall back on its own.
And because of that...
"What is this? Is she sacrificing the outermost main cannons?"
"For the attacks she can't completely avoid. But it's a double-edged sword. They can't take hits like that forever. And if they explode, it'll throw off the Object's balance. If the Oriental Magic uses its main laser cannon in that moment, it's all over."
The Princess would understand that, but she could not protect the fleet behind her any other way.
The disturbance in the monitoring data showed just how much she was struggling and suffering.
And even after all of that, the Baby Magnum was slowly being pushed back. The maximum range of the Oriental Magic's killer radar waves was pushing in on the maintenance fleet.
But...
Even if Quenser and the others could search out a weakness in the countless "spears" standing up from the ocean, they saw no way that would actually help. There was no guarantee it would speed up the process.
The old lady did not expect that either.
She said something else instead.
"I have only one idea of how to escape this situation, but it requires disobeying military regulations. Are you still willing to hear me out?"
"What exactly is it?"
"The Collective Farming is moored here for analysis and we have the one and only Pilot Elite who can use it in battle. The reactor is still running for analysis of the system. As long as she has the unlock key we added on, Putana Highball can bring it back to life."
Everyone turned toward the brown girl.
She responded with a self-deprecating smile.
"You want me to save this fleet and end up in a court martial? And all to save the enemy fleet that stole my Sarasvati and essentially stripped me bare!?"
"If you don't like it, you don't have to do it. Either way, we don't have the authority to force a POW to fight." The old lady explained the facts with a grim look on her face."If that happens, we'll either sink with the ship or be roasted by the killer radar waves. In a way, you'll be getting your revenge."
"..."
It was now Putana's turn to look at everyone else.
Unable to bear the silence, Heivia let a comment slip out.
"W-will everyone really let that happen? What about our huge-breasted commander?"
"Hmph. I'm sure she expected us to do this. Otherwise, she wouldn't have let a former enemy soldier keep her gun in front of an officer. It's just that her position prevents her from directly ordering us to do this."
"Even if that's true, where would we find the unlock key the Legitimacy Kingdom added?"
"That boy has it right there."
The old lady's comment almost made Quenser drop the tablet.
They had everything they needed.
Putana narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth.
"What's in it for me?"
"Will an argument from emotion work?"
"Your idea of justice is not the same as mine."
"How about you sink the Collective Farming in the sea afterwards and make it look like a malfunction? If you detonate the reactor while you're at it, it won't be possible for us to continue analyzing it. You can make an offering of your Object."
Putana's eyelids twitched a bit.
It was clear the old lady had found a weak point.
"Fine then. The word 'offering' has a nice ring to it. I need to offer it up to heaven myself."
"We're in your debt."
A moment later, a heavy impact shook the entire hangar.
In fact, it might have shaken the entire aircraft carrier.
Millia stared toward one of the waterproof doors.
"That was close by!!"
"Go, boy! The Collective Farming's help and the analysis of those spears are both necessary for our survival. Get that Elite in her Object before she's killed!!"
They heard another explosion.
The entire floor tilted like a slide. Heivia and Millia immediately grabbed on the sides of containers held down with wires, but Quenser and Putana were too slow. They could only slide down with the tilt and were quickly carried seventy meters away.
There was no way to regroup due to the tilt, so Millia shouted down at them.
"Getting shot while waiting around would be too boring, so we'll meet up in the ocean!!"
"Understood!!"
Quenser yelled back, grabbed Putana's hand, and made his way to the nearest steel door.
All of the corridors were in an awful state. The entire ship must have bent because the walls and ceiling were split. White steam and bluish-white sparks were falling down like a weeping cherry tree. Fortunately, there was no noisy gunfire or explosions.
"What route do we take!?"
"We need to climb to the deck up top. The Object is held between two aircraft carriers with countless wires, so it would be fastest to get there that way."
They ran up some narrow metal stairs.
Once they reached the flat flight deck, they found several impromptu research rooms that looked like armored metal containers. They would probably get in the way of jets taking off or landing, but analyzing the Object was more important than normal weaponry.
Quenser used the tablet the old lady had given him to check on the numbers and roles of the different research rooms. He entered one that was filled with computers and cables, but he ignored all that and grabbed a mannequin in one corner.
"Putana, this is your special suit, right? You can change into it later, but you'll definitely need it."
"Currently, I have close to zero chance of defeating this enemy. I can buy some time, but do not expect too much."
"I understand that. We'll do something in the ocean before you're sunk."
As soon as they left the container research room, they heard a great roar.
The door of the elevator that carried fighters down below shot up like a manhole during a sudden downpour.
A scorched metal arm grew from the door.
A monster was crawling up from the hangar below.
"A powered suit!?"
Quenser frantically pushed Putana's slender form.
That was all he managed.
A multiple-launch rocket launcher blew away the container research room.
Part 14
Putana Highball fell onto her butt.
The black smoke and dust obscured her vision. The disastrous scene was only revealed once the sea breeze blew the smokescreen away.
The container research room was taller than she was, but it had been blown to pieces and the walls and ceiling were scattered everywhere.
Quenser Barbotage had pushed her out of the way and he was lying face-down on the ground. Metal wreckage covered him from the waist down.
"Teacher?"
"Dammit. Hurry up and go, Putana."
There must have been firearms in the research room because they were lying all over the ground. He was trying to reach a shotgun that would be relatively easy for an amateur to use, but he could not reach it. That proved that he was pinned either at the legs or the waist.
Putana quickly grabbed at the container wall, but a human's strength was not enough to move it. It did not even budge a few millimeters, so it felt like it was welded directly to the deck.
"It's no use, Putana, so hurry to the Object! The powered suit is still moving!!"
"You can't defeat that with a shotgun!"
"I can destroy its camera lenses or sensor heads!!"
"You can't even shoot a 9mm handgun!"
The powered suit produced a rough metallic sound. It must have carelessly fired all of its rockets, so it was selecting another weapon.
"You weren't this kind of person. You weren't like those powered suits that don't care if they die as long as they can help someone save the world!"
"I know that. I know I'm just trying to look good."
He breathed heavily and stretched his hand even further out.
His fully extended hand touched the shotgun's grip.
"But I can't help but wonder. If we fail here and you can't get to the Collective Farming, what will happen to the Princess who's still fighting? What will happen to everyone else who's counting on her to win!? So please, Putana! Please!! Get in that Object to go save the Princess!!"
This time, Quenser's hand got a solid grip on the shotgun.
He aimed not toward the powered suit but toward the brown girl.
Putana shook her head.
Still, she took a few steps back.
She moved toward the Object.
"Sorry, Putana..."
Quenser said the same thing the old maintenance lady had.
But what he meant was probably a little different. He said more afterwards.
"I was ecstatic. At the time, I laughed and thought that was the best possible method. We didn't have to fight a war, the Princess didn't have to head out to battle, the enemy Elite didn't have to die, and we could still win. It seemed like a dream come true and I was so happy. But I was wrong."
"..."
"It may have changed form, but war is still war. I set up a cheap surprise attack and stole your life from you. I finally understand that. So I'm sorry, Putana."
A metallic sound burst out.
The powered suit's palm had changed form and a harpoon-like tip jutted out.
It was probably a speargun but with enough power to tear through a steel wall.
Quenser held the shotgun's stock to his shoulder despite not really knowing how to hold it and he gave a shout to numb his fear.
"Go, Putana!!"
That finally gave the girl the push she needed.
She grabbed the tablet that had fallen nearby.
She turned her back on the boy whose legs were pinned and she ran as fast as she could. The sounds of the powered suit continued, but the speargun did not skewer her back. Instead of a laser pointer, the shotgun had a circular guide light and Quenser relied on it to fire just before the speargun did. The scatter shot hit the arm and body to shift its aim just enough.
But it was obvious what the powered suit would do after that interference.
It would temporarily take on a new target.
"... !!"
Putana did not turn around despite the repeated gunfire she heard.
She made her way to the Object held between the two small aircraft carriers by wires. The wires both held the Object in place and allowed the maintenance soldiers to move around. They would walk on one while another two acted as railings. She followed that upside-down triangle layout toward the spherical body.
Sorry, Putana.
Two people had said that to her here.
And of all people, they were soldiers of an enemy nation.
Her parents, teacher, instructor, and priest had all insisted piloting the Object was the right thing to do, so she had not even questioned it when they trampled on the dream she had drawn in crayon while little.
What had she truly wanted to protect?
What path had she truly wanted to take?
She had gotten unusually angry at the talent trafficking in Lost Angels's northern mountains. She had seen herself in that, but wasn't that because she was not entirely satisfied with her upbringing?
When the Sarasvati had been taken, she had felt like she had lost a part of herself, but had that really been pure anger? The Sarasvati had trampled on her true dream, so hadn't her hatred of the Legitimacy Kingdom come from her fear of no longer being able to justify the fact that she had thrown away her dream?
"... !!"
The identity within her was stripped away, bit by bit.
Or perhaps the safety device the Legitimacy Kingdom had installed to effectively control her and her unique power was beginning to break.
She reached the back of the spherical body. When she brought the tablet close, a wireless signal opened barriers one through seventy, exposing a straight slide-like tunnel. She ran inside. What awaited her at the very end was the cockpit of the colossal weapon that she had relied on and that had relied on her.
All of the monitors were dead and none of the lights were on.
The only light source was the tablet and it linked with the Pilot Elite voice recognition system.
So she spoke.
Quenser Barbotage and the old maintenance lady whose name she did not know had said something to her that no one else had during her life.
She thought of them as trustworthy comrades a she spoke.
"I'm back, Sarasvati. It's time for war."
All of the monitors immediately came to life.
She stripped off the short dress she had worn from Lost Angels and she donned the special suit of a Pilot Elite. She attached the many belts and they tightened to hold her in midair. Ten or more endoscope-like sensors extended to observe various parts of her body.
She became a weapon.
She combined with a colossal weapon that had the destructive power of a god.
Part 15
With his leg caught in the rubble, Quenser held the shotgun as he had seen others do. The only reason the shots hit was the excellent automated assistance including the circular guide light.
But that was not enough to destroy the approaching powered suit.
Each time he fired, the pain shooting through his shoulder felt like a bicycle was running over it. Also, the noise stabbing into his ears made him feel dizzy. The powered suit grew unsteady every time it was shot, but it did not stop walking. Eventually, a shallow cut appeared on Quenser's cheek. The enemy had not fired. One of his shots had ricocheted back.
And even that did not last long.
An odd sound came from the shotgun. No matter how often he pulled the trigger, it would not fire. He was out of ammunition. When he realized that, the powered suit was already looking down on him.
"....................................................................................................................................................................."
Neither of them said anything.
He did not have time to feel any obvious fear.
The powered suit simply lifted its leg as if to crush an empty can.
A moment later, a great force from the side swept the powered suit away like a toy.
The suit had to be heavy enough to hold its ground if a small car hit it, but it was not some bizarre super weapon that sent it flying for over five meters.
It was a snapped wire.
The countless wires supporting the Object began snapping once the monster started moving. They shot outwards like a stretched rubber band cut by scissors and one of them had flown across the deck.
The powered suit still tried to get up.
Yet if it had played dead, it might have been overlooked.
A dark shadow covered the entire flight deck that was easily large enough for a basketball game. It was like a giant peering into a miniature garden. But this giant had a huge cultivator attached. It looked like a street cleaner with the rotating brush exchanged for dull metal blades.
The two arms supporting the rotating blades lowered them from the steel sky.
A tremendous sound followed.
With the sound of crunching metal, the aircraft carrier's flight deck was pried open like a can. A deluge of orange sparks flew out. The destruction was so great it was impossible to tell what had happened to the powered suit in the middle.
The entire aircraft carrier tilted.
"Ah... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!?"
Quenser reached toward the flight deck so he would not slide down. That was when he realized he had been freed. The wreckage of a metal wall pinning him down had been knocked off of him and into the ocean when the aircraft carrier tilted.
"Putana?"
"Teacher, I have no intention of taking responsibility for your life."
When he held his aching ankle and looked up, her voice came from the Collective Farming's speakers.
"If you want to survive, stand on your own two feet."
Nothing more needed to be said.
Quenser used his own two feet to jump from the edge of the flight deck and into the ocean. He then swam to the small submersibles attached to the hull by ropes. Meanwhile, the Collective Farming left the two aircraft carriers and crossed the great ocean to support the Baby Magnum.
Work to defeat the Oriental Magic was in progress both above and below the water's surface.
Part 16
Quenser joined Heivia, Millia, and the others in the ocean.
Millia spoke over the radio while taking the lead.
"The closest of the 'spears' are about five kilometers away, but the problem is the depth. We've been staying at around ten meters, but we'll have to cut that distance in half to investigate them."
"Are you serious? Can't cellphone signals kill sperm? I think I heard someone say not to keep them in your pants pocket for that reason."
"Worst case, this will boil your balls white, " said Quenser in annoyance."Millia, how about we attach a rope or wire to it and drag it into the water? That way, we can investigate the exposed portion without going up to the surface."
"You saw how big those 'floats' are, didn't you? Are we really strong enough to pull them down?"
"We just have to destroy whatever it's using for buoyancy. If it has a layer of air, we can open a hole and let water in."
"Then we would need wires to keep it from sinking."
As they discussed the issue, they arrived at their destination.
They could see the sharp spears sticking down from the ocean surface like icicles or stalactites.
"The edge of the asparagus field has already spread within five kilometers of the fleet. If the Object itself rushes in, the ten kilometer line of death won't be far off."
"Then let's get started. We need to attach the wire with rubber adhesive. We'll play rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to do it."
When Millia immediately lost despite having suggested the idea, she quickly began pulling rank. Unable to disobey his commander's selfish orders, Private First Class Heivia was stuck with the job as the lowest ranking person there.
"Wait! What about the student over here!?"
"I'm a guest, of course. Now get going, errand boy."
Quenser was heartless when dealing with anyone who was not a beautiful girl. That was a universal law.
One of the intelligence agents had managed to grab a tool kit during the commotion, so they had an electric drill to work with.
As Heivia nervously attached the wire, he received a ridiculous demand from below.
"Heivia, when you're done, drill some holes in the side. If it's like a fishing bobber, the top half is a balloon and the bottom half is a weight!"
"D-don't be ridiculous!! If I go up to the surface, I'll be throwing myself into a human microwave oven!!"
"Quenser. I know it's reckless, but how about you attach the 'spear' to your submersible and dive straight down? If we can bring the thing down by even a few meters, Heivia can work more safely in the ocean."
"Oh, that's just great!! All of a sudden, it's set in stone that I have to do all the work up here!!"
The burden was enough to cause a disconcerting rumbling in the submersible, but the buoyant spear was forced down into the water. Heivia used that short time to drill several holes on the upper half of the side.
"Oh, yeah. And you could electrocute yourself if you sever any of the cables inside, so be careful."
"Bfh!! Tell me that before I've done it all!!"
White air bubbles blew out, so they seemed to have successfully gotten the seawater to flow into the layer used to provide buoyancy.
After supporting the falling spear with the wire and the submersibles, they gathered around it to investigate the equipment.
"This is the top and this is the bottom. Now, listen. It might still be running, so don't go anywhere near the top."
"Huh? Why not?"
"It has a huge magnet powerful enough to bend an Object's main cannon, so what do you think would happen if it activated here? It might tug on our belts and smash us all into one happy chunk of mincemeat."
"Waaaah!?"
"Don't strip, Heivia. That's just pathetic. If I'm right – oh, and it looks like I am – this thing's magnetism is set in a single direction. If you're not in the direction of that trumpet opening, it won't affect you."
"How can you tell?" asked Millia.
Quenser pointed to the unit on the top.
"If this was a normal magnet, the submersibles would have been wiped out when we passed below the battlefield the first time. And while railguns and coilguns are one thing, you don't find magnets powerful enough to bend a low-stability plasma cannon just anywhere. Most likely, this uses the same kind of cluster electromagnet used inside plasma cannons or to protect JPlevelMHD reactors."
"That tech has its roots in the tokamak fusion reactors of an older age, right?"
"That trumpet opening might use the Meissner effect. That refers to the perfect diamagnetism created as a byproduct of superconductor technology. Simply put, this trumpet concentrates the magnetism in a single direction instead of letting it scatter in every direction. It's a lot like a shaped charge."
"Hm? But wait."
Heivia moved below the spear that was lying on its side.
"You say it's using a crazy powerful electromagnet, but how's it running? If it was battery powered, it would need a pretty big one."
"Its power source probably isn't contained inside."
"Are you saying it's connected to the Object with an underwater cable?"
"I doubt it. Here's your answer."
Quenser pointed to another unit on the top of the spear.
It was shaped like a twenty centimeter decorative plate.
"It uses wireless power. Specifically, microwave power transmission."
"Micro... ah!? You don't mean... !?"
Part 17
On the Indian Ocean, the Princess sat utterly confused inside the Baby Magnum's cockpit.
Her usually reliable main cannons were of no use, she could find no solution to the artificial three-body problem, and now the supposedly captured Collective Farming was providing covering fire without sending out an identification code.
But even in that extreme situation, she did not forget her job.
To untangle the threads as much as possible, she stared at one of the countless opened windows.
A normal radar scan could not gather much information with the powerful microwaves filling the region, but she could still guess at the situation using the pieces of data she did receive.
"..."
She felt like a criminal standing in the city square for a public execution.
That was just how just many irritating gazes she seemed to feel concentrating on her.
And there was a reason she felt that.
(I had thought it was strange. )
Her enemy's Gatling ejector had scattered spears across the region of sea. The plate-like devices attached to the side were slowly turning their heads.
They seemed to be focusing on a single point.
They accurately followed the Oriental Magic's movements as if receiving something from it.
(It's far too powerful for simple radar. I thought it was a cruel killer microwave weapon, but it isn't. It's actually... )
"Microwave power transmission. Are all of those 'spears' receiving power from the Object and transforming it into magnetism!?"
Part 18
"That's right, Heivia. Something was bothering me about that killer radar because it seemed unnecessarily over-the-top. I could understand it if we were in some complicated array of trenches or the deep rainforest, but do you really need something like that to kill people on the open ocean? Just tackling them with the two hundred thousand ton Object would do the trick. So it seemed natural to assume it had some other purpose, right? The radar and anti-personnel usage was just some chemical seasoning used to hide the true purpose."
"And that purpose was wide-area microwave power transmission tech, huh?"
Millia spat out the words as she grabbed the edge of the plate-like part and found it moved around like a sunflower.
"Normally, there isn't much point in sending out Object-class cannons and letting them borrow the reactor's power. The shockwaves of firing a railgun or coilgun and the residual heat of firing a laser beam or low-stability plasma cannon would destroy the thing. On the other hand, if they add on enough armor to withstand that, the tank or bomber would be crushed by its own weight."
"But that doesn't matter with these. They're only emitting highly directional magnetism, so there is no recoil or residual heat. And as an added bonus, it only uses technology originally used to protect reactors or cannons, so it fits in quite well."
"Come to think of it, " cut in Heivia with another question."These 'spears' are being randomly switched on and off to prevent analysis using the three-body problem, right? But would they be able to communicate properly through all these microwaves?"
"Heivia, what's the only main cannon that can get through the pseudo three-body problem made with magnetism?"
"The laser beam... Oh, so that's it."
"Look, it has an infrared emitter. It probably uses that. Laser transmissions can be harder to use than electromagnetic waves, but there are 'spears' all over the place. I bet they have a spider web of a network set up."
As he spoke, Quenser covered the infrared emitter's lens with rubber adhesive.
That would prevent the electromagnet from suddenly activating and swallowing them up.
"We probably should have brought laser transmission equipment of our own. Then we could have coordinated with the Princess and Putana up top."
"It's almost impossible to use laser transmissions between the ocean and the surface. The surface bends it too much. Haven't you ever done the experiment where you shine light diagonally into a water tank?" After explaining that, Quenser went over their conditions one by one."A float, an electromagnet, wireless power transmission, and laser communications... The pieces are gradually coming into view. As long as we know what it needs, we can get rid of that to interfere with them. The real problem is the number of 'spears'."
"Do you have an idea?" asked Millia.
"Yes, " answered Quenser."I'll explain on the way. But this is just a theory, so could you leave some of the intelligence division to continue investigating this thing in case we hit a dead end?"
"Sure, that's fine. But 'on the way'? Where are we going?"
"The fleet. I need to prepare some things to take out all of the 'spears' at once. I'll get what I need from the fleet."
"Hey, Quenser, will you really find exactly what you need? We're not talking about ammunition cases in a zombie game here."
"Not to worry. We've already seen what we need."
"?"
Quenser and the others left their fellow intelligence division members as they turned back toward the fleet.
However, the situation soon changed.
They saw the entire small aircraft carrier before rising to the water's surface.
There was a simple reason: it was filling with water and beginning to sink.
"Dammit!! Were they not able to push them back!?"
Heivia frantically operated his radio and Frolaytia's staticky voice reached them.
"Ksshhh. Due to the great damage, we abandoned the ship and... ksshh... moved to the neighboring one. The powered suits... kssshhh... happily stayed onboard to... ksshh... declare victory, so we blew them away... kssshhh... by setting alight the fuel pipes. Overall... ksshh... it wasn't a problem, but more importantly... kssshhh... why have you turned back? Kssshhh... Is there something you... ksshh... need?"
As he approached the sinking aircraft carrier, Quenser grabbed some wooden boxes and metal drums floating in the ocean.
"Electric pumps, tubes several meters long, bags to hold air, and some electrified coating powder.... I should be able to manage with what's here."
After grabbing what they needed, Quenser and the others turned right back toward the battlefield.
Meanwhile, he explained the plan forming in his mind.
When Heivia and Millia heard it, they smiled quietly in the water.
"I see. Quite a unique idea."
"Honestly, I'm not some detective. If you you'd told me right away, I wouldn't have been so worried."
After returning, the intelligence division soldiers took the equipment and scattered across the battlefield on Millia's orders.
The remaining three could only wait until those soldiers arrived in position.
In the meantime...
"It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"... ?"
Quenser did not recognize this voice and it was using a different bandwidth. It was not being transmitted by the Legitimacy Kingdom, but nor was it from the Oriental Magic on the water's surface. The powerful microwaves for the killer radar... no, for the wireless power transmission kept almost any communications from reaching the ocean.
In that case, where else could it be from?
"It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"The... Nataraja?"
Quenser's words brought a harsh look to Heivia and Millia's eyes too.
This could be their best chance to locate the Nataraja, but they did not have the appropriate equipment and they could not coordinate with the fleet or the Objects.
Did this person know that or not?
In fact, were they calculating the risks at all?
"I don't know who you are, but why are you getting in our way? We aren't trying to conquer the world or destroy the existing civilization. Yes, we wanted to be reborn. We will stop our hearts with cold sleep and be born anew when the breath of life returns to us. This planet will be the same. We will redo it all with the Nataraja. That is all."
"And how much have you wasted for that selfish desire? How far have you moved the hands of the World Clock? There had to have been lives lost, too. That counts both the ones you eliminated because they were 'in your way' and the ones you're using up on the surface.... You're free to hope for some other place to live, but we're going to make sure you make up for the damage you've done."
"Hey, how long do you think this world will last?" asked the mocking voice."The answer is it won't last. It's already ending. It sounds strange, but it's true. The World Clock? That thing had reached the end before we were even born. The world was done for from the moment the UN collapsed and the world map shattered like stained glass. Its heart has already stopped and the blood in its veins is only moving on inertia. That's the age we live in. A long-term space flight? That was nothing but Capitalist Corporations propaganda. The most they could do was bluff by making a ship in the desert that would never fly. Not even the VIPs devouring this planet were able to escape into space, so no one at all will be saved. All that remains is to see how long it takes for the planet to remember. It's already dead and it's only hope is to be reborn. Do you understand now, boy?"
"..."
"The Faith Organization, the Legitimacy Kingdom, the Information Alliance, and the Capitalist Corporations may look like solid new categories, but they're all frantically trying to cover up the contradictions and errors. For example, the Faith Organization contains every single religion. There's no way that would work. They either refuse to accept any other or see themselves at the top. When you gather those religions together, it only brings conflict. That's why they're constantly hoping for a common enemy to bring them all in line. If they don't find one, then they start an internal witch hunt that ends up burning each other at the stake. Lost Angels is just one obvious witches' forest, a breeding ground to safely secure the easiest internal troubles. And to be clear, that's just one example."
"..."
"By our estimations, we'll be lucky if the planet's anesthesia lasts for another two hundred years. There's no way it will last for three hundred. So there's no point in thinking about world domination. Once people lose all of their fuel and resources, they can't even wage war. Even Object maintenance relies on existing energy sources. All the desperately gathered water and food will start rotting on the edges and the explosive growth of saprophytic bacteria will reach the clothing, homes, forests, and mountains. Entire cities, countries, and continents will rot. And after the one type of saprophytic bacteria covers the world, it will be easily wiped out by a single cause. But this ending is one you all created yourselves. We have only shown you the future that awaits you.... That's all we've done, so why are you so persistent? You were the ones that created this destruction."
"..."
"You'll only be left with dried-out trash heaps that will never rot, but the rain and mist will turn them into a sticky world of sludge. That will prevent animals, plants, and even germs from reproducing. The ground will quickly decay with the sun blotted out and the supply of rain and air cut off. Of course, it's possible the sludge will become a new type of fuel if it's dried out, but that would be interesting, too. After all, the cities, countries, and continents would be covered in piles of solid fuel. Even a tiny spark from friction or static electricity would set a continent ablaze. Forest fires spread at about fifty kph, but this would be much faster. It would devour the people like an underground pack of beasts."
The world had no chance left.
The current age saw war as normal.
The population had grown without control, no one seriously tried to conserve no matter what they claimed, they greedily consumed the food supplies, they erased forests for their own luxury, they were about to tap out the resources, they were ignoring all non-war technological development, and they were losing themselves in the fighting while looking away from all else. Winning or losing would not save anyone, but the soldiers were still obsessed with victory as if only to get the right brain chemicals pumping and the civilians mocked others for not thinking for themselves while they themselves blindly accepted the information they were given.
The planet was overflowing with those things.
This was the age after the World Clock's hands had reached the end.
So they would reset it all.
They would turn back the hands of the clock.
They were not doing anything as savage as carrying out a mass slaughter. This was more than just stealing fuel and resources so the rest of the world would dry up. Unusably massive amounts of solid fuel would cover the world and the fires on the earth's surface would chase the fleeing people to the edges of the continents. They would not be killed because there was not a drop left. They would be killed because they drowned in it all. It was a frightening reversal.
And after considering what that meant and weighing it against the current age, Quenser Barbotage gave his answer.
"Give it a rest, you brat. Your delusions don't matter."
He heard someone gasp on the other end of the radio.
But not at the fact that Quenser had spoken.
Yes, Quenser had seen through this unseen individual and determined they were a "brat".
And he continued.
"Are you in middle school? No, you're even younger. You talk with an air of importance and you might have a machine altering your voice, but you're actually around ten I bet. That was obvious enough after I heard this great plan of yours. If a brat like you is the leader, were all the adult geniuses considered expendable?"
"Wh-wha... ?"
"You want to go somewhere else? Who is it that says they want that? Who is it that says the world is filthy and the adults are ugly, yet tries to run off without working to resolve all that in your own generation? With cold sleep, an artificial planet, and escaping the earth, your actual methods are on a huge scale, but it all comes down to the childish reasoning that wants to abandon all responsibility. You think we'll all die off without you having to do anything, but that just means you think someone will eventually make your dream come true.... Don't look down on this world, you brat. Thinking you can get away with anything because you're a kid is just more childish logic."
Quenser spat the words out.
"Listen. It only looks like kids get away with what they do because, unbeknownst to you, someone else is covering for you. It'll be your parents, your teachers, or one of the other adults you hate so much. So you can't use your special privileges forever. Once the adults can't cover for you anymore, it'll all come crashing down on you.... To sum it up, you've gone too far and now it's time to pay the piper."
"Don't joke."
The voice grew lower than before.
What would these oozing, sticky words have sounded like without the alteration?
"They were covering for us? Them!? Don't joke!! You have no idea what kind of environment we came from!!"
"So what?"
"You saw Lost Angels, didn't you? But that's only the model room version of a criminal city created for Faith Organization propaganda. They faked it as a convenient example of what happens when people lose their faith. The real thing is nothing like that. You haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to real malice!!"
"What does that matter?"
It was true that just hearing about talent trafficking made it impossible to imagine the kind of ugly benefits and smirking adults that had surrounded the geniuses that went to the Nataraja. And that was probably only one small portion of it.
But...
Even so...
"From the moment you thought you could unconditionally trample on other people's convenience for your own convenience and not let them complain, you proved you're just some brat. If you were just swinging a stick around, someone would have taken the blame for you, but once you've gone this far, no one's going to cover for you. You brought this all on yourself."
"Like I said..."
Something caused an odd sound on the other end of the radio transmission.
"Nothing that convenient actually exists in this world!!!"
"It's the very fact that you can't see it that makes you a hopeless brat."
Escaping earth.
Going somewhere else.
Finding a world with no ugly adults where they were the oldest.
"You can cry, but I won't forgive you, " said Quenser indifferently."There aren't any chances left in your life."
They had predicted that the Nataraja project was split between the cold sleep group that actually boarded the artificial planet and waited for the next earth and the surface group that would fight to keep the artificial planet hidden.
The surface group was willing to die and they were likely motivated by guilt.
They had seen the children's dream and it was so bright that those adults cursed how small they themselves were.
That probably explained it all.
It went beyond the ugly leaders that the young geniuses considered their enemy. They saw everyone but themselves as ugly and had no problem eliminating them. That included the adult geniuses who had grown up under the same circumstances. They kicked them down, laughed, and said it was their just deserts. This was a war brought about by those childish dictators.
Quenser reached a new understanding of the situation.
From the middle of the battlefield, he mercilessly presented the truth to the mastermind who claimed he could keep things clean because he had not dirtied his hands.
"I will destroy it all. If you want to dream of the stars, then curl up with your pillow, cold sleeper."
Part 19
A muffled popping rang out.
It may have been an earsplitting explosion above the water, but not to Quenser and the others under the water.
"Acting tough to that brat is great and all, but is there really anything we can do!?"
"Didn't I explain it to you already?"
Quenser let go of what he held.
It was a plastic bag full of air.
Millia operated a battery-powered electric pump. The tube attached to it extended out from the ocean's surface like a snorkel.
One after another, round inflated bags rose toward the surface like helium balloons.
As soon as they were exposed to the air, the powerful microwaves roasted them and caused them to burst.
The intelligence division members would be doing the same thing elsewhere.
"My men say they've distributed the proper amount!"
"Then let's do the rest as planned!!"
Quenser controlled his small submersible. The wire attached to the back was connected with rubber adhesive to the spear floating near the surface.
Quenser, Heivia, and Millia moved in different directions.
They each pulled a spear around with a wire.
"Anything you do is a waste of time."
The same unfamiliar voice came from the radio.
It belonged to the mastermind on the Nataraja.
"The Second Generation Kali on the surface will not die. Surely you've noticed the three-body problem by now. Combining that with optical refraction technology neutralizes the ballistic calculations of any main cannon. As long as the Kali continues disturbing this area, we can freely swim through the dark ocean!!"
"Did you want me to agree with you? This isn't a customer service center, so I'm not about to say anything that would calm you down."
"We won't lose!!"
"The three-body problem isn't as perfect a defense system as you claim it is."
As soon as Quenser said that, he heard a tremendous explosion and something tore into the Oriental Magic's spherical body.
"Quenser! I have a report from the 'periscope'. The Princess's low-stability plasma cannon got a clean hit on the Oriental Magic! Another two or three hits and it'll sink!!"
"Did you hear that? What do you have to say now?"
"Impossible... ! It doesn't add up... No, we set up the three-body problem so it wouldn't add up, so how did you find the answer!?"
"It's called the restricted three-body problem." Quenser laughed."You can't accurately calculate the influence of three or more astronomical bodies pulling on each other. That's the three-body problem. But that's not true under certain exceptional conditions. For example, if three bodies with identical pull are arranged at the vertices of an equilateral triangle or if they're all lined up. That's the restricted three-body problem. You don't need a huge supercomputer for that. A simple formula gives you the answer and the very first shell will hit."
"That isn't the issue. Are you saying you kept waiting until the conditions just so happened to fit the restricted three-body problem?"
"No. We could always connect submersibles to the 'spears' with wires and drag them around. By putting each one in the proper position for an equilateral triangle or a line, it raises the odds a bit."
"No, not that!! Which 'spears' were turned on and off was determined randomly. Just because you positioned some of the 'spears' in an equilateral triangle or a line doesn't mean those three will actually be used."
"Of course, " Quenser readily admitted. But he was not done."But the random number generation of whack-a-mole is way easier to analyze than the three-body problem. We only had to give each 'spear' a number and send their positions to the Princess and Putana up above. We bet it all on the genius brains of those Pilot Elites."
"You communicated with them? But the wireless power microwaves would have kept you from..."
The voice trailed off and seemed to realize something.
"Oh, those popping sounds. You sent something to the surface, didn't you!? Did you create a simple signal of zeroes and ones using the presence or absence of that popping!?"
The student did not answer the question.
He said something else instead.
"As long as the Oriental Magic is stopped, the ability to search the Indian Ocean returns to normal. We'll know the second something ten thousand meters long starts moving. Checkmate, brat."
"I wouldn't be so sure." The mastermind slowly breathed out."Even if you have eliminated the three-body problem defense, you haven't actually sunk the Oriental Magic. This isn't over yet."
"It's two against one."
"But one of them is worn out after continually evading for so long. We only have to target that one."
"Does the Princess look that weak to you?"
"No, " said the mastermind."But the thoughtless and naïve try to protect their allies. That's why the newcomer will die first."
A massive pillar of air bubbles appeared far in the distance. It looked like a white cascade, but it came from something over fifty meters tall sinking further and further down.
Underwater, nothing should have been visible beyond a few hundred meters, but Quenser still clearly saw the monstrous weapon sinking into the sea. That was just how big it was.
This was not the Princess.
In addition to the strategic weapons, it included a distinctive road roller and cultivator.
"Putana!!"
There was nothing he could do.
He could not reach her by stretching out his hand. And even if he could, his arms could not support something that weighed two hundred thousand tons.
He could only watch as the mass of metal sank into the dark, dark depths of the ocean with the brown girl closed inside.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!! Seems like it worked. And now it's one against one, so it isn't so easy to say who will win! And let's not forget that your Elite is exhausted!"
"..."
He had known that this could be the result whenever someone stood on the battlefield or an Object was sent out.
But...
"I'll kill you, you brat!!!!"
"How!? You can't rely on your precious Objects. Or are you going to head out into the vortex of microwaves to face the Kali yourself?"
"That's not what I meant."
Quenser clenched his teeth and spat the words out like mud.
"Everything is set up now, you brat."
"What... ?"
Someone else spoke as soon as the mastermind trailed off.
"Quenser, I have a report from the 'periscope'! The dust collector effect is working and it's covering the surface of the 'spears'!!"
"This is Millia. I'm hearing the same thing. It seems to be altering the direction of the microwaves being scattered everywhere. The plan was a success."
Someone cut in.
It was the Nataraja's mastermind.
"What... ? What did you do now?"
"We made a dust collector, " said Quenser."That's the technology that removes dust from air ducts or blows powder coating onto metal panels. It mostly uses static electricity and electrified particles, but have you figured out what this means yet?"
"You don't mean..."
"The aircraft carrier had tons of electrified powder coating for fire resistance. It's probably made by breaking down the materials for blast furnace walls, but that was all we needed."
"You mean what you sent to the surface wasn't just a primitive signal to the Objects? It also scattered that powder coating across the ocean!?"
"The dust collector effect sent the floating powder coating to the 'spears'. More accurately, it covered the disk-shaped antennae for receiving power."
The scorching answer session continued.
"Those antennae were meant to collect the microwaves and convert them into power, but they were transformed into electromagnetic mirrors that reflect the microwaves. And funnily enough, the antennae were made to change direction like a sunflower to more efficiently collect the microwaves.... Simply put, they're all set to constantly follow the Oriental Magic."
"Oh, no! That's what you did!?"
The mastermind seemed to have realized something, but it was too late.
For one thing, the Nataraja was at the bottom of the ocean and would have no way of directly contacting the Oriental Magic on the surface. That was all thanks to those microwaves.
And that meant nothing he could do would make it in time.
"Hey, what do you think will happen if the full power of the microwaves that Object is emitting is concentrated on a single point? Those electromagnetic waves are powerful enough to negatively affect life at thirty kilometers and to cause a slaughter at ten kilometers. Wouldn't that energy far exceed your average main cannon?"
A brilliant flash of light surged out.
Visible light was a portion of electromagnetic waves, but focusing microwaves would never give them a visible wavelength.
That light came from the Oriental Magic melting as it turned red and scattered sparks due to its own massive microwaves.
That light signaled the destruction of the ultra thick armor that could withstand a nuclear blast.
An enormous mass plunged into the ocean in the distance. It had lost its original form and become a fluid, but it still sank into the deep, deep depths just as Putana had.
At the same time, the communications grew clearer.
The Princess's voice arrived from the Baby Magnum which was the only Object remaining on the surface.
"It's over. I'd like you to explain later what exactly happened, though."
"Sure thing. We can talk till morning in your room."
Even as he made his carefree comment, Quenser glared deep into the ocean.
The naked eye could not see into that deep darkness, but he spat some words into those depths.
"Now there's no one left to protect you."
"Ah... ah..."
"So there's no one left to protect your dream. The next time you open your eyes, you won't be in the paradise you'd imagined. You'll wake up to just another morning in a world beyond the end of the World Clock where common evils and unfairness run rampant."
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
Part 20
Real_Time_Log.
Network_System_From_"Shuttle_NATARAJA".
"It wasn't supposed to be like this! It wasn't supposed to be like this!!"
"Quit shouting."
"Get the Nataraja moving right now! The Indian Ocean is too dangerous! We need to get out of here!!"
"With the Kali destroyed, we can't keep the ocean electromagnetically locked down. If something this big moves through the water, it will be detected immediately. We can only stay put."
"It wasn't supposed to be like this!! O-oh, I know. If all we can do is wait and the Nataraja is done for, we need to escape as soon as-... !!"
"Do you really think we can? Now that the preparations for cold sleep have begun, we can't leave until the process is complete. Ending it midway will cause your body's cells to rupture."
"Shut up!!"
"... ?"
"That just means we have to buy some time. If we contact some adults who we can let know about the Nataraja and invite them along with us, we can get the soldiers fighting with each other and use the confusion to retreat to some other part of the ocean. So there's nothing to worry about. We only have to abandon the adults in the very end. Only we're allowed on the Nataraja. Only us."
Kssshhh!!
Ksssssssssshhhhhhhhhh! Kssshhh!! Ksssshhhh!!
Ksssssshhhhh!!
"What... was that!?"
"It wasn't in the software. It was hardware trouble. There's a large burden on... you're kidding..."
"What is it!? It wasn't supposed to..."
"An incredible mass is bearing down on the Nataraja! Its estimated weight is two hundred thousand tons!! Could this be... !?"
Caution.
This_connection_has_an_irregular_password.
"I finally arrived. You can't pull off a vanishing act with an entire Object on top of you, can you? Just because you're ten kilometers long doesn't mean you can take a hit from a two hundred thousand ton meteor without issue. Having the force concentrated on a single high heel is painful, isn't it?"
"Who... are you!? Did you use a powerful enough signal to break through the cosmic ray shielding and access the internal radio network from outside!?"
"Outside!? That couldn't be. How powerful do you think the water pressure is out there!?"
"I'm in the Object you sunk. Is calling it the Sarasvati enough for you to understand? Ahh, it feels so great being able to say what I want without being so formal all the time. The military is exhausting."
"After you were sunk... you fell all the way down here!?"
"Maybe it's because I'm an Elite, but I don't like being stuck on the receiving end of everything."
"What... is this?"
"So I'll do what I know you least want me to do."
Kssssshhhhh!!
Kssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh!!
Kssssshhhhh!!
"What is this!? There's a powerful laser beam directed toward the surface!!"
"Now the Legitimacy Kingdom knows where you are. And as long as I'm holding you down, you can't run off anywhere."
"I-it wasn't supposed to..."
"Let's both wait as long as it takes. Let's wait for the people who are sure to come save us even in this extreme water pressure."
"It wasn't supposed to be like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!"
| ← Ch. 073 | Ch. 075 → |