novelOverture >> Attack on the Turkana District Space Elevator - Gr. Base (1)
| ← Ch.161 | Ch.163 → |
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, sh*t! 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 sh*tty 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.
Part 2
Things had changed for the worse.
"The guerillas have better equipment than expected. The space elevator must have supplied it for them. Everyone, focus on making smart attacks using your electronic equipment!!"
Silver-haired and busty Major Frolaytia Capistrano's words would have been useful had they not come so late. The two idiots really wished they could put a collar and chain on her and take her for a walk along the front line.
The actual attack was more or less just a toy made by combining a flying drone with an anti-tank rocket that some dead soldier had been holding onto. It was a lot like reusing a rocket as a landmine after losing the launcher for it - not the kind of recycling you wanted to see. But Quenser's group had heard nothing about the sandy guerillas using multicopter drones. Drones were a niche hobby at the home electronics level, but these wireless units looked very powerful. They were fast and made almost no noise.
The student grabbed his radio.
"Wait, you dumbass!! What happened to Myonri!?"
"That jack-of-all-trades managed to escape in time. We have confirmed her survival, so worry about yourself. You can't expect any support from her tank anymore."
"Oh, I see. So we're stuck out here, huh? I swear you bring us nothing but trouble!!"
"Quenser, stop taking out your frustrations on a lovely lady like me. And don't think I've forgotten the sexual harassment of that highly-inappropriate conversation from before."
"Oh, god! You heard that!?"
"You were warned: the military records everything you say."
They would be able to last a while firing the heavy machineguns from the craters, but if the enemy could blow up a tank, they could do the same to a cluster of infantry. Once one of those drone bombs arrived overhead, the rocket would be launched straight down and the blast would fill the crater the potatoes were using to hide.
"The drones are top priority, " said Heivia."Quenser, you've got nothing else to do, so use your binocs to keep an eye on the filthy sky! Don't overlook even one! We need to shoot them down before they get here or we're dead!!"
"Focus too much on the drones and the guerillas will reach us on the ground!!"
"Radar alert, " said a voice on the radio."Several unnatural readings are approaching the battlefield. They are almost certainly support materials being dropped from the Mother Lady space elevator. We estimate their size to be about that of a large tour bus!! Their contents are unknown, so they could contain anything from powered suits to tanks!!"
"What the hell are we supposed to focus on first!!!???" shouted Heivia while bristling.
Despite his question, their top priority was the cargo tanks dropping from the sky. If the guerillas obtained a 120mm cannon with a gas turbine engine while the 37th's tanks were crushed, the guerillas could make a comeback. Wars were not determined by morality or emotions. It was all about quantity and cutting-edge equipment. And no one wanted to end up on the losing end where they were devoured by a monster that had the upper hand on both counts.
"Online stores are doing same-day delivery of weapons now."
"Doesn't this mean they're in geostationary orbit? They responded awfully quickly after the request down here was made. Are they launching cargo tanks with a simple coilgun or something instead of just letting them drop? In the vacuum of space, that might give them more speed than if they did the same on the surface."
Or it was possible they had other space stations positioned in lower orbits than the main one. Like the various foods positioned down the length of a skewer sitting on a grill. That would provide plenty of defense around the elevator.
Regardless, complaining was not going to change anything.
Those unwanted gift boxes were dropping onto the battlefield and it would be a huge pain if the enemy managed to collect them.
"Myonri, I don't care if it can't move. How many tanks aren't on fire yet?"
"You're still forcing me to work after all that?"
"If you didn't want to work, you should've played dead, smartypants. Now quit lying around and get to work. Since you're amplifying your signal with a tank's equipment, you must have already reached a surviving one, right? Anyway, you're upwind of us, so gather smoke from that intact tank and then release it all! Hurry!!"
Far behind them, a pink smokescreen spread out like cotton candy while a tailwind pushed it toward Quenser's group. With nothing to obstruct it, the smoke continued on and enveloped the guerillas as well. It had a toxic-looking chemical coloration, but since it was not tear gas, it would not actually stop the enemy. However, the enemy would panic until they realized that.
Also, the supplies for the guerillas were descending from high in the sky, but no matter how accurately Mother Lady dropped them, the guerillas on the ground would have trouble moving into position with the giant pink cotton candy cloud obscuring their vision.
Tech was the cheat code of the modern age, but it provided the same benefit to everyone.
Outside of the Pilot Elites who operated Objects, no special bloodline or talent was needed to operate it.
If the 37th picked up the Capitalist Corporations cargo tanks first, they could destroy them or even use the contents for themselves.
"Cough, ugh."
"It's a harmless health product - it even has skin-friendly collagen inside. So don't let the placebo effect do you in, Heivia. C'mon, let's get going. Remove the spring from the machinegun and ditch the rest."
From here, it was all about speed.
After removing a key component from the 20kg machinegun so it would no longer function, the potatoes abandoned the heavy machinery and rushed from the edge of the crater. The smokescreen not only blocked ordinary vision, it also absorbed or reflected EM, IR, and other forms of mechanical scans. They ran through the swollen pink cumulonimbus cloud and, whenever they found a guerilla within 2m of them, Heivia would cover their mouth and slit their throat with his knife.
"Man, we're actually doing real war stuff for once."
"I am, maybe! You're doing jack sh*t, Quenser!!"
"And what am I supposed to do with my bombs? Make a bunch of noise that draws the guerillas to us, defeating the entire purpose of the smokescreen?"
Even the largest group could be divided into nothing but individuals if their vision and means of communication were cut off. With EM blocked, everyone would be sending out panicked radio signals, so no one would question it if someone was not answering. This was not enough to wipe out a large army of course, but you could take out individuals and sneak into the enemy lines as long as the panic lasted.
Their goal was the predicted landing point for one cargo tank.
If they did not reach and destroy it before the local guerillas arrived there, the battle's momentum could be reversed. Being killed by the very people they had been so easily defeating before would make this the worst New Years ever. They were not interested in an unpredictable rollercoaster or a surprise twist on the last two pages. Not when they were the ones who would suffer for it.
"Am I imagining it, or are there a lot fewer people around here?"
"We're near Point D4. After dropping that thing, they have to slow it down with a parachute at the end. If the wind blows just wrong, anyone in the area could be crushed by that thing's huge ass, so everyone's watching from a distance until it lands."
That meant the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes were sweatily chasing after that big mama's butt when not even the guerillas were interested. Happy New Year - have a new fetish. Their only choice was to assume this was one of those immortal mamas who looked just like a schoolgirl no matter how old she got.
"Heivia, prepare your shoulder-fired missile. If the guerillas reach it first, blow away the people surrounding it."
"I'll do it, but they're dropping multiple cargo tanks and I can't cover all of them."
That was when they heard a loud boom.
It came from a good distance away.
Quenser and Heivia stared blankly for a while.
They heard a comrade speaking over an ultrasound transmission designed to travel through the smoke that blocked radar waves and IR.
"C2 here. Our cargo tank blew up from the inside! It killed Raver since he got there first!! There's a password written on the back of his organ donor card. Someone use that to fulfill his final wish by secretly erasing his hard drive and cloud storage!!"
"Did those sons of bitches send down decoys along with the real ones!?"
Anyone trying to obstruct them would have to take out all the cargo tanks, but the recipients would be told which ones were real and could focus on those. It was a primitive but effective method.
And hadn't Heivia said earlier that there were not many people around here?
That would suggest...
"This one's a decoy too. Fall back, Heivia! Hurry!!"
Just as Quenser shouted and gestured his warning, the thick pink smoke was torn through by something dropping nearby. It was a hunk of metal that had been carelessly separated from its parachute in midair.
Before Heivia could even widen his eyes, a container that looked like a cross between an oblong box and a water bottle exploded from within due to the impact of the fall.
Part 3
Lieutenant Milinda Brantini was a member of the Legitimacy Kingdom's 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion.
She was commonly referred to as the Princess.
She was the Pilot Elite who operated the Baby Magnum, a multirole First Generation Object with 7 main cannons and an upside-down Y-shaped propulsion device, so you could say that every one of the battalion's nearly 1000 soldiers - from the sentries to the commander - had all been deployed to allow her to fight to her fullest. She had short blonde hair and pale blue eyes, she never batted an eye no matter what might happen, and she would move swiftly and aim accurately to protect the battalion and defeat the enemy. She had a beauty so great it could not even be compared to anything as cliché as ice.
"Bwuh...it's so hot. Why does the A/C have to be broken???"
But this...this had broken her.
She was in no state to be seen at present.
The sweaty girl sat limply in the cockpit located at the center of her nuke-resistant Object. But she was not exhausted after moving that 200, 000ton mass around with MMA-like footwork. It was hot. Just plain hot. Wiping off her brow did little to stem the flow of sweat.
Silver-haired and busty Frolaytia breathed an exasperated sigh on a small window on the cockpit screen.
"That cockpit was designed to endure a nuclear attack, so of course it can't take in outside air. Your own body heat is trapped in there, so blame yourself☆" "Ayyy seee."
"I do feel bad about that, but there was no room in the schedule to fix it. Oh, and the transport plane carrying the new one was just shot down by the elevator's anti-air lasers. I honestly have no idea when the next one can arrive, so you'll be better off finishing this job so you can leave that cockpit than continuing to stew in your own sweat. It's 28 degrees with 40% humidity out here, which is even nicer than Hawaii."
Their commander was apparently lounging on a beach chair with a cold drink in hand. She was of course positioned somewhere that no snipers or mortars could easily target her, but it was still wrong to be commanding your troops while wearing a bikini, sipping on a colorful soda, and munching on assorted fruits.
As the legend foretold, the Princess did not bat an eye.
Her expression remained entirely blank as she puffed out her cheeks like a squirrel.
"I can't take it anymore."
"Hey, wait!"
She quickly stripped off her blue skintight special suit. She freed her pink-flushed nape and then the entirety of her back. She unzipped the suit, removed the sleeves, and then pulled it down to her hips.
Her sports bra left her flat tummy visible, but she was beyond caring. She shook her head like a puppy wet from the rain and drops of sweat flew from her.
This was enough for Frolaytia to sit up from her beach chair.
"That special suit helps fight the Gs and protect you from impacts."
"You don't get to talk when you're lying around in a bikini." The heat must have really gotten to her because the Princess did not even try to hide her flushed skin as she replied in a gloomy way."And I'll be fine. Nothing is going to happen anytime soon."
"That kind of carelessness is exactly what-"
"I'll be fine, " she reiterated. Still with no expression on her face.
It was true that the attack on the Capitalist Corporations space elevator was essentially at a stalemate. The Baby Magnum should have been at an advantage since it could move and the space elevator was immobile, yet she was stuck here and unable to attack. The space elevator effectively had more firepower than the Object.
(But Objects are supposed to be the strongest weapons. )
She pouted her lips like a small child and reached around toward the minifridge installed behind her seat. She felt around for a pouch of ice-cold jelly drink and pulled it out.
"Unyahhh."
Instead of quenching her thirst with it, she first held it between her flushed cheek and shoulder to let the chilliness soothe her soul.
"Mother Lady has two main attacks, " she said."The ultra-long-range laser beam that it fires horizontally from the top of the spear-like structure, and the artificial meteor shower attack that it calls down from outside the atmosphere."
There were also close-range coilguns on the side of the elevator, but those were only anti-tank weapons and Object armor could shrug them off.
"The laser beam has a range of about 700km and the artificial meteor shower uses chunks of depleted uranium and tungsten alloy, " said Frolaytia."Just one of those hitting the ground creates a crater on par with a small nuclear warhead, but we're talking about 100 to 1000 of them."
That might sound like a truly horrifying attack, but they were only hunks of metal with no rockets or tail fins. And Objects were designed to perfectly intercept a MaRV that's movement was controlled by a program or a MIRV-class nuclear warhead that scattered nuclear weapons across a set area.
With the anti-air laser beam weapons covering the spherical main body's surface like a sea urchin or chestnut burr, it would not miss a single one. And when something was entering the atmosphere, the slightest crack would increase the air friction to the point that it broke apart and created a massive shockwave. She could actually use the high altitude from which the artificial meteor shower was dropped. After determining its distribution, she could shoot down a bare minimum of the pieces so that the resulting shockwaves would hit the surrounding pieces, causing them to break apart, and resulting in a chain reaction. Even if 100 or 1000 artificial "meteors" filled the African sky, she did not have to target each and every one of them individually.
"Get too relaxed there and they'll attack, " warned Frolaytia.
"I know."
The Princess held the drink pouch between her thighs.
With her hands free, she grabbed the grips on either side and kicked the Object to the right.
The dust and moisture in the air were scorched orange as a powerful beam passed by just barely to her side.
She had only moved one Object's-width to the side, but that meant the 200, 000ton mass had moved 50m at more than 500km/h. It had to have whipped up a wind more powerful than when a train passed through a subway tunnel.
It was so easy she did not even bother humming.
"I'm so bored."
"But you can't move in any closer."
Construction equipment had been used to dig into the ground around the space elevator and pour in static-absorbing gel, barbed wire coils thicker than a tunnel had been set up, and other Object-obstruction methods had been implemented. She might be able to power her way through all of them, but if they slowed her at all, she would be pummeled by the thick laser beams and artificial meteor shower.
That meant this was a job for the infantry.
She must have been too hot to care because the Princess kept the pouch of jelly drink in a fairly indecent place as she continued the conversation.
"But with a range of 700, I don't see how Quenser and the others can get close either."
Keep in mind that the units here were not in meters.
"It never fires its laser beam into the ground, " said Frolaytia."That might be because the ground would rapidly absorb the heat and produce an unnatural updraft that could produce clouds not in their meteorological data. Mother Lady's wires are carbon nanotubes, so they're strong against impacts but weak to electricity."
And if they had a weakness like that, it was best to take advantage of it. The Princess fired her high-power laser beams onto the empty ground while making sure not to hit any of her allies or the battalion's vehicles.
(Sigh, why is the world's strongest weapon doing a rain dance?)
"Princess, um, shouldn't you put your top back on soon?"
"It's not like Quenser and the others can see me."
"You're as careless as the people who bring a tablet with a camera into the bathroom with them. Now, I might not care that much, but I'm worried about the old maintenance lady's blood pressure. Are you trying to get her to lecture you?"
The Princess ignored that kind warning and continued to fire her main cannons.
But this time, not to indirectly create unexpected thunderclouds.
She tried directly targeting the elevator, but her laser beams and railguns curved unnaturally before reaching it.
Heat.
Smoke.
Water.
Sand.
To avoid clouds, the enemy had to have some way of manipulating the atmosphere. She could not hope to hit just by adjusting for a margin of error.
EM and IR weapon lock-ons were well-known, but that was why so many countermeasures existed. And sometimes pushing for quantity could reduce accuracy.
By spreading around iron sand or gel to increase the density of the air, shells that pushed through the air resistance would have their trajectory distorted and laser beams would attenuate.
That was why she could not score a clean hit on the stationary elevator that she could plainly see in front of her.
Long-range attacks were not good enough. If she wanted to force her attacks through that interference, she would have to move in closer.
It towered into the heavens so conspicuously, yet she could not hit it. It felt like trying to attack a divine spear made out of a mirage.
The colossal landmark seemed to entirely rewrite the rules of war.
This was different from all of her previous battles.
(It's no fun at all. )
The frustration building in her body must have caused her to tense up too much.
"Hyah!"
Her thigh pressure grew too great for the cap of the jelly drink held against her teenage crotch because it popped off and the heavy liquid within splattered across her body. She reached up to touch her cheek and bangs before growing somewhat tearful.
"Ugh, this is the worst."
"Princess, I know you didn't mean to do that, but the old lady is definitely lecturing you until morning this time."
Part 4
Things could hardly be worse.
The cargo tank must have been loaded with something like tank shells with their fuses swapped out. With those van-sized containers packed full, this reached the level of a small aerial bombing. The blasts and shockwaves covered a radius of 200m.
The only reason Quenser and Heivia were not turned to mincemeat was due to falling into a thick trench in the dry ground. There were traces of concrete mixed in with the scorching sand. This must have originally been an agricultural irrigation ditch, but it had completely dried up.
"We're dead. We are so dead. That big mama's ass exploded in our faces. That ultra-heavyweight mama has no tact at all. Don't just fart in people's faces."
"More importantly, what happened with the real cargo tanks? The guerillas didn't collect them, did they!?"
The smoke would not cover the battlefield forever. The wind had grown stronger, so Quenser and Heivia made certain they did not stick their heads above the former irrigation ditch. They watched as the cotton candy cleared away overhead, revealing the brutal near-equator sun overhead once more.
With the pink smokescreen gone, they switched from ultrasound to ordinary encrypted radio for their transmissions.
Their 18-year-old leader, Frolaytia Capistrano, had this to say:
"A9 failed to reach their target. I repeat, failed to reach their target. The guerillas have entered the cargo tank. The threat level just increased, so be on your guard!!"
"Shut up! If you don't like it, get out here and do it yourself!! Oh, this isn't good! The adrenaline is hitting me in all the wrong ways!"
They were not going to fix anything by saying unwise things much like someone in a sleep-deprived high after trying and failing to get to sleep. It would only get them in trouble later on, so wise Quenser asked about something else.
"Frolaytia, what weapon did the guerillas obtain?"
"Hm, hmmm."
"Look at the screen and stop covering your eyes!! I'll record any more of those naughty-sounding groans, so please just tell us the bad news already!!"
He really wanted their beautiful and capable adult of a commander to understand the simple fact that they were the ones who wanted to cry. Please.
Finally, the silver-haired and busty commander responded.
"They managed to acquire some of the UGV22 Lunchboxes used by the Capitalist Corporations. They now have around 20 of those unmanned ground vehicles."
"Unmanned!?"
"The enemy must like packing things in tight to fit 20 of those in a single cargo tank. What are they, a Class Rep or a young housewife? Each one is 3m long, weighs 2 tons, and has 50cm-thick armor on the front. Their primary weapons are a heavy machinegun and a grenade launcher. They've made those small things as tough as an armored truck and they can charge right into a barrage since they're unmanned. Do not let them near you because they will ignite their remaining ammo to self-destruct if they're immobilized. I don't want to waste our human primates on those masses of metal and silicon, so prepare for electronic warfare!!"
Armored trucks had thin armor compared to tanks, but they were still too much for an assault rifle or grenade to handle. These unmanned vehicles were apparently only 3m long, but since they did not need any space for anyone inside, they could be packed in tight to reduce the size of the entire weapon.
They might as well have had 3m hunks of metal coming for them.
That was a problem.
No one wanted to try punching or kicking something like that and throwing rocks from afar would do nothing to slow them. They would always move at a constant speed and attack with deadly accuracy. They did not even care if they stepped in dog doo.
"What do we do? We left our machinegun in that crater and the others in this area will have already retrieved it. We only have its spring! This thing won't not even satisfy a bored housewife!!"
"Quit flopping that thing around, Heivia. Argh, why'd the smokescreen have to clear up now? If we don't find another way to stop those things, they'll turn us to Swiss cheese from a safe distance."
They only had so many shoulder-fired missiles and it would be foolish for the humans to raise a war cry and go charging in against remote-controlled toys. They were fighting with their one and only life which could not be repaired or replaced if something happened to it. Their best bet was to find some way to cut off the guerillas' line of communication, cause a malfunction in the unmanned weapons' circuitry, or otherwise avoid fighting them altogether.
"Hey, what do we do?" asked Heivia."Unmanned weapons were supposed to be our thing. I don't wanna fight a war with inferior tech, so I vote we go home."
"How in the world did you look at that enormous elevator and conclude we had the superior tech here? Besides, the guerillas are only borrowing those things from the Capitalist Corporations. Come with me, Heivia, this has turned into a battle of engineering. Those guerillas haven't read the manual and just assume they know what they're doing, just like pretty much everyone with their phones, so let's show them how wrong they are."
Part 5
However, things did not always work out the way you wanted.
"Never mind! I was wrong! Retreat, retreat!!"
"I should really tie up that overconfident skinny boy and leave him out here!!!!!!"
Part 6
Quenser and Heivia rolled into a crack in the dry ground while pursued by the roar of an automatically swiveling heavy machinegun that scattered 700 bullets a minute. And each of those bullets was the same size as the 12. 7mm ones used in anti-materiel rifles. A graze to the thigh would be enough to tear off the leg like wringing a rag.
The bugs hiding in a gap in the ground groaned while protecting their heads with their hands.
"This is worse than I imagined!!"
"Why do you always do this!? You're always so shocked every time some new Object shows up!! Why give the enemy the reaction they want!?"
Quenser had tried to use an attack that was harmless to people but deadly to machines: heat, EM waves, dust, dirt, static, moisture, etc. Unmanned weapons were giant communication devices encased in thick armor. Just like with a phone or computer, machines had plenty of weaknesses unique to themselves.
Or so the theory goes. But...
"Damn, it didn't work. They're completely airtight, so no dust or moisture can get in. What kind of cooling system do they use? I didn't see the wire mesh for a radiator. Do those bastards use stylish fully-enclosed liquid cooling!?"
"Keep bragging about the enemy's specs and I'm shoving my magnum in your yapping mouth, skinny boy!!"
They heard the sound of metal panels scraping together.
Those 3m box-shaped machines called Lunchboxes did not need any space for someone inside, so they were filled with armor instead. That made them heavy. They were only about 2 tons, but that was still too much for skinny tires that matched their size.
"Are you kidding me with these brand-new things? They're all bright and shiny like at a motor show."
"That isn't just paint or wax."
Quenser and Heivia were lucky the Lunchboxes' weight prevented them from moving very fast. They traveled at about the speed of a scooter while suppressing the enemy with their machinegun and grenades. Instead of nimbly pursuing their target, they were likely meant to be placed at a particular point to prevent anyone from getting through. By generally surrounding a target with several of them, they could then slowly close in on the target.
But as Quenser and Heivia were pushed back by them, the fear was much like being slowly crushed by the moving walls in some ancient ruins. They were already within range of the barrage. At this rate, the unmanned weapons would catch up to them on their continuous tracks, but carelessly sticking their heads up from the crack in the ground would only get their torso torn in two by anti-materiel bullets.
Quenser looked up into the slice of the blue sky he could see out of the crack.
"From the way they move, I'm guessing they're operated remotely instead of using a program to patrol a set area. Can't our side jam them or something?"
"They refuse to attempt something when they know they'll fail. Since it detracts from their score. Have you forgotten what we're up against here, Quenser? The Mother Lady space elevator. That thing moves the elevator cars by blasting them with microwaves from the surface to get the motor running. And the Capitalist Corporations controls everything in space up above. Their signals are more powerful than ours, so we can't forcibly jam theirs."
"Wait, that would mean...ah, ah, ahhhh!?"
Deafening static pierced his head from right to left, so he grimaced and removed his earphone.
His mobile device might as well have been a ceramic tile.
The emblem on the corner of the screen said he had no signal.
"The data link is down."
"So's the radio. Damn, what century of warfare are we fighting now!?"
This is what happened when your side's communications equipment was inferior. The guerillas protecting the space elevator could communicate and coordinate all they liked, but the 37th had to figure things out individually. Their maps were no longer updating, leaving them in the dark as to what was happening, where their enemies and allies were located, what the current timetable was, or even where they were located themselves. And since they could not share their own locations, there was a chance that the Princess would blow them away with an attack. Luring them in and then cutting off their communications was downright cruel.
The Legitimacy Kingdom was one of the four world powers, so they would not normally run into this kind of trouble.
That showed just how unusual this battle against the space elevator was.
"What do we do?" asked Heivia."We'll get lost out here if we're not careful. Do we just charge toward Mother Lady as the most obvious landmark?"
"And die just like Frolaytia taught us to!? Anyway, be quiet, Heivia. One of those unmanned weapons is coming, so shut up!"
Some sand came away from the walls as the ground shook from continuous tracks similar to on construction equipment. It was close.
Quenser and Heivia curled up at the bottom of the crack just before the sunlight was blocked.
A Lunchbox was passing by directly above the narrow crack in the ground.
"------!?"
"(Settle down, you noble chicken! Do I need to stuff a handkerchief in your mouth!?)"
Dust was falling down on their heads and the sunlight could not reach them. Quenser felt a squeezing in his heart as the 2 tons of thick metal passed by overhead. If they were discovered, they were dead, but it could also lose its balance and crush them to death. At this point, his life was entirely in the hands of luck.
Looking up, he saw the metal belly of the machine and the track thicker than a chainsaw.
The bottom was not as shiny as a sportscar.
It symbolized death as much as falling rocks or a cave-in, but there was nothing more there. The lunchbox did not have any cameras or sensors to detect anyone below it. Of course, it was only 3m long and did not sit very high up from the ground, so there would not normally be enough of a gap for someone to crawl underneath it.
Yet Quenser saw no opening here.
A tank could not fire from too close to avoid being caught in the blast or hit by a ricochet, but this thing was unmanned. It would not have to worry about human damage. The instant it noticed them, the fireworks show would begin.
Unlike the tank Myonri had been using, he did not smell any exhaust. Was it actually electric despite weighing so much?
It must have only taken 10 seconds to pass by, but that felt maddeningly long.
The Capitalist Corporations unmanned ground vehicle passed above the two idiots, but Heivia still did not stick his head out of the crack for a while.
"What now? We're past their defensive line!"
"Why should we do all the work? Myonri and the others have their tanks back there, so they can blast through that thick armor with-"
Quenser trailed off when he realized something.
The Capitalist Corporations' Federation of Elevator Industries was jamming them using the microwave bases surrounding the ground base and the many military stations built up in space, so Quenser and Heivia could not communicate or use their datalink to tell their allies where they were.
What if the tanks began their own individual attacks right now?
The Legitimacy Kingdom would want to do something about the slow-moving but thick-armored Lunchboxes, so those would be the top priority target at the moment.
But. Would the others notice that the two idiots were hiding in a crack not 10m away from this one?
"W-we need to use a smoke bomb!! What's the color for an emergency signal!?"
They did not have time for that.
A shell flew in from a Legitimacy Kingdom tank.
It very kindly knocked them unconscious as it blew them away.
Part 7
Quenser Barbotage was being dragged.
He could not tell up from down and his memory was still fuzzy, but he could tell someone was holding him by the arms and dragging him.
Wherever he was, it was dark, but he could not figure out if it was a cave or a basement somewhere.
"Ah, ugh?"
"(Stay quiet if you want to live. )"
A suppressed male voice brought the blood rapidly back to the student's head. His mind quickly regained its focus.
Who was this?
At the very least, it did not seem to be Heivia Winchell.
"You're one of the foreign soldiers, aren't you? You might not want treatment from a blank zone doctor with far from the latest equipment, but it's better than dying. Listen, you need to stay still. I disinfected you and stopped the bleeding, but I don't have any real equipment here. I can't even guess what state your bones or organs are in."
"Who...are you?"
"Braskine Mintfrappe."
The young man slowly named himself.
He had dark skin and short black hair. He was wearing a desert military uniform, but he also wore a starched white coat over that. He was tall and fairly muscular, but it looked somehow calculated. Like he had intentionally built up that muscle instead of coming by it naturally.
That family name was unfamiliar, so he was probably native to this blank zone instead of any of the four world powers.
"You people might see someone like me as no more than a witch doctor, but I'll have you know I studied medicine in Berlin when I was younger. I never managed to spread that knowledge after returning here, though."
In that case...
"You're with the guerill- agh!?"
Quenser tried to roll away from the man, but every last joint in his body cried out in pain.
The man named Braskine shook his head.
"I said I don't know what state your bones and organs are in, remember? You might have been hiding below ground level, but you were still in the lethal range of that shaped charge. I held off on giving you morphine so I wouldn't medicate you without your consent, but how about now?"
Now it was Quenser's turn to shake his head while trying to catch his breath. He was not trusting enough to let some random person inject him with something.
Anyway, it turned out miracles did happen.
In that last moment, Quenser and Heivia had been hiding in a crack in the dried ground. That very ground must have been blown away (by the tank gun operated by that dumbass Myonri), but the crack must not have fully collapsed since Quenser was still in one piece. And how had this supposed doctor collected him from the crack while the tank and the unmanned weapon fought?
That question had a simple answer.
"The battleline has moved on. The tank and unmanned ground vehicle can both move, so the frontline left you two behind while you slept."
"Dammit."
Quenser was not going to just believe everything this guy told him, but that did seem like the only real possibility.
He had thought the area was so dark because this was a cave with thick bedrock overhead, but it was just that enough time had passed for the sun to fall beyond the horizon.
He had been abandoned out here for that long.
Essentially, he had fallen into enemy hands. The largescale jamming from the parabolic antennas on the ground and the space station up above meant his radio and datalink were useless. That made it unlikely the operator in the maintenance base zone was monitoring his location.
Help was not on its way.
He slowly breathed out before checking on something.
"You said 'you two'."
"I treated another boy in the same uniform as you. Over there."
Quenser intentionally avoided mentioning any names, but Braskine gestured with his chin toward where Private Heivia Winchell was lying sprawled out on the ground. Shockingly, his large handgun remained in its holster. Whatever this man's intentions were, he must not have been interested in confiscating their weapons.
A small old truck and a roofless buggy sat nearby.
No, the doctor had probably carried the buggy out here in the back of the truck. The cheap emblems told Quenser both vehicles were Island Nation brands. That country had withdrawn into partial isolationism, so it was unclear how these had made their way all the way to Africa.
"Can you drive?" Braskine dropped a simple key without a keychain into Quenser's hand."Then you can take the buggy. Load your friend in there and hurry back to your maintenance base."
"Are you sure about that? If we return alive, we'll report everything that happened. If you're walking around without any real weapons while the Legitimacy Kingdom and Capitalist Corporations clash here, you must have some kind of secret route, be it tunnels or pipelines."
"Keeping you here would be a bigger problem, " spat out the man."What if your people put together a largescale rescue mission for you two? That benevolent act of charity will keep the war going. My job is to treat the wounded, so I don't want your people hurting anyone else."
"You're with the guerillas, so don't you want to protect the elevator no matter what?"
"Mother Lady has brought us money. A lot of money. Over the nine-month test period, the Turkana District has probably become the wealthiest part of Africa. And with the profits going unrecorded since it's all supposed to be a simple test. I bet we're doing even better than the diamond mines or the water business."
He sounded bitter, so he must have noticed this was not exactly a good thing.
"But wealth doesn't necessarily bring happiness. We're going through lives even faster than we used to. Clutching a still-unpaid contract in your hand doesn't do you any good when you take a bullet and die."
"..."
The Capitalist Corporations were using the local guerillas knowing what it would mean for them.
They had bought up the land for the space elevator and made lucrative promises to be fulfilled after the elevator's completion to hire a defense force against the other world powers. And if those defenders died before the Capitalist Corporations had to pay them, all the better.
Even when the locals realized they had been betrayed, they could not turn their weapons on the elevator.
Why not?
They had abandoned their old lives and invested in this new path. That had earned them some new wealth. Could they really throw out that new life and redo things just because they knew it was wrong?
They could not.
Humans could not fight the new desires they discovered. Like TV, air conditioning, online shopping, refrigerators, convenience stores, microwaves, delivery drones, and smartphones. It was the same for everyone. No one could give up everything and return to a more natural life just because people had lived that way a hundred years ago.
Without the space elevator, the world powers would lose all interest in this region. The test period was only a test. If the results were unsatisfactory and it was branded a failure, the Capitalist Corporations would be freed of their obligation to build bases and cities here. All that would remain was the dry and cracked desert.
And they would no longer need to maintain the high-level infrastructure they had put in place.
The locals would have been given a taste of a more comfortable life only for the tap to be shut off. That was the same method used by rotten drug dealers on the streets who would initially sell their white powder for almost nothing to get people addicted before they jacked up the prices.
In that sense, it was a very Capitalist Corporations negotiating tactic.
On the other hand, Quenser had no right to criticize them. The Legitimacy Kingdom only cared about the Turkana District for its flora and fauna that might make a useful drug. The minority of royals and nobles had sent in everyone from the royals to the commoners because they feared a genetic bomb that their special genealogy might possess.
Did no one at all care about the local people?
Was that why the locals had been left with no choice but to fight as guerillas?
And then even that decision had been used against them?
"We never should have agreed to it, " said Braskine Mintfrappe, the doctor who had helped caused all this through the pursuit of happiness."We made a fatal error with our very first decision. We've worried over every decision since, trying to do the best thing at every fork in the road, but we were already stuck on a path straight toward the precipice."
Part 8
Things were going well.
The space elevator was the largest structure in human history, but that also meant it had an absurd amount of secondary facilities and equipment. Enough so that the infrastructure for a whole city was not enough. The entire region's water was sucked up for cooling purposes, a massive amount of power was needed, and powerful microwave was used to wirelessly send power to the elevator car.
A Legitimacy Kingdom tank traveled through the pitch-black night without even a single streetlight.
With a crew of four teenage girls, the inside ended up smelling awfully sweet. Specifically, it smelled of deodorant spray.
"We will have control of the #4 parabolic antenna power transmission station soon! Send the fuel and ammo supply unit this way! We will move on ahead once we have resupplied!!"
The tank commander, who was a bit older than the rest, pulled a moistened towel from the small fridge and placed it against the back of her overheated neck.
"Myonri, we're being jammed, so the maintenance base can't hear you."
"There are four of us crammed in here, so can't one of us at last shine some laser art on the night sky to communicate!?"
Whoever made the suggestion was generally stuck with doing it. Especially when they were the lowest ranking member. Myonri grew tearful as she was handed a special ray gun with a barrel about as thick as a relay baton, but she had no choice but to push open the manhole-like metal hatch and poke her head out from the sweet-smelling tank.
Needless to say, that ray gun was not a next-gen portable superweapon.
It was a backup signal device that could send instructions to their allies by drawing out lines not visible with the naked eye. They were used to prevent friendly fire during a nighttime aerial bombing or to call for rescue when stuck out on the battlefield, so it was a useful piece of equipment everyone much preferred to never have to use.
"I have plenty of qualifications, so I really need to see about getting a transfer."
"I heard that, Myonri."
"I really, really need a transfer!!"
Just as the short-haired girl tearfully bit her lip, she saw a flash of light in the night sky.
It almost looked like a shooting star, except it was not alone.
The night sky was soon filled with a wild dance of light.
"I-is there an alert!?"
"Why?"
"It's that elevator!! Mother Lady!!"
She did not hear a single electronic tone from within the tank before the explosive boom pounded on her eardrums.
It came from beyond the horizon.
In a long horizontal line as far as the eye could see, a terrifying dust cloud rose several dozen meters into the air. And instead of stopping there, more explosions occurred a bit in front of that after a short pause. The pattern repeated like that, moving ever closer. The desert was filled with explosive blasts just like an industrial printer filling a blank piece of copy paper with small text.
And the explosions were gradually approaching their position.
(The artificial meteor shower!? Are the Capitalist Corporations sending down a storm of titanium or tungsten alloy!?)
"Noooo!?"
Myonri forgot to even duck back into the tank as she screamed.
Didn't each and every one of those falling titanium or tungsten pieces rival a nuclear warhead in destructive power?
The entire scenery was obliterated by the solid walls of destruction that were spaced out enough to avoid any overlap in explosions.
Even if Myonri did duck inside the tank, the entire vehicle would be blown away. This was worse than gathering clams on the beach at low tide. This was like tearing up the entire beach with a cultivator's row of rotating blades. Any clam that shut itself up tight would only be smashed to pieces.
Just then, a bluish-white beam of light shot up from the surface and blew away the evenly-spaced downpour of death.
A huge hole was torn into the lights in the sky. The hole had a diameter of more than 3km. That area of darkness remained as the lights descended, allowing Myonri's group to survive, like they had been in the gap of a falling ceiling. It felt a lot like being forced through a ring of fire.
The beam of light had been a low-stability plasma cannon.
Myonri covered her mouth and nose against the powerful cloud of dust that filled the air and she saw a giant silhouette through that filthy screen.
That was the First Generation Baby Magnum.
The all-purpose multirole was an older model, but that was why it was actually capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. Thanks to the various methods of obstruction that messed with its targeting and the paths of its projectiles, it could not attack the stationary elevator without moving in close, but it could still protect the 37th while they were within that range.
"W-we're alive?"
The artificial meteor shower continued to fall, but it was more definitive this time. More artificial light was launched upwards to fill the starry sky and protect the soldiers down on the desert.
"Our guardian deity, " said a sweaty and hotblooded girl inside the tank.
Their datalink was down thanks to the enemy jamming, but people had to be saying much the same thing all across the battlefield. In fact, a stadium-like cheer shook the desert night just a few seconds later.
"Ohhhhhh!! We have a guardian deity. We aren't going to die here!! This battle is ours!!"
Part 9
Meanwhile, the Princess's small butt had slid forward from its usual position.
She was operating the control sticks with her toes.
She had unintentionally taken a position where her legs formed an M as she muttered expressionlessly to herself.
"I'm so bored."
Part 10
More low rumblings came from elsewhere. The "copy machine" was running somewhere else. The battlefield was tilled from one end to the other, destroying everything manmade along the way.
Tens of thousands of titanium or tungsten alloy pieces dropped from satellite orbit.
It was known as an artificial meteor shower.
The Princess was tearing holes through that to protect them, but it was too soon to celebrate. The Baby Magnum was just one Object. She would be overwhelmed if too many requests for support came in. Once that happened, she would start with protecting whatever was most strategically valuable. The potatoes stuffed inside a tin can of composite armor would not make the cut there.
| ← Ch. 161 | Ch. 163 → |