Chapter 4(2/3)
They could use the river as a natural barrier to keep the Trinity Style back, but if the bridge truck was destroyed, the retreating soldiers would have nowhere to run. The thought of being ordered to infiltrate enemy territory with no guarantee of a way back sent a shudder down their spines.
“I’m glad luck was on our side this time,” commented Quenser.
“Ksshh. Are you sure about that, Quenser?” said Frolaytia over the radio. “The Trinity Style will be stuck at the river, so near the river where you are is sure to have the strongest stench of death.”
“And that’s why it’s the best place to observe the Trinity Style!! Oh, to hell with it! I’ll just have to steal a ton of lucrative tech from that pile of treasure!! Yes, I really was lucky! The goddess of luck is on my side!!”
“Hey, you positive SOB,” interrupted Heivia. “If you really want to survive, you need to do more than pray to some goddess. I’ll give you some of the disturbance speakers, so help us set them up all around here.”
Heivia handed him a bag and all of the soldiers scattered. Once the battle began, they did not want to be anywhere near that noticeable military truck. Even the bridge truck’s driver and crew had likely left and gone to hide somewhere.
And their lives were reliant on the disturbance speakers. A small speaker slightly larger than a baseball was supported by a small tripod and it came with a remote device that sent commands wirelessly.
They spread out the tripods and set up the speakers at 50-100 meter intervals but with some level of randomness.
“Honestly, can’t they scatter these from the air like with landmines?”
“Do that and they’ll figure out what we’re up to right away.”
There was no clock tower on the orange-colored wasteland, so something else had to signal the beginning.
“Here they come,” said Heivia once they had set up all of the disturbance speakers.
One was the Baby Magnum which approached from behind them.
The other was across the river.
Now that they could see it, their lives were reliant on the disturbance speakers. The speakers produced the chirping of insects to mask the sounds of breathing, cartilage, and joints from the soldiers.
From what?
The answer was simple.
Like a trendy lamp, the giant form’s propulsion device was shaped like an Island Nation mitsudomoe and the main cannon and giant magazine on the left and right were connected by a belt.
Quenser stared at its magnificent form without bothering to use binoculars.
“So we meet again, Trinity Style!!”
Part 5
It was a hellish exchange from the very first shot.
“...!!!???”
Quenser and Heivia dropped everything and dove down onto the orange-dyed wasteland. The Baby Magnum and Trinity Style fired shell after shell from several kilometers apart.
From a distance, it might have looked like a light show.
They used low-stability plasma cannons, laser beams, railguns, coilguns, and rapid-fire beam cannons.
But for the people there, they were like the fingers of death itself.
If one merely stroked their back, they truly would lose their life. Merely being exposed to the tingling shockwaves felt like having years worn off their life.
As soon as a soldier frantically jumped out of a chemical firetruck’s driver’s seat, a laser beam pierced it.
The long bridge truck that crossed the 100 meter river was more melted than broken when a shot hit it.
“What are we supposed to do with all this going on, dammit!?”
“At least we’re not the Faith Organization soldiers on the other side of the river. Looks like they were trying to cross the river too, but the Princess’s Killer Squall made short work of them.”
The Killer Squall was a laser beam weapon shaped like a planetarium lens and it was the kind of anti-personnel weapon not seen on more recent Objects. It fired more than 100 lasers at once and they scattered like an actual squall to vaporize the waves of approaching people. The First Generation Objects had been built on the multi-role concept, so they were built for anti-Object, anti-encampment, anti-vehicle, anti-ship, anti-air, and anti-personnel purposes.
The single-focused Second Generations were certainly terrifying, but it was the older First Generations that made the puny soldiers’ throats dry up.
“Hey, what’s going on? The Princess is falling back as she fires. Is she leaving us behind!?”
“Have you already forgotten our strategy, Heivia? Urd prefers long-range and Verdandi prefers short-range, but with the river blocking their way, they’ll be forced to use Urd if the Princess falls back. We’re limiting their choices before blowing them away.”
And the Trinity Style’s main purpose here was to prevent the Legitimacy Kingdom from withdrawing. If the Trinity Style did not take the bait and they simply glared at each other from a distance, the Princess would be outside of her attack range, but that was fine.
If they could buy some time, they could finish their withdrawal preparations.
And that made it more likely that Skuld would escape.
So the Trinity Seven would rush things.
It would approach as close to the river as it could.
That clearly worked against it in the short run, but that left a possibility of destroying the Princess. Urd would be forced to fight in that mindset.
Or so they thought.
They could not have been more wrong.
A moment later, something unbelievable happened.
The 200,000 ton mass leaped as if jumping over the river.
Quenser gasped on the ground and it took him some time to grasp what had happened.
First, the Trinity Seven’s horizontal laser space elevator of a main cannon aimed downwards. And with a deafening roar, it had fired something toward the ground.
But it had not used that blast to make the jump.
Instead of a heatwave or shockwave, a strange sticky liquid spread out from the blast. It hardened in just a few seconds, creating a giant upwards slope made of plastic.
The Trinity Style raced up that at full speed.
It had used a ramp.
And that provided a powerful enough jump to cross the river.
“Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wahhh!?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!!”
The two idiots shot to their feet and ran as far away from its expected landing point as they could get.
The Trinity Style would have landed at least 100 meters away, but with a crackling and air-splitting explosion, bluish-white sparks scattered in every direction. The two idiots fell to the ground more due to the fear than actually being hit by something. The massive amount of static electricity keeping the 200,000 ton mass afloat had reacted with the repellent scattered across the ground. It turned the air into ozone, scorched the ground, and nearly blew Quenser and Heivia away.
The Trinity Style did not care about them at all.
It accelerated straight toward the Baby Magnum.
And the Princess was caught off guard by the unexpected development.
“You can’t fall back any further, Princess!!” warned Frolaytia. “The maintenance base zone is far closer to the front line than usual. Any further and the base will be in range!!”
“Kh...understood!!”
The Princess had been gradually falling back, but a definite change came over her actions. She moved forward to meet the Trinity Style.
Heivia gave a shout while trembling on the ground and uncomfortably sweaty.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!! This puts the Princess at a geographic disadvantage! Now they can switch back and forth between Urd and Verdandi! This thing was enough of a black box already, but our odds of victory are slipping further and further away!!”
“But it’s not like we can just tell them to stop. Heivia, keep the observation equipment focused on the Trinity Style. We need to figure out whether that’s Urd or Verdandi, how the Object is structured, and where the armor is thinnest. We need to get all that data to the Princess in real time! Hurry!!”
“What? Hey, wait! Where do you think you’re going!?”
Quenser did not answer as he approached a chemical firetruck that had rolled onto its side nearby. One of the packed-together military vehicles had been hit by a small laser beam, but the rest were fine. He traced a finger along the side and recalled its structure before pulling out some Hand Axe plastic explosive from his backpack. He stuck a fuse in the clay-like explosive, pasted it to the rolled-over firetruck, and detonated it.
Meanwhile, the two giants continued their shootout a short distance away.
The Baby Magnum and Trinity Style were only a kilometer away from each other now. In an Object battle, that was like infighting with their foreheads pressed together. The Trinity Style was moving quickly in every direction to confuse the Princess. While making quick steps forward and back or left and right, it would occasionally fire a container shell full of sulfuric acid or liquid nitrogen. Even without a direct hit, they created toxic swamps that restricted the Princess’s movement and sometimes damaged her armor or sensors with their vaporized gases. It also used its ramps made of a special plastic. Those gave the Trinity Style a new axis of movement in addition to the existing 360 degrees of horizontal motion.
“What do we do? What the hell do we do!? It’s all over if the Princess loses, but I can’t think of any way to help! And Quenser, what the hell are you pulling out!?”
“Baking soda.”
The student pulled a few tanks out of the chemical firetruck. They were about the size of industrial beer containers.
“It’s a foaming agent used in chemical fire extinguishers. Mix it with sugar and place it over a fire and you can make honeycomb toffee.”
“And what good is that? That thing is 200,000 tons of steel and not even a nuke can stop it. That isn’t going to help!”
“Just watch. More importantly, Heivia, check your handheld device’s map. Pay special attention to the ramps the Trinity Style is making.”
“?”
It was a foolish action when up against an Object’s sensors, but Quenser ducked low as he ran along the orange-burning wasteland. He was fortunate that the Second Generation was not built specifically for anti-personnel attacks and that its acoustic sensors were less accurate with all the explosions. He felt a squeezing in his chest when tingling shockwaves reached his skin and a strange chemical smell burned his nose, but he still tried to approach the region of intense fighting.
“Heivia, you’re supposed to be a radar analyst, right? Try to predict where the Trinity Style will place its ramps based on where they are on the map. We’ll get there ahead of it.”
“Sure, but then what!? This isn’t an opponent we can trip up!”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Quenser grinned and pasted some Hand Axe to the bottle of baking soda he had brought with him.
“Those ramps are probably made from cyanoacrylate. You might know it as instant glue. On its own, it’s used to stick things together, but mix in some baking soda and it will expand and harden into a plastic. It’s used with figurines and dioramas and I knew someone who was into that kind of thing back at my safe country school.”
“Baking soda? Wait, you mean...?”
“It’s probably releasing a calculated amount of cyanoacrylate and baking soda from those containers. It’s just like making a perfect circle with a firework. But what if we throw some of our own baking soda into the mix after it’s fired into the ground but before it fully hardens? Their calculated design will fall apart and they’ll have a twisted failure to deal with. If it tries to use it, it’ll trip up and this will all be over!!”
Heivia compared the empty spots on the map to the Princess’s distance and position and managed to predict where the Trinity Style was likely to place a ramp.
Quenser threw over the bottle of baking soda.
Then they waited while he held his finger over his radio’s detonation button.
And...
And...
And...
Part 6
Like a quick record scratch, a brief disturbance came over the Trinity Style’s actions.
Part 7
Had the Trinity Style noticed Quenser and Heivia’s plotting or not?
Either way, something happened a moment later.
“Wha-...?”
Quenser was dumbfounded.
The Objects were already infighting at around a kilometer apart, but the Trinity Style moved even further in. Without firing another wasted shot, it accurately dodged the Princess’s seven main cannons and forced its way forward.
It moved close.
So very close.
They were only around a dozen meters apart. No, it was closer to being only a few meters.
“...!?”
The Baby Magnum tried to force herself away.
Meanwhile, the Trinity Style’s main cannon transformed. It was just like baseball fans using multiple signs to form a single message and flipping them over to form a different message.
The main cannon moved from the side to the front. The magazine split in two and attached to the upper left and right of the spherical main body as balancers.
A blinding flash scorched the eyes of everyone watching.
“What!?”
“A laser beam!!”
It was not the laser’s own light. It was the light created as the laser burned the dust and other impurities floating in the air. Instead of firing the laser at the bottom of the container shell to expand the air and fire it, the Object had simply fired the ultra-high power optical weapon. Quenser felt an unpleasant tingle in his spine when he saw that.
“Does that mean...they switched?”
No.
That tingle was the finger of death.
“They switched from long-range Urd to short-range Verdandi!?”
It did not even last an instant, but far too much happened.
The first laser beam scorched the edge of the Princess’s armor as she just barely dodged it. But that was only the setup leading to ruin. After being forced into that sudden evasion, the Baby Magnum was swung around by its own inertia and had a split-second restriction to its actions. The Trinity Style used that moment to further adjust itself and circle to the Baby Magnum’s side.
In that position, its main cannon could hit the Princess, but hers could not hit it.
A surefire attack did not always refer to exceptional firepower or a strange new method.
Sometimes it meant taking up the position that would ensure the next attack would hit.
It was the declaration of checkmate.
It set up the ideal situation.
And that surefire attack took the form of a second laser beam that thrust the Legitimacy Kingdom into absolute despair.
The world was filled with light.
The sound had surpassed the limits of their senses.
The intense heat burning through the Baby Magnum was scattered in every direction. The air expanded explosively and that invisible wall struck Quenser and the others. He could no longer see Heivia who had been right next to him. He only felt a strange sense of floating, but he did not know if he was flying up or falling down. He had lost his sense of direction and even his sense of gravity.
It seemed to last an instant, but it also seemed to last for half a minute.
Even his sense of time was lost and he may have even seen his life flashing before his eyes.
At any rate, he found himself lying pathetically on his back once his thoughts recovered.
“Zh...gwah...!!”
The entire area reeked of chemicals. His throat stung. A sharp pain continued to stab him deep in his eyeballs.
But none of that mattered to him.
As he shook his blank head and got up, he thought his breathing would stop.
He saw the Baby Magnum.
That 200,000 ton mass of steel was more than 50 meters tall.
That First Generation’s overwhelming firepower and armor had ended the nuclear age.
It was the symbol of war and the parameter both enemy and ally used to determine who would win.
But now it seemed to have blossomed like a giant flower.
The right half had been blown away, melted, and torn up.
Part 8
The Legitimacy Kingdom called it the Trinity Style.
The Faith Organization called it the Norn.
Inside that Second Generation’s cockpit, the 16-year-old girl named Verdandi Silent-Third slowly exhaled.
She used the internal line to communicate with the other cockpit separated by a thick wall.
“Target destruction confirmed.”
“Verdandi, it’s still moving. Wouldn’t it be safer to finish it off here?”
“With no room left for negotiation, the defeated soldiers will do everything they can to oppose us. Our goal is confirming whether Skuld is alive or dead. We can settle this after that.”
“Yes, there are times when a cornered opponent strikes back... Understood. You were the MVP this time, so I’ll leave it up to you.”
Nuke-resistant Objects could only be opposed with the firepower of another Object.
A few of the enemy’s main cannons were still functioning and that was all it would take. But it would be unable to move properly with its own armor torn up like a giant flower. Not to mention that Verdandi had approached to point-blank range while avoiding all of its main cannons when it had been at 100%, so no desperate last ditch effort would be able to hit.
They did not want to waste any more time.
When things went south during a battle, the standard response was to send the officers and computers full of classified information out the back entrance first. If Skuld was placed in that same category, this would all be for nothing. They had to secure her before she could vanish. If that was not possible, they would kill her. That was Urd and Verdandi’s shared understanding.
Verdandi let go of the control stick to trace her fingers across the thick cable connected to her navel.
She narrowed her eyes in thought.
Then she grabbed the colossal weapon’s control stick once more.
“Okay, let’s go finish this already.”
Part 9
“Heivia...”
Quenser grabbed the shoulders of his awful friend who was lying on the ground surprisingly close by.
He violently shook the boy.
“Heivia! Get up!! This is no time to be avoiding reality!!”
“”No...I’ve had enough...”
Heivia was not just passed out. He held his head in his hands and he grimaced like the stress was twisting his stomach into an S-shape.
“The battle is over. We lost. So just leave me alone. What else can we do against that monster!?”
“We can’t just sit here.” Quenser pulled out his radio. “The White Flag signal hasn’t been sent out. I don’t know if something happened back at the base or if all those bugs destroyed the equipment, but the battle hasn’t ended yet. I’m worried about the Princess too, but we can’t open her hatch with the tools we have on hand. We need to hurry back to the maintenance base zone. If we don’t go rouse Frolaytia and get her to raise the White Flag, we’ll all be slaughtered!! The Trinity Style will stop by the base first and then take us out on the way back like a souvenir or something!!”
“Please no!! I’m a noble!! Winchell family blood isn’t supposed to be lost in a place like this!!”
“Fine, then stay here and get blown to pieces!! How about I stick a bomb on your back!?”
He forcibly motivated the boy.
He pulled Heivia to his feet like he was a child throwing a tantrum in a department store toy aisle.
They were less than ten kilometers away from the maintenance base zone. Quenser looked around in search of a firetruck that had escaped destruction, but then Heivia started moving.
The Faith Organization soldiers had started crossing the river now that they knew there would be no more resistance. Heivia set his sights on one of the large motorcycles they were using and he swung his rifle to knock the driver off with a lariat.
He then beat down the soldier on the back seat before he could recover.
Gasping for breath and wiping an unpleasant sweat from his brow, Heivia spoke with bloodshot eyes.
“Pant, pant! D-dammit, if we’re gonna do this, then we’ve gotta go all out. Let’s change into their uniforms to blend in, Quenser.”
“I knew you could do it if you tried. I just wish you’d recovered a little sooner.”
The size of the uniforms was a little off and one of the motorcycle’s side mirrors had broken when it fell over, but it was far better than driving across the wasteland in Legitimacy Kingdom uniforms. Heivia took the driver’s seat and Quenser sat in the back seat as the two idiots made their way back to the maintenance base zone among the Faith Organization soldiers.
The sky was changing from the blazing orange to the dark curtain of night.
It was twilight, the color of parting.
They were returning to the familiar base they had woken up in that morning, but it was already filled with the tingling stench of death.
First, the mountain-like Object yelled a message down through its speakers.
“Attention Legitimacy Kingdom!! We have no intention of slaughtering you! Immediately disarm yourselves, move where we can see you, and put your hands in the air!! Hiding will be seen as intent to resist and we will attack!!”
Despite the announcement, the countless cannons covering the Object’s spherical main body were intermittently firing. Whenever it spotted someone moving or trying to hide behind cover, it mercilessly vaporized them.
On the ground, the Faith Organization soldiers were shining their flashlights around.
Those flashlights were attached to the end of their assault rifles. That would normally reveal their position, but boldly walking around with such obvious light sources was another symbol of their absolute victory.
They seemed to be searching inside the buildings, below the large vehicles, and in other possible hiding places to drive out all of the soldiers. Quenser and Heivia saw several of their comrades being kicked in the back or butt to toss them out into the open.
“This is awful...”
In his stolen Faith Organization uniform, Heivia sounded like he was having a nightmare as he slowed down the motorcycle so as not to stand out.
“I supposed it’s better than lining them up and shooting them or stripping only the female soldiers naked, but we can’t function as an army at all now. There’s no chance of turning this around...”
“Since they’re using the infantry for the search, the Trinity Style’s acoustic sensors really must not be working right. And it isn’t just the disturbance speakers. Did the Princess manage to destroy the actual sensors in that extreme situation?”
Whatever the case, Quenser and the others were faced with the exact opposite of the situation a few days before. Quenser could now imagine just how difficult it had to have been for Skuld to wait in that tiny cockpit for the hatch to be pried open.
“Captured Faith Organization soldiers, you also come out with your hands up! We do not wish to accidentally take your precious lives!! Please assist us so we can avoid any misunderstandings!!”
With vulgar laughter and relaxed behavior, the Faith Organization soldiers kicked the kneeling Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers to the ground mostly just for fun. At this rate, they might start pretending to surf on their backs.
“Where’d our busty commander get off to? She hasn’t been captured, has she?”
“That’s one question, but why wasn’t the White Flag sent out? I know the control tower collapsed, so was there a problem with the communication equipment?”
The two idiots discussed the situation while blending in with the Faith Organization soldiers on the stolen motorcycle, but as Quenser looked around, his face tensed up.
“You’re kidding...”
“What, did you find our busty commander?”
“No, but it still isn’t good. Heivia! You keep looking for Frolaytia and dealing with the White Flag. I’ve got another job to take care of!!”
“What is it!?”
“I found Skuld. If I don’t do something, she’ll be captured and killed!!”
Part 10
She would be killed.
She would definitely be killed this time.
Skuld pressed her back against the collapsed control tower’s wall and did her best to hold her breath. Faith Organization soldiers were swinging around the flashlights on their assault rifles and the Norn was loudly demanding everyone surrender. But Skuld did not have that right. When she was found, her fate was sealed. The war treaties did not matter.
She knew that, but she could not escape.
She knew the Norn’s specs better than anyone. She knew exactly what would happen to her if she tried making a mad dash out into the wasteland.
She heard footsteps on the dry ground on the other side of her cover.
Fear and panic grasped her heart.
Whoever it was sounded like a complete amateur in how little they were worried about being heard. These were the arrogant footsteps of someone who could hunt down the enemy without worrying about any resistance whatsoever. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes when she heard them. Her mind seemed to shake.
“Attention Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers! Answer honestly when you are asked a question!! What we want most of all is Skuld and only Skuld!! If you do not unnecessarily shelter her, no unnecessary blood will be spilled!! Comply immediately to all commands!!”
It was hopeless.
If she did not escape from here, she would be found, but if she moved even a step, she would be found. How was she supposed to turn this around?
The footsteps continued.
They circled around toward her!!
“Skuld!! I finally found you. Are you okay?”
Then she saw a Legitimacy Kingdom face instead of a familiar Faith Organization one.
She was so surprised that her legs gave out beneath her.
She sat limply down on the ground.
“U-uuh...”
Unable to stand back up, the twintail girl wrapped her arms around Quenser’s waist and buried her face in his body to suppress her sobs the best she could.
“Uuuuuuh!!”
Quenser said nothing for a while.
He placed his hand on her head, slowly rubbed it, and then crouched down to her eye level.
“Skuld, now is your only chance to escape.”
“How? How!? There are Faith Organization soldiers everywhere. And Urd and Verdandi are covering everything with the Norn. If they use their acoustic sensors, they’ll find me right away no matter how far away I am! They’ll catch up and kill me!!”
“Don’t worry.”
Quenser gently spoke to her to help her escape her panic.
“The Princess did it. She-->>