Heavy Object

Volume 13, Track 13: End Off

Nancy Jolly-Roger had a bullet wound in one arm, she was experiencing the extreme tension of combat which was still a new thing for her, and she was riding in a fighter without a g-suit. She had very nearly passed out, but her mind was shaken back to focus when she heard two particularly phrases through the hard rock:

Cinderella Wizard.

And Necleka Mojito.

She recalled the small girl who had been wandering the dark nighttime streets with a handmade placard saying “give back my sister”. This was that girl’s identical twin.

Nancy had never met them face-to-face, but she clearly recalled them innocently calling her “teacher” over the internet line. She was slow and utterly useless outside of her field of expertise, but she had apparently looked like a perfect superhuman within the rectangular frame on the screen.

She had been in the same Northern Restricted Zone as them, but she had been unable to directly wipe away their tears. She had been unable to physically protect them from the world’s malice. She was not yet ready to be called an adult and she was not at all qualified to be known as a teacher.

All she had been able to do was alter the flow of data and guide things toward a better conclusion.

She had only done what she could from a position of safety while making sure no trouble could find its way back to her. She had simply viewed the distant disaster like someone seeing news of a distant war on TV and tossing some spare change in a collection box next to a convenience store register.

But.

But...

“I know. I really know.”

Nancy Jolly-Roger would never forget the words that had changed her life.

“Our mom and dad didn’t die in the war. My sister believes they did, but that’s a lie. We were abandoned because we weren’t wanted, weren’t we?”

It was true that the Northern Restricted Zone had a higher rate of abandoned children than elsewhere due to the many war damages. With so many war orphans, it was not difficult to slip a small child into the mix without being noticed. Some even arrived after faking trouble while on a trip.

Boy Racer had been a world-famous rock band, so they had to have had more money than they knew what to do with. But because they were pacifists and hid criticism of the current age of war in their lyrics, the higher ups of the Capitalist Corporations had deemed them a threat and gotten them addicted to white powder.

The white powder had destabilized them psychologically and the beautiful women of the honey traps had created unfixable cracks in their marriages. As the pressure had mounted, their own children had begun to seem like a heavy burden and they had ultimately made a horrible decision.

But what did that matter?

The parents may have been wrong to abandon their children, but the abandoned children could not be blamed for that.

“Hey, teacher.”

And yet one of them had asked her a question.

With a look far to weary for a child, the small girl had put on a mechanical smile with no hint of happiness behind it and spoke in a trembling voice.

“Is the child of a failure doomed to be a failure too...?”

Nancy did not think the storybook idea of justice existed in this world.

She was well aware her reasons for joining the military had been more realistic and based in a misguided, money-loving greed that told her to simply obey her superiors.

But.

But, but, but!

Nancy Jolly-Roger had learned then that there were some things she could not allow to happen. What good was that special unit? How was that a merciful plan that granted the dream of a Cinderella story? Those children’s lives were trapped in a labyrinth with no exit, but just when they thought someone had torn a hole in the wall from outside, they were captured by the Capitalist Corporations defense industry, shut in a pure white room, had strange drugs injected through a tube in their arm, and were forced right back to war but as the oppressor instead of the oppressed. They became the Pilot Elites who operated the colossal Objects. And they were imprinted with the mistaken idea that continuing the chain of violence by defeating their opponent was how to find happiness.

Could she allow that?

Not a chance!!

So Nancy Jolly-Roger had remained in the most dangerous post to gather information as she manipulated her allies’ information to create holes for their targets to escape. She had been surprised when containers and tanks had been piled up across the Sacred Forest as part of the so-called benevolent barrier, but that had not changed her stance. She had used every technique available to her to track down the scattered children and give them new identities. When she had been unable to find the final twins, she had visited the dangerous battlefield herself.

She had been hoping somewhere in her heart that the reason she could not find those twins was because they had already found a hiding place completely out of the reach of the adults where they had true freedom.

A small thorn had pricked her when she had seen one of the twins, Eleanor, holding that placard in the Divided City of Valhalla.

Give back my sister.

Those twins had always been inseparable, but now one of them was wandering the dark streets in search of the other. She had been unable to stop the anxiety from growing and growing after seeing that irregular scene.

She should have considered the other possibility.

If they had vanished from all records – without even a death certificate being filed – then there were 2 possibilities.

The first was her optimistic hope that the children had hidden themselves so perfectly they utterly fooled the adults.

But the second was that the adults had intentionally erased the children’s records.

And that was the result.

That girl should have been able to greedily seek freedom and happiness without anyone getting in her way, but that had been sealed away by her own hand.

“To hell with thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!”

Her own roar finally succeeded in completely rousing Nancy Jolly-Roger’s consciousness. She was experiencing inertial gravity of 9.5 Gs. Even expert fighter pilots wearing a specialized g-suit would be near passing out in that dangerous territory, but that did not matter.

A girl who had not even been taught how to seek help was trapped inside a giant coffin like she was the jewel inside a jewelry box. She only needed to say “help me”, but she did not recognize what this meant and she brushed it aside.

So what did this pain matter?

In fact, did this even count as pain?

No matter what ups and downs she had experienced in life, if she fell asleep now, she would have to question why she had even been born. If she did not grab that small hand, her life would be meaningless. No matter the situation, she had to open her eyes now and face the hopelessly cruel and shitty world.

Grow up.

It’s time to grow up right here and now!!

“...Send the plans here.”

Even if she was wrong for the role, she had decided she would be those children’s teacher.

So she would finish what she had started. She could not pull back her outstretched hand until she had cleared a path for every last one of them.

How could she allow herself to miss a single one?

“Send those goddamn plans back to my LCD!! Mariydiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

It was Mariydi whose eyes widened in surprise at the sudden shout.

“Huh? Huhhh!? You, wait, when did you wake up!?”

“That was nothing. I was only getting a quick glimpse of heaven. And I remembered a number of things. So I can’t look down again until I’ve rescued Necleka from that Wotan thing.”

“Wait a minute. I have to ask. Who’s saving who here? Y’know, acting cool here will put my life in dangerous too, so this is kind of the worst. I never said a thing about-...”

Mariydi trailed off when an obvious electronic buzzer began sounding.

She looked over and a red X-mark over the remaining missile count at the top of the LCD.

“You!? Don’t just steal control of the FCS!!”

“...I won’t let anyone shoot that girl. Not even you, Mariydi!!”

Mariydi clicked her tongue without thinking.

Fighter design did not consider the possibility of the two buddies arguing within the same cockpit, so there was nothing to be done if they tried to steal control from each other. And the back seat performed most of the weapons management and hit confirmation. There was no good solution and the brain missiles were still pursuing them. Mariydi did not have a single second of excess brain resources to divert away.

“What exactly do you want me to do!?”

“I’m figuring that out now. Human thoughts can’t be completely covered by algorithms because there will be uncertain emotions involved. But people are a lot easier to read when they’re a piece of shit who’s forgotten all about human emotion. After all, there’s nothing but cold logic remaining. They tend to mistakenly think of that as a virtue, but they’re dead wrong there. ...So keep us alive until I can find the answer!!”

“What kind of awakening is this? Did the high Gs tear your wrinkled-old hymen or something?”

“Do I need to teach you how to be polite while I’m at it!?”

“Ow! Don’t kick the back of my chair!! Okay, okay!! This thing’s pieced together from crashed fighters, so the ejection seat could accidentally trigger at any time. Please stop, stop, stop!!”

“Ice Sword 2 to all. What do you think’s going on?”

“Ice Horse 3. Would you look at that. There’s some good left in this world after all. I didn’t think there were any adults willing to give our great demon queen a spanking.”

“You all prepare yourselves!!” tearfully shouted Mariydi, but unfortunately for her, technology had not reached the point that she could punch them over the radio.

But even if she was able to use her missiles and regular gun, there would still be nothing she could do. She burned through her solid fuel without any thought for what she would need for the BtB trip and she could not properly get on the tail of the Gungnir brain missiles that made constant turns as sharp as an AAM while moving in toward her. No matter how much she blasted her jet engines and performed circus-like acrobatics such as the barrel roll and Pugachev’s Cobra, her opponents calmly followed her, so she had no chance of turning things around. She had no way of intercepting them unless she had a missile that could fly backwards.

But then the glasses demon whispered to her from behind.

“The Wotan mothership and Gungnir child crafts are a single online weapons system. That means they’re connected by an electronic signal. Start by hitting them with an anti-missile ECM.”

“If that was enough for them to lose control, we wouldn’t be having so much trouble! Those missiles think for themselves to pursue their target!!”

“But it will slightly delay their response. After that, fly straight down at a 90 degree angle.”

“...!?”

Mariydi knew what she was trying to say, but that decision took courage even for a veteran pilot.

And Nancy began to squirm behind her.

“Umm, is this the screw to undo the ejection seat’s maintenance panel?”

“Okay, fine!!”

“Ice Burn 4. ...Oh, man. A tearful and obedient leader is kind of cute.”

The Zig-27’s nose turned to point straight down, as if to crash the fighter into the ground. No more explanation was necessary. Because they had no lives of their own, the multiple Gungnirs mechanically followed behind her and dived upside-down toward the ocean. It was hard to tell how far away the ocean was in the dark.

(You’ve gotta be kidding me...)

If she pulled up too soon, it would be meaningless. Too late, and they would crash.

“Goddammit!!”

Mariydi wailed like she had been infected by Nancy’s words and she pulled the nose up at the very last second. She shifted from vertical to horizontal. She somehow managed keep them alive by skimming less than a meter off of the dark ocean surface. And the fried shrimp aimed her prepaid cellphone back over her shoulder. The device released a flash of light with the limiters removed.

Under the effects of the ECM, the trailing brain missiles were ever-so-slightly slow to react. In the world of fighters, a few seconds was not a short time at all. They could not trust their radar, the distance to the dark ocean was difficult to grasp, and there was an unexpected flash of light. Despite their superior speed and maneuverability compared to Mariydi’s fighter, they were slow to raise their noses, crashed into the ocean, and blossomed into a giant blazing flower.

“Ice Horse 3 to Ice Girl 1. Strike. You really are the MVP.”

“Flattery isn’t going to work. I’m never forgetting the humiliation I experienced today.”

But the nightmare fried shrimp had apparently been paying no attention to whether they survived or not. She had displayed the Wotan’s plans on her LCD and she zoomed in on various parts for details while muttering something under her breath.

“Extremely thick composite armor...various fire-extinguishing systems, buffering structures to divert blasts and shockwaves...chaff and flares equipped on the upper surface...chaff and flares? With this kind of defense, why would it still be afraid of attack???”

“Ms. Hyde, what are your next instructions?”

“Ah?”

“Well, you’re clearly not the good Dr. Jekyll anymore!”

That said, learning that the Gungnir brain missiles would lose their precision movements under the effects of an ECM was useful information. Mariydi chose to skim across the dark ocean at supersonic speeds as she approached the giant ray-like Wotan that weaved right and left. It would be firing more of its Gungnirs into the sky to pursue them, but that was no longer worth fearing.

“Uehhhh!?” shouted a voice on the radio.

“Ice Girl 1 to Ice Burn 4. Stay back. Let them all target me.”

The same method would be unusable once the enemy analyzed the ECM and began controlling the brain missiles with a different frequency. In fact, the brain missiles might even start targeting her using the jamming signal.

But...

“There are signal sources on the ocean too,” whispered the beautiful blonde girl. “Course markers, ocean floor seismometers, tide measuring buoys, the chips implanted in dolphins for animal preservation, and more give off powerful signals. And since those signals are no more than waves, their wavelengths will combine when different ones collide. If they’re worried about the same frequency as before, they’ll soon regret it.”

She zigzagged back and forth to draw a line between signal sources and she could tell the combined signals were throwing off the brain missiles’ aim.

“Ice Sword 2 to 1. That’s not exactly reliable. And if it fails, you’ll be shot down!”

“Then let’s up the ante a little. I was getting sick of carrying this extra load around anyway.”

A giant device was released from Mariydi’s main wing as she skimmed across the ocean surface. It was the bunker buster. The large aerial bomb split the ocean, sank into the water, and immediately detonated before reaching the bottom.

The shockwave only had to propagate through the seawater and provide great pressure.

She smiled a little when she heard static running through the radio.

“Artificial earthquakes are a major factor in disturbing geomagnetism and screwing with the signals in a region.”

This time, the brain missiles could not maintain their extreme low-altitude flight and collided with the water one after another. Meanwhile, Mariydi pursued her giant target.

The Wotan GEMCMB had a top speed past the speed of sound, but it could only skim just above the surface. It simply could not turn as sharply as a fighter. Since it could race across the ocean at greater than Mach 2 while carrying more than 100 brain missiles, it was more devastating than a normal warship, but it could not keep up with the aerial martial arts.

“We’re catching up. This is our chance to attack, so have you figured out what to do yet!?”

“...That thing is gigantic, so how does it...? Are these plans incomplete or abbreviated...? The air resistance and balance would be better with a honeycomb structure or domed structure using the air pressure difference...”

“Hey!!”

The giant ray’s back burst open in front of their eyes. Once more, long and narrow trails of smoke rose vertically as Gungnir brain missiles were launched. They soared behind Mariydi and then made sharp U-turns to pursue her.

It was time.

Mariydi clenched her teeth and adjusted her grip on the control column. She had worked hard for this chance, but they would have to redo it. But just as she thought that, the great demonic shrimp incarnation whispered to her from behind.

“Dive below it.”

“Huh?”

“Dive directly below it.”

She had no choice.

Mariydi clicked her tongue especially loudly and steeled her resolve. She opened the afterburners and accelerated.

She sent the fighter into the slight gab between the Wotan GEMCMB and the ocean surface.

“Wow! Ice Girl 1!?”

“Ice Horse 3. Curse that acrobatics-obsessed girl for always making me sweat like this...”

Perhaps due to the narrow space, her radar went dead.

The sword-like Gungnir brain missiles approaching from behind were not that skilled, so they crashed into the ocean and their mothership.

“Ice Burn 4 to Ice Girl 1. That’s a strike on all of the Gungnirs! So don’t worry about them!!”

But she could not celebrate quite yet.

Even the mercenary girl felt a chill in her gut.

This really was only a narrow gap. When including the Zig-27’s tail wing in the height, there was barely enough space. In all seriousness, she only had a few meters of leeway top to bottom. The waves below were being kept flat by the great force used to keep the 700m-wide colossus afloat, but that meant the slight space was a mess of intense air currents. Even with the support of the many sensors, a slight vertical shaking of the aircraft would mean instant death with no chance to bail out.

(Dammit!!)

There was no chance to attack down here. Even if she fired her regular gun or missiles forward, she would be unable to avoid the rain of shrapnel they would cause. Besides, if she did take out the Wotan right now, it would crash down on top of them.

She had to focus on surviving.

Showing your tail in a dogfight was the height of folly, but decelerating now could easily shake them badly enough to crash into the ocean below or Wotan above. She hated having to, but Mariydi accelerated further to pass between the Wotan GEMCMB and the ocean as quickly as possible. It felt like flying below a bridge.

After bursting out from below the ray’s nose, she flew straight up to ensure her safety. By decelerating while ascending, she slipped below the Wotan’s legs and took up position behind it again.

“Ice Horse 3 to Ice Girl 1. What color were its panties?”

“Shut up, you.”

She then noticed something odd.

“What’s this? Ice...?”

“Ice Sword 2. What is it, leader?”

There was something like white frost on the clear canopy. She turned her head and saw something similar on the top surface of the main wings.

“Icing? Damn. Did I catch too much ocean spray?”

A thin layer of ice would freeze onto an aircraft’s surface when flying in the cold, high-altitude air or due to the air pressure difference its own wings caused. It might seem no different from the frost on a window, but if it occurred over an intake opening or around the engine, it could cause the plane to stall or crash.

And unfortunately, fighters had nothing like wipers, so they could not get rid of something plastered to the outside.

But Nancy spoke up from the back seat like this was a happy result.

“I was right.”

“Right about what?”

“About how they support a 700m-wide mass of composite armor while it moves at Mach 2 or 3. That would normally not be possible. Even if they used the welding and bolts that support Objects and even if they used multiple columns, a honeycomb structure, or a dome structure supported by air, they couldn’t stop it from destroying itself.”

“This is getting long. All, assist me.”

“Ice Burn 4. Roger that.”

“So how does it manage to exist?”

Mariydi sounded skeptical, like she was seeing a giant ghost in the shimmering heat.

This unexplainable impossibility was calmly floating in the air before her very eyes, but it was so absurd it made her question her simple worldview of only believing what she saw for herself.

And Nancy Jolly-Roger gave her answer.

“The Wotan does not use any screws or bolts. The same goes for columns. I doubt it has any welding either.”

“Huh!?”

“I thought the plans had to be abbreviated when I first saw them, but I was wrong. That trip below confirmed it for me. The Wotan doesn’t need any of that.”

“You aren’t going to say it was made by Island Nation shrine carpenters, are you? If it doesn’t use any screws, bolts, or welds, how is that giant thing held together?”

“Supersonic molecular beams.”

“I wasn’t asking about an amusing weapon.”

“No, this is accurate.” The fried shrimp continued from there. “By releasing helium or another inert gas into a vacuum through an extremely narrow pipe, the molecules are aligned in the same direction and continue to accelerate until they break the sound barrier. That is known as a supersonic molecular beam. If you rob the molecules of heat in that state, they become ultra-low temperature isolated molecules.”

“You aren’t going to say they harden as ice, are you?”

“Before getting to that, the ultra-low temperature isolated molecules are closely related to the van der Waals force, the force that holds molecules together. That’s why it doesn’t need any screws or bolts. By taking the narrow tubes needed to produce supersonic molecular beams and wiring them through the structure like blood vessels, it can directly strengthen the bonds between its molecules to construct that giant silhouette.”

“Between the molecules...?”

“Yes. The ice on the fighter after diving below it was not icing due to an air pressure difference. It was likely the vaporized coolant escaping.”

“Wait a second. My mind can’t keep up. What does that mean? If you strengthen the bonds between the molecules forming a metal panel, will it still behave like a normal metal panel? Or will it become a panel far harder than anything seen before!?”

“Probably the latter. Even with composite armor, it wouldn’t have remained so unharmed after being hit by its own Gungnirs. That’s unthinkable in the supersonic world of normal aircrafts. The Wotan might be able to keep going even if a meteor crashed into it head-on.”

More and more trails of smoke fired from the ray’s upper armor.

More than 20 of the Gungnir brain missiles were launched and they pursued Mariydi’s fighter from behind.

“Ice Sword 2 to all. Let’s take care of these. Leader’s freedom of movement takes top priority!”

“Ice Horse 3. Understood.”

“Ice Burn 4. Roger that!”

While thanking her comrades, the beautiful blonde girl asked a question with a look of disbelief.

“How are we supposed to defeat something like that!?”

Mariydi widened her eyes and adjusted her grip on the control column, but Nancy had a response prepared.

“We don’t need any assistance. Fly straight up and then fire an AAM near its nose.”

“!?”

Missiles generally used a heat source or a radar lock responding to reflected waves, so it was difficult to target a specific part of something. However, Mariydi operated the LCD with her finger and made an image recognition lock on a specific part.

But before actually firing the missile, the enemy made a new action when her radar waves hit it.

A great quantity of metal film flew toward her like flower petals caught in a horizontal gust of wind.

“Wah!? What!? Is that all chaff!?”

“That’s awful!!” said one of her wingmen. “That’s gotta be bad for the environment!!”

Mariydi cried out at the great density just as the Gungnir guided weapons fell into the sea after being hit by their own mothership’s interference weapon.

“Ice Horse 3. That’s a strike on all of the Gungnirs.”

“Even the solid Wotan must not want an explosion getting soot and remnants of solid fuel on the nose’s radar and cameras it uses to see and hear. If that happened, it couldn’t continue skimming across the ocean and would probably crash.”

“So if we make a head-on attack and throw enough firepower at its nose, it’ll crash and- gh!?”

Mariydi’s eyes widened as a kick hit the back of her seat.

Nancy spoke in a low voice.

“If it crashes into the ocean without thinking about the angle of entry, the girl inside will be crushed, you combat-obsessed girl.”

“Okay, okay! Just give me the answer already! In 140 characters!!”

“There’s a reason the ultra-solid armor using the van der Waals force created from supersonic molecular beams and ultra-low temperature isolated molecules isn’t more widely used: that can only exist far outside a human environment. If you bring the temperature down below -100 degrees, create a vacuum, and fill the space with helium, people will suffocate to death. The Wotan must only have Necleka onboard hooked up to a life support device. Everything else will be done by the Gungnir brain missiles and maintenance robots. That means it wasn’t a suitable standard for the current armies that still need flesh-and-blood infantry and maintenance soldiers.”

“What’s your point...?”

“You can’t tell? To maintain the extremely strong van der Waals force, the air inside has to be kept below -100 degrees. We don’t need to break the armor with an external force. If we can heat up the surface and get that heat to pass inside, the coolant will warm up and become useless. The molecules will lose their power to hold together, and the Wotan will fall apart on its own. It’s because they feared that that it has so much chaff and flares equipped.”

This weapon was supposedly meant to be destroyed to show it was a failure.

It had seemed like this monster would change history if it left the Northern Restricted Zone, but that was apparently not the case.

“So it looks unbeatable at first, but repeated blasts from an Object’s low-stability plasma cannon would heat it up and make it fall apart?”

“Yes.”

It was the perfect bluff.

It would show off a never-before-seen technology and then suffer utter defeat against an Object’s direct firepower, thus proving to the world how absolute and insurmountable the existing technology was. That was this weapon’s purpose.

But it was hardly surprising that Nancy Jolly-Roger felt a quiet anger at having one of her students forcibly placed on that piece of junk.

“However, we don’t have that kind of firepower. Can we really accomplish the same thing by firing missiles at it!?”

“They wouldn’t be afraid if it didn’t have a weakness. And I can see that fear in the design. I’ll return control of the FCS.”

A quiet sound filled the cockpit.

It was Nancy’s index finger tapping on a point on the LCD that shared information between the front and back seats.

“Right here. You already know how to guide it, don’t you?”

Mariydi Whitewitch ascended in her large twin-engine Zig-27 fighter. After taking up position behind the Wotan GEMCMB as it continually weaved left and right just off the ocean, she was ready to make the final attack.

“Ice Girl 1 to all. Here I go. Everyone, cover me.”

“Ice Sword 2. Understood, leader.”

“Attack Alpha.”

With that singsong announcement, Mariydi sent radar waves toward the 700m-wide target. She was targeting the protective cover for the cameras and radars on the very front.

“Attack Bravo. Attack Charlie.”

With the lock complete, she actually fired a missile. The Wotan released a ton of metal film in response. The storm of chaff blew toward her like flower petals and the AAM strayed off in the wrong direction.

“Ice Burn 4. Miss. Red target is still active!!”

“That’s fine.”

But Mariydi stayed behind the fleeing Wotan and continued emitting radar waves. She could see how much it disliked that.

(Are you gonna do it?)

It was obvious when looking down from above.

On the giant ray’s surface armor, a right and left row of vertical missile launch tubes opened like on a submarine. The Gungnir brain missiles showed themselves.

(Come on!!)

She would not let them fire.

In fact, that was Mariydi and Nancy’s entire goal here.

“Attack Alpha. Attack Bravo.”

She traced her thumb along the top of the control column.

And she pressed firmly down.

“Attack Charlie!!”

This time, she fired an AAM with the intention to hit.

She did not have to break the armor with the explosion. As long as the heat made it inside and warmed the ultra-cooled environment, she could defeat the impregnable Wotan. And unlike the Wotan, the Gungnirs did not seem to be protected by supersonic molecular beams, ultra-low temperature isolated molecules, or the van der Waals force. She had seen them break apart like normal when they crashed into the ocean or their mothership.

So if she could blow up the brain missiles in their launch tubes, the explosions would spread inside the Wotan and the flames would heat the frigid air within.

“Chaff confirmed.”

The Wotan reacted to the AAM flying toward it while leaving behind a smoky trail. But the metal film chaff tended to flow back from the Wotan, so she did not have to worry about the storm swallowing up the AAM flying in from above.

Which meant...

“Now some flares. Damn, I guess I can’t follow all the details!!”

The ray-like Wotan must have decided the flares would have little effect because more than 100 balls of light erupted from its top surface like fireworks. The false heat sources were supposed to lead the missile astray.

There was a clear shift in the missile’s actions as if it were running along invisible rails.

And Mariydi did not continue observing it all.

She opened up her jet engines and flew toward the Wotan as if pursuing her own missile. She broke through the ocean of fireworks-like flares, adjusted her grip on the control column, and focused on her right index finger. The trigger-like fire button controlled the regular gun. It did not lock on, so it would be unaffected by the deception weapons.

“Attack gun!!”

She fired again and again.

As the Zig-27 flew along a straight line directly above, the 20mm machinegun bullets slammed into the Wotan like perforations and accurately attacked one line of launch tubes.

One explosion erupted after another.

The explosion of the brain missiles on the surface had likely also detonated the Gungnirs waiting below.

And as soon as Mariydi and Nancy flew past the Wotan, a dramatic change occurred.

The giant ray shape was cleanly cut away at the base and flowed backwards. Piece by piece crumbled away, it lost the power to remain afloat, and the entire mothership contacted the ocean surface.

“Ice Sword 2 to Ice Girl 1. Attack Delta: Strike.”

“And hey!” shouted Mariydi. “Will that really be okay!?”

“It should,” answered Nancy. “As long as it maintains the angle of entry I calculated from the plans!!”

It was not smashed to pieces.

That may have been because it had been skimming across the ocean.

Even though it continued falling apart, the flat fuselage measuring more than 100 meters bounced a bit when it contacted the ocean surface. It was like a stone skipping on a river. Perhaps because it avoided too deep an angle, it gradually slowed down with each skip.

It was too strange a sight to call a landing or a crash landing.

And it did not last forever.

After decelerating a certain extent, the Wotan lacked the force to continue skipping and finally split the water’s surface and fully landed. If it had crashed like this while still supersonic, everything inside might have been smashed to pieces, but there was a chance of survival after slowing down this much. And it apparently lacked the ability to continue fighting. Mariydi slowly circled around the silenced Wotan and spoke into her radio.

“Use the source of this signal to send in a naval guard team. They have a single person to save. The wreckage is still floating, but they might need divers if that doesn’t last.”

“We can’t wait around that long. Eiyah!”

“Hey, wait, what was that silly voice fo-...!?”

Nancy apparently did not hear Mariydi’s protests.

The fried shrimp grabbed the ejection lever between her legs and yanked on it. The clear canopy protecting them was blasted away and flew backwards. Next, the 2 ejection seats shot upwards. Mariydi had no way of fighting it. The most she managed to do was snatch up her handheld music player.

“Ahh!?”

“Ice Sword 2. Leader...you’re definitely getting your pay docked for that.”

She had not had time to aim the Zig-27’s nose properly, so it vanished beyond the horizon while 2 parachutes blossomed like giant flowers in the cold Scandinavian sky.

“Your teacher is coming for you, Necleka! Wait...ah, ah, ahhhh!?”

The idiot was caught by a crosswind and fell into a different part of the dark ocean, but Mariydi grasped the reins properly and managed to land on a small island of composite armor floating in the ocean. She let go of the harness and cut away the parachute while raising her middle finger toward the ocean.

“That’s what you get!! That’s what you fucking get!! And our parachutes are made of fancy silk not synthetic fiber, so I hope it soaks up all the seawater and drags you down to a watery grave!! You idiot!! You dumbass!!”

“Ice Burn 4 to all. Is it just me or is leader mentally regressing?”

“Ice Horse 3. That’s actually about right for her age. It’s her usual behavior that’s messed up.”

No amount of shouting seemed to satisfy Mariydi, but then she saw something moving in the corner of her vision.

“...”

She quickly drew her handgun and aimed in that direction, but then she realized what it was.

A girl with a large side ponytail on the right side crawled out from a hatch. Perhaps for the life support device, she had electrodes attached to her, but she looked around with a blank look in her eyes.

“Are you Necleka Mojito?”

“...Who are you?”

“A bad girl.”

Mariydi Whitewitch sighed.

Even after seeing this result, the blonde girl remained unchanged. She would continue down her own path. And that path was the nightmarish one that Nancy Jolly-Roger had been so desperate to keep her students away from.

Her 3 wingmen flew by overhead.

And with a deadly weapon in hand, the obsolete ace pilot made a request.

“Let me hear the ultimate rock that surpasses even Blaze Mojito.”

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