The Nano Age | Act IV Part 4

       Manaka

   I wonder what Iris is doing right now. Knowing her, she’s either doing something illegal or dead in a ditch. Maybe not dead. Probably. “Haruka, how’s drone training?” “It’s fun!” She smiles. “I already found a way to use the interface to mess with other people’s drones!” “Hah! Good job, don’t cheat though.” “I’m not doing anything too mean, just doing tricks with their drones.” She beams at me. “I think I should get to SpecOps training.” “Already?” Haruka now looks disappointed. “Yeah, sorry” “You’re not forgetting what day tomorrow is right?” “Your birthday?” Haruka nods. “No forgetting!” “I won’t!” I stretch and change into the recruit uniform and head to the training place, I’m a couple of minutes early. “Reporting for duty, sir!” He’s my… CO is it? Yeah, it’s CO. “Is it push-ups or something again?” “Yeah, that’ll do. I won’t be available much today so just keep yourself busy while I’m gone, okay?” “Of course, sir, uh, is it okay if I just do some warm-ups and then back to my apartment? I’d like to prepare for my adoptive sister’s birthday.” “Feel free. Spend some time off actually. The next few weeks will be hard.” “Thank you.” I smile and go to do my warm-ups. After the warm-ups, I go home and sneak up on Haruka. “Surprise!!!” “Eriko!” “Haha! I got some time off!” I ruffle her hair. “How are you right now, Haruka!” “I’m okay. How about you?” I smile, “Decent. I get to watch you play with your drones though!” “Yay!” I pull up a desk chair to watch Haruka get on a video call with her class. “Alright class, next, a woman from Apohari Firearms will show you how to use the weapon systems on your drones.” The screen cuts from the oldish balding guy to a well put together business woman holding one of the drones they’re controlling in her hands, pfft, it’s almost as large as she is. “Alright class, this is a Type 95 Reuseable Anti Ship Drone. Use enough of these and you could sink a ship the size of a Yamato.” “Excuse me, ma’am? Can you use these against armoured vehicles too?” The woman blinks, “I actually haven’t thought of that, miss…? What’s your name?” “Noruma Haruka, ma’am.” “Okay, the Type 95 RASD is a drone that carrys 4 anti ship missiles, however, it’s hardpoints can exchange the anti ship missiles for air to air or air to ground missiles. Putting ATGMs on the RASD is an interesting idea, as it could probably carry 32 ATGMs.” “Couldn’t you use EMP charges too, ma’am? It’d be a less deadly way to for example take down a smaller frigate or to disable a convoy without casualties.” “Yes, but the issue is we haven’t gotten EMP charges small enough to fit on ASMs yet, Miss Nomura. I am Apohari Sabitori, and I would very much like to be a sounding board for your bright mind.” I watch in surprise as a multi million businesswoman continues to ask Haruka of all people to be a friend. Is anyone resistant to her charms? Haruka giggles. “I think your company will do great things for the development of less lethal weapons in the future.” “I would love to do that.” Apohari gently smiles. “Oh, that reminds me!” Haruka jumps up and runs into her room, returning with a bunch of papers. “I got bored so I designed some drones in my free time! Can I send a few to you and see what I can improve on?” “Oh, of course.” The rest of the class and the balding guy are just watching, quiet. “Apohari-san and Nomura-san, would you two like to enter a private call, I will release Nomura-san from class if so.” “No, that’s fine, I said what I wanted to say.” Haruka smiles brightly into the camera, “I’d have accepted if Miss Nomura had.” Apohari shrugs. “Let’s continue, there’s only an hour, twenty minutes and fourteen seconds left!” Apohari continues to tell the class about the drones, along with casually fiddling with the RASD to let it carry ATGMs. I think my dropping/watching on the class call has went unnoticed until Apohari- oh- addresses me, “And you must be the older Nomura?” I flush, “No, I’m her adoptive sister, Manaka Eriko.” I bow politely. “My amazing special forces sister!” Haruka beams. I chuckle, embarrassed, “Yep, that’s me.” Apohari seems amused and rounds up a toddler that was attempting to crawl on the drone. “No, Sakuri, no you can’t sit on the RASD” “droni!” “No, no!” The link on her side cuts out. I involuntarily giggle, some people in the class laughing akwardly. The balding man coughs, “After Apohari-san returns from her situation, we will continue class. For now, we’ll have a 5 minute break.” I walk away from the desk and go make some food. I found this recipe for Spam Mitsubi I wanna test with Haruka. After a few minutes I finish it and hand Haruka one right when Apohari reconnects. She looks more harried, but fine, “I apologize, I’ve put Sakuri to sleep.” She returns to talking about the RASD, showing the students how to control and make the drone fire. “Now be very careful, we are controlling these drones, but that does not mean this is a video game. These are real machines and they fire very real missiles.” She looks serious. “Can I try ma’am?” Haruka asks. “Firing? Yes, we have set up test targets, these are obsolete Ryu and Shi class destroyers from 20 years ago.” “Can I also try to start a drone afterwards? I think I need to get the alignment around a target right still.” “Alright. Nomura, take the first shot.” “Wait, before I do, I don’t remember. Are Ryus and Shis nuclear or diesel powered?” “They were nuclear powered, but the NFA has removed the nuclear reactors.” “Okay!” She fires upon the ship, expertly guiding the missile… right into the bridge. Apohari blinks. “Can’t command a ship without an officer, right? That’s what the staff sargent told me.” “Yes, however most ships have a secondary battle bridge, somewhere. An older smaller ship like the Ryu, however, doesn’t, so if this was real you’d have just messed up their command structure.” “You said they took out the reactors. I would have fired on that if there still were some. On second thought, that probably would have been more impressive.” “Do you know where the missile launch bays for a newer ship are? If your missile penetrates the ammunition of a VLS, you’ll be able to break the ship’s spine or catastrophically destroy it.” “I know!” She smiles happily. “I watched some videos on that. Must be terrifying from the ground.” “We have a Fune class battleship nearby the area, watching. Now, I wish we still had TT-06 wherever it went.” They watch Apohari shift around nervously, “Uh- I just got some information. Class, Captain Kölhr wants us to do a live fire practice against the Densetsu no Fune and its escorts, Omaru and Tizaki. She wants us to act like they are enemy ships.” I gulp and speak up from being Haruka, “Isn’t that dangerous?” “Yes, which is why I’m only going to have 5 students do the exercise.” “Nomura, Sato, Arizaki, Tomba, and Ita” “Wait, the warheads will be deactivated right?” “Er, Captain Kölhr specifically asked for live fire.” Apohari seems uncomfortable with the decision, “Her higher-ups have decided to allow it.” “Then I don’t want to fire.” “That is understandable. Switching your command to the testbed.” I tilt my head, huh? I whisper to Haruka, “What’s the testbed?” She shrugs, Apohari asks for permission to move Nomura to a private call then speaks to Nomura, “This drone is NLTB-01, Basically, it has all the non lethal stuff on it. It’s my company’s secret because everyone wants super dangerous stuff.” “Thank you, ma’am.” I watch as the Fune opens fire with its anti-air, shooting down most of the RASDs within a few seconds, despite the skill of the class. Ita is able to get off a couple of ASMs before her drone is shot down. Haruka’s drone is still up and I think Apohari is controlling one of them. “Okay… Here goes…” Haruka fires a missile which ends up directly hitting one of the Fune’s railguns and an electronic pulse moved the ship, shutting down the turret.. Oh wow. “Okay it does work! This is revolutionary!” Apohari whoops through her speaker. “EMPs can be minaturized but also strengthened.” Nanotechnology is revolutionary, isn’t it. I mean, I know that, there’s a bunch of silicon and metal (put forcibly but lets ignore that) in my head and body. “Yay for science…” Haruka still looked a little uneasy. The Fune responded by shooting down another half of the drone force. Apohari scoffs, “Use the propeller tangler missiles, Nomura.” “It doesn’t feel right to fire on one of our own ships, ma’am.” “I agree.” I watch the drone people jump from drone to drone as they get shot down, Haruka’s drone is still up. “Haruka, watch out! One of the Mizus are getting close to the drones, if they get in range you’re toast!” Haruka looks back to the screen and in a commanding tone says “Alright, follow me everyone.” She takes control of the drone and seemingly pulls away from the ships with the other drones following suit, confusing the operators of the ships down below, the Densetsu no Fune the only one keeping a lock. After 10 minutes of the drones disappearing from clear vision a small swarm of EMP missiles and propellor tanglers fly towards the smaller support ships, most hitting their targets. It’s followed by a wave of deactivated ASMs, which instead of hitting, merely pings the the ships, letting them know they are ‘destroyed’ and out of the exercise. The Fune continued to fire, whittling the drones down to 10. “Nomura, I don’t think we can outsmart the Fune, so instead, I suggest we fly low, it’s a large ship. Holy-” Apohari’s drone along with 3 others are destroyed by a railgun. I gulp, Apohari responds, “Remember, these are UAVs, we’re all still alive, heh.” Nomura exclaims “FOR THE HAJS!” and dives as close to sea level as possible. CIWS and AALPs are firing at her drone and the other 2. 16 EMP warheads, the last of Haruka’s drone hit the Fune right as Haruka’s drone gets shot down. The video feed from the Fune cuts out as well. I shout, “What happened?” “In case of a successful EMP strike, a Fune will shut down all electronics to attempt to let them to survive.” Apohari shrugs on her video feed, “It seems we won with 98% losses. Pyrrhic victory. Thanks to Nomura.” Haruka pouts. “I blame the chair.” Apohari laughs, “Let me guess, you were lagging?” Haruka musters up fake tears, “The ping was too bad, it was barely controllable.” The Fune’s video feed returns, with a harried and flushed from embarrassment captain standing in front of the screen, “Good exercise, Drone Team, I didn’t expect you to win.” She smiles in embarrassment, “I won’t underestimate drones again, thanks for the wake-up call.” The feed ends. Hah, sucker. “Bleh!” I blep my tounge at the camera. “Don’t do that Eriko. That’s rude.” I do it at her too! “Bleh!” She does it back. Apohari is just sitting there, “You two done? This is infront of around 30 people you know.” Haruka now does it at Apohari. Apohari tilts her head, looking slightly annoyed, then bleps at Haruka, then leaves the call. Haruka smiles smugly and triumphantly. “I knew it.” As the call ends I look at Haruka, “Knew what?” “She’s a goofball at heart - just like you.” “Hah.” I stretch, “Foods on me tonight, Haruka, can’t wait for your birthday.” “Neither can I!” As I leave the room I stretch happily and prepare some food. I can’t wait for the future.