The Verdict of the Black Box
Yoon, the chief researcher collapsed at the end of my line of sight, could not say a word.
No, the look on his face made it plain that he couldn’t even believe the reality unfolding before him.
And it was understandable. After all, the elite PhDs who had poured in hundreds of billions of won over three years had failed to solve this dilemma, and now it had been resolved perfectly.
More to the point, it had been done by tank components and a wildly contrarian set of data they had never once considered, never once bothered to look at, in their entire lives.
Looking down at Yoon, who seemed to have lost his mind, I clicked my tongue inwardly.
I had solved the problem cleanly. Now it was time to collect the bill that came with it.
“……”
While everyone in the control room except me, Maeng, and Jo was still struggling to understand what to make of the situation, I set the can of coffee in my hand down on the console with a sharp thud.
At the sound, Yoon and Kang, both half-stunned into blankness, turned their eyes to me.
“As you can see, the torpedo casing and propulsion section are Solaris’s work.”
I spoke to them in an even voice.
“But the hydraulic control logic that corrected the trajectory just now, and the active damper settings, are core Hanseo Defense technology.”
“V- Vice President Baek. That’s….”
Yoon began to speak in a trembling voice.
I looked at his face for a moment, then went on.
“From now on, the tail-drive shaft module for this Supercavitation Torpedo will be delivered from Hanseo as a sealed black box that cannot be opened up and inspected. Solaris will simply take it and assemble it into the body.”
My firm declaration dropped heavy silence over the control room once again.
Yoon had been the sort of man who would foam at the mouth at the idea of anyone from another company even touching a torpedo.
But now, faced with a technological gap he could do nothing about on his best day, he could only grit his teeth until his lips went white.
There was almost nothing else he could do.
At least as far as this massive state project called the Supercavitation Torpedo was concerned.
For Solaris Marine, South Korea’s number one maritime defense company, it was the moment they gave up on independently completing their weapons system and became utterly dependent on Hanseo’s core component.
The next morning, in the main building of the Agency for Defense Development.
Chairman Song Tae-hwan of Solaris Marine was walking toward President Park Jin-cheol’s office with a stiff face.
His insides had been burning black since yesterday.
What had happened at the Geoje tank test site was undeniably a painful humiliation for Solaris.
A brand-new executive director from Hanseo Defense, a man who knew next to nothing about the sea, had identified and solved the vibration problem in the apex of maritime defense, the Supercavitation Torpedo, in a single day.
It was so insulting he had not been able to sleep a wink.
But Song, who had seen all manner of storms, quickly began running the numbers with cool detachment.
He only solved the straight-line problem.
The real nightmare, the true bottleneck of the Supercavitation Torpedo, lay in the turn toward the target, in the steering technology.
Even if straight-line travel was somehow fixed, the delicate control logic required to bend a path at 300 kilometers per hour inside the water was something only Solaris, the true home of fluid dynamics, could finish.
All we need is time. If we complete the turning logic on our own, then Baek Gunwoo’s contribution can be brushed off as little more than a lucky fluke where he tossed us a single part. The initiative still belongs to us.
Having finished the calculation in his head, Chairman Song erased the hard look from his face as he reached for the office doorknob.
In its place came the easy, friendly smile of a man who had built a conglomerate.
Click.
“Oh, President Park. I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning.”
Chairman Song stepped into the office, greeted him warmly, and took a seat on the sofa.
He fiddled with the expensive teacup brought by the secretary and opened with harmless talk about the weather.
It was getting hotter, he said. The economy was terrible these days, he added.
After a moment spent gauging President Park’s mood through such talk of the world, he finally got to the point.
“President Park. Yesterday we did see the Hanseo executive come over and offer his two cents on the torpedo’s straight-line issue, I’ll grant you that….”
“Offer his two cents? We saw with our own eyes that he identified the torpedo’s biggest headache, the vibration problem, in one shot.”
“Heh. Even so, you can’t just apply some land system part from another company directly to deep-sea pressure. Fine, suppose straight-line travel is fixed somehow. The real challenge, the steering development, is still ahead of us. Our Solaris researchers will take the lead and refine the safe logic, so could you please give us a little more breathing room before the next stage’s open-water test?”
He was trying to dilute Baek Gunwoo’s accomplishment as much as possible and drag out time so he could keep hold of the rest of the project.
President Park could see through Song’s intentions with perfect clarity.
The problem, however, was that no matter who he was, no matter that he headed the Agency for Defense Development, he could not simply crush Solaris Marine, one of the country’s major maritime defense firms.
With a man of that rank showing up in person to make this request, the ADD side would have to back off to some degree, at least enough to pretend to compromise.
Song had come here fully aware of that dynamic.
The man was seasoned, after all, someone who had been rolling through this industry for decades.
As President Park thought that, and was just about to smile thinly while managing the irritation on his face, his phone began to ring loudly on the desk.
Jingle, jiiing.
It was Director Kang, who had been dispatched to the Geoje site.
When President Park answered, a strangely hushed voice came through the speaker.
“President. I’m sorry. I meant to report right as business hours started, but I only meant to rest my eyes for a moment and ended up falling asleep.”
“What’s going on? Why does your voice sound like that? Is there a problem on site?”
“No, sir. The thing is… an additional test was conducted in the tank early this morning.”
“At dawn? The straight-line test ended yesterday afternoon. What on earth did you test now?”
At the question, President Park could hear the sound of Kang swallowing dryly through the receiver.
“It was a test led by Vice President Baek Gunwoo. And… we have finally confirmed through testing that the Supercavitation Torpedo can now steer.”
“…What?”
President Park’s eyes widened.
He had thought solving straight-line travel alone was a miracle, and now, overnight, they had bent the torpedo’s direction too?
Perfectly?
“Is that really true? No errors? You’re not so desperate that you’re mistaking a human error for reality, are you? No, how could steering possibly be finished in one day?”
President Park asked in an agitated voice.
Song’s eyes, sitting across from him, widened in disbelief.
He was staring at President Park in confusion.
“Absolutely not, sir. I cross-checked it myself, repeatedly. It was a complete success.”
“Heh, well now….”
President Park let out a laugh before he could stop himself.
At that absurd genius’s pace, he was beyond exasperation, yet he also couldn’t suppress the pride and exhilaration welling up from inside him.
He looked at Chairman Song with an odd smile and said, “All right. Good work. Make sure everything is organized properly.”
“Yes, sir.”
As President Park hung up, anxiety was already rising on Chairman Song’s face.
“What happened? What do you mean it succeeded in steering?”
President Park folded his fingers together on the table and spoke with a relaxed smile.
“Chairman Song. It seems your Vice President Baek has caused quite a stir overnight.”
“What? A stir…?”
“He didn’t just fix straight-line travel yesterday. He apparently made the torpedo turn perfectly as well.”
“T- That makes no sense…!”
Song’s face was instantly drenched in shock.
The king of fluid dynamics, the steering control that defined the whole field, had been handled overnight by some green kid who’d only ever touched land-system hardware?
Without even the chance to preserve his dignity, he sprang to his feet and yanked out his phone with a jittery motion.
The recipient was Yoon Jin-ho, chief researcher at Solaris Marine and the man who had been in charge of the main console for this project.
“Chief Yoon! What the hell is going on down in Geoje, you bastard? What do you mean the torpedo turned? What are you talking about?”
“P- President! I, um….”
Yoon’s voice on the other end had gone completely bloodless.
“I was going to report it… I was going to report it, but….”
“But what! Speak properly!”
“Hanseo Defense completely boxed the steering control logic into a black box. So, in effect, control of the torpedo’s core has gone over to Vice President Baek, and… we’ve been reduced to depending on Hanseo’s component, so… I couldn’t bring myself to say anything because I thought you’d be furious….”
“You, you idiots!”
A string of rough curses burst from Chairman Song’s mouth.
His face twisted into a hideous mask, as if he had chewed on something rotten.
His careful calculation, meant to erase the credit for the straight-line test and buy time.
The cheap lobbying effort that had driven him to arrive early in the morning and beg, discarding all the dignity of a conglomerate chairman.
All of it shattered on the spot.
The independent completion of the Supercavitation Torpedo was now out of reach.
Still holding the phone, President Park looked at the trembling Chairman Song and calmly put the situation to rest.
“Chairman Song. Don’t be too hard on your people. This was a problem no one in the world had been able to solve. Whatever the origin of the part, the main body driving this enormous project is still Solaris Marine. It’s a relief, really, that a solution was found at all.”
“I… see?”
Chairman Song forced the words out, straining to suppress his emotions.
A gentle smile bloomed around President Park’s mouth.
“Of course. So let’s forget what you said about delaying the test schedule. Since such a perfect result has come out of all this, let’s head out to the East Sea the day after tomorrow and check the steering test ourselves. You need to show us Solaris’s strength.”
The tone was soft, almost as if he were soothing him while offering corporate courtesy.
But underneath it was an unmistakable declaration that no more flimsy stalling would be tolerated.
For Chairman Song, who had entered the office smiling with easy confidence, it was a brutal humiliation with nowhere to escape.
The following days, on the rough waters of the East Sea.
The deck of the Agency for Defense Development’s large test vessel, the Cheonghae-ho.
Someone approached me as I stood facing the horizon, the sea wind cutting hard across my face.
“Feeling any better with the motion sickness? Vice President Baek.”
“Ah, President Park.”
It was President Park of the Agency for Defense Development, bundled in thick windproof winter gear.
He stood beside me with a satisfied smile and looked toward the next-generation large unmanned underwater vehicle suspended from the heavy crane on deck.
“Thank you for coming all this way, even enduring seasickness. It was already finished perfectly in the tank, so I was worried I had dragged you out here for no reason.”
“No need to worry about that. You were right that it had to be proven in the real deep sea, not just in a tank. If we started it, we should see it through.”
President Park chuckled at my flat answer and nodded.
“It’ll be over quickly, so bear with it just a little longer. If you need anything, say the word.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I’m heading up to the bridge. Time to get back to my post.”
“Please do.”
With my reply, President Park nodded and headed toward the bridge.
I watched his back for a moment, then shifted my gaze to the unmanned submersible on the other side.
The Supercavitation Torpedo was a weapon that, the instant it was fired, announced its position to the world with a deafening roar.
It could reach speeds of 300 kilometers per hour, which was absurd under water, but its range was shorter than that of a conventional torpedo.
For a manned submersible, it would be little more than suicide.
That was why only an unmanned submersible could operate this torpedo.
Cheonghaeho had come out here carrying an unmanned submersible for exactly that reason.
It should work.
It would work, probably.
It had to.
Just as I was thinking that, Maeng Giyong, the department head who had been absently turning a warm canned coffee in his hands beside me, murmured under his breath.
“Damn, this salty stink of the sea is nasty. Right?”
“Yeah, it’s a bit much. Doesn’t suit us.”
Jo, the chief researcher, nodded at that.
Not exactly wrong.
I had been thinking the same thing, but then Maeng went on.
“No, Vice President. Honestly, did we really need to come aboard this ship?”
Jo Seok-hun, standing opposite me as if to take up the complaint on my behalf, chimed in.
“You already solved the biggest dilemma, the steering problem, Vice President. And the nasty hydraulic control module was sealed into a perfect black box and handed over by the department head and me after we worked through the night.”
“Right. Our part is completely done. From here on, it’s just the mechanical procedure of those Solaris guys taking our component, installing it in the submersible, and pressing the button….”
Maeng muttered, sounding frustrated.
“Come on, don’t be like that. When else are we going to sit back and watch the result of a state project with our own eyes?” I said, taking a sip from the canned coffee with a flippant air.
My heart was calm even in the midst of the biting sea wind. I had already solved the hardest problem, and now I was just watching the show.
“Still, this isn’t right. Vice President, once we’re done, let’s go back to Pangyo and grill some meat. How about it, deal?”
“Department Head Maeng. Meat? You’re saying that now?”
“…Huh? What, did I say something wrong?”
Maeng, who had been joking as usual, looked stunned when I lowered my voice and turned serious on him.
Just as embarrassment flashed across his face because he was reading my mood, I snorted and went on.
“You came all this way down here, so of course you should eat sashimi. Let’s stuff ourselves with sashimi first, then go up and eat meat. I’ll cover everything.”
“…Oh?”
“That’s not bad. See? This is why you have to admit the Vice President has style.”
Maeng and then Jo both brightened with widened eyes.
I stood with them and pulled out my phone to search for a good restaurant.
Our talk of choosing tonight’s menu was leisurely enough, but the atmosphere on the far side of the deck could not have been more different.
Yoon and the Solaris researchers were clinging to the monitors with bloodless faces, wracked by seasickness.
Now that Hanseo Defense had taken the core control authority, everything left of Solaris’s pride and future was riding on this open-water test.
Beep—!
With a signal tone, the crane began moving and lowering the unmanned submersible into the cold waters of the East Sea.
Target depth: 200 meters.
Through the control room speakers came the hard voice of an ADD controller.
“Unmanned submersible dive complete. Target locked. Outer torpedo-tube door open. Final firing sequence engaged.”
President Park, looking down from the bridge, and Yoon on deck both swallowed dryly as they watched the monitor.
“Countdown. Five, four, three….”
That was the moment.
Beep—!
Beeeeep!
A shriek of a warning alarm tore through the air, and the monitor screen turned blood red.
At the same time, the countdown was forcibly halted.
“W- What’s going on!”
Yoon shrieked and hammered at the keyboard.
As he checked the error log on the screen, a beastlike cry burst from his mouth.
“Pressure anomaly! The 200-meter pressure is too much, and the seal on the supercavitation torpedo gas-release tank has ruptured! Thirty percent of the pressure reading is gone!”
“What did you say?!”
“Close the outer door now and raise the crane! Seawater is flowing back in through the open gap! If we delay here, not only the torpedo but even the internal weapons bay of the unmanned submersible will be soaked through, and we’ll lose hundreds of billions!”
Just as the Solaris camp turned into a house of mourning, the ADD controller shouted with a face gone pale.
“Impossible! A typhoon is moving up this afternoon, and the ship will be under sailing restrictions for at least a month! And if we can’t fire today, this year’s test budget review is over!”
It was a hopeless announcement.
Even President Park on the bridge let out a deep sigh, while Maeng and Jo, who had been dreaming of going home early and hunting for restaurants, saw their expressions drain cold.
“Haah….”
I let out a small sigh and tossed the remaining coffee into my mouth.
How was it that once in a while, things could never just go smoothly?
I had been planning to finish the test cleanly, clock out on my own, and go roam around restaurants.
Crack.
The empty can crumpled in my hand.
If I left it like this, thanks to those idiotic elites, I wouldn’t even get to hunt for food places. I’d be stuck in Geoje until tomorrow, helping clean up their mess for no reason.
Suppressing the irritation rising in me, I strode toward the main console.
I hadn’t slept properly since yesterday. I had worked through the night. And still I had come aboard and sailed out with them, pushing my fatigue down with sheer will, only to end up with this.
“Vice President?”
Maeng called from behind me, his voice anxious, but I did not stop.
I reached the side of Yoon, who was standing there dazed, clutching the monitor, and tapped his shoulder.
“Hey, what the hell? This is no time for someone from another company to interfere…!”
“Move aside.”
“What?”
“Stop talking blind nonsense and chewing up other people’s quitting time. Move.”
I shoved the astonished Yoon’s shoulder aside.
Then I took my place in front of the monitor, which was spewing red warnings everywhere, to see what on earth had broken that they were making such a fuss about hardware damage.
I stared at the display for a moment.
Then I said to Yoon, “Raise it first. I think I can tell roughly what’s going on.”
“...What?”
“Raise it. Quickly.”
Let’s just fix it and go home already, seriously.