The Engineer Who Tore Through Ice
Kugugugugung-!
The massive 1,500-horsepower power pack roared to life and began to surge forward, kicking up the snow beneath it.
The next-generation K2SE, crewed by specialist test evaluators from Hanseo Defense and Taeseong Heavy Industries, thundered across the ice, its heavy tracks rolling with tremendous force.
“W-what is that? It’s doing it again!”
At the spot Director Jang pointed to.
The tank had just accelerated and was trying to pivot on the snowfield.
Under normal circumstances, the tracks should have flowed through the turn in a smooth blue curve.
But the damp, heavy snow unique to Sweden had packed itself tightly between the sprockets that drove the track, and the moment the tank’s weight pressed down, it had frozen solid into concrete-like blocks of ice.
Those grotesque ice chunks forced the tracks to roll over the ice in protest, swelling as if they were about to burst, and before my eyes they were spitting out a searing red glow.
The ice had pushed the sprocket beyond the tension limit it could bear.
I clicked my tongue and held out a hand to Director Jang.
“Director Jang. Hand me the maintenance log, and the tablet with the current suspension settings.”
Director Jang hurriedly passed over the waterproof tablet.
I looked quietly down at the ISU diagram of the tank’s lower hull displayed on the screen, along with the hydraulic values currently set in place.
Over the diagram on the screen, the actual tank outside seemed to overlap perfectly, its body screaming in red.
Without delay, I tapped through the tablet’s values and adjusted the virtual figures with my finger.
[Road wheel tension control: -5%]
The moment I changed the value, the red stress overlay before my eyes began to quiver ever so slightly.
The red around the ice-clogged sections faded a little, but now the entire outer edge of the track was glowing crimson, warning of the risk that the track would slip off altogether.
So merely loosening the tension would make the track derail.
I racked my engineering knowledge inside my head and began revising the numbers drastically.
[Road wheel tension control: -15%]
[Axles 1 and 6 damping pressure release; asymmetric response speed applied]
Then it happened.
The red, which had been circling over the tablet diagram and shrieking horribly, vanished as if it had been washed away.
And in its place, before my eyes, a perfect blue flow appeared, clear and smooth without a single flaw.
Bingo.
Looking at that flawless blue, I inferred the engineering logic in reverse.
The puzzle had fit together perfectly.
I smiled lazily and tapped the tablet.
“Director Jang. Loosen the track tension on the road wheels by a full 15 percent from the current setting, and reduce the damping pressure on the first and sixth shock absorbers so they’ll get soft and bouncy.”
“W-what?!”
The moment I finished speaking, Director Jang jumped as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“Executive Director Baek! What are you talking about? On this slick Swedish ice, the tracks keep trying to slip off, so we’ve pulled the tension up to the absolute limit just to keep them in place! And now you want to loosen it that much and make the shocks soft too? Then one turn of the turret and the tracks will just slide right off!”
Jo Taehyung, standing nearby, added coldly, “I’m not a track specialist, but Director Jang is right. When the sensors detect slippage, the basic principle of dynamic mechanics is to tighten the tension. Loosen it? Absolutely not.”
Perfectly controlled manuals and theoretical common sense.
But I could only give a bitter laugh at their rigid answers.
“You two seem to be misunderstanding something. For an ordinary tank, sure, the tracks would come off the moment it entered the corner. But this thing is an over-specced machine with a next-generation ISU, isn’t it?”
“What does being over-specced have to do with the tracks coming off?”
“Because I just set the damping pressure on axles 1 and 2, and the hydraulic response speed on axles 5 and 6, in an asymmetrical pattern offset by hundredths of a second.”
“…What?”
Jo Taehyung’s brow furrowed.
I unleashed, in a sharp burst, the perfect engineering logic I had just extracted from the blue flow.
“When the tension loosens and the tracks start to rattle, the front and rear shocks alternate absorbing the impact and bouncing the track back into place. Every time the track tries to slip outward, it gets a microscopic whip strike and is shoved back where it belongs.”
“A whip strike…?”
“Yes. Within the razor-thin threshold where the track still won’t derail, you feed it only the highest-frequency vibration capable of crushing the ice. If the tracks are fluttering back and forth like that, what do you think happens? Before the snow packed between the links can even touch the sprocket, that insane vibration shatters it to pieces and shakes it all loose.”
“And that can actually hold? Some of those tracks have to come off.”
“They won’t.”
I told Director Jang that with absolute confidence, then continued.
“The executive director and Director Jang were both trying to keep the tracks from slipping by tightening them as hard as possible. In fact, that stiff tension was acting like a cast, perfect for letting the ice cling on and push the tracks outward. You have to give the machine some breathing room so it can shake the ice loose.”
Even after my firm declaration, Jo Taehyung and Director Jang still wore deep skepticism on their faces.
It probably sounded plausible in theory, but their common sense, built from decades of handling steel, was warning them my method was madness.
“Executive Director Baek. I understand the meaning of your engineering hypothesis,” Jo Taehyung said, narrowing his eyes and replying coolly. “But that only works if you have found, perfectly, that impossibly narrow threshold where the track does not derail. You expect to hit that tightrope walk with analog settings adjusted by feel in the field, without even a computer sensor? If you fail, the tank will throw its tracks before it even finishes the corner and bury itself right there.”
“I assure you, that won’t happen.”
“...Very well. We’re short on time, so let’s run the test according to your settings first. But if the tracks come off and the lower suspension is destroyed, that responsibility will rest entirely on you, Executive Director Baek.”
It was the cold warning of elites who still did not trust me.
But I snorted and tossed the adjusted tablet to Director Maeng.
“Manager Maeng, Section Chief Cho.”
“Yes, Executive Director!”
“Apply these suspension settings immediately. Manager Maeng, get into the driver’s seat and start her up. Let’s go give some breathing room to this frozen lump of steel.”
The moment I gave the order, Manager Maeng and Section Chief Cho moved in perfect unison.
Kuaang-!
Then, with a massive blast from the exhaust, the next-generation tank, now fitted with my settings, burst through the snowstorm and shot out onto the training ground’s frozen surface.
Director Jang had his eyes squeezed shut, unable to bear watching the tracks come off.
Jo Taehyung, arms crossed, stared relentlessly at the tank’s lower hull with a sharp gaze.
“Entering the corner!”
Manager Maeng’s urgent voice rang through the radio.
Without reducing speed, the tank twisted its hull violently and began to drift around the icy turn.
“W-whaaa—?!”
Director Jang, who had been clenching his eyes shut, screamed in alarm.
At the end of his gaze, the tank’s right track, loosened by the dropped tension, was wobbling and tilting as if about to fling itself out past the sprocket.
A heart-stopping moment, one in which anyone would have expected a derailment.
But just then.
Tung, tung, teooong—!
The first and sixth shock absorbers, which I had set asymmetrically, expanded and contracted in rapid alternation at a terrifying speed.
Like a skilled rider cracking a whip to tame a wild horse, the hydraulic shocks were striking the track that tried to spring free, pushing it back into place with uncanny precision.
The vibration spread through the entire track, making it ripple and slap as it moved.
And then.
Prasasasasak—!
The Swedish ice chunks that had clung between the sprockets and been choking the track could not withstand that insane vibration. They shattered into fragments and sprayed in all directions.
The track, now spitting out the ice in a refreshing burst, turned smoothly and elegantly, clearing the icy corner perfectly.
Exactly as the perfect blue flow I had seen on the tablet.
“Th-this is... my God.”
Director Jang’s jaw trembled as it dropped open.
Jo Taehyung’s formerly icy eyes were now wide enough to crack from shock.
“How... how is it still holding without derailing? Without a computer, he’s balancing on that limit just by setting the values by hand?”
The threshold in the Swedish snowfield, the one no amount of tens of thousands of computer simulations had managed to find.
And before the overwhelming performance of a man who had pierced straight through it by instinct at the scene.
On the faces of those elites, who had lived and died by theory, appeared a stupendous shock and admiration unlike anything they had ever felt in their lives.
* * *
At the same time.
Inside the VIP office barracks set up on one side of the Kiruna Winter Testing Ground, reserved for South Korean government officials.
Kim, the Deputy Chief of the National Security Office at the Blue House, was sifting through documents with a stiff expression while using coffee to soothe the burning knot in his stomach.
“Haah...”
Even as he swallowed the hot coffee, his mouth felt dry and rough.
This 4-trillion-won MOU was one of the administration’s life-or-death projects.
It was a flawless package that had swept up nuclear power, communications, and infrastructure in order to secure a foothold in Sweden, the Northern European gateway, but at the worst possible moment a fatal defect had exploded in the one thing that opened the door: the tank.
Even though Jo Taehyung, the Hanseo Group’s top elite executive, had personally stepped up and taken charge, the problem showed no sign of being solved.
The Swedish government had given them a week’s grace out of “consideration,” but from Kim’s point of view it was nothing more than a blood-draining reprieve.
“Deputy Chief! Deputy Chief!”
Then the door to the barracks was thrown open roughly, and Kim Seungyun’s aide rushed in with an excited face.
“What is it? Why is it so noisy out there? Don’t tell me the tank broke down again?”
“N-no! In the mobility test just now, the track icing problem was completely solved!”
“...What?”
Kim tilted his head.
Solved?
Just like that?
It was hard to understand.
“No, even yesterday Director Jo and the ADD doctors were tearing their hair out over it. How in the world did it suddenly get fixed...?”
Kim slammed the coffee cup down on the table and sprang to his feet.
The aide continued his report in an excited voice, still sounding as though he couldn’t believe it.
“That Executive Director Baek Gunwoo who arrived from Korea just now, sir! The moment he got here, he tapped at the tablet a few times and immediately came up with a solution. Director Jo Taehyung and the Taeseong Heavy Industries director are both so stunned they’re standing there with their mouths hanging open!”
“My word...”
“And on top of that, Executive Director Baek rode the momentum straight into the second problem and said he’d begin repairing the main gun thermal tube right away. At this rate, it looks like the main-gun heat distortion problem will be fixed soon too.”
Color returned to Kim’s previously rigid face in an instant.
So the special envoy Chairman Cho sent as a last resort wasn’t some parachuted-in figurehead after all... He’s an absurdly capable man.
For Kim Seungyun, who knew only politics and diplomacy, how the machine had been fixed did not matter.
What mattered was that the 40-trillion-won MOU that had nearly disintegrated in midair was now back on a perfect trajectory.
“Hahaha! Contact Seoul right away and submit a report to the VIP.”
“Yes, sir!”
Just as Deputy Chief Kim Seungyun was cheerfully straightening his tie and letting out a hearty laugh...
“Deputy Chief from the National Security Office, are you present?”
From outside the barracks, someone requested entry in fluent English.
When the aide opened the door, a blond middle-aged man with an easy smile on his lips stepped into the barracks.
He was Eric Nordstrom, the Director General of the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration’s Ground Forces Division, and the key official holding operational evaluation authority over this test.
“Oh, Director General. What brings you all the way to this humble barracks?”
Kim extended his hand with the slick smile of a seasoned politician.
As Nordstrom took Kim’s hand, he glanced out the window.
“It’s quite noisy outside. I heard rumors that an extraordinary fixer had arrived from Korea. They say he smashed Sweden’s miserable ice to pieces the moment he arrived?”
“Hahaha! The news has already spread that far? As expected, your country’s intelligence network is impressive.”
Kim shrugged and answered with ease.
“In our Republic of Korea’s heavy industry, there are many technicians who have spent decades working steel. But among them, we specially brought in the finest, the one with the best instinct, straight from headquarters.”
Kim began gilding Baek Gunwoo’s name shamelessly, making up praise that did not even exist.
It was diplomatic language, designed to make absolutely clear how much momentum the Korean side currently had.
“Director General. At this pace, every mechanical defect will be completely resolved before the final inspection test. You needn’t worry about the technology proving the worth of this 40-trillion package.”
“Oh, that is truly a relief.”
“On behalf of the Korean government, I once again offer our deep gratitude for your side’s consideration in moving the schedule back for us.”
Kim bowed politely, driving the point home.
But then it happened.
As he listened to Kim’s assurance, the Swedish official suddenly nodded with a meaningful smile.
“Ah, that consideration.”
“...?”
“Since the Swedish government has shown Korea such great consideration... I suppose it’s now time for the Korean side to show us a corresponding ‘consideration’.”
The relaxed curve of Kim’s eyes instantly narrowed into something cold.
What the hell are these bastards up to now?
So after fixing the tank, were they going to make an unreasonable demand for even more technology transfer?
Or were they planning to slash the unit price of the nuclear power or communications projects?
Countless political calculations raced through Kim’s head.
But he could not see what Sweden was really aiming at.
In the end, he decided to hit them head-on and said, “May I ask exactly what kind of consideration the Swedish side is asking for?”
Kim’s sharp tone made his caution clear.
Then Nordstrom chuckled lightly and pointed with his chin toward a man outside the window, climbing onto the tank’s main gun through the snowstorm.
“This isn’t about conditions or unit prices. I mean that Korean technician who just arrived.”
“...Executive Director Baek?”
“Yes. In fact, there’s a troublesome piece of machinery in our military that even now remains impossible to solve.”
A deep curiosity, along with a hidden appetite, spread across the Swedish official’s lips.
“I’m wondering whether he might be able to solve our problem just as magically.”