Red found Vizim browsing through the collection of engineering supplies in one of the storage buildings. He paused in the doorway, surveying the materials. There were a lot of resources. Perhaps enough to rebuild the entire shield from Cairen's ship. That wasn't what they were after, though.
"Zara has fully committed to the plan, I think."
A crooked smile played across Vizim's face, "Is that so? Well, I've already got some stuff pulled out. What do you think about using the same overheating explosion detonator from before?"
"That might work for some of them…But I think we need to go all in on this one."
That gave him pause.
"All in…what do you mean?"
"She wants this plan to be more than just a convoluted rescue operation. Zara wants to take down the pirates in one fell swoop, or she wants to try at least."
"One fell swoop," Vizim shook himself, "Is that even possible? Even with these set up, it seems unlikely. A few bombs won't be enough."
"I know. But we have time now. Probably not a lot, but we aren't in a rush like on the island. There should be plenty of time to come up with something."
"Yeah," Vizim turned away,
Red thought back to the bombs he had made in the past. Well, it was only one bomb, really. He had made plenty of accidental explosions but only one intentional bomb. That had been a fairly simple design.
They had taken one of the cores salvaged from the shipwreck. He had created a simple circular circuit that connected the energy of the core back to itself. Since the core was unable to reabsorb its own energy like that, it would allow the mechanism to burn out. The stored energy would then implode, also blowing the much more powerful core.
Vizim added a cooling system to the design, giving them a timer. His system would slowly release the building power, preventing it from overloading too quickly. This allowed them to plant the bomb and get a rough estimate of when it would explode.
He had been proud of their success at the time. What they needed to accomplish now was far more extreme. They needed multiple bombs to be planted across the island, and they all needed to be blown simultaneously. They could set various timers and try to align them, but if one went off too soon or too late, their entire plan would be blown. What they needed was a way to remotely detonate the bombs at once.
Red explained his plan to Vizim, or at least the basics.
"You're talking about remote detonation, you know. That took years, maybe even decades of testing for them to figure out, and you want us to do it in a few days," Vizim commented without looking up from his work.
They had split their tasks in half. Vizim would focus on what he was best at. Cooling mechanisms. Red would focus on what he was best at. Making things blow up. From there, they'd work together inwards until they hopefully had a full-fledged bomb. Then they simply had to make a few more.
"The fact that someone's already done it makes this easier for us."
"How so?"
"Well, for one, at least we know it's possible."
"That is a terrible answer."
There was little to discuss as they worked. They both knew to some extent what they were doing. At least, the start.
It was most of the day, but Red had managed to create an outline for four separate bombs. He had been forced to tinker far more than he would have liked. The distance from the Heart of Valencia affected the output the cores possessed. He was used to Wale Port's power output, and he was forced to adjust to the change on Rim. The amount of power was the same, but the way it acted was not.
While he was having minor difficulties, his friend was having far more success. Vizim had created four cooling devices meant to be hooked up to each explosive. They were far more intricately crafted than the ragtag ones from their trek. Red wondered how they would hold up compared to his central machine from Cairen's ship.
The easy part was set. What came next would be very difficult and possibly extremely time-consuming.
"Do you have an idea for a remote detonation?"
Red chuckled, "Not really, but we will need to do something with a mist pulse. Like some sort of beacon, is my guess. If we can find a way to get the cores to react to the pulse, we might be able to create a switch that way."
Vizim nodded, "I see where you're headed with this, but we also need to make a receiver for the bomb. Neither of us really is an expert on this sort of thing, so the one we make is going to be more crude."
"We will need to make the bombs also pulse with some sort of opposite resonance. That way, when the forces combine, the bombs will go off. I'm just worried that whatever pulse we use for the bombs will be detected."
Red was worried about that, too. As it was, they would have to make some concessions. Either no remote explosions, or they would have to increase the risk of them being discovered.
"That's a problem we'll have to deal with in the future. For now, I think we need to figure out how to make the opposing pulses and get them to synchronize. That is the first step of what will probably be a long process."
"Agreed."
Over the next few days, they were in constant work mode. The two of them would spend nearly every waking hour building the remote detonation system. On day one, they had managed to create a very basic design. It worked with very basic pulses from short ranges. That wouldn't work for setting off a bomb.
They managed to keep the basic idea, and by the end of day two, they had a design that could be detected from across the fort. Things got far more complicated from there. Testing the switch beyond the fort was difficult, and the foliage made it harder to detect the pulses.
After numerous failed attempts, they were both on the verge of giving up. Neither of them could generate a pulse to penetrate across the island without being interrupted by various other core-powered devices.
But, success was not out the door just yet.
"Why don't you just set it up to align with the pulses from the heart?" Zara asked on day five.
Red almost cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. There was an almost unnoticeable pulse that constantly emanated from the central heart. This pulse was not strong enough to cause any effect. However, there were specific times of the month when the pulse strength would spike.
Timing their explosion and plan with one of these spikes would be difficult, but not impossible. It also meant that their plan could continue forward. They managed to achieve success on their first and only practice attempt. There would only be one more in a few days. After that, they would be forced to wait multiple weeks before another attempt.
That meant their plan would be forced to go through in three days. The bombs were finished, which meant they were now stuck counting down the time until the inevitable showdown. Well, there was a lot more work to be done than sitting around. Zara and Derrin had gathered crucial information about the pirate camps. They'd be very busy completing the final preparations in the coming days.
"Red, do you think this will work?" Vizim wouldn't look at him.
Red nodded, "I think so, and if it doesn't, well…everyone will still get rescued one way or another."
He knew that this was Vizim's real concern. It wasn't about defeating the pirates for revenge. It wasn't about doing the right thing and taking down an enemy of Valencia. It wasn't even about experiencing some cool adventure like himself.
Vizim simply wanted to save his friends and family. Red was doing this for far more feeble reasons. He simply wanted to have fun and watch the big explosion they were planning.
That would definitely be a blast. He laughed at his own terrible joke.