The Vengeance was a beast of a ship, a triple-decker galleon that sat low in the water, heavy with the weight of sixty-four brass cannons. To any other sailor, she was a nightmare. To me, she was a massive liability waiting to be liquidated.
"They're coming about!" Silas roared, his hand tight on the ship's wheel. "Brace for a broadside!"
"Wait!" I screamed over the howling wind and the snap of the sails. I had my spyglass trained on the Vengeance's gun ports. "Kaelen, look at the smoke from their signal flares!"
Kaelen squinted. "It's... yellowish?"
"Exactly! Yellow smoke means high sulfur, low-grade nitrate," I shouted. "I tracked their quarterly procurement. The Syndicate's supplier, a man named Henderson, has been cutting their gunpowder with charcoal and sawdust to pad his margins. That ship isn't a galleon; it's a giant, slow-burning firework!"
The Vengeance fired.
The sound wasn't the crisp crack of a healthy cannon. It was a wet, heavy thud. Half the balls fell short, splashing harmlessly into the surf. The other half drifted wildly, one whistling past our mast so slowly I could almost see the casting mark.
"Their range is halved because the combustion is incomplete!" I laughed, a manic sound that made Silas look at me like I was insane. "Silas, close the distance! Their long-range game is bankrupt, but their internal pressure is rising. Every time they fire, the residue builds up in the barrels!"
"You want me to sail closer to a sixty-four gun galleon?" Silas barked.
"Yes! If we get within fifty yards and fire a single heated shot into their mid-deck, the back-pressure from their fouled cannons will do the work for us!"
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He grabbed a torch. "I'll prime the forward chaser. Silas, get us to the fifty-yard line!"
The sea was a chaos of spray and splinters. We dived through the Syndicate's line, dancing around their sluggish shots. The Vengeance tried to turn, but she was too heavy, her crew panicked by the fact that their pride and joy was spitting more soot than steel.
"Now!" I cried.
Kaelen fired. The heated shot—a glowing ball of iron—traveled the short distance in a heartbeat. It didn't hit the magazine. It didn't need to. It hit the gun deck, where open barrels of Henderson's "Sawdust Special" gunpowder were waiting.
The explosion wasn't a single boom. It was a chain reaction.
Because the gunpowder was impure, it didn't detonate—it vented. Massive plumes of blue-orange flame roared out of the Vengeance's gun ports, turning the ship into a floating furnace. The back-pressure blew the wooden lids off the cannons, sending them flying like deadly frisbees.
Within seconds, the Syndicate's flagship was dead in the water, her sails melting and her crew jumping overboard.
"Accounting 101, Silas," I said, wiping a spray of salt-water from my face as we sailed past the wreck. "Always check the quality of your raw materials. A cheap supplier is a death sentence."
Silas stared at the burning ship, then at the ledger in my hand. He sheathed his cutlass and walked over to me, his expression unreadable.
"Lady Lexen," he said softly. "I've spent ten years trying to sink that ship. You just did it with a trade report and a single ball of iron."
"I did it with the truth, Silas. The Syndicate was built on a lie of 'Infinite Growth.' I just forced them to realize their losses."
Kaelen walked up, soot-stained and grinning. He put an arm around my waist, pulling me close. "I think the Auditress just earned a very large bonus, wouldn't you say, Captain?"
Silas looked at us, then out at his victorious crew. "Bonus? Hell, if she stays in the Southern Isles, I'll give her the whole damn ocean. Just... promise me you'll never audit my personal liquor stash."
I smiled, leaning my head against Kaelen's shoulder. "I make no promises, Silas. But for now... let's go find my father. I have a feeling he's already trying to sell 'Insurance' to the surviving Syndicate sailors."