Read Chapter 32: The Syndicate's Plan

The *Aurora* limped through the cloud layer, her port engine coughing black smoke. Below, the shattered husk of the fortress was already vanishing beneath a blanket of grey, its death throes a distant rumble that vibrated through the deck plates.

Elias stood at the chart table in the main cabin, the half-core of the control mechanism glowing a faint, sickly green before him. His hand went, unbidden, to the ring on his finger. Amelia’s ring. He turned it, watching the light catch the worn band, then slammed his fist against the table.

The door burst open. Sable stood silhouetted in the frame, blood crusted on her temple where a French rifle butt had clipped her. “Captain. We have company.”

MacReady was already at the forward gun, his hands gripping the twin cannons. Through the streaked glass, Elias saw it: a black-hulled corvette, sleek and predatory, sliding out of a cloud bank directly across their bow. No flag. No markings. But the way she moved told Elias everything.

“Bastion,” he muttered.

“How the hell did they find us?” Sable asked, checking her pistol.

Elias looked down at the ring. The answer was cold in his chest.

A signal lamp blinked from the corvette’s bridge. MacReady squinted. “They’re demanding we heave to. ‘Captain Elias Thorne will come aboard alone.’” He spat. “Bold bastards.”

“Or desperate,” Elias said. “Whoever’s hailing isn’t French. And they’re not Royal Navy.”

He strode to the speaking tube. “Amidships. Hold position. Keep the guns trained, but don’t fire unless I’m dead.”

“Sir—” MacReady started.

“That’s an order, Mister MacReady.”

Ten minutes later, Elias stood on the deck of the *Blackwater*, the syndicate’s corvette. A thin fog clung to her rigging, lending the whole vessel a spectral quality. A man awaited him at the center of the deck, flanked by six armed enforcers in long water-resistant coats.

The man was older than Elias expected. Silver-haired, with a face that had once been handsome and now looked carved from granite. He wore a naval greatcoat stripped of all insignia. But his eyes—dark, pitiless—carried a familiarity Elias couldn’t place.

“Captain Thorne,” the man said, with a slight bow. “I am Silas Voss. I represent interests that have been patient with you. That patience, I’m afraid, has expired.”

Elias kept his hands at his sides, loose. “You’re the ones who own my debt.”

“We own considerably more than that,” Voss said, walking a slow circle around him. “Did you think the Royal Navy simply cast you off for losing a frigate? No. We arranged for your court-martial and the circumstances that drove you into the privateer’s life. A life we now require you to conclude.”

Elias’s jaw tightened. “What do you want, Voss?”

“The control mechanism you have below.” Voss’s tone was even, almost bored. “Hand it over, and we’ll consider your debt paid in full. Your crew will be allowed to sail away. You’ll walk free.”

“And if I refuse?”

Voss smiled, showing teeth that didn’t match the stone face. “We expose you. The French naval command already believes you destroyed their fortress. One more letter to the British Admiralty—along with evidence of your previous engagements under privateer colors—and you’ll be hanged from the highest yardarm in Portsmouth. Your crew will be hanged beside you.”

Elias studied the man. In his peripheral vision, he could see the *Aurora* holding station, her bow guns ready. MacReady at the helm. Sable somewhere below.

“The meteor project,” Elias said slowly. “It wasn’t French. The fortress was a scuttling operation. Ash works for someone. And now you’re here, asking for the piece I stole back.”

Voss tilted his head. “Go on.”

“You built it,” Elias said. “The weather control device. All of it. The meteor was never meant for the French military. You built it to control the weather over the Atlantic. Trade routes. Commands the winds, and you command the skies.”

Voss laughed, a dry sound like stones rubbing together. “Very good, Captain. We have spent twenty years and a fortune in gold on that project. We are this close to harnessing a power that will make every navy on Earth a customer. No longer will weather be a foe to be endured. It will be a product to be sold.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You have half the mechanism’s core. Ash has the meteor and the other half. I will not allow a disgraced privateer to hold leverage over our empire.”

“I don’t give a damn about your empire,” Elias said. “You ruined my life. You used me. You sent Ash after me, and you used Amelia as bait.”

“Amelia made her choices,” Voss said. “As you will make yours. Now—the core.”

Elias reached into his coat. Voss’s guards tensed, but Elias pulled out something small and metallic: the ring. He tossed it at Voss’s feet.

“I’m done being tracked,” he said.

Voss looked down at the ring, then back up. His face hardened. “A tracker and a loyalty test in one. She was always meant to deliver you and the device to us. Instead, she divided it. A miscalculation on her part. We will correct it.” He snapped his fingers. “Take him.”

The guards moved. Elias was ready.

He dropped low, catching the first guard’s knee and twisting, sending the man sprawling. A second guard swung a cudgel—Elias took it across the shoulder blade with a grunt, using the momentum to roll forward and come up beneath a third’s guard, slamming his palm into the man’s throat. On the *Aurora*, MacReady saw Elias go down into the scrum and gave the order.

The *Aurora*’s guns thundered.

Chain shot whipped across the gap, shredding the *Blackwater*’s rigging. The corvette lurched, throwing Voss’s remaining guards off balance. Elias seized the moment, drawing his pistol and firing twice. One guard dropped. Another dove for cover.

Sable hit the deck in a controlled drop, rope wrapped around one arm, two knives in the other hand, howling like a wraith. She carved through the rear guard before they could bring their weapons to bear.

Voss stood unmoving amid the chaos, watching Elias with those pitiless eyes. “Fool,” he said simply. “You have no idea what you’re courting.”

Elias lunged for him, but Voss sidestepped with surprising grace and drove a blade into Elias’s side—just under the ribs, a shallow cut that burned like fire. Elias staggered, caught himself on a gunwale, and brought his pistol up.

Voss was already backing toward the rail. “Your debt is not forgiven, Captain. It is merely compounding interest.” He pulled a small device from his coat—a flare launcher—and fired it skyward. “My crew has orders to scuttle this vessel sixty seconds after that signal. You have less time than that to get off it.”

Elias grabbed Sable’s arm, hauled her toward the ropes they’d come over on. “Back to the ship. Now.”

They hit the *Aurora*’s deck as the *Blackwater* tore apart behind them, her powder stores detonating in a roar that sent debris whistling past the rigging. MacReady spun the wheel hard, bringing them clear of the fireball.

Elias collapsed against the rail, gasping. Sable tore a strip of cloth and pressed it against his side, her hands steady despite the blood streaks down her forearm. “You’re going to bleed out if you keep making friends like that.”

MacReady came down from the wheelhouse, face pale. “That charge was meant for us. If they’d gotten you aboard, they’d have taken the core and our ship in one blow.”

Elias nodded, bile rising in his throat. “Voss said they’d been waiting twenty years. They built the weather device. They control Ash. They own half the naval officers in this war.” He looked at the wreckage of the *Blackwater* sinking into the clouds below. “But they made a mistake.”

“What’s that?” Sable asked.

Elias gripped the rail, pain cutting through his words. “They taught me what they want. And they still think I’m just a disgraced captain running from his debt. They don’t know I’m done running.”

Behind him, through the smoke and flame, a distant shape moved on the horizon. A British flag. Grey’s ship.

MacReady saw it too. “Captain—that’s HMS *Vigilant*. Grey’s closing.”

Elias stared at the approaching vessel. Voss’s words echoed in his skull: *We have influence everywhere.*

Not everywhere, he thought. Not yet.

He turned to the wheelhouse. “Hold course. Take us north through the storm line.” He winced, pressing harder against his side. “Grey wants a piece of what we’ve got. We’ll make him earn it.”