The deck rumbled and soon the Luminous Wake skimmed alongside the towering barge. If the structure was imposing from a distance, it was more so up close. The barge itself had four hulls, which curved outward at the edges and supported a massive platform deck covered in destroyed crops. Within minutes, Caledonia’s boarding party was scaling a tall hull and planting boots on a deck still steaming and sticky with wet ash. There wasn’t a single speck of orange in sight; every blossom had been consumed by the fire. Even the sweet scent had been seared from the air, replaced by the acrid bite of smoke.

Between rows of blackened crops were the charred bodies of those unlucky enough to be tending the blossoms when the first fire-bringers fell. Caledonia swallowed hard at the sight. Across rows of scorched earth, a few figures directed hoses over the fields, spraying seawater into what flames remained.

But no one came to meet them. Nor did they attack at the sight of their invaders. They kept to their work, dousing flames. Unconcerned with Caledonia and her crew.

“Huh,” Pisces said, perfectly echoing Caledonia’s confusion.

“Spread out,” Caledonia said when the Piston’s party arrived, letting Pisces make search teams of the forty crew members. “Bring survivors topside. I want Decker alive.”

The inside of the barge was every bit as massive as the exterior. The lower decks were primarily reserved for storage. There were drying rooms filled with blossoms in various stages of dehydration; storage vaults with crates packed full of already dried flowers; rooms piled high with fresh soil and fertilizer. The air smelled sweet and dry and only faintly of smoke so far beneath the main deck.

“Nothing to eat,” Pisces said mournfully. “We’ll have to sink this entire thing just to make sure no one gets their hands on this stuff.”

“We should keep the soil, at least,” Amina added, peering into another chamber and scanning for survivors. “If we can move it.”

“Silver Fleet has a hauler with them,” Caledonia said. “Once they load up whatever soil they can take, we sink the rest.”

“One hauler?” Amina’s voice was tight. A single hauler would only take a fraction of the clean soil they’d found. They’d be sinking a treasure. One that could give them the capacity to grow more than the paltry crops they’d managed to establish on Cloudbreak.

But they were too far from home to defend the barge if Lir sent reinforcements. And hauling it would leave them too vulnerable.

“One,” Caledonia answered, holding Amina’s gaze.

Sacrifice was a familiar part of their world, but sometimes it was easier to sacrifice when you had less to lose.